Lossless tracks from iTunes?

June 26, 2006

GristyMcFisty has
put hands to keyboard once again and used our news submit to tell us
about this most interesting development. Over at PC Pro, there is some talk that iTunes may go lossless! This
sure would be a better value for folks that are paying a fairly hefty price
for a lossy downloaded product, saddled with DRM. At least now they would be
getting CD quality for their time, bandwidth and money. If in the future, the
DRM could be removed or never placed upon the file to begin with, the consumer
would be gaining an important advantage: Cherry picking the good tracks from a
CD that may contain just a tad too much filler. A premium price for this
privilege would be something worth considering. (Yes, I know I'm
dreaming)

According to PC Pro, Apple Insider says the tool
that record labels use to upload their content has been updated. One of the
changes in the version 1.4 of the tool, allows the encoding of music in the
Apple (of course) Lossless format.

This has inevitably provoked speculation about Apple"s plans, particularly with regard to implementing digital rights management (DRM) and the enforcement of copy prevention, such as surrounds the existing AAC (advanced audio codec) format.

This is a critical aspect of any
legitimate download service, which has to guard against unlicensed access
to content. One of the major disincentives to downloading music online,
however, has been the quality of the recordings provided. The objection
has long been that by paying for a CD you have greater control over your
purchase and a better quality recording to
boot.

The audio codec, available already in QuickTime
6.5.1, can apparently offer CD quality output, while reducing file size by
some 50%. If this is the case, this is most interesting indeed. If anyone has
had any experience with this codec, feel free to give us your
impression.

Source: PC Pro