Tag: audio

Using iChat with Google Talk

Image representing Google Talk as depicted in ...
Image via CrunchBase

I bought my wife (and myself) a white MacBook last week. Her birthday is next month, and with Apple's newly updated aluminum notebooks the previous model white notebook was put on sale. Her previous laptop, an 8-year-old Dell Inspiron, was a joke and a pain in my neck. It was held together with duct tape. The battery held no charge, so it had to be plugged in all the time. It could only connect to the Wi-Fi from one or two spots in the house. I spent a lot of time troubleshooting one problem after another. So this laptop was two gifts in one; an expensive birthday gift for my wife and lots of free time for me.

I spent about 30 minutes setting things up. I created an admin account, created her non-admin account, connected the laptop to the network, set up Mail.app to read her Gmail, linked her Gmail contacts to OS X's AddressBook, installed one software patch, linked her iTunes to the Mac mini's media library, and finally, set up iChat to use Google Talk.

iChat Video and Google Talk

iChat Video with Google TalkGoogle Talk uses Jabber, an open instant messaging protocol. Apple built support for Jabber into the Leopard version of iChat. I added the account via the Accounts tab in the Preferences pane and was given a pleasant surprise once I logged in. A little camera style icon appeared next to my wife's name in the contact list. I excited clicked it to find that I could initiate and conducts video chats via my Gtalk account. Audio and video quality were excellent with very little of that delay I've seen when using Skype. I can not find any official documentation on Google site about this, but others have been doing this for some time. I take my MacBook to work each day, and it would be nice to video chat with my wife during the day.

iPhone and iTunes uses standard formats

A friend told me recently that he does not like iTunes and iPods because it uses non-standard formats.  A little research later, and here's my response ( I borrowed heavily from Wikipedia.com ). I got an award from my employer at the time, Sarnoff Research Center, for some of the work I did on this. My involvement was minor, though.

.MP4 and .M4V, and AAC are the video formats Apple co-developed with Microsoft and others back starting back in 1997.  AAC ( also used in iTunes, RIM BlackBerry, Sony Ericson Phones, Zen and other MP3 players ) is also a standard format.  So when he says, iTunes does not use standard formats, he is really saying, "iTunes does not use a format I like".

  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP4
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4\_AVC
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced\_Audio\_Coding

MPEG-4 Part 14 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Compatible software

Compatible hardware

AAC compatible devices and software.

Other Portable Players

Mobile phones

For a number of years, many mobile phones from manufacturers such as Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, BenQ-Siemens and Philips have supported AAC playback. The first such phone was the Nokia 5510 released in 2002 which also plays MP3s. However this phone was a commercial failure and such phones with integrated music players did not gain mainstream popularity until 2005 when the trend of having AAC as well as MP3 support continued. Most new smartphones and music-themed phones support playback of these formats.

  • Sony Ericsson phones support various AAC formats in MP4 container. AAC-LC is supported in all phones beginning with K700, phones beginning with W550 have support of HE-AAC. The latest devices such as the P990, K610, W890i and later support HE-AAC v2.
  • Nokia XpressMusic and other new generation Nokia multimedia phones: also support AAC format.
  • BlackBerry: RIM’s latest series of Smartphones such as the 8100 ("Pearl") and 8800 support AAC.
  • Apple's iPhone supports AAC and FairPlay protected AAC files used as the default encoding format in the iTunes store.

Other devices

  • Palm OS PDAs: Many Palm OS based PDAs and smartphones can play AAC and HE-AAC with the 3rd party software Pocket Tunes. Version 4.0, released in December 2006, added support for native AAC and HE-AAC files. The AAC codec for TCPMP, a popular video player, was withdrawn after version 0.66 due to patent issues, but can still be downloaded from sites other than corecodec.org. CorePlayer, the commercial follow-on to TCPMP, includes AAC support. Other PalmOS programs supporting AAC include Kinoma Player and AeroPlayer.
  • Microsoft Windows Mobile platforms support AAC either by the native Windows Media Player or by third-party products (TCPMP, CorePlayer)
  • Epson supports AAC playback in the P-2000 and P-4000 Multimedia/Photo Storage Viewers. This support is not available with their older models, however.

  • Vosonic supports AAC recording and playback in the VP8350, VP8360 and VP8390 MultiMedia Viewers.

  • The Sony Reader portable eBook plays M4A files containing AAC, and displays metadata created by iTunes. Other Sony products, including the A and E series Network Walkmans, support AAC with firmware updates (released May 2006) while the S series supports it out of the box.

  • Nearly every major car stereo manufacturer offers models that will play back .m4a files recorded onto CD in a data format. This includes Pioneer, Sony, Alpine, Kenwood, Clarion, Panasonic, and JVC.

  • The Sonos Digital Media Player supports playback of AAC files.

  • The Roku SoundBridge network audio player supports playback of AAC encoded files.

  • The Squeezebox network audio player (made by Slim Devices, a Logitech company) supports playback of AAC files.

  • The PlayStation 3 supports encoding and decoding of AAC files.

  • The Xbox 360 supports streaming of AAC through the Zune software, and off supported iPods connected through the USB port

  • The Wii video game console supports AAC files through version 1.1 of the Photo Channel as of December 11, 2007. All AAC profiles and bitrates are supported as long as it is in the .m4a file extension. This update removed MP3 compatibility, but users who have installed this may freely downgrade to the old version if they wish.[10]

Software

The Rockbox Open source firmware (available for multiple portable players) also offers support for AAC to varying degrees, depending on the model of player and the AAC profile. Optional iPod Support (playback of unprotected AAC files) for the Xbox 360 is available as a free download from Xbox Live.[11]

Other software media players

Almost all current computer media players include built-in decoders for AAC, or can utilize a library to decode it. On Microsoft Windows, DirectShow can be utilized this way with the corresponding filters to enable AAC playback in any DirectShow based player. Software player applications of particular note include:

Video killed the audio star.

 

I couldn’t agree more. I bought my wife a Shuffle ( just for the heck of it ) when they first came out. She loved it. She still says that it was one of the best gifts I have ever given her. She used it while working around the house or exercising.Now she has a 2G iPod nano and a speaker system (with radio) and the Shuffle has been adopted by my six year old daughter. I recently traded in my 2G nano for a 3G nano with video and I found myself coming to the same conclusion about the Shuffle. Who needs it?

Apple Matters | The iPod Shuffle Will Die in 2007The iPod Shuffle’s debut at Macworld 2005 signaled Apple’s intentions to dominate the low end market and although it was seemingly effective then, the iPod Shuffle will die due to the very intentions of the device.