Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iPod Family
1000 songs fits in 5 GB and 4 GB
I just realized something as I was watching the original iPod ad (for the original 5 GB iPod) from this digg link: the new 4 GB iPod nano shares the same slogan as the original 5 GB iPod - "1000 songs in your pocket." Was marketing's math off? Was Apple running low on new slogans? Or is there more to it?The only element I can figure that makes sense out of these numbers is the introduction of the AAC codec and mpeg-4 format that Apple provides in iTunes and uses for all the iTMS music. It's been a while since I've done hard-core file size comparisons between the traditional mp3 and aac formats (I converted my entire library to aac for the quality a while ago) but I remember the size difference being something to take notice of.
Anyone else have any theories on this? Has anyone done the actual math to find out if Apple needs to lay off the sauce? Please feel free to weigh in, as 1 GB of space is no small matter.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Dominic Arenas said 11:38PM on 9-13-2005
You hit it right on the nose.
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meatmcguffin said 11:46PM on 9-13-2005
erm, an mp3 at 128kbs should be the same as an aac at 128kbs surely?
i would think it's a marketing thing -
"The new apple iPod. Small. Light. 1295 songs in your pocket" doesn't have a ring to it.
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LD said 11:49PM on 9-13-2005
Well, if you want to get nipicky, the Shuffle is 120 songs on the 512MB and 240 on the 1GB. Extrapolate that to 4GB and you get 960, not 1000. But "960 songs" is a crappy advertising slogan.
Besides, the number is irrelevant. It depends on the bitrate a song is encoded at, which codec, and how long the song is.
It's just advertising and you need to think a little less and just accept it for what it is. Hell, I bet I could get 2000 songs on my new iPod 4GB nano...just depends on which 2000 songs though doesn't it?
The only "math" that is "wrong" is TUAW's.
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mb said 11:52PM on 9-13-2005
The 1000 songs on the OG iPod was for mp3 at 160kbps. Now with the new iPods they calculate 1000 songs with AAC at 128kbps. So I'd say it's about right.
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ben said 11:54PM on 9-13-2005
You know, the 4 gig mini also had the 1000 song capacity listed; so it's not like Apple is really changing their tune (aside from the whole 5 gig = 1000 song thing, which is actually what you're getting at... so yeah, my comment is useless).
And to meatmcguffin, the 128 AAC is actually superior to the 128 MP3 for reasons I'm too dumb to explain. Google it. :)
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Reid Bode said 12:00AM on 9-14-2005
Yeah, but they have 160kps as "High Quality" for Mp3, while AAC is only 128.
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Reid Bode said 12:06AM on 9-14-2005
Ouch, beat to the punch.
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meatmcguffin said 12:07AM on 9-14-2005
ben -
Sorry, i meant that size-wise. Any codec at 128kbps should produce similar sized files. i re-encoded the music i had on cd into aac as it sounds that lil bit better :)
As for the 1000 songs - nice to know apple aren't pulling a sony. Anyone remember the marketing where a 40bg sony player could miraculously store 50% more music than a 40gb iPod? Only catch was you had to use something like 32kbps Attrac and only listen to tv theme songs and radio jingles.
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Adam Jacob Muller said 12:11AM on 9-14-2005
No,
It's simply the fact that the # of songs you can fit on any portable device is complete bullshit.
What if all my songs are FLAC (or WAV) and are 3-hour long concerts. Do i still fit 1000 songs? NO!
But what if I have relatively short songs? I might fit 1500 or even 2000 songs on there.
The number of songs is marketing bullshit.
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Dr. Pretorious said 12:34AM on 9-14-2005
What about variable bit rate encoding. Theoretically, wouldn't that mean that each song is going to amount to a bitrate that correlates to its overall dynamic range and frequency content? Therefore, you could fit like a million silent 3 minute "songs" on a 512 MB shuffle? Anyway, the average song is 3 minutes, and if you can fit approximately 1000 songs if they are 3 minutes and encoded with 128 AAC, then I guess it makes sense, but yeah, it is marketing BS. The only people that those numbers make sense to are the people who don't understand the difference between formats, and therefore are likely to leave iTunes set to the default when they rip, or download the overpriced crap from iTunes.
Peace,
Dr. Pretorious
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Brian said 12:43AM on 9-14-2005
"The number of songs is marketing bullshit."
That's why there's fine print.
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nosidam said 1:04AM on 9-14-2005
To quote Apple's site...
"Song capacity based on 4 minutes per song and 128-Kbps AAC encoding."
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Gary Yuen said 3:01AM on 9-14-2005
Here ya go
http://web.archive.org/web/20011217064651/www.apple.com/ipod/specs.html
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iFelix said 4:25AM on 9-14-2005
...and of course as soon as you start adding photographs, you can put even less songs on.
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Cyberwhore said 4:41AM on 9-14-2005
David,
I don't know if was wise to convert your whole library to AAC. I was on the path to doing that myself but soon realized that it was a sure fire way to pretty much lock myself into a DAP that plays MP4s. Sure the iPod is the pick of the bunch at the moment but things do change and you may find yourself wanting that new irrestistable does everything media player that unfortunately doesn't play your MP4s.
Food for thought and each to their own I guess.
Half my library is still AAC but I am tending to encode all new additions in a higher bitrate MP3 just to be safe and it will certainly make life a lot easier if that new must have player comes out (without MP4 support).
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Jason said 5:00AM on 9-14-2005
#8,
actually the Sony Atrac bitrate cannot be easiliy compared to a mp3 bitrate. The atrac system is able to record at a higher fidelity at a lower bitrate. A 102kbps atrac could exceeed the fidelity 256kbps mp3s. Due to the low bitrate nature of the ATRAC system, decompression also uses less power. Therefore Sony could claim that you could get alot more songs into their system and claim a longer battery life. Although kbps in the 30's isnt that great, at the same time it still exceeds any non digital format.
fyi, Sony MD ATRAC system records at 292 kbps. This would be an equivlent of a very high bitrate mp3 but at a smalle file size. Hence this is one of the reasons why musicans in the past like to record in MDs, small file size and high fidelity.
Of course I also suspect the high fidelity and quailty of sound reproduction is aided by Sony's experience in DSP and theres no device to test ATRAC compress audio on besides the Sony ones. So sound quality is maximized in both hardware and in the compression process. The same logic works for MP3s, an iPod playing a 128kbps mp3 would sound better than a Muvo or Rio 300.
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Small Paul said 7:14AM on 9-14-2005
I think AAC vs. MP3 is the reason for the difference, but I seem to remember that the original iPod could only hold 1000 songs, even if you had capacity left to store more.
I could be wrong, but I thought 1000 songs was a maximum figure. Anyone wanna try getting more songs onto their iPod that it purports to allow?
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Scott M said 8:35AM on 9-14-2005
I am looking at my original 5 GB iPod right now. It currently holds 1136 songs; and it's not full. Over 100 of them were purchased from the iTMS, the rest were converted from my own collection with the occasional download. Bitrates range from 128 to 160, mostly the latter. In any case there is certainly nothing preventing someone from exceeding 1000 songs.
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Brian Risk said 10:09AM on 9-14-2005
When you say, "I converted my entire library to aac for the quality a while ago," I hope you mean that you re-imported your CDs because surely you don't expect quality to appear out of nowhere. The quality was lost in the original MP3 encoding. Changing changing an MP3 to AAC cannot improve sound quality as MP3 is a lossy format and AAC cannot retrieve that information once it is lost.
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Andrew Kaufmann said 10:57AM on 9-14-2005
Number of songs isn't really marketing BS -- most everyone I know thinks in terms of number of songs on their portable device, not number of songs at an average of 3 minutes depending on bitrate of encoding.
I don't think the number is misleading or bad marketing -- it's just a simple way to think about size. Marketing BS is more along the lines of things that are far too debatable to be proven -- but the number of songs is just a general loose guideline. I see nothing wrong with touting it.
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