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Apple Releases Major iTunes Update
shunnicutt writes "Apple has released iTunes 4.5 (and iPod software 2.2 and QuickTime 6.5.1) and relaxed some iTunes Music Store restrictions: now tracks you purchased can be authorized to play on up to five other computers, instead of three. However, they reduced the number of times you can burn a playlist to an audio CD from ten to seven. Another new feature is iMix, which allows you to publish playlists on iTMS, including comments on each track. The iTMS also offers a weekly free single for download."
crazney adds "This release also changes their network sharing protocol in a way that breaks the open source iTunes sharing applications that have been released (based on my work on iTunes 4.2's DRM)."
kefoo writes "Among the new features is Apple Lossless Encoding, which claims to compress losslessly to half the size of uncompressed CD quality audio." Hm, and I was about to re-rip all my CDs at 320 kbps MP3 ...
Update: 04/28 14:56 GMT by P : I just tested, and I can listen to previously de-DRM'd AAC files from playfair, but I cannot use either playfair or FairTunes any longer. The former "Couldn't get DRM key for user," and the latter produces a blank file.
Additionally, the app now also features a cool track melding feature not mentioned in the heading. This makes it a lot easy to make seamless listening possible for tracks that are supposed to proceed without pausing, So now I can finally listen to classical tracks the way they are supposed to sound. Seamless and lossless. Cool.
One cool feature mentioned in 4.5 is "iMix", which publishes your playlists to the iTMS for all to see. So out of curiosity, I tried to publish my "top 25 most played" playlist. Out of the 25 songs on the list, only seven were available at iTMS.
Sure, one could argue that I have eclectic taste in music, but on the other hand, they are missing some pretty big names: Radiohead, Frank Zappa, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Chick Corea...
On an unrelated note, I wonder if iTMS is going to start offering lossless files. That would be cool.
WARNING: If accidentally read, induce vomiting.
I asked my G5 to play itself at a game of "Global Compression Format War". It started by launching a powerful attack out of Germany, targetting every continent simultaneously. Then Washington fired back at Germany, and within a few months OSS bases around the world joined the fray. The record industry suffered heavy casualties, but just as things were looking really grim, a coordinated nerve gas attack on their behlf, out of California, neutralized their enemies... but only temporarily. Norway distributed a powerful antidote... the secret formula was banned in the US though, so manufacturing was moved to India. And on it went with this simulation... util after exhausting every possible scenario, it concluded:
"The only winning move is not to play."
Can't way to see how Apple tried to lock people in to a lossless format... best of luck to you guys, and have fun pissing away your resources on this stupid game.
This whole limit of computers is kind of redundant if they let you burn audio cd's. Aren't most people burning an audio cd, and then ripping to MP3 from there?
Apple Lossless Encoding
;)
So let's bring out the ALE and get drunk celebrating.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Can someone explain why I can't install it through my preferred medium?
Cheers!
My work PC is behind an authenticating firewall, so I was never able to log into iTMS and consequently was not able to authorize my work PC to play my purchased music. When I launched 4.5, it brought up the IE dialog box for entering my firewall password, and voila... I could enter the iTMS and log into my account!
I love the addition of two more authorized computers as well. I'm getting a new PB this spring to give my four Macs/PCs that I would have iTunes on and now I can keep them all authorized!
Happiness is like peeing yourself. Everybody can see it but only you can feel its warmth.
Though I'll admit that the join-tracks feature was much-welcomed, what else did iTunes users get? Instead of downloading songs with propietary DRM, now we can encode our songs with a new proprietary DRM--songs that won't play on anything else? I think I'll stick with FLAC. The ability to publish my important music playlists for the whole world to see? I think I'll stick with Audioscrobbler. A free song from another bland RIAA-sponsored band? Epitonic has always provided a good sampling of independent artists and their music for you to try out. A wishlist to download those Top 40 songs later? Well, why don't I just download the songs now off allofmp3 now with their ridiculously low prices, in whatever format I want, without DRM? Import unprotected WMA files? Winamp
Has anyone gotten it to work under wine? I'd love to be able to use it under Linux, but since they don't seem to be forthcoming on a native client, at least it would be a way to let me give them money! ;-)
[TMB]
This is awesome! Sounds like FLAC for iPods. How could you not want one now???
