Section Meeting Report
by Gary Louie, PNW Section Secretary
MP3 and Internet Audio
Bruce Fries, author

Photos here 

Meeting held June 9, 2000

Over 55 people gathered at Mackie Designs in Woodinville for the PNW Section June presentation on MP3 audio by author Bruce Fries (The MP3 and Internet Audio Handbook).

Bruce mentioned that the real title should be "Audio Compression and the Internet" since MP3 is only one form of compressed audio. He promised to cover less about the technology and more on the industry and what the MP3 phenomenon means to the average consumer. Downloadable music means benefits to consumers, home recording enthusiasts, music lovers, even record labels. But there is a specter of piracy and industry upheaval.

He asked for a show of hands of people who have downloaded an audio file or created compressed files, and many hands went up. He listed some benefits of compressed audio. It means the consumer, whether using RealAudio, MP3 or Windows Media player, can do many new, convenient things - get music from the comfort of home, carry much more music around (12 hours instead of 74 minutes on a CD), and manipulate it quickly. Artists can get larger royalties at MP3 sites (even 50%) and reach a greater audience. Free audio downloads are also a great promotional tool. It eliminates the need for physical media, warehousing and shipping. He foresees local stores having kiosks to make custom CDs to compete.

Bruce said that the primary formats are MP3 (in the news recently), RealAudio (more for streaming) and Windows Media Audio. Why is MP3 so popular? He noted that it's the first to have widely available software and hardware. It's become a symbol of the digital music revolution, with grassroots support. It can empower artists, who can have their own internet music distribution and bypass the traditional labels. All this technology is not new, but now the average consumer can afford it, especially large storage and fast processors for real time encoding and decoding, and the press is covering the phenomenon.

He then discussed how the encoders get 10:1 compression of the data or more. Psychoacoustic perceptual encoding is used for lossy compression. He explained some principles used such as masking. Some data rates and encoders are better for certain music and uses than others due to audibility of the compression. Most consumers are perfectly happy with 10:1 compressed MP3 audio for casual use - parties, cars, personal portables, background music.

Bruce noted the convenience of downloaded music. You can do it from home, purchase single songs, make play lists quickly instead of making tapes in real time and store lots of music in little space. You can convert your existing media such as CDs and vinyl to MP3 and have these benefits. But it's like the wild west - nobody controls the internet and there's lots of junk out there as well as good stuff. On the internet now, most purchased music is CDs (~95%), and paid downloads are a small percentage (~5%).

Many business models are being tried to figure out the market. When FM radio was introduced, people thought no one would buy albums anymore - but the opposite happened. Same with the VCR and movies. He thinks fear about MP3 is well founded, though, since there's no direct costs, like a tape or CD sold.

Regarding piracy, he said it illustrates the demand for music in downloadable format that the major labels are not filling. Napster software allows person to person music file exchange, and was the fastest growing internet service in history. Encrypted formats would help to a point, but won't stop piracy. It's easy to do, hard to get caught, and most people don't even think about piracy or rationalize after thinking about the price difference from a CD (free vs. $16). Market forces and basic economics should drive record companies into the downloadable music business. They made large profits during the CD era. Artists may go straight to the internet if the record companies don't get with it - and some have.

Bruce suggested making downloads priced right, like a dollar. The software industry has figured out how to deal with piracy, the music industry needs to get a system out there to fill the demand, or it will fill by itself. Can watermarking work? Encryption? Any of these have to be transparent and non-restrictive for the end user who just wants to play music.

It may really be a revolution, a revolt by artists and users, introduced by technology. There is some chaos now, as business models and formats get sorted out. What happens to the local record store? He thinks consumers will be the winners in the end. The music industry will undergo dramatic upheaval. Today is just the start.

At intermission, we stopped for a break. Door prizes were awarded, and the PNW business meeting was conducted where the 2000-2001 officers were elected.

After refreshments provided by Mackie, it was back to Bruce, who did demos on the computer.

First, get a decent soundcard and speakers, and even an external D/A box if necessary, he advised. He played files encoded at different rates to show quality differences. Unfortunately, there was some hum in the playback system.

He showed Winamp playback features like crossfading DJ style, and demonstrated how data can be stored with MP3 files - artist, title, genre, date, etc. He noted that normal CD tracks can be extracted (ripped) and encoded to MP3 faster than real-time like tape. Compilations can be burned to CDR. At least one car stereo is available from Aiwa that plays MP3 files on a CDR through the stereo. With portable players (like Rio), solid state memory is expensive compared to CDR or DVDR. He likes the portable CD-MP3 players, since the storage medium holds lots of music and is cheap.

MP3 may not technically be the best format, but it has the critical mass now. The record industry's major response now has been SDMI (secure digital music initiative) - a system to create copyright-protected downloadable music. We shall see if it works.

Many people stayed afterwards to chat.

Special thanks to Mackie Designs for the meeting room, technical support and refreshments.

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Last modified 11/4/2001.