Yes, we can support AAC and multiple DRM schemes: "The portable MP2000 design supports multiple music compression formats including MP3, ePAC, AAC, Windows Media Audio, and QDX. It also supports multiple Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems and is compatible with SDMI security guidelines. The MP2000 design will be shown in two configurations accepting CompactFlashTM, MMC, or Secure DigitalTM Memory Card (SDTM Card) removable media."
"e.Digital's MicroOS(TM)-based portable platform including AAC support can be incorporated into a variety of products including portable digital music players or jukeboxes, home and automotive stereos, and functionally-enhanced wireless phones.
Steve Ferguson, e.Digital's director of business development, said, ``AAC is one of the premiere music codecs and we consider it to be an important addition to our designs. We continue to focus on developing flexible, user-friendly portable Internet music player and jukebox designs for our OEM customers and licensees. With yesterday's announcement of music content coming from BMG and Universal in the AAC format, we are witnessing a major step forward in the new Internet music industry.'
``We are pleased to have e.Digital license AAC for inclusion in their portable music player designs,' said Ramzi Haidamus, Dolby Laboratories' technical/business strategist. ``e.Digital is well positioned to help hardware manufacturers deliver products that can play music from new and upcoming secure Internet music delivery services.'
In addition to higher-quality music reproduction, AAC is being used in conjunction with Digital Rights Management (DRM) technologies, which control the unrestricted copying and unlawful distribution of songs. e.Digital's Internet music player and jukebox designs support multiple DRMs to protect music from piracy.
AAC is the latest audio codec standardized by the International Standards Organization (ISO) as part of the MPEG specification. AAC is a product of the combined efforts of several organizations including AT&T, Dolby Laboratories, Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits, and Sony Corp. Widely viewed as the successor to MP3, AAC technology is being adopted in applications ranging from electronic music distribution, digital radio in the United States and Japan, and digital television in Japan."
if that is so , which I doubt - portal player still had to build a new chipset to incorporate aac - so it follows that should a codec other than those you mention become the codec of choice apple will have to have a new chipset built to accomodate it rendering the old ipod's somewhat obsolete - so ipodr's will have to by a new player to stay current , another $500 or so while the 01000 owners will be able to access a firmware upgrade - still makes the 01000 the player of choice in my view
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