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All posts tagged "mp3"


Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Lifehacker Compares Cloud Music Services

Posted by Lee Yuan Sheng in "Digital Home Software" @ 10:00 AM

http://lifehacker.com/5812138/cloud...tm_medium=email

"Having to sync all your music between devices is annoying. Luckily a number of cloud music services allow you to stream your music to nearly everything—laptops, tablets, smartphones—with minimal effort or tech know-how. Each has its strengths and weaknesses, depending on your needs; here's how to figure out which one's best for you."

Lifehacker takes a good look at the various cloud music services out there, and has a pretty balanced write-up on each of them. I do wonder, with data plans becoming more restricted in the US, and with most of the services aimed at the US market, would anyone really want to stream their music to their phones instead of just storing it on them?


Friday, October 22, 2010

Music Metadata: It's Here to Stay

Posted by Jason Dunn in "Zune Talk" @ 01:00 PM

On a private mailing list I'm a part of, the issue of music metadata was brought up - specifically, that the Zune desktop and device software relies on metadata for everything, and if you're the kind of person who has a collection of digital music stretching back 10+ years, there's a good chance it's missing proper metadata. Many people have worked around that by organizing and playing back their music like they would a Word document; via the file system. This is a habit that you should seriously consider breaking, and I'll tell you why. Read more...


Friday, March 19, 2010

MP3 Downloads: Amazon or iTunes?

Posted by Reid Kistler in "Digital Home Talk" @ 04:30 PM

http://www.geardiary.com/2010/03/16...est/#more-79827

"...I heard a song that I liked a lot.... The next day I was thinking to myself that perhaps the rest of the album was worth getting.... So I went over to iTunes I saw that it was available for $9.99.... [But] I... discovered that it was available on Amazon.com for a good bit less...."

Dan Cohen at GearDiary has done a small comparison of MP3 album prices between Amazon and iTunes. His article points out some interesting differences between the two sites, such as albums having differing number of tracks, which certainly surprised me! He concludes that Amazon was the less expensive retailer, at least for the titles he compared. Frankly, I have never downloaded an MP3 album, as I still prefer a "hard copy" (a CD, or LP...), but for those of you who have, is Amazon or iTunes your vendor of choice? And is price the only important distinction between the two? Or are there other retailers which offer even better bargains or other advantages?


Tuesday, January 26, 2010

HP Wants a Piece of the Music Pie

Posted by Hooch Tan in "Digital Home News" @ 01:00 PM

http://www.tgdaily.com/games-and-en...icstation-store

"The service, called MusicStation Desktop, will be available free for two weeks to customers buying the company's Pavilion, Compaq Presario and HP Envy models. After that, it will cost €9.99 per month."

While I welcome competitors to the iTunes empire, I have doubts as to whether this venture will be successful. Offering a subscription based setup, along with free DRM-free mp3s is tempting, however, there is no mention about whether MusicStation will allow music to be played (beyond the mp3s) on other devices. iTunes has a great setup that allows multi-device playback depending on the consumer's preferences, and in order for HP's attempt to at least have a chance, it will need to be a service that can be used on the go on top of being chained to the computer. I am fairly sure that I will not be subscribing to this service if it does not. Anyone willing to try out yet another music service?

Tags: software, music, mp3

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

eMusic Strikes a Deal with Sony

Posted by Chris Gohlke in "Digital Home News" @ 03:00 AM

http://www.electronista.com/article....strike.a.deal/

"Sony Music and online digital music retailer eMusic announced on Monday that music that is more than two years old from the record label will be added to eMusic's online store. While specifics of the deal were not disclosed, a direct result of it will see eMusic raise its prices slightly and reduce the number of downloads in its monthly plans. The classic recordings from Sony Music labels that include Columbia, RCA, and Jive, as well as artists such as Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, and Johnny Cash, will be added to eMusic's catalog in the third quarter of the year."

eMusic has garnered a number of fans over the years due to their quality and lack of DRM. If you've stayed away due to a less than stellar selection, then that problem just got a bit smaller. Hopefully, they'll work on getting current hits as part of the deal in the future.