Mmmmm, lossless goodness, tastes great, less filling.
-- taking over the world, we are.
Some initial, unofficial reports are coming in that a 4mb AAC translates to about 30mb Apple Lossless.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
Well, I suppose there might be the honest folks who see $0.99 per song as a value as well...
Happiness is like peeing yourself. Everybody can see it but only you can feel its warmth.
According to comments in ipodlounge, this new version won't allow playback of Playfair DRM stripped AAC files.
Nice to release on the anniversary, and draw some attention.
My one complaint with the service is that you can't download the source file multiple times. So, I may have a license to listen to it, but I have to get the file from somewhere, if I lose it. They let you listen to your music on 5 machines, but you have to transport the file itself to those machines, by yourself. A real pain in the butt.
Beyond that, it's fantastic, and I recommend it to anyone shopping for a service.
-Patrick
"They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
Notice that the DRM scheme has changed. You can now burn 7 playlists to CD when it used to be 10. However, the flip side is that you can now authorize 5 computers as opposed to the old scheme of 3.
Not a bad tradeoff in my opinion. I can't remember the last time I played a physical CD. Sure, there are going to be those that complain about not having the CD but really, the idea of digital music is so that you don't have to lug around a CD.
No trees were harmed in the composition of this; however, numerous electrons were inconvenienced.
More important than this update is Apple's new push to provide music to college campuses. Their information is available here http://www.apple.com/education/itunesoncampus/. As a Penn State studnet whos money is being wasted by a garbage contract with Napster, I hope that iTunes begins to displace Napster all over the country. Napster is a shoddy, two bit service that offers a marginal utility at best. I'm rooting for iTunes and AAC in the battle for university contracts.
And maybe this is available in other MP3 players - but this is my list after setting up some new Smart Lists this morning:
1. Nested lists: so I could have one list that says "if genre = rock", then a sublist that just has "if My Rating is > 3" or "if year published is 2" and the other "if My Rating is > 3" (which I use to differentiate between "Background work music" and "Driving kick ass music".
2. Copy playlists: Another major issue with the above is that if I have 2 playlists that are 90% the same, I'd like to set the first one up, then just copy the list logic into a new one and only edit the 1 or 2 differences.
3. iSync iTunes I have a laptop, and so does my wife. Right now, all of our music sits on a Master hard drive on a Powermac, then synced to my iPod, which when I'm at work I plug into my laptop and place on "manual" (so it doesn't copy the laptop music files). This works out, but it's not what I'd like.
What I'd like is to go home, sit with my laptop and have it say "Oh, I see Playlists X, Y, and Z on your main computer have updated, and I've updated these MP3 tracks ratings/tags/etc. Let me sync up."
Then I could select the lists I want on my laptop from the main machine and only those files would be copied to my box. Since, if I buy music from the iTunes Music Store I can play it on 5 separate machines, it would be nice to have an "auto-sync" kind of system.
I think that's about it for now. I like the option of a new lossless recording (if I ever get my computer tied into a good sound system I can use it - I think there's some new devices that can stream from your Mac to from about $200 that might be worth a look).
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
And people who have fallen in love with the iTunes interface; people who use the iPod (which doesn't have DRM so it's separate from your criteria); and people who have large collections of CDs
GPL Deconstructed
iTunes on Campus, which lets academic institutions site license iTunes Music Store content for their users delivered by Akamai's distributed network, which now not only includes over 700,000 songs from all 5 major labels and 450 independent labels, but also thousands of audiobooks, periodicals, and journals.
Also new is the ability to import unprotected WMA into iTunes, and an iPod update to support Apple Lossless Encoder.
And last, iMovie 4.0.1 has been released.
Hmm well that was silly, either use LAME preset standard and save the space (around 200kbps) or go for lossless (around 700kbps -?) with e.g. FLAC or Monkey's which have been available for a long time and are well supported. I wouldn't use any new un-tried un-tested audio format for my music.
