If MP3 is dying, what do we use?

[fredtgreco]

Has anyone else seen this?

http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/dance/7800028/mp3-license-terminated-fraunhofer-iis

Does this mean that the MP3 format will eventually be obsolete? If so, what would be the optimal format to use for audio sermons?

 

[Ed Walsh]

Does this mean that the MP3 format will eventually be obsolete?

Maybe, but it's still pretty good for voice. Here's an article that helped me a bit. But in the end, the only thing I really learned is that the original recording should be made in a lossless format.

https://goo.gl/Q6yGSz

 

[Semper Fidelis]

https://marco.org/2017/05/15/mp3-isnt-dead

Very few people got it right. The others missed what happened last month:

If the longest-running patent mentioned in the aforementioned references is taken as a measure, then the MP3 technology became patent-free in the United States on 16 April 2017 when U.S. Patent 6,009,399, held by and administered by Technicolor, expired.

MP3 is no less alive now than it was last month or will be next year — the last known MP3 patents have simply expired.There’s some debate whether expirations of two remaining patents have happened yet. I’m not a patent lawyer, but the absolute latest interpretation would have the last one expire soon, on December 30, 2017.

So while there’s a debate to be had — in a moment — about whether MP3 should still be used today, Fraunhofer’s announcement has nothing to do with that, and is simply the ending of its patent-licensing program (because the patents have all expired) and a suggestion that we move to a newer, still-patented format.

 

[Edward]

I think Mr. Fidelis got it right - the big boys are trying to push everybody to a new proprietary format so they can keep raking in the patent royalties.

For the rest of us, I suppose, there is Ogg Vobis.

 

[Jake]

Yes, I don't know how a bunch of news sites got the memo that MP3 is dead. In fact, now is the best time to use it, because not only does everything support it, but you don't have to pay the price to use it.

 

[Edward]

Yes, I don't know how a bunch of news sites got the memo that MP3 is dead. In fact, now is the best time to use it, because not only does everything support it, but you don't have to pay the price to use it.

But that doesn't sell a bunch of new hardware. How can anyone make money if I can still use a 10 year old $20 MP3 player? And for that matter, if folks don't have to buy and download new music to replace the MP3s they bought to replace the music on their cassette tapes.

 

[Logan]

Yes, the main takeaway is that the patent for MP3 has expired. So it's not dead, it's actually more alive than ever.

Fake news!

 

[Timotheos]

Has anyone else seen this?

http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/dance/7800028/mp3-license-terminated-fraunhofer-iis

Does this mean that the MP3 format will eventually be obsolete? If so, what would be the optimal format to use for audio sermons?

Youtube... even for audio. You can even match PPT slides w/ the audio. I did this until we got a video camera. It is free and unlimited, best of all.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

I think the bottom line here is how widespread MP3 is in terms of support across devices. Other formats may be superior but MP3 sounds great even at 32 kbps for sermons and I archive them at 64 kbps (which is what Sermon Audio offers).

If there is ever a format in the future that supplants the ubiquitous support across devices (my recorder records directly to MP3) then I can easily use a converter to re-encode but I don't see that ever happening.

JPEG was a patented format as well and, as noted, there are more superior choices and yet I take pictures with my DSLR using JPEG and even use a program called JPEG Mini that shrinks files without any visually discernible loss in quality. I've saved over 40GB in stored files over several years using that program. I don't ever see JPG losing its foothold either.