CD is history, HD-AAC is the future
Posted on 25/01/08 16:28 by Tim Stork                             
CD is history, HD-AAC is the future

The minds behind MP3 and MPEG4 codecs have come up with a new audio format. This format could mean the end of our beloved CD. Scientists of the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits state that the HD-AAC could be the future.

HD-AAC offers better sound than CDs and the file sizes are small enough to put online. The codec is based on MPEG-4 SLS, a scalable lossless format. From now on you don't have to rip different versions of your music from different codecs for different devices... That sounds good.

HD-AAC deliveres high-quality 24-bit/96KHz files. You will play these on a home media server, and after that use the base version (AAC-LC layer) to play back on an iPod.

If this really is the future we from CDFreaks.com should do something with the name... HD-AAC? How do you pronounce that? Anyone has a better name? Already heard MPEG5 somewhere else.

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By DeadMan, Friday 25 January 2008 18:29
DeadManWait what? So how does this compare to other lossless compression? The only advantage I see here is that you can extract a standard AAC file from it to play on your iPoo. Again it's one standard for one company (Apple) and screw everybody else! puke
By neo1918, Friday 25 January 2008 18:44
Unless HD-AAC provides better compression than FLAC, what we really need is playback support for FLAC in portable devices.
By idc, Friday 25 January 2008 19:31
You can bet your boots that this HD-AAC will be done up to the nines with DRM.
By kev99sl, Friday 25 January 2008 23:39
Uh-huh. We've been hearing that some file format was going to kill the physical media for the better part of three decades now. No matter how cool it is, there will always be those of us who refuse to let go of the experience of holding the media in our hands, reading the liner notes, and pondering the cover art. Even when I do download music, the first thing I do is burn it to a CD so that I can have some sort of tactile experience. If I *really* care about the music, I want a CD.
By headquarter84, Saturday 26 January 2008 01:21
headquarter84honestly, i think CD Audio would still servive, those guys at Fraunhofer have really forgotten the great work done in mastering CDs, be it the design of the box itself, the cover art, the booklets and all those wonderful "extras" you might get as a Bonus CD, Bonus DVD... those which make an Audio CD a great physical experience aside from the Audible exp.... and i think they better do some testing before making such an announcement, Monkey's Audio, FLAC, WavPack, TAK and many other lossless codecs are ALREADY there, so they better prove they're better than ALL of them before declaring themselves as the "Official Standard & Alternative of CD Audio"... if CDs are gone, then i guess i'll switch back to LPs...
By neo1918, Saturday 26 January 2008 10:12
CDs may provide a tactile experience, but I'm glad the bad-old-days of having to listen to songs off of the medium are gone. If I can't load it into my PC and shuffle it in with the rest of my music collection, I don't want it.
By l33t_lite (guest), Saturday 26 January 2008 11:02
how do you pronounce it? how about "head-ache"
By DrageMester, Saturday 26 January 2008 17:29
DrageMesterThe only thing wrong with sound quality on CDs is something that no format change can fix - and that is the deliberate crippling of sound quality by cranking up the volume so that everything sounds equally loud and awful. Also known as the Loudness Wars. A properly mastered CD without the loudness madness sounds as good as any other format you can think of, except by trained listeners using extremely expensive equipment while listening to specially selected sound samples. The new sound formats only have two "advantages": Smaller size (a real advantage) and the possibility of restricting/preventing copying (an advantage to the studio but a disadvantage to the buyer). My guess is that no physical format will ever replace CD for music. Two formats have already tried and failed (DVD-Audio and Super Audio CD).
By redk9258, Sunday 27 January 2008 04:51
redk9258DrageMester, I couldn't agree more. They usually jack up the level and use so much compression, it sounds more like FM radio. This is especially true on many so called "REMASTERED" releases. I think the mastering engineers are now tone deaf!!
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