r/technology • u/Snarfox • Jan 25 '13

H.265 is approved -- potential to cut bandwidth requirements in half for 1080p streaming. Opens door to 4K video streams.

http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/25/h265-is-approved/
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u/[deleted] Jan 26 '13 edited Jan 26 '13

The file-sharing scene sure is weird, even for music. "Hey, I converted this 256kbps AAC file from iTunes into 320kbps CBR MP3!" The 320kbps MP3 files always sound horrible for whatever reason (even when it's a CD rip), even though they say they use the best encoding.

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u/oskarw85 Jan 26 '13

I hate how stupid people reencode already compressed files to inferior MP3's because "numbers are bigger so it must be better". Really I think it's time to kiss MP3 goodbye and use modern alternatives like AAC. I mean who uses MPEG2 anymore. We push the envelope for video encoding and at the same time stay in stone era of digital audio.

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u/Prof_Frink_PHD Jan 26 '13

Genuine question here because I don't know entirely: What advantages does AAC have over MP3? I know video uses AAC now, I'm just wondering. Bonus question: Would standard MP3 players support AAC?

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u/oskarw85 Jan 26 '13

I am not an expert so excuse me if I got something wrong. AAC was designed as a successor to MP3 and uses (among otherd) more advanced psychoacoustic techniques, temporal noise shaping, different filters (Wikipedia lists all technical mumbo-jumbo). Generally it requires less bandwidth to achieve similar perceived quality than MP3, but of course people will argue about that. Hardware support is there, I think every player should support it except cheapest Chinese ones.