"Err, you do know what the point of DRM-free music is right? You can play it on any AAC supported player and you can easily convert it to any other format you want."
and, you know that the majority of DAPs do not support AAC, and any conversion between lossy formats results in quality loss?
"and, you know that the majority of DAPs do not support AAC, and any conversion between lossy formats results in quality loss?"
Yes, I think I agree that conversion between lossy formats results in quality loss, but that's not the issue here in regards to DRM-free content.
The main point of DRM-free content is the ability to freely transfer and use the content across other devices, and/or convert them to a format that allows them to use it on other devices. And although Apple encapsulates content in FairPlay within AAC for its DRM songs, AAC itself isn't a DRM format. It's a standardised lossy encoding and compression scheme for digital audio.
Now to your first point whether I knew that "the majority of DAPs do not support AAC". Well I didn't know that, and the first thing I ask when someone uses the words "Did you know the majority..." is "Where's your evidence to support that assertion?"
But rather than ask you and wait for a response that may or may not come, I decided to look it up myself.
I went to Amazon, and started on their 'MP3 Players' (rather ironic) and their best sellers list. I then went through and checked each companies' DAP offering to see if at least one of their devices offered AAC support. I also checked out other sources, such as car stereo manufacturers.
If a company has at least one DAP that supports AAC, then I'll take that as a company which supports AAC. Here's what I found:
ipod (yes) sandisk (yes) zune (yes) Archos (yes) creative zen (no yet) toshiba gigabeat (no yet) sony (yes) Nokia Nseries mobiles (yes) BlackBerries (yes) Pioneer (yes) Sony (yes) Alpine (yes) Kenwood (yes) Clarion (yes) Panasonic (yes) JVC (yes)
So in my opinion, hardly "a majority of DAPs doesn't support AAC". Furthermore, given that iTunes now sells unprotected AAC, this will spur AAC support with manufacturers to producing new DAPs so they can take advantage of their competitor's offering.
But again, DRM-less music means you CAN convert it if you want it to work on a device which doesn't support it.
I don't take "If a company has at least one DAP that supports AAC, then I'll take that as a company which supports AAC" as a valid response to "the majority of DAPs do not support AAC", even among the companies you named, only the most recent Archos players support AAC (and only with an optional plug-in), and I know most Sandisk players don't (I didn't even know there was one, but maybe there is). Not everyone has the latest model of everything. And of course there's also Cowon, Meizu, iriver, Rio, Samsung, MobiBLU, Trekstor, Insignia, who don't have any players that support AAC as far as I know, and there are more obscure companies I didn't mention. And that's just going back to players, say, under 3 years old, which is a reasonable amount of time for an DAP to last. Trying to pin down a number isn't that important anyway, the bottom line is that MP3 is a much more widely supported format, and they could have used it for greater user flexability. They could have even gone with an option to download Apple Lossless, so at least you could transcoding could be done without additional degredation of a lossy format.
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"Err, you do know what the point of DRM-free music is right? You can play it on any AAC supported player and you can easily convert it to any other format you want."
and, you know that the majority of DAPs do not support AAC, and any conversion between lossy formats results in quality loss?
"and, you know that the majority of DAPs do not support AAC, and any conversion between lossy formats results in quality loss?"
Yes, I think I agree that conversion between lossy formats results in quality loss, but that's not the issue here in regards to DRM-free content.
The main point of DRM-free content is the ability to freely transfer and use the content across other devices, and/or convert them to a format that allows them to use it on other devices. And although Apple encapsulates content in FairPlay within AAC for its DRM songs, AAC itself isn't a DRM format. It's a standardised lossy encoding and compression scheme for digital audio.
Now to your first point whether I knew that "the majority of DAPs do not support AAC". Well I didn't know that, and the first thing I ask when someone uses the words "Did you know the majority..." is "Where's your evidence to support that assertion?"
But rather than ask you and wait for a response that may or may not come, I decided to look it up myself.
I went to Amazon, and started on their 'MP3 Players' (rather ironic) and their best sellers list. I then went through and checked each companies' DAP offering to see if at least one of their devices offered AAC support. I also checked out other sources, such as car stereo manufacturers.
If a company has at least one DAP that supports AAC, then I'll take that as a company which supports AAC. Here's what I found:
ipod (yes)
sandisk (yes)
zune (yes)
Archos (yes)
creative zen (no yet)
toshiba gigabeat (no yet)
sony (yes)
Nokia Nseries mobiles (yes)
BlackBerries (yes)
Pioneer (yes)
Sony (yes)
Alpine (yes)
Kenwood (yes)
Clarion (yes)
Panasonic (yes)
JVC (yes)
So in my opinion, hardly "a majority of DAPs doesn't support AAC". Furthermore, given that iTunes now sells unprotected AAC, this will spur AAC support with manufacturers to producing new DAPs so they can take advantage of their competitor's offering.
But again, DRM-less music means you CAN convert it if you want it to work on a device which doesn't support it.
I don't take "If a company has at least one DAP that supports AAC, then I'll take that as a company which supports AAC" as a valid response to "the majority of DAPs do not support AAC", even among the companies you named, only the most recent Archos players support AAC (and only with an optional plug-in), and I know most Sandisk players don't (I didn't even know there was one, but maybe there is). Not everyone has the latest model of everything. And of course there's also Cowon, Meizu, iriver, Rio, Samsung, MobiBLU, Trekstor, Insignia, who don't have any players that support AAC as far as I know, and there are more obscure companies I didn't mention. And that's just going back to players, say, under 3 years old, which is a reasonable amount of time for an DAP to last. Trying to pin down a number isn't that important anyway, the bottom line is that MP3 is a much more widely supported format, and they could have used it for greater user flexability. They could have even gone with an option to download Apple Lossless, so at least you could transcoding could be done without additional degredation of a lossy format.