Tags: mp3, sony, emusic

Saturday, April 25, 2009

Ed Bott Compares 6 Music Services: Can They Beat iTunes?

Posted by Adam Krebs in "Digital Home Talk" @ 09:00 PM

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=862

"Apple’s success in digital music is not for lack of competition, however. Over the past few months, I’ve been sampling all of the major U.S.-based competitors to the iTunes Music Store, as well as a few fascinating minor-league competitors. In this post, I’ll show you how each one stacks up against iTMS in terms of pricing and available features. After my testing was complete, I had a new favorite music service, and after you read my report you might decide it’s right for you too."

Bott compares services from Amazon MP3, Zune Marketplace, Rhapsody, eMusic, Lala, and Amie Street against Apple's iTunes digial music powerhouse in price, selection, and user experience. With three of the seven albums he tested, iTunes had the highest price. Lala.com snagged the lowest price point for each of the six albums it had in its collection. Clearly, there are advantages to each of the services; get a subscription (Napster, Rhapsody, Zune) if you care about listening to tracks before downloading. If indie music a la carte is more your bag, eMusic and Amie Street provide plenty of tracks by lesser-known artists, while Amazon MP3 and iTunes seem to be the more mainstream options for minimal fuss and iPod integration.

Tags: marketplace, music, mp3,

Friday, October 17, 2008

EU: iPod Users May Be Killing Their Hearing

Posted by Vincent Ferrari in "Digital Home News" @ 01:00 AM

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10065031-71.html

"The EU's Scientific Committee on emerging health risks, which is normally concerned with noise in factories and the British Parliament, performed a study of MP3 usage. The committee members' findings left them with a strange ringing feeling. They concluded that an hour's iPod usage a day for five years might make as many as 1 in 10 listeners deaf. The problem, the committee believes, is that many people love to listen to their music too loud. In Europe, MP3 players are limited to a mere 100 decibels. However, these European scientists concluded that anything above 89 decibels listened to with regularity has an effect that is louder than the limits imposed on factories."


(Inset picture via CC Darkpatator on flickr)

Every couple of years we get one of these studies that warn us that listening to music too loudly on our iPods is going to be the death of our eardrums, and year after year, as the author points out, we never run into people who have actually lost their hearing because of iPod volume abuse. While it stands to reason that using any audio device at too high a volume for too long could damage your hearing, does it really need to be studied again and again? What do you guys think? Do we really need the government warning us that using a media player with the volume cranked might be dangerous or do you think their warnings fall on deaf ears?

Sorry. I couldn't resist.


Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Amazon MP3 and Android, Sitting In a Tree...

Posted by Darius Wey in "Zune News" @ 08:10 AM

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix...icle&ID=1199843

"Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced that the Amazon MP3 music store will be pre-loaded on the T-Mobile G1, the world's first Android(TM)-powered mobile phone in partnership with Google. T-Mobile G1 users can search, download, buy and play music from Amazon MP3, which offers over 6 million DRM-free MP3 songs from all four major music labels and thousands of independent labels that can be played on virtually any hardware device and managed with any music software. "Amazon wants to make it easy for customers to discover, buy, and play their music wherever they happen to be--whether sitting at their computer or on the go," said Bill Carr, Amazon.com Vice President for Digital Music and Video. "We look forward to the release of the T-Mobile G1, which will put Amazon MP3's vast selection of low-priced DRM-free music at the fingertips of even more customers in more places." The T-Mobile G1 comes pre-loaded with an Amazon MP3 application, giving customers a phone-optimized version of the Amazon MP3 store and the immediate gratification of buying and playing their favorite music. Amazon MP3 has worked to make its DRM-free music available through numerous products and services, such as Pandora MySpace Music, and now Android and T-Mobile G1."