Not sure if this is off-topic, but since you stuck that comment on the end there's my 2p.
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
I sure that mini-iPod wearing person is a dude. It kind of looks like a guy. If it is, I am sure that he is going to get his ass kicked by some Rio-wearing dudes.
http://www.apple.com/education/itunesoncampus/
A couple weeks ago there was a discussion on /. about iTMS. One of the points I made is that I haven't used iTunes in a while because I have 4 computers at home and it was a hassle to keep authorizing/deauthorizing them because you were limited to three authorized systems. Another point was made that Apple should expand the number of authorized computers to 5 because their OS X "family plan" lets you install OS X on up to 5 computers...therefore they should be consistent.
As for reducing the playlist burn amount from 10 to 7, I don't think anyone will notice. Although CDRs are dirt cheap, they are pretty wasteful for the small amount of music they hold. Flash and HD music players are the way to go.
Good work, Apple! Next step: Get the songs I buy on iTMS to work with TiVo's Home Media Option.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
hmm, isn't that pretty bad actually? can't you get that kind of compression(get 40mb wav into 20mb file) with just zip&others on pretty easily anyways, fucking _ten_years_ago_.
Try playing a .zip file on your iPod...
what will be real interesting is if APPLE start selling lossless from the iTMS.
Previously the DRM limitations forced people to burn to cd then re-rip with out drm. the problem with this is
drm'ed mp3 > cd > mp3
the problem was that drm'ed mp3 !=mp3
because when the mp3 is ripped from the burned cd, it will not be indentical to the original mp3.
with lossless encoding this problem is fixed because
drm'ed lossless > cd > lossless
drm'ed lossless = lossless.
Obvioulsy APPLE is aware of this, they have effectively removed the DRM issue (at least for files that start as lossless)
Why not support open standards and open source and use FLAC? Looks like another apple "innovation" that is just a copy of another product, in this case FLAC, SHN.
The Party Shuffle feature gets rave reviews from me.
In the past, I have used a playlist I call "now playing" to move music in and out of during a party. This can be a real pain when you really just want to play a few playlists back to back.
Party Shuffle changes all that. It allows you to easily DJ a party. You select how many "just played" songs and how many "upcoming songs to show. You then select a source, be it your music library or a playlist or a smart playlist (think Rock or Pop where 1979 year 1990). You then can easily manage what is coming up in the list and view what just got played. You can click the "refresh" (where Burn and Import are) and the list will be regenerated at random. You can also give preference to the higher ranked songs in your library.
Lastly, and this is a feature of the entire music library, not just playlists or Party Shuffle, the same "arrow" icons that show up in the iTMS when you search for a song are present in iTunes. This means you can click an arrow for a song name, album, or artist and it will launch a search on iTMS. But say you don't like that feature? Well you can of course turn it off in preferences, but you may also hodl down "option" and click it. The result? it searches only YOUR library, not the iTMS.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
No. If you try to compress a wav file with zip, rar, etc., you will get very little compression. There is very little repeated data in a wav file. Looking at a wav file with the knowledge that it is audio, however, allows for decent lossless audio compression.
Hm, and I was about to re-rip all my CDs at 320 kbps MP3 ...
You either have very few CDs or way too much time on your hands.
I was considering making higher bit rate versions of my library but would only hire my brother to do it for me (over 200 albums).
"Survival of the fittest Max, and we've got the fucking gun!" - Pi
Umm... with "ZIP and others" could you decompress the files quickly enough to keep up with the media stream without spiking the host PC's CPU? And also skip 4:31 seconds into it, or rewind back 30 seconds, and so on?
Michael C. Hollinger
can't you get that kind of compression(get 40mb wav into 20mb file) with just zip&others
Absolutely, for WAV files which are half silence.
They don't warn you that once you upgrade, you can't access shared music on older versions of iTunes. Now I have to go upgrade all my systems.
