Commodore Remix

You have your points, i accept that.

Nevertheless, i wasnt suggesting to completely drop mp3 for the favor of
ogg. I was just pointing out that meanwhile there is a growing amount of
users that are familliar with ogg and that its a shame to ignore that.

It would be nice if one (the remixer / listener) had the option of choosing
the format he thinks is best.

I understand the need to keep things simple from the administrative point
of view. But im sure sooner or later a desicion will have to be made in the
face of the rising popularity of better formats than mp3.

Thats what i have to say about that, thanks for taking the time to answer my question.

I would wait with that until every cheap electronic music reader (CD-/DVD-players, USB-medias, etc.) understands OGG. From that moment on you can scrap MP3 and happily switch to OGG (and I bet there will be an even better format by then).

And I hope WMA & WMV will die a horrible death...

Let the death be horrible. Let it be truly horrible. I think its undisputable that it requires more work and multiple options require more disk space so from that point of view let's put it on the to-do list. However I thought remix64 supported alternative download links? If so, there's no real problem, however minor it may be.

stainlesssteel wrote:You have your points, i accept that.

Nevertheless, i wasnt suggesting to completely drop mp3 for the favor of
ogg. I was just pointing out that meanwhile there is a growing amount of
users that are familliar with ogg and that its a shame to ignore that.

It would be nice if one (the remixer / listener) had the option of choosing
the format he thinks is best.

I understand the need to keep things simple from the administrative point
of view. But im sure sooner or later a desicion will have to be made in the
face of the rising popularity of better formats than mp3.

Sorry to come across as a stick in the mud, but I just don't see the "rising popularity of better formats than mp3" being something that's happening among regular users. It's an easy mistake to make; believing that even though something is widely popular among a subset of people, the same holds true for the general public. More often than not general public will think otherwise.

Not because they're uneducated buffoons, not because they're bad people, or even because they don't know better. But simply because whatever tools they use (be it audio formats, powertools, etc.) gets the job done for them. They don't feel the need for change. Even if people tell them that something else will loosen bolts faster, do audio playback at 15% less CPU load or whatever - because they're happy with what they've got.

If the listener prefers .ogg rather than .mp3 he should ask the remixer to make alternative formats available. If a remixer prefers .ogg rather than .mp3 he's free to submit the mp3 version to RKO and have the .ogg on his own webspace.

While mp3 remains the norm and people are familiar with mp3 then i see no reason for it to change. While us here know the OGG format and know it's superiority i know very well you mention this format to an average everyday person and you'll get a simple.."WHAT?"

I'm not sure if the alternative download system accepts OGG format, maybe Lman can verify this, but if it does then you could use that Alternative download as an OGG version should the system allow it. (Lman?)

> More often than not general public will think otherwise.

I agree with you there, but i hate to break the news to you :

the RKO audience isnt exactly the "general public".

Dont understand me wrong, but one has to be a geek to some degree to
belong to this whole C64-amiga-retro-thing we have going on here (im no exception to that).

Under these circumstances i think it is safe to asume that the average joe on RKO is educated enough
to be familiar with such highly sophisticated rocket sience as the .ogg format.

(sorry my sarcasm here, not meaning to insult nobody )

btw : Dont take this as critisism on RKO, your work is highly appreciated jan. RKO is a wonderfull thing i would dearly miss if it wasnt. (not to forget amigaremix.com)

wazzaw wrote:Plus don't forget the amount of portable MP3 players out there. Two of my relations got 256MB USB ones for Christmas, and it's hard explaining to some people how to convert audio files to MP3, never mind actually transferring them to a portable MP3 player.

My girl bought herself one. She warned me not to swamp her with techno-babble as she is extremly short-tempered. Now I watch how she gets into trouble, one problem after another.

1. The only 2 USB-ports are on the back of her PC (she doesn't know and has to search for them) and both are occupied.
2. The instruction-leaflet for the USB-player is a joke. There is a battery included but she doesn't know where to insert it.
3. Unknown to her, the display on the USB-player stays dark until she plugs in the phones.
4. To connect the USB-player to the PC (for something uninteresting like... loading music on it) she has to unplug the phones again.
5. There IS an extension cord. It's not mentioned in the leaflet and she hasn't found / isn't aware of it yet.
6. Without the extension cord, she can't plug in the player, because the PS/2 mouse plug is in the way / the USB-player is too big.

Hours of fun guaranteed.
That's what you get if you can't listen to five lousy minutes of easy explanation ("geek talk") or read a short note containing keywords for easy installation.

I guess she will f*ck up great time and then blame it on me or the USB-player and everything technical.
That's the point when I have to clean up the mess, bag the bodies and deny any knowlegde to the press...