The mobile music downloads market just got a lot more interesting with Amazon.com announcing the availability of the Amazon MP3 music store on the Android-powered T-Mobile G1. Its biggest rival is, of course, the iTunes Store on the iPhone and iPod touch, followed by the Zune Marketplace on the Zune. However, Amazon MP3 trumps one or both in a few areas: (a) all tracks are DRM-free; (b) most content is better-priced; and (c) tracks can be browsed, previewed, and purchased on the T-Mobile network, and later downloaded via Wi-Fi.

What can Microsoft and Apple conjure to match or beat this?


Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Escape iTunes With the TuneClone Audio Converter

Posted by David Tucker in "Zune News" @ 11:45 AM

http://www.tuneclone.com/

"You are considering buying a Microsoft Zune as you broke your iPod or had your iPod stolen. And you bought a lot of songs from iTunes store because you had money left on your iTunes gift card. You still want to enjoy those purchased songs on your Zune MP3 player. Or you own an iPod while your boyfriend/girlfriend has a Zune. And you hope to share the library of M4P music songs purchased from iTunes store under your account with your boyfriend/girlfriend. Here comes the headache! The M4P music you bought from iTunes is DRM-laden! You cannot transfer the iTunes M4P music to the Zune software, not to mention playing the iTunes M4P music on your Zune player."

So, you want to migrate from the iPod to the Zune but the main reason you haven’t made that jump is because you have your iTunes library. I’m sure that’s a very common reason for not coming over to the Zune world. (Ok, maybe not, but I’ll maintain my delusion.) This is a serious issue though and if you do want to change platforms, then your only options are mostly time consuming and wasteful.

TuneClone Audio Converter has come to the rescue! You can use this to move your library of M4P DRM protected music to the MP3 format that you can use on any player out there worth its salt. This is a useful tool for anyone looking to break their relationship with the iPod. This software does cost $34.95 to register but that price does give you what appears to be a full feature application. The best part is that it maintains all of the music file’s metadata. DigitalMediaOnline has a nice little tutorial that shows how it works.


Friday, May 16, 2008

Free Music Friday: NIN - "The Slip"

Posted by Tim Williamson in "Digital Home News" @ 01:05 AM

http://dl.nin.com/theslip/signup

"as a thank you to our fans for your continued support, we are giving away the new nine inch nails album one hundred percent free, exclusively via nin.com. the music is available in a variety of formats including high-quality MP3, FLAC or M4A lossless at CD quality and even higher-than-CD quality 24/96 WAVE. your link will include all options - all free. all downloads include a PDF with artwork and credits. for those of you interested in physical products, fear not. we plan to make a version of this release available on CD and vinyl in july. details coming soon."



Nine Inch Nails (NIN) has released their latest album for free download from their web site, with the official CD release coming up in July. This release comes in a variety of digital formats (MP3, FLAC, M4A, and WAVE) and is DRM-free (whoo hoo!). Our source (Steve The Yaz) wonders if this could start a trend of promoting album releases in the future. This trend would definitely be great for consumers, but I'm not sure how this would benefit the band. Now that I've downloaded the album, I don't know how inclined I'd be to go out and purchase the CD. Would you pay for a CD if you could get the album for free? For a band that makes their money from CD sales, I don't know if offering your album for free download is a good thing, but for a band that makes their money from concerts, then this could be a really great way of promoting the band. So if you're into industrial rock (or even if it's not really your thing) head over the NIN's site and check out their latest free album!


Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Muxtape: The Modern Mixtape

Posted by Tim Williamson in "Digital Home News" @ 09:00 AM

http://www.geardiary.com/2008/03/25...-you-a-muxtape/

"You’ll have to forgive me, as I was feeling too lazy to burn and then mail thousands of CDs out today. But I thought you all might like to listen to some of my favorite writing music, made possible by Muxtape. The cool thing about this is that the playlist might not necessarily stay static - I can edit it at anytime. Enjoy it, and if you are so inclined - make your own MuxTape and post about it here, so we can discover some of your favorites."



