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  1. Behind the scenes we are working hard on the future of u2start. This includes many technical changes. However some we might change our bootleg policy as well.

    Currently we are still using MP3 as lossy format on this site, it has been superseded by MP4 / AAC a long time ago. Therefore we are considering MP4 as the new format for new recordings. However we dont want to step on anyone's toes.

    If you have any thoughts, please share them with us
  2. some disc burning software eg roxio doesn't recognise aac and i've never seen a blog or forum that uses predominantly aac - it seems to fall in the category of it may well sound the smallest bit better but people prefer what they know (mp3 or flac/wav) and don't want to be bothered changing just for the sake of it. in the same way as dat and mini-disc never took off with the general public.

    why not just put a poll on the front page?
  3. Because we are more interested in the reasons than the numbers. We know that MP3 is widely supported, but I think AAC support is 99% there as well.

    Roxio should support AAC btw according to their website. The problems I see myself are car radios. There are plenty which only support CD / MP3.

    However, as guy interested in tech, there is a point where a change is made. MP3 is from the early 80s, AAC is supported by 100% of all new consumer electronics. And >90% of all electronics in the past 5 years.

    BTW AAC is already a huge success, see itunes
  4. Car radios and old DVD/MP3 systems are my main worry as well, but I think we should go for AAC/MP4 plus FLAC. Digital storage is becoming cheaper and cheaper per day and each day less and less people burn their stuff onto CDs so I'd go for it.

    My other question/worry is: does MP4 support the same amount of tags and customization as MP3? I'm a bit maniatic when it comes to tagging my files and I'm afraid of not being able to do it the same way (FLACs are not as taggable as MP3s for example).
  5. The MP4 container in which AAC is stored supports tagging just as well as MP3.
  6. I don't ever see albums on torrent sites in mp4, I've never used mp4 and I've never heard of anyone using mp4 over mp3. I don't think the difference is overwhelming and it seems like you'll be doing a lot of re encoding flac files and wasting time reuploading. I wouldn't do it unless you were bored and I'd still keep mp3 and flac as well. Cloud storage is nowadays, basically free as has been mentioned
  7. by the time we get any new recordings there will have been another 18 new audio formats.
  8. Originally posted by dylbagz:I don't ever see albums on torrent sites in mp4, I've never used mp4 and I've never heard of anyone using mp4 over mp3. I don't think the difference is overwhelming and it seems like you'll be doing a lot of re encoding flac files and wasting time reuploading. I wouldn't do it unless you were bored and I'd still keep mp3 and flac as well. Cloud storage is nowadays, basically free as has been mentioned

    agreed

    I use mp4 only as video format...
  9. mp4 is great as a video format especially hd, all the best sites use it.
  10. Problem solved by the looks of it?
  11. Originally posted by dylbagz:I don't ever see albums on torrent sites in mp4, I've never used mp4 and I've never heard of anyone using mp4 over mp3. I don't think the difference is overwhelming and it seems like you'll be doing a lot of re encoding flac files and wasting time reuploading. I wouldn't do it unless you were bored and I'd still keep mp3 and flac as well. Cloud storage is nowadays, basically free as has been mentioned

    Of course we wont recode all existing bootlegs. We are looking at the future.

    It is clear some of you are vividly against AAC. However the reasons are not so compelling imho. MP3 is still the most used in torrenting, etc. However AAC is more widely used than you think. Also reasons like there will be 18 new ones soon is a bit exaggerated. Its initial version was from 1997 and it has and still is been replacing MP3 in many standards and by many vendors. In these 17 years there have been no 18 competitors

    That said we are not pushing AAC, we have no interest in that. However it would be nice to hear some other arguments than 'i never used it'. As I bet that 90% of all users won't even notice, as it works just the same as MP3.


    * Note that MP4 is the container, AAC is the codec. AAC doesnt do video, but is often the audio codec of a MP4 video file.
  12. Well, I am pro-AAC.
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Contribute to the U2 community with uploading photos or by telling us which shows you have visited.
Contribute to the U2 community with uploading photos or by telling us which shows you have visited.
Contribute to the U2 community with uploading photos or by telling us which shows you have visited.