A look at Ogg Vorbis

MP3 may be the standard for online music, but Ogg Vorbis from Xiph.org is making a push for respectability, according to this NewsForge article. Unlike MP3, which has royalties collected by Thomson, Ogg is available for free under the BSD licence. This makes Ogg an attractive choice for game makers and others looking to offer high quality sound with good compression and little monetary cost:

So far, Ogg Vorbis’s biggest supporters have been in game development space, Moffitt says. A growing list of game developers have chosen to license Ogg Vorbis rather than pay the $2,500 to $3,750 per title Thomson charges game developers.

I’ve tested the format and liked it, but since it’s not supported on my MP3 player (an Archos JukeBox) I don’t use it regularly. As the article mentions, one format that might have the best shot at overcoming MP3’s dominance is Windows Media, given it’s on just about every desktop PC in the world.