Don't install it if you don't have time to upgrade all your computers, if that sort of thing matters to you.
does winamp have a store?
from what I can work out, and you can correct me if I am wrong. the DRM is only available on music store purchased tracks, and no matter how hard you try it cannot be enabled on personal tracks
don't buy music from itunes music store = all the great features of winamp (minus some of the not so great) + better mp3 archive management.
**** lying is wrong even for sleeping dogs
Monkey's Audio is another efficient way to compress audio without reducing the quality.
On its site is a comparision chart. MA is able to compress an album to about 53% of its size, while WinRAR does 61.9% and ZIP using WinRAR 2.7 goes all the way up to 91%.
MA is not available yet for Mac and Linux, though.
Winamp has plenty of stores. The price is all the music you can download for a 1/10,000 chance of being named as the defendant in a lawsuit.
I don't know about you, but to me half the size of uncompressed audio sounds like a lot. How do gzip, bzip2 and FLAC stack up?
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
4.5 music sharing is incompatible with 4.0!
I hate Apple's "forced upgrade" policy... sigh.
Actually, Zipping a wav file will do absolutely nothing. There's way too much entropy in a regular song to find similar patterns which it can compress. Also, FLAC only get's about a 60% compression ratio, meaning 100 MB of wav turns into 60 MB of flac
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I thought for a moment that the enhancements like the lossless encoder would only be available on the latest iPods. However, looking at Apple's site it seems all iPods will be updated. Guess I'll just have to wait and see when I get home.
MacBook Pro. Worst name since the Bicycle
Actually, iTunes does support several competing players, and has since well before the iPod's appearance. It's not something they advertise much, but it is there.
I'm a bit of an audiophile, and lossless is pretty much key. Or, at least a minor loss is acceptable. With about 2000 cd's, there's no way I'm going to start purchasing online music, without the ability to retrieve lost files. But, I would very much like to encode my collection, and basically use it as backup, or more likely proof in my court case against the RIAA when they storm my house with the FBI questioning where I got all that music...
And, as you mention, pretty much everything I listen to is unavailable. Now where are those terabyte drives?
Last time I checked them in an Apple Store, iTunes and iPhoto were really stretching the limits of the poor 1Ghz iBook (fresh reboot with 10.3.3). Startup took a few bounces. Then it pauses a few seconds before popping up a window (why stop the bouncing if you're not showing anything anyway?) And after that in iPhoto the freakin rainbow disc came up a few seconds. And after everything was launched, resizing windows was still very laggy. Needless to say, I was not very impressed with the iLife experience.
When I launched my iTunes and told it to check for updates, I received the message "Your version of iTunes (4.2) is the current version". Apple better take care of this - I never would have known there was an update if not for slashdot! I'll think I'll beta test 4.5 at work before attempting the "upgrade" at home.
I when I saw "Apple Lossless encoding" a part of me got really excited thinking that they had finally decided to start supporting FLAC files, but just given it their own name.
That doesn't seem to be the case. These files are given the file extension '.m4a'. Attempting to decode them with the CLI flac program only produces errors.
It's a shame too, because FLAC is really starting to pick up as the lossless format of choice for internet distribution. In certain cirlces at least. If Apple had decided to throw their weight behind, it could have really taken off.
I'll join when they get In Flames and Nightwish.
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
However, this shows that Apple does have some appreciation for what people want. Now give us gapless playback and a good battery life.
I don't understand why Apple isn't getting these apps running under Linux... Or Palm... Or Symbian. Damnit Steve, stop playing the proprietary game already. I respect software which needs to be purchased, but only on apple hardware, or windows--your main competition--is just wierd. Use a few million in cash and get the software ported. I have enough shiny Apple hardware... but, lets talk about that rumored phone... iWant.
At the time iTunes for Windows was launched, I went to the suggestions page at apple.com and suggested a WMA importer for iTunes, and suggested on /. that others do the same, as a malrge number of users have ripped all their music to WMA and therefore couldn't play it in iTunes.
I am glad Apple were listening - it's really pleasing to see a major company release a tool which will reduce the number of Windows Media files in existence in the world.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
Until they remove DRM. Don't let them control what you can do with your files
Unenlightened moderators or those that are crack dependent may mod you down.
