I thought at one time that mp3 pro was the future. But it never gained the popularity that I'd expected. Any (possible) explanations?

You know something Streetwise, that's a damn good question, mate.

Maybe Awai or Audiyoda could fill us in on this one. (I'll move it to Audio-Video)

Plain and simple -- mp3Pro isn't free and it's securable. So a mp3Pro track can be limited in burns just like AAC and WMA file.

But I do still think it's an option if the RIAA can get off their can and get a legitimate and fair plan together for downloading audio. A few things are moving in the right direction, but other things are moving on the WRONG direction. It is a great codec - quality is as good as AAC but files sizes are smaller. I would see it as this: Apple's not going to give up on AAC that we know. And iTunes is a very good service - I use it and will continue to use it. But that doesn't mean another company couldn't come along and offer a interface like iTunes but use the better codec (mp3Pro) at a comparable (or lower??) price with more options. For example, iTunes only allows a song to be burned (or transferred to a iPod) 3 times as apart of a given playlist. That's my biggest hang-up with iTunes - let me burn it as many times as I want. Then bring the price down a bit and I'm happy. So if a company could do that, and support any mp3 player I want to use, they'd make a killing.

mp3pro isn't supported by any mp3 player on the market (except from the ones made by RCA), and probably never will be supported, since companies would need to pay royalties for it.

And, if you're like me, you would never encode your cd's to mp3pro, since they sound like crap on stand alone mp3 players.

Here's an article about MP3 surround sound that's coming for what it's worth...

Neowin MP3 surround article

captbics