VNUnet is reporting that the BBC is now also offers stream in the Ogg Vorbis format, the open source competitor for MP3. The development of the format has once been started because of the patents on the MP3 format.
The Fraunhofer Institute that are the original developers of MP3 ask money for everyone that is creating software that decodes and/or encodes to/from MP3. The Ogg Vorbis format is license fee free.
The BBC opened up live streaming of Radio 4 at the start of this year to test the latest Ogg codecs, particularly the latest Release Candidate 3 which also launched at the start of the year. |
Ogg is an open source audio compression codec set to rival the popular MP3 format.
Its development has drummed up enormous interest in the media industry largely because it's free; the current licence for the MP3 codec works out at about £5.30 per device.
Audio buffs also claim that Ogg offers better sound quality through stereo channel coupling, which allows music to be compressed at a lower bit rate for almost CD-quality sound, and point out that Ogg files take up nearly 40 per cent less space than MP3 files
Support from major companies like the BBC is good for spreading the word of Ogg Vorbis. But the real breaktrough of Ogg Vorbis will probably need to come from the underground, from the guys that rip the albums and singles to a compressed format (MP3 for now).
Source: Vnunet
