Re: [Phys-l] iPod music compression

["John Clement" <clement@hal-pc.org>]

> Well, I have few CD's where I like all the songs. Many CD's have only one
> song I like. So I imagine transferring maybe 4,000 songs or so. Not
> exactly sure. I have an iBook G4 with iTunes. If I load a CD, can songs be
> simply transferred to an iPod? I heard a few people mention the AAC
> format. Will the songs be automatically put in this format? I don't fully
> understand this formatting thing. Does the computer or the iPod do it?

The host computer does all of the compression.  Typically in iTunes you can
have it import CD tracks and compress them at the same time.  Then you load
the music onto the iPod in a separate step.  This is the same thing done for
most MP3 players.  There are some recorder/players that can compress on the
fly.  I have not tried it, but it may be possible to import tracks,
compress, and load them into the iPod in one step.

Actually when one looks at quality there are probably formats which are
better than others depending on the type of music.  Looking at the
Wikipedia, it is claimed that Ogg Vorbis produces superior compression,
possibly better than Mac AAC.  Each vendor is free to craft their own
compression algorithms and only the playback method is prescribed.  So often
they say that they are removing irrelevant information, that is up to the
vendor of the encoder to define what is irrelevant.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX