as an free internet musician and author that always stood behind the idea and the quality of features that come with ogg-vorbis i am sad to see, that itunes doesn't support ogg-vorbis.
As the Windows Media Player doesnt come along with a codec i recognized, that there are some parties, that do not think about content and reliability, nor do they think of the actor's will, the consumers or the way anything comes along as long as they have an option to choose to form a standard branded by themselves.
WMA for microsoft, AAC, m4a, m4p .... apple.
yes, apple has an superiour DRM. if you have the option to choose your DRM system... apple provides the best security and the best interoperability... but with the growing of apple and their interests against ogg-vorbis... i have a bad feeling for content.
well. itunes 4.9 for apple mac os x doesn't support ogg on apple
itunes 5.0 doesn't even support ogg on windows.
if you listen with an alternate player the sound of your files isnt the same.
(compare itunes mp3, audacity with the same... and audion ... ON SURROUND SYSTEMS)
the high frequencies arent as clear as with itunes, and the rear satellites don't provide the same signal... in the case they do any sound.
this has been tested with standard USB drivers with 2 different creative soundcards.
with the success of the ipod and the combination of ipod+itunes there seems to be an interest to get the vorbis codec out of the reach of people. maybe it be the high usage of hardware... or may it be the fail of control of the format. itunes 5 isnt supporting ogg anymore. ipod never will. people will buy ipod nano, ipod mini and not iaudio or kiss... so thats it ??
ogg-vorbis had two waves of interest. the first came 5 years ago... and i remember being registered on ogg-audio.de as an artist... next to my mp3.com register status... and i was proud to support this new outstanding idea...
the second wave began after kiss launched their dvd-players... iaudio came with ogg-portables... and garf tuned the ogg. people recognized, that mpc isn't the format to stream with... and others recognized wma as an gigantic DRM-monster where you have the smallest chance to cover your DRM-keys for the next hdd-or registery-crash.
now theres a bunch of people that like to go with an 600mhz ibook, that proves 5 hours of battery-service... while people with windows notebooks have 1,5 Ghz, 3 hours of battery... and they dont even reach the easeness of the apples.
yes this is a success of apple... but now they switch to intel, they will license their store, license their operating system... they even give tcpa-technologies... and ... they kill the ogg.
when trying to release my audio-material in ogg...ppl always ask... may i get an mp3 of that ? so i am forced to use mp3 to reach them all.