ZiNgA BuRgA Wrote:Like with older versions, it tries to take over your system with its two kernel mode applications (iPod service and Bonjour).  Why a media player should ever need kernel access is beyond me.  It also installs two background user mode applications (iTunes helper and some QuickTime poo poo) to help ensure it screws up all your RAM.  Didn't bother to check whether it installed any device drivers - I presume the kernel mode services are enough...  

For some reason, Adobe Photoshop CS2 also installs that Bonjour thing. I googled it and decided it wasn't necessary, and just disabled it.

ZiNgA BuRgA Wrote:At 48kbps however, they seem to sound very similar and it seems my sh!tty sound card (integrated Realtek) is close to reaching the limit it can handle (lol).  Nero's sounds a bit sharper than iTunes', but hard to pick a preference.

Sound card? I would guess speakers 1st. But then I don't know if you have good speakers/headphones or not.

ZiNgA BuRgA Wrote:Well, iTunes' HE-AAC encoder certainly seems to be at least about on par with Nero's and seems to exceed it in certain cases.  Haven't done a large sample to really test it though, and differences in general are small, so I'd still use Nero due to the fact that it's so much more flexible, has more options and isn't a 89MB download lol.

I can separate it at all, or do I have to encode using iTunes.

ZiNgA BuRgA Wrote:Apparently new iPods will support HE-AAC.  Well, I'm not interested in iPods, but this will probably mean that others will follow if Apple does it.

It'll be a good thing, since it'll push up the awareness and possibly push competitors to follow suit.