Re: The MP3 patent debacle

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Kevin Marks <kevinmarks () mac com>
Date: February 26, 2007 3:24:55 AM JST
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] Re: The MP3 patent debacle

I wrote on compression trends 3 years ago - over time compression  
becomes less relevant, as it improves far more slowly than Moore's  
Law improves CPU and storage.

http://epeus.blogspot.com/2004/01/media-heresy-compression-is- 
becoming.html

"Is there a Moore's Law for compression?"
In the sense of compression getting uniformly better over time? No.
Compression has different constraints - it is primarily based around  
fooling human perception systems by sending less information.  
Compression generally has two phases - a lossy phase where the data  
is transformed into a less accurate version by exploiting limitations  
of human vision or hearing, and a lossless phase where redundancy is  
squeezed out mathematically (this phase is like using .zip).

With more computing power, more elaborate transformations can be done  
in the first phase, and more complex mathematical compression can  
take place in the second phase, and still give the computer enough  
time to achieve a useful frame rate, but overall compression  
standards do not improve at anything like Moore's Law speed.

I'd say video compression is maybe 2-4 times as efficient (in quality  
per bit) than it was in 1990 or so when MPEG was standardised,  
despite computing power and storage having improved a thousandfold  
since then.

However, what does happen is that the Moore's Law effects on  
computing power, and the Moore's Law cubed effect on storage capacity  
mean that compression becomes less relevant over time.

You can now buy an off-the shelf computer that can edit uncompressed  
High Definition TV for under 10% of the cost of an HD tapedeck.

Consider that the iPod has gone from 5GB to 40GB in under 18 months -  
a factor of 8. The MP3 compression iTunes uses is about 8:1, so that  
means you could fill the new iPod with uncompressed audio and store  
as much as you did in the old one. Apply that rate of doubling  
another few times and think about pocket TiVos. Farfetched? I'm not  
so sure - Computer users have been watching DVDs on laptops for a  
while now; hand-held DVD players are being bought for children in the  
backseat and people who travel. According to my friends at Best Buy,  
they sold out all the portable DVD players they had this Christmas -  
they had hit a sensible price point.

The deeper point is a trend based one. If storage continues to  
improve in capacity per dollar at 3 times the rate of computing  
power, compression becomes wholly redundant - the CPU running the bit- 
manipulation is the bottleneck. The HD editing computers work this  
way - they have DMA (direct memory access) hardware in the disk  
interface and the screen interface, and the computer's job is to get  
out of the way.

The other reason compression is a bad idea in the long run is  
precisely because of its success in removing redundancy. If you have  
uncompressed audio or video, a single bit error will likely go un- 
noticed. If you are unlucky and it is the high bit of a sample, you  
will get a transient click in the sound, or a brightly coloured dot  
in the wrong place in video, but it will soon pass and be covered by  
a correct bit.
If you have a single bit error in a compressed stream it will make  
the rest of the frame, or possibly many frames, corrupt. In the worst  
case it can destroy the rest of the file from then onwards.
For archival content this kind of fragility is not what you want.

On Feb 24, 2007, at 11:53 PM, David Farber wrote:

> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Bob Frankston <Bob19-0501 () bobf frankston com>
> Date: February 24, 2007 9:39:02 PM EST
> To: "'David Wagner'" <daw () cs berkeley edu>
> Cc: David Farber <dave () farber net>
> Subject: RE: [IP] The MP3 patent debacle
>
> You won't hear the problem as long as you stay within spec and don't
> repurpose (or remix) the music. As to compression -- you should  
> have the
> option of getting the extreme compression if you want. But if it's  
> going to
> cost billions of dollars for the license think about putting that  
> money
> into advancing generic capacity instead of just giving Alcatel a  
> lottery
> ticket. Perhaps I'm also annoyed because that money helps preserve the
> illusion that the legacy telecom notion of transporting bits at a  
> profit is
> a real business rather than a way to assure scarcity.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Wagner [mailto:daw () cs berkeley edu]
> Sent: Saturday, February 24, 2007 15:12
> To: Bob19-0501 () bobf frankston com
> Subject: [IP] The MP3 patent debacle
>
>
> In article <F626115F-68E9-4BC9-9003-05C59E90D310 () farber net> you  
> write:
> > IANAL but I wouldve thought that MP3 had to describe something but
> > people use MP3 as a synonym for digital music. Its real value is in
> > extreme compression  the kind that seemed necessary when 2400bps was
> > considered a high speed connection. Today we have the tragedy of
> > continuing of paying for the use of a brand that is not directly
> > associated with the value of the compression scheme it stands for and
> > that scheme itself distorts the music.
>
> I disagree.
>
> If compression is no longer necessary, then how were you thinking that
> I would store all of my albums on my iPod nano?  Rest assured that  
> I have
> far more music than I can store uncompressed on a portable music  
> device.
>
> As for the distortion, I can't tell the difference, so why should I  
> care?
>
>
>
>
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