Remember those antiques called cassette tapes that allowed you to listen to your music anywhere you carried your Sony Walkman©? And remember how you used to take all your favorite songs, manually record them onto your own personalized mixtape, and share them with your friends? Well now you don't have to spend all that time manually recording the songs, you can just head over to Muxtape, upload up to 12 of your favorite MP3's (as long as you have permission to allow Muxtape to use it), and create your own online mixtape. Finally, share your Muxtape link with all your friends, it's that easy! Check out the link above for Judie's (from Gear Diary) custom Muxtape. Is this something you think you'd use? Post up your own Muxtape link in the forum to share with everyone.

Tags: mp3, muxtape

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

A Different Viewpoint: The SanDisk Sansa View

Posted by Doug Raeburn in "Digital Home Hardware & Accessories" @ 02:00 AM

Product Category: MP3/Video Player
Manufacturer: Sandisk
Where to Buy: Amazon [Affiliate]
Price: Starts at $129 USD for 8GB model
Specifications: Please refer to the Sandisk website

Pros:

  • Excellent sound quality;
  • Large, bright and crisp screen;
  • Expandable memory;
  • Works with subscription music services like Rhapsody;
  • Great value.

Cons:

  • Not the smallest player out there;
  • Videos have a slight green cast;
  • Supports only .jpg photo format.

Summary:
In the minds of many people, the name iPod is synonymous with MP3 player. But savvy consumers know that there are many excellent alternatives. One such alternative is the Sansa View by Sandisk. This flash player is designed to provide a good measure of the features of the hard drive-based iPod Classic at prices that compete with the iPod Nano. Can lots of features at an affordable price make up for the lack of the iconic iPod name? Read more...

Tags: mp3, Sansa, Sandisk, View

Sunday, March 23, 2008

SanDisk Promotes DRM-Free Music on microSD Card

Posted by Rocco Augusto in "Digital Home Hardware & Accessories" @ 04:00 AM

http://www.businesswire.com/portal/...=20080319005386

"SanDisk Corporation, a leading seller of MP3 players in the United States, today announced the company will promote DRM-free music from more than 50 new and emerging artists on a microSD card. This U.S.-based program is the first of its kind to use microSD cards, and helps launch the new 8GB (gigabyte) Sansa Fuze MP3 player. The “Sansa Sessions” microSD card is comprised of a collection of rock, pop, and hip hop songs, music videos, and photos from more than 30 labels. Featured artists include All Time Low, Ladytron, Magnet, Nada Surf, Of Montreal and The Coup."



You know, it's funny. Less than two years ago it seemed as though the main-stream music industry was on its last leg. With almost monthly reports of some poor sap (or grandmother) being sued for alleged file sharing, Sony violating their paying customers computers with rootkits, and not to mention the RIAA running amok as if they were Judge Dredd himself - it can almost be considered a miracle that I can sit here and write this post while listening to a fairly high quality legally purchased DRM free album of one of my favorite bands. While the days of yesteryear have left a horrible taste in any music lover’s mouth, times are changing... and quickly! As cool as this Sansa Sessions gimmick is, you do have to purchase a SanDisk Sansa Fuze MP3 player to redeem this preloaded microSD card... but hey, at the end of the day you receive a free microSD card that can be used in almost anything nowadays and it is preloaded with DRM-free content. All in all, this isn't a bad deal if you ask me.


Thursday, January 17, 2008

iRiver's CES Showing

Posted by Chris Gohlke in "Digital Home Hardware & Accessories" @ 07:00 PM

http://www.anythingbutipod.com/archives/2008/01/iriver-ces-2008-player-roundup.php

"iriver had one of the coolest looking booth at CES and really was the only manufacturer that showed anything new and compelling. Walking behind the tent like structure you entered an ultra white and extremely well lit display area. It was a ultra modern and I would have expected to see the iriver reps wearing white lab coats. Still they knew their stuff and were quick to answer any questions."



It looks like iriver is FINALLY making a bid for the US market as they are bringing most of their line here. Had they made this move a few years back, I think they would have been a strong #2 right now and be giving the iPod a rund for the money.