I think the point needs to be made that as good as all the itunes seems to be, everybody is forgetting one critical fact;
You can not resale the music that you have purchased like with a regular LP, tape, or CD. Apple has purposefully left out first sale rights as it would erode the artificial value of the music. Even if there was a mechanism to erase all your copies and resale your itunes to someone else, Apple would not allow it, as this would put downward price pressure on the music Apple sells.
The music industry has controlled the price of CDs through illegal collusion, and probably are still managing to do so. Itunes is a natural extension of artificially controlling the price of music.
If normal economic forces were allowed to take over, there are quite a few industry executives that would no longer be able to afford their drug habit.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Lossless format support
Yup, it's a new feature, although if you really cared before you could just rip everything as an uncompressed AIFF, iTunes played those since the beginning.
and seamless track transitions
This has been around for a while in iTunes too. It's pretty customizable to boot. The new feature is a multiple file merge, something that has been around for a while too, but now with with seamless transitions.
wow! If they'd just get rid of the DRM
Only iTunes Music Store files are DRMed. iTunes has been able to create and play non-DRM files (in multiple formats) since its inception.
sin(6cos(r)+5A)
ok I tried this, the reason why I was saying this in the first place was that I saw in some magazine few years ago(like in 1999 or so) an article about (then) new archival programs for packaging specifially audio, video and others.
can't remember what programs were used then though, but they were lossless for sure, so I tried with winzip and winrar I got installed here, winrar packed ended up being around 60% of the original file whereas zipped was somwhere around 80-90% of the size(the music file was one instant remedy remix of one c64 games music).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I know I shouldn't feed the troll, but why does it give you pleasure to pass along useless information disguised as helping?
Looking for more links to this piece of information about Xerox and Apple?
It just - doesn't make any sense. Perhaps I need to be more clear:
2. Copy *smart* playlists: So I just copy the logic and tweak the settings, not just "copy a playlist and manually remove songs".
My apologies if I was less than clear - but really. Your link was probably the most useless thing that I've seen since the invention of washing ice in hot water.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Stuff you rip yourself has no (technical) restrictions (beyond those you impose upon yourself because you want to be a good citizen and neither break the law nor undermine artists.)
So, yeah, you have all those things and a little more.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Just occured to me that iTunes isn't just for the computer, in the sense that all formats that are 'officially' supported are designed to work with the iPod. iTunes will generally accept anything that Quicktime does, but this fact is not advertised as such to avoid people complaining that they can't use these files with their iPod. If Apple chose to use their own format, as opposed to FLAC, there could be a number of reasons:
- lock-in?
- not made here attitude?
- FLAC lacks a good integer based decoder?
- ALE has some yet unadvertised advantage of FLAC?
- something else?
I have no idea which it is, but time will give us the answer.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
If you want to contribute to the firmware project their OSDN page is here. Not to say that I'm not going to pick up an iPod when they drop to 100 bucks on eBay though.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Instead of downloading songs with propietary DRM, now we can encode our songs with a new proprietary DRM--songs that won't play on anything else? I think I'll stick with FLAC.
Are you refering to Apple Lossless encoding? This is not a DRMed encoding. It is lossless and creates large files (8-10 times as large as an AAC or MP3) but is not copy protected.
You also ripped on iTunes not working with other music players. This is just FUD. It most certainly works with a large list of 3rd party players.
Finally, I noticed how many links ot other applications, little addons, etc you listed. I ask you, is it worth all the trouble of locating these other applications and getting them to work with something other than iTunes? Why not just use the complete package. Nothing is going to satisfay everyone, but are your complaints against iTunes loading slowly or not being able to download songs off an iPod as easily as you want really worth the hastle?
Me thinks you wish you had an iTunes/iPod music solution but are trying to justify why you haven't spent the money.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
On the previous version I sometimes would have CDs that maintained a constant sound level but others that did not.
