Play OGG!
MP3 has been the standard compressed audio format for a long time. However it is inferior quality and a proprietary format. There are many other (and better) formats available, but the best and most flexible is OGG. OGG does video to. It is open source and can be included in any open source player. I have been using the OGG vorbis audio codec for some time and can affirm it is significantly better than mp3. It is even IMHO better than aac, commonly used in mp4 files on ipods. If you are buying a portable media device, check if it will play OGG files, or can have software installed the will. You won’t regret it.
One player that does play OGG and is cross platform is VLC player .
For more info on the OGG format see the Wikipedia entry.
July 11th, 2007 at 15:37
Why does it not surprise me that you love OGG
July 11th, 2007 at 16:28
Woohoo! Someone reads my blog! Even though there is hardly anything on it!
Of course I love OGG. But I honestly was very objective about it. I like aac but I did a number of listening test at various bit rates. They are quite similar but the algorithm vorbis uses for the lossy bit seems to produce a nicer sound to my ears. And of course the big bonus is its open source…
If only M$ had used it… they might have an extra $1.5 billion to play with…