Our first inSync of the New Year is a great opportunity to take a good look at the state of streaming media, expecially because some new formats are on the horizon. Ever since the introduction of the AAC compression scheme, brought to us by MP3 developers Fraunhoefer, the next step in streaming audio has only been just beyond our grasp. Most of the media players today have taken the necessary step of integrating the entire multimedia experience (that is, both video and audio): Real Audio is now Real Media, with the capacity for either audio, video, or both at once; the Windows Media Player is much the same in its multimedia delivery. These are currently two of the major players in the streaming media market. Another that should be quite familiar to Mac users (and video post with computers) is QuickTime. You might call these the "Big Three" in streaming media, but a darkhorse contender is soon to arrive, with the ability to not only be more popular than all of these combined, but also supercede the excruciatingly popular MP3 format.
It's called MP4 (imagine that!) and it has one big advantage over the others: a standardized open-source that won't demand an upgrade to a "Pro" version. Yes, it will do audio (based on the better-than-MP3-quality AAC CODEC). Yes, it will do video. It will do both, synchronized. The main difference is in the fact that there isn't a private, commercial entity that's behind the distribution, leeching for profits. But the impact that the MP4 format will have is in the standardization of the media content delivery system... that is, while the others are scrambling to try and make profits with their media players (and creating a schism amongst users trying to decide on THE format for multimedia on the web), consumers will embrace the freely available MP4s - files, encoders, AND players - with much the same fervor as was seen with MP3s (OK, this, by my own admission, is a prediction and not fact, so don't wear out the email if you don't need to).
The crux of this matter is that once again the technology is about to change, and it's doubtful that your Rio player will upgrade. Ain't it always the way? Streaming media for the web has become a big market, but because most people think the internet is free, when something really useful comes along that also happens to be free, the surfers go nuts for it. End of story... and welcome to the New Year - hope it is an enjoyable one.