Anyone know if this is working better? (yeah I can't wait till I get home)
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Yup, it's a new feature, although if you really cared before you could just rip everything as an uncompressed AIFF, iTunes played those since the beginning. Yeah, but that's not always viable because of size. Also, consider this: on my 2nd-gen iPod, AIFF files barely work. You can listen to them, but every minute or so, the hard drive has to spin up, at which point the music skips. It looks like Apple's pushing this for use on iPods as well though, so hopefully it will work a lot better..
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
256kb works just fine. It is a standard used at many radio stations. Finding people who can tell the difference in a double blind test isn't easy.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I made a point like this on /. ages ago in regards to FLAC.
WinRAR does a comparible job at compressing WAV files. Not quiet as good as FLAC but for achive purposes I think it is better choice as it is more widely used.
I know some media players can play FLAC but there are no CD burning applications [that I know of] that can decompress FLAC on the fly, meaning you have to decompress manually just like you have to do in WinRAR.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
This is the same "Join Tracks" feature that iTunes has had for the past couple versions. It imports multiple tracks from a CD as one track. This results in one long track, in one file. This is not what is traditionally considered "gapless playback", which is taking multiple tracks/files and playing them all back without a gap in between the tracks.
"Join tracks" is an unacceptible solution, IMHO. I still use iTunes, though. I just live with the small gaps.
I buy/download the majority of my iTunes music at work. I'd really like to keep the music synchronized automatically somehow. Does anyone know of a way to either fool iTMS into allowing you to download music onto another computer (I've authorized both) or somehow automatically sync them with some 3rd party software. I suppose I could carry my work laptop home or copy them as FILES (not music) to my iPod...but that's a pain in the ass.
And if you upgrade to iTunes on the PC, you'd be enjoying all the features I've been enjoying on my Mac for three years now! (None of my music is DRMed, plus I get database search features, dynamic database driven playlists, and one stop rip, mix, burn, features)
GPL Deconstructed
on my 10.3.3 system, software update doesn't see 4.5 iTunes, it says mine (v4.2) is the most current. whatup?
CVS
free ipod and free gmail!
And of course even that partial solution isn't available on the iPod.
Being able to merge tracks together on import is great for a few specific situations, but it's not a general solution either. What if you want to keep the individual track index points? Or the titles, artists, and other information? (Many of my CDs have continuous music, and I don't want to rip each CD as a single track!) What if you've already ripped, or got the tracks from elsewhere?
Why is seamless playback so long in coming? I'd have thought it was a no-brainer. And it can't be that hard to implement, surely.
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
Listen to:
:)
Lustmord and Wargasm 2
and
Saffron's Curse
Those two are great songs!!! From Britain too.
I hope to god this is redundant.. I'd be really scared if I was the only one who noticed.
This is exactly what the anti-DRM nazis were talking about.. they CHANGED the licensing agreement and nobody cares.
Do you realize what this means? They could simply one day revoke all but 1 of your machine licenses, put all your m4p's into one big encrypted image, and turn your genitals into scrambled eggs and there's nothing you can do about it because YOU agreed to it by buying DRM.
Sure, THIS time it's not a big deal, in fact most people will be happy with this new way of doing things.. but doesn't it bother you that they can take as well as give?
Seven burns down from Ten on tracks you already own.
Think about that..
And no, I'm not a stinkin pirate or anything like that. Just think if the implications
Latewire
http://members.home.nl/w.speek/comparison.htm
Apple's new lossless codec isn't included, but will have a tough time beating the speed/size ratio of Monkey's Audio.
It seems that Apple could do the same thing that they're doing with DRM, and authorize 5 computers to share via IP. (on different subnets) - I have no interest in P2Ping music with all the leaches out there, but the ability to share my Library over the net with a few others would be quite welcome. (iTunes 4.0.1?) It seems like iTunes is one program that really shows the limitations that the RIAA puts on Apple. Of course, I could get an iRaise, and go buy an iPod, but i'Ve got enough iCrap to carry around.
the software update is generally not the first place to get updates like this.... i don't know why it works like that but it does.
it should show up through those methods later today (if not already)
Josh
FLAC - Free Lossless Audio Codec
Maybe something like this?
