[Icecast-dev] Streaming AAC with libshout?

[Romain Beauxis]

2013/6/24 Thomas Rücker <thomas.ruecker at tieto.com>:
> Just going to drop my 0,02€ here too.
>
> On 24 June 2013 16:47, Daniel James <daniel.james at sourcefabric.org> wrote:
>> Hi Greg,
>>
>>> The open source AAC/HE-AAC encoders offer pretty poor audio quality.
>>> Sometimes you really do get what you pay for, and this is a perfect example.
>>
>> An alternative explanation might be that open source developers were not
>> particularly motivated to work on improving AAC encoders, because of
>> difficulties experienced when trying to distribute patent-encumbered code.
>
> This is at least the explanation why the earlier sent patch by Paul is
> unlikely to get merged in mainline libshout, as helpful and valuable
> it might be for some people. We encourage open and patent-problem-free
> formats.
>
> Especially now that with Opus there is a codec, that can at the least
> match the AAC/HE-AAC efficiency and has already gained main-stream
> browser support with Firefox, Opera and Chrome probably soon to join.
> Also it's one of the WebRTC codecs and as such will see further
> adoption.

I know this will sound a bit harsh but it stems from the fact that I
also did submit such a patch 3 years ago.

I find it interesting that open source is often labeled as user
freedom yet open source projects will block small patches such as this
one to advance their own agenda, despite users requests.

There's no need to favor one format over another. If opus is better
then it'll get the recognition it deserves, not matter whether you add
AAC support or not.

In fact, excluding AAC from libshout locks up its users while having
support for AAC mime-type would allow libshout and icecast to be more
mainstream and, as such, would probably do a better job at promoting
the opus format.

Romain