Tags: mp3, CES, iriver

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Going Legit with Music: My Story

Posted by Jason Dunn in "THOUGHT" @ 07:00 AM

It's confession time: I haven't always had a completely legitimate music collection. I know, I know, shocking but true. Like many people back in the '90s, I got hooked on the Napster phenominon - I love music, and I love collecting, so those two things mean that I aquired music at a fast rate. When you combine those two things with a broadband connection, you end up with a whole lot of downloads. I used Napster, Kazza, Morpheus, and Limewire to track down singles I liked off the radio. In my mind I justifued it as time-shifting radio singles. I also took it a step further though - I connected with people that had private FTP servers full of complete albums. I somehow slipped into a pack-rat mentality, where I was downloading albums of music that I had no interest in listening to (Dream Theater anyone?) for the sole purpose of having the music "just in case" I needed it for some reason. Like a friend coming over and saying "Man, I've just gotta' hear some Dream Theater!".

I've seen people who are really into warez follow the same pattern - they amass gigabytes of software they don't use, but keep it on the off chance that they might want to use it someday. I am a Christian, and consider myself a moral person, but somehow I had convinced myself that as long as I kept buying CDs, it didn't matter that I was downloading all this music. I'm admitting that I was wrong: no one should have downloaded music they didn't purchase.

Time Passes...

I grew older, and when Napster got shut down in 2000 it was a bit of a wake up call. I kept buying CDs, and only fired up Limewire when I needed a certain song. Back then, there were no online music services available to me in Canada. Slowly but surely, that changed, and I started to buy singles from Puretracks. But I still had all those MP3s I had downloaded in previous years. I wasn't sharing them online with anyone, but I still kept them. In fact, they were a bit of an annoyance because when I did a random playlist of all my music, I'd get music I had no desire to listen to. So I moved them into a folder outside my main music folder, again, just in case I needed that music.

I've always been highly opposed to warez (illegal software), and even DVD ripping if you don't own the DVD, but it wasn't until I encountered a guy in 2005 that took IP theft to a whole new level that I got the moral wakeup call. In addition to having the usual thousands of songs he didn't own from peer to peer networks, he also had a mod-chipped Xbox that allowed him to play game ROM images, watch Divx movies, etc. He had hundreds of Xbox games he didn't own. He had hundreds of movies and TV shows downloaded that he didn't own. I was quite upset by his total lack of regard for the intellectual property of others, but I realized I was a hypocrite by having music that I hadn't paid for. Conviction set in.

So my next step was to delete every song I didn't own. Nuke it all! I was happy to find out that only about 20% of my collection was music I didn't own, but that was 20% too much of course. As I deleted the music, I made a list of what music I liked and wanted to re-aquire legally. If it was one or two singles, I'd aquire them digitally from MSN Music. If it was a whole album or enough songs to warrant buying the album, I'd add it to my Amazon wishlist and purchase it later, or go to eBay and buy a used copy.

Foiled by Geography

One of the primary problems of course was that the best online music stores weren't available to me in Canada. MSN Music uses 160 kbps WMA tracks, which is great for quality, but MSN Music doesn't sell to Canadians. I've go around that by using gift certificates a friend in the USA would buy for me - once the gift certificates are activated in your account, anyone can use the credits to buy tracks. After I get the MSN Music tracks, I burn them to CD, and re-rip them as 256 kbps MP3s. I get DRM-free music that I can use anywhere I wish, and the quality still sounds great. I normally go to any lengths to avoid re-compressing an already compressed source, but I've been pleased (and surprised) at how good the tracks sound once they're in MP3 format.

Now that I'm 100% legit, I can honestly say I feel better knowing that I no longer have any illegally-gained music tracks. I continue to buy CDs and music singles, and knowing that my money is going towards supporting the work of artists I enjoy is a great feeling. What about you? Have you gone legit, or do you still dabble in the murky shadows of having music you don't own sitting on your hard drive? Join me in the light brothers and sisters! ;-)

Jason Dunn owns and operates Thoughts Media Inc., a company dedicated to creating the best in online communities. He enjoys mobile devices, digital media content creation/editing, and pretty much all technology. He lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with his lovely wife Ashley, his sometimes obedient dog, and he has a music metadata fetish.


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