Cthulhu loves you.
Tell your favorite band to get in on iTunes then. The offer is already there, the bands need to make the next move.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
The more times an iTMS-available artist shows up on user-submitted playlists, the more sales for that artist are generated.
The more times an iTMS-unavailable artist shows up on user-submitted playlists, the more pressure Apple has to try to sign that artist.
I like where this is going.
"Why Subscribe?" Good question...
Then you're not trying very hard. In iTunes:
Create new smart playlist, match contition Play Count, pick >,=,, pick a number.
Not to hard
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
YHBT.
The "join" feature still only works during CD ripping, there's not way to join tracks that you've purchased from the store or already imported. This is SO annoying. The systems have more than enough computing power to merge these songs without having to start over.
I'm guessing I will have to cave in and re-rip all my CDs that should not have gaps between the songs.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
I thought it was pretty cool at first to be able to shift-click (on Windows here at work) the arrows and have it search my collection - but it doesn't seem to make much sense. For example, say I shift-click the arrow next to an artist, Lackluster. It shows me all the music I have by Lackluster, but what I usually want is all the music by Lackluster *AND* the stuff he's remixed. I suppose if you don't have any remixes or don't care about them, this wouldn't matter, but in any case, no matter what, it just seems to make more sense to just use iTunes' little search field up at the top. I know what I'm looking for, I just type it in, and up it comes. iTunes' search makes even browsing unnecessary for me most of the time.
I think those little arrows were some marketer's idea to get people to buy more music on iTMS, and then they thought they'd better make them do something else so it wasn't so blatant, so they threw in the option/shift-click thing to zero in on stuff in the local collection. I guess if you just really don't want to use the keyboard, the little arrows would help, but for me, they just clutter up the screen. Thank goodness they made it an optional feature!
I might be interested in using them to find my music/artists in the iTMS, except that the iTMS really doesn't have pretty much anything I'd be interested in (or don't already have). I know that's more a reflection on me than the iTMS, but that's how it is.
They added my requested feature yaaay! Now I can find all the videos on that site. Before they were with random "Featured Artists" and there was no way to search for them. I found U2 Electrical Storm and some others but it was annoying. Now all in one spot. :-)
-Don.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
according to some music store shootout on TechTV yesterday that's about the top... they said Apple had 500,000 but the other 2 of the top 3 had 500,000 and 700,000 songs.... so i dont know if apple added 200,000 overnight or they had outdated info.
i think the others were Napster2 and RealRhapsody (streaming only)... one of them had 500k and one had 700k
WTF? The free download idea is pretty cool, but you *still* have to sign up for a ITMS login, which means you have to have a valid CC with billing information in the states. So if you're in canada or not in the states you can't download the free sample because they can't get your billing information?
ARGH!
Back to kazaa I go....
Well the results are in and between Apple's Press release and the Steve Jobs conference call there are many numbers to consider.
140,000,000 - Annualized song sales at current rate
100,000,000 - Number of songs projected to be sold in 1st year
70,000,000 - Number of songs sold the first 365 days of the service
2,700,000 - Current rate of songs sold per week
1,000,000 - Number of songs available by the end of 2004
700,000 - Number of songs available now (5/04)
450 - Number of indy publishers with music on-line
10 - Previously allowable identical CD burns
7 - Currently allowable identical CD burns
5 - Current number of authorized PCs and/or Macs
3 - Previous number of authorized PCs and/or Macs
70% - Market share of iTMS digital music sales
5% - Market share of Apple desktop/laptop/server sales
0 - Number of more successful on-line music services
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
iDisk
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
ITMS is already restricting some sales to complete albums. There are even "by the track only" songs out there.
I think Radiohead needs to check again.
On a side note: How many albums are truly good from end to end?
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Does the new 2.2 release work on older scroll wheel iPods? I have a 2G iPod that is currently running v1.3.... can this be upgraded, or is apple just forgetting about them all together?
[Got Hosting?]
they have bends on there that sell less than 1/10 the records Cradle of Filth does. It's not Apple's problem labels have not gotten their songs up there, they just choose not to (yet?).
