Information found by "Alpha Wolf" on EPAC technologyy:
NEW PLAYER TO CHALLENGE MP3
Technology embraced by music business
by Robert E. Calem
MURRAY HILL, NJ, June 1, 1999 -- There's another competitor
to the popular MP3 digital audio format on the way, this time from
telecommunications giant Lucent Technologies. The company
claims to have developed a better way to encode, distribute and
play back CD-quality digital music.
And according to an executive familiar with the situation, Lucent is
already working with manufacturers and music publishers to bring
a portable audio player that uses the technology -- known as
EPAC (Enhanced Perceptual Audio Coder) -- to market by
year's end.
Rachel Walkden, VP and director of audio at Lucent's new
ventures group in Murray Hill, New Jersey, said that an official
announcement naming the manufacturers will be made in about six
weeks and that portable players will be available for the holiday
shopping season.
A "reference design" player, which manufacturers can use as a
model for their own devices, is already under development at
e.Digital Corp., a technology design firm based in San Diego,
California, that specializes in audio products. SanDisk is supplying
32MB CompactFlash memory cards for the player.
Making MP3 sound bad by comparison
With EPAC, Walkden said Lucent is able to produce a digital
music file that sounds just as good as a song saved in the MP3
format but that is one third smaller -- making it faster to download
and less demanding of hard disk space.
And at the same file size, Walkden claimed EPAC produces much
better sound quality than MP3 -- similar to the quality difference
between songs from a CD and songs from an audiocassette. She
predicted that eventually users might have a choice between the
smaller file size or the higher sound quality when music publishers
make EPAC music downloadable from the Web and PC software
is available to convert a CD collection to the Lucent file format.
For at least the next month, though, development of the EPAC
player -- and of players based on competing digital audio
technologies from AT&T (Lucent's former parent company) and
others -- is in limbo while the music publishers and technology
companies work on making digital music piracy-proof. At the
behest of the music publishers, the latter and the tech companies
formed the Secure Digital Music Initiative, an international
committee of the Recording Industry Association of America, to
set standards for copyright protection technologies for digital
music files. And SDMI, of which Lucent is a founding member,
will begin to gradually release standards for music publishers and
player makers at the end of June.
How does Waldken feel about all the potential competition? "The
Internet and the music industry is a hotbed of potential foes,"
Walkden said, but "they can also be customers." Nevertheless, at
this time the Lucent-designed player will play only EPAC files. Its
price is still to be determined. |
