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July 31, 2004
Applying Newtons Laws
Reading the Wall Street Journals online site today, Walter Mossburg has an article on the new Sony portable music player set to "destroy" the iPod. Of particular interest was the following:
One major downside of the new Walkman is that it can't play MP3 files, or any of the other standard formats. It can play back only a proprietary Sony format called ATRAC3, or a variation called ATRAC3plus. This means that, when you transfer your MP3 files to the new Walkman, Sony's PC software must laboriously convert them first into ATRAC3 files. Sony claims it designed the player this way because ATRAC3 produces superior sound, and because it has features that extend battery life.(Emphasis mine)
Where does this superior sound come from? Considering most people today are already using MP3s, a lossy-compresion algorithm by design, how can Sony hope to inject audio quality into this conversion process? Are people truly this ignorant?
Posted by Dan at July 31, 2004 05:01 PM