This ought to shut-up the iTunes critics. Lets see what Napster does to try and compete with this.
It's interesting how Apple has chosen to enable two lossless codecs into 4.5. On the one hand, you can use iTunes to import your CD's into it's own Apple (potentially proprietary) lossless format, or you can now import losslessly encoded (or not) WMA files which iTunes converts to AAC.
(Thinking aloud) Prior to reading about 4.5 this morning, I was encoding my CD collection into a FLAC archive. Using foobar2000 I could then encode my FLAC collection to just about any other format, including AAC. Up until iTunes 4.5 however, there was no direct method of importing losslessly encoded formats (other than wav files). Importing WMA vs FLAC now makes this process at least one step easier - Windows Media Player's WMA tagging is also extremely easy. Using foobar2000, one can also transcode WMA files into virtually any other format as well. WMA arguably has more overall support than FLAC - at least as far as portables are concerned. I'm not saying I'll switch away from FLAC, but it may be worth investigating.
I find it very odd how a new version of iTunes has me reconsidering WMA as an option for archiving my CD collection, especially as their own lossless codec was released on the same day.
www.brownsauce.org
albums that were composed as albums and not as a buch of songs. Which in the spirits of some artists, is a reality, and not plain bundling of songs.
Try to listen to Pynk floyd's 'The Wall' in random mode for example.
Does anyone know if there is a list of compatible DVD-RWs for this release somewhere out there? I just got a new one recently that doesn't work in the old version of iTunes.
Off the original topic but...
Does VirtualPc run Linux or only Windows? If it does, then your iBook will be able to run, via VirtualPC, Linux.
Of course, OS X is based on FreeBSD so you may find the need for Linux to be a minimal one.
Oh, and it's iTunes
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
itunesperipod.com looks at the most interesting number on the iTunes anniversary: the number of iTunes sold over the number of ipods sold. Let's just say that iTunes might not be the savior of the major record labels after all.
Since you just said that you can't resell downloads like you can an lp. So either music exec's can't afford drug habits right now because of these 2nd hand sales mythically slashing the market value of songs. Or. 2nd hand sales are rather irrelevant. 2nd hand sales are relevant for physical items because you can't duplicate them perfectly and therefore the cost of replication is higher whereas for digital media it's pretty costless so you may as well go to the original source.
*cough*
I keep my whole music library in FLAC, and burn mix CDs from it all the time.
And, yes, I known i's pink floyd. my bad.
Though I'm sure a few can provide their own anecdotal evidence on how iTunes runs slowly on their machines, that doesn't invalidate the many, MANY claims of iTunes working just fine (at least on MacOS).
The music I purchased before under the 10 burn/3 computer DRM could remain under that DRM. All I have to do is NOT AGREE TO THE NEW DRM. This would keep me from buying new music with this user ID, as I have to agree to the DRM, but would not effect the old music.
So Apple is faced with an issue. They couldn't just cut something out, without giving people a reason to agree to it. I nthis case, to continue shopping at the store and gain the ability to use 2 extra computers, I have to give up 3 identical CD burns. Big deal. Th emost I have ever burned is 2.
I see your point, but I think that reasonable business desires will keep DRM in check because otherwise, people wouldn't buy it at all.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
You CAN sell you music. This was already argued and brought to a head by the eBay auction. Apple's response was "Yes, you can sell your tracks, but why bother?"
Granted, there is no mechanism to do it (yet), but you could indeed sell your entire library at once by simply transferring your account to someone else.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
Does iTunes 4.5 support CD Text? I have yet to understand why iTunes hasn't had this support! Just about every burner on the planet supports it. Even factory car stereos support it now.
While you're right that the agreement can be changed, this isn't more restrictive in any way, it's less.
Seven burns down from Ten on tracks you already own. Think about that.
Actually, this is wrong. First, you can burn non-DRMed songs as many times as you want. Second, you also have unlimited burns of protected songs...BUT, you can only burn the *same playlist* 7 times. You can make a new playlist - with the songs in the exact same order - and burn another 7 times. