New Opus codec support?

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New Opus codec support?

Will iTunes support playing or converting music to the new open source "Opus" codec? The codec has many advantages compared to AAC and MP3 and it is royalty free. It could be used easily in podcasts but also implemented in the iTunes store for better quality.

This shows comparisons of Opus against other audio standards http://www.opus-codec.org/comparison/

"Opus can handle a wide range of audio applications, including Voice over IP, videoconferencing, in-game chat, and even remote live music performances. It can scale from low bit-rate narrowband speech to very high quality stereo music. Supported features are:

Bit-rates from 6 kb/s to 510 kb/s ---That 's even lower than AAC or mp3 go and nearly 2x the max bitrates of each, it's nearly as good as lossless cd/DVD quality!--

Sampling rates from 8 kHz (narrowband) to 48 kHz (fullband)

Frame sizes from 2.5 ms to 60 ms

Support for both constant bit-rate (CBR) and variable bit-rate (VBR)

Audio bandwidth from narrowband to full-band

Support for speech and music --- can be used in podcasts and music--

Support for mono and stereo

Support for up to 255 channels (multistream frames)

Dynamically adjustable bitrate, audio bandwidth, and frame size

Good loss robustness and packet loss concealment (PLC)

Floating point and fixed-point implementation"

Here are some reference and news links:

Opus codec website:

http://www.opus-codec.org/

http://gigaom.com/2012/09/11/opus-audio-codec-ietf/

https://hacks.mozilla.org/2012/09/its-opus-it-rocks-and-now-its-an-audio-codec-s tandard/

Posted on Oct 8, 2012 9:04 AM

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Answer 1

varjak paw

Level 10

170,206 points

Oct 8, 2012 9:14 AM in response to Openuser27

iTunes does not support the Opus codec. Whether or not Apple ever will is something no one here can answer. You can suggest it to Apple, if you wish, via their feedback page:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunesapp.html

Apple, however, has not historically been a fan of codecs that do not have formal industry standardization, e.g. through the MPEG or IEEE. Some third party could perhaps release a QuickTime codec that could then give iTunes the ability to play Opus files.

Regards.

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Answer 2

Oct 10, 2012 3:57 PM in response to varjak paw

Hopefully.

Opus does have formal industry standardization through IETF (http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716).

According to IETF's new "mandatory-to-implement" idea, Opus would be required in the future for browsers supporting the WebRTC. It's not clear how effective the mandatory-to-implement directives will be, but if Apple goes along with it, Opus would probably wind up as a QuickTime component and available in a number of applications.

I highly doubt you'll see Apple selling or using Opus files however.

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