First HW player with Matroska support - Cowon A3

[vlada]

Hi,

I've just read about new PMP from Cowon (iAudio), the A3. It's an upgraded version of their famous A2 player. According to the specs I've seen here (http://iaudiophile.net/forums/showthread.php?t=12604), it supports MKV container. It will be probably the first HW player with Matroska support. If it supports at least the basic features (embedded subtitles, chapters) I'll definitely buy it.

http://img457.imageshack.us/img457/7128/a3eu9.jpg

[KoD]

Pics from CES from the company that makes it are here (http://www.cowonglobal.com/zeroboard/zboard.php?id=C50&no=79&bmenu=board). Indeed, it will be interesting to see how far the mkv support goes.

[Kurtnoise]

Not really Hardware but Portable (PMP == Portable Media Player)...just like CorePlayer.

[kurt]

Anyone know what resolution is supported by that "High Quality Tv-Out"?

[vlada]

From what I read it has Component/S-Video/Composite output. So I would imagine it is standard PAL/576 (625) and NTSC/480 lines analog signal.

[jp80]

Too bad it's still not powerful enough to decode AVC/h.264 :(

[Shandra]

Mh... any reason why MP4 is mentioned as supported Video but the Audio doesn't include m4a, mp4 or aac?
On second thought why call containers Video Format and not differ in supported container - then video, at least then the lack of AAC support would be more reasonable - sigh.
But maybe I am one of the those nerds who always feel that adverts are leaving out the important details.

But that MKV finally found its way into standalones is good news ;)

[Zero1]

I would have jumped at the chance of gettin a Cowon A2/A3, but lack of AAC support has made me hold off. It's a shame; it's one of the only/few areas iPod wins out on it, otherwise this would wipe the floor with iPod.

[vlada]

Zero1
I don't have a single track in AAC(+) and I probably never will. Why should I use it if there's Vorbis, which is usually better and moreover free.

[Hyper Shinchan]

Zero1
I don't have a single track in AAC(+) and I probably never will. Why should I use it if there's Vorbis, which is usually better and moreover free.

Vorbis better than AAC LC (ITunes's one)? I don't think so.
Anyway it's really a shame a player with a so wide support of containers and codecs that lacks support for AAC.....

[Shandra]

Wether Vorbis is free or not isn't an argument for me, my preferences in AV choice will be mp4 complient (Even if I prefer MKV as a container). And for the EndCustomer it is free - of course in supporting it in hardware there are licence fees. And I am still not sure how grey the legal attribute is for sharing homemade stuff (with all rights to it on your side) in aac... damned I am still not sure how it is for mp3 or similiar if it is not encoded via a licenced product wich grands that right to the customer (wich would made ITunes or NeroAAC more shiny than FAAC or Lame aside from quality and if context is not scientific/testing - ok, same problem with xvid and x264).
Back on point: just saying as a pro that vorbis is free should IMHO be acompanied by some enclosing semantic in regards to context :p But ok, Point taking from a companies PoV. Then for me as a customer I would still be asking WHY no aac if there are so many licences already paid in regards to that product and maybe if it shouldn't be h264 (due to HW limits) as long as a product does support m4v IMHO it should include m4a also (and be it as m4v in this case restricted to certain specs only).

[fakey]

Well, if they follow reference design from TI, support for H.264 BP/MP and LC/HE-AAC is no problem.

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:iLvclHcIQj4J:focus.ti.com/lit/ml/sprt414/sprt414.pdf+TI+DM6441&hl=ko&gl=kr&ct=clnk&cd=2

[Zero1]

Zero1
I don't have a single track in AAC(+) and I probably never will. Why should I use it if there's Vorbis, which is usually better and moreover free.
I'm not saying you should use it, that is completely your choice obviously.

However the attraction with AAC for me is that first off it's more efficient than MP3, and secondly it's an ISO standard which means there is interest in hardware and software support. This is why MP3 is so incredibly popular; because of it's level of interoperability with other software and hardware. Unfortunately Vorbis is nowhere near as interoperable as MP3, and I dare to say it's not even as widespread as AAC.

Back when AAC was relatively unused and Vorbis had a clear cut advantage over MP3, then I can see the reasoning behind using it; but nowadays the difference between Nero's free CLI encoder or iTunes is marginal, if any; so I don't see sense in forsaking interoperability for what really is a negligable difference.
If LAME magically became Vorbis quality overnight (forgetting any spec boundaries for a moment, this is in a perfect world), would you still use Vorbis? Possibly not; it would make sense to use MP3 because there is so much software and hardware that can handle it compared to Vorbis.

I for one want to encode my files once (or at least have a single copy of a track). I don't want to have to encode and keep copies of ATRAC-3 files for my archaic HD walkman (NW-HD1, it sucks), Vorbis for my PC, MP3 data discs for my CD player and AAC files for my mobile phone. Well that is a little exaggerated, but it gets the point across.

Now with regard to "free"; iTunes and Nero Digital CLI don't cost you a penny; and if what you meant by free was free of patents, well when is the last time iTunes, Nero, XviD or x264 ever popped up and bugged you about patents? Sure they make use of patents, but so do many things in life.

I appreciate where people are coming from about patent free; I don't like them either, but is it really freedomif it limits your choice of audio hardware/software? I've found looking for the right AAC player restricts my choice enough.

I really don't understand why Cowon don't look into AAC; they have it on their other players. If it makes it more than a contender for the iPod, surely it's worth the license fee. I know for a fact I'd get an A3 if it had AAC, but as it stands I'll probably have to go for an iPod or Zune :/

[vlada]

I would never buy a player that doesn't support Ogg Vorbis. It's a mandatory feature for me. Vorbis will probably have better sound at any bitrates then AAC LC. And I think that SW support for Ogg Vorbis is far better then AAC support. Of course it is completely different in cell phones. But if you want the highest interoperability you should choose MP3. The difference in quality between MP3 and AAC-LC is very small. At 192 kbps I bet you won't recognize any difference.

If you're interested in interoperability - choose MP3, if you're in best quality/size rate, then Ogg Vorbis wins and the support is great too. That being free is just a nice extra. For example it means, that Ogg Vorbis will play on all Linux distributions right after installation. MP3 and AAC won't play in Red Hat or Ubuntu.

I'm trying to keep away from any heavily licensed formats. I did this mistake with MP3pro and I won't repeat it. There are also many incompatibilities between different AAC implementations.

But anyway the HW is capable of h.264 and AAC so maybe Cowon just forgot to mention them. We'll see once the device is released.

[Hyper Shinchan]

But anyway the HW is capable of h.264 and AAC so maybe Cowon just forgot to mention them. We'll see once the device is released.

Yep, we have just to wait. Anyway I don't understand what do you mean with
many incompatibilities between different AAC implementations
The only problem that I had so far is that mobile phone are prone to don't play file with the non backward compatible flag in the mp4 container (and anyway it's a problem of the container not of AAC itself).
I'm trying to keep away from any heavily licensed formats.
AAC isn't MP3Pro. There are some license issues but MP3Pro isn't an ISO standard. AAC (and AAC HE) are ISO standards (just like the MP3 that anyone is using from many years or the MPEG-4 ASP).

[Kurtnoise]

That being free is just a nice extra. For example it means, that Ogg Vorbis will play on all Linux distributions right after installation. MP3 and AAC won't play in Red Hat or Ubuntu.
Well...you should read some docs before to write something like that. Vorbis files play fine on Windows too after installing some good decoders. And I'm *pretty* sure that mp3 and aac play fine also on Linux distros with the right libs.

[Hyper Shinchan]

Well...you should read some docs before to write something like that. Vorbis files play fine on Windows too after installing some good decoders. And I'm *pretty* sure that mp3 and aac play fine also on Linux distros with the right libs.

Well, aren't the mp3lib and faac part of MPlayer?

[Kurtnoise]

nope...but there are already some ideas in SOC for those formats.

[vlada]

Well...you should read some docs before to write something like that. Vorbis files play fine on Windows too after installing some good decoders. And I'm *pretty* sure that mp3 and aac play fine also on Linux distros with the right libs.

I didn't mean to say anything else then you did. Maybe it's just my weak English again. I wanted to say that on some Linux distributions you won't find MP3 support "out-of-the-box" because of licensing/patent issues. Of course you can add support for it by installing the missing libraries. But it's probably illegal in some countries (USA, Japan).

[Kurtnoise]

Be careful....mp3 encoding != mp3 decoding concerning licenses and patents.

[vlada]

Of course, but there's even playback support missing in some distributions. See this (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats/MP3).

[Kurtnoise]

imo...
Ubuntu is not representative of all Linux distros you know. Check out Mandriva Pro by example and you'll see that it includes mp3 libs w/o licences issues...
mp3 decoding part depends mostly on the player you want to use. By compiling/installing mad lib & mad player is enough to play mp3 files.

[vlada]

I use Mandriva, so I know it includes MP3 encoding/decoding. But as you probably know, Mandriva is a French distro. EU is far less restrictive in patent law then USA or Japan. If you think Ubuntu is not representative, try Red Hat/Fedora - no MP3 neither. So there are obviously some legal restrictions why MP3 decoding is not included in many Linux distributions.

Home of MPlayer is in Hungary - away from American law. Such project probably couldn't exist in USA.

Even you would most likely run into problems in USA because of distributing binaries of MP4Box.

I think we can agree on, that Ogg Vorbis is the only completely free and high quality lossy compression. And because of perfect support in many application and some HW, I have no reason to use anything else. Just in my phone I use MP3s.

[KoD]

I'm reviving an old thread because I've accidentally stumbled on something interesting. According to cnet, the A3 should in fact support h264 and AAC. link (http://reviews.cnet.com/Cowon_A3/4505-6499_7-32307480.html)

[vlada]

KoD
I knew about this article, but I think it's not very trustful. Anyway the HW of the player should be able do decode MPEG-4 AVC and AAC.

Btw. did you hear about the fine Microsoft should pay because of ignoring MP3 patents? It clearly showed, that MP3 is not a free format.

[KoD]

Yes, that cnet article is the only place there's any kind of info realting h264, ac3 and the A3 together. So, it's a little dubious.

I thought Microsoft did in fact own a license for the MP3 decoder they're packing in Windows. Maybe that's related to someting else - like Zune or whatever?

[vlada]

According to what I heard, Microsoft only paid for patents owned by Fraunhofer, but not for patents owned by Lucent (I think it's bought by AT&T).

[Blue_MiSfit]

Guys... we're getting really OT :)

[robU*4]

Seen here: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-12760_7-9676563-5.html

New Release Date
I spoke to Cowon sales yesterday, they expect the A3 out in the May-June 2007 timeframe and the price should be around $300 for the 30gb model.
by trbryant (See profile) - March 22, 2007 12:38 PM PDT

And also H264, AAC and Vorbis support. So it looks like a killer!

[Shandra]

Boy... Wow... Ok... maybe this time it is the first HW Player (Besides my old portable MP3 cabable CD Player) I can truly consider to buy :D Ok, time to quit smoking, safe some cash and buying myself a BDay Gift in June :D :D Looks promising.