Monday June 18 01:21 PM EDT
Open-Source Rival to MP3 Joins Net Music Fracas
By Ed Sutherland, www.NewsFactor.com
Amid talk about the future of MP3, whose developers rolled out a new version last week, a rival to existing audio formats was released Sunday.
Version 1.0 of Ogg Vorbis, a free alternative to MP3, MP3Pro and Microsoft's Windows Media Player, is available to developers, says the group behind the open-source project.
While Ogg Vorbis has gained the attention of many fans of the popular MP3 format, it is already in use by software companies such as Sonic Foundry and AOL Time Warner's Winamp.
Push for Free Access
Ogg Vorbis is part of the Vorbis Project, a plan to create a suite of free media file formats to replace the currently available applications being used by major online music distributors. It is one of several open-source multimedia projects being developed by a group calling itself the Xiphophorus Company.
Although Ogg Vorbis supporters believe the format is technically superior to MP3, industry observers believe the effort may be a case of too little too late. The key ingredient to commercial acceptance for Internet-based audio formats is security, said Ryan Jones, a media and entertainment analyst at the research firm Yankee Group.
Security Questions
When MP3Pro was released last week by Thompson Multimedia and Coding Technologies, the new format's lack of security made analysts question the future viability of MP3. Recently, major recording companies from Sony to AOL Time Warner have announced their intention of entering the online audio market -- and protecting their copyrights will be a high priority, analysts believe.
Ogg Vorbis' open-source status "is one advantage," Jones told NewsFactor Network, but portable devices -- not desktop computers -- are the future for audio, Jones said.
The move from beta to a full release will cause more companies to take a harder look at Ogg Vorbis as an alternative to MP3, reports say. Patent royalties must now be paid by developers and distributors, which is not the case with open-source programs.
"The specification is fully open to the public to be used for any purpose," said a statement from the open-source group.
Vorbis is also at work on an audio format designed for streaming music, called Icecast. "Vorbis is well-suited to Internet radio and other forms of real-time and offline electronic distribution," said the project planners.
Netrek Fans
Begun as a weekend programming project in 1993, Ogg grew from an investigation of music compression methods into its present form, says a statement on the Xiphophorus group's Web site. The project's name, Ogg, comes from the Internet-based game "Netrek." According to the Web site, "Ogg" is a tactical maneuver from Netrek that has entered common usage.
Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT - news) is positioning its Windows Media Player as an alternative to MP3. The software company said last week that it is unsure whether Windows XP (news - web sites) will support the MP3 format when the new operating system is released in the fall, though company insiders have told NewsFactor privately that it will.
Whether AOL (NYSE: AOL - news) decides to support Windows Media Player or its current partner, RealNetworks, is said to be one factor in Microsoft's decision of whether or not to drop AOL from the Windows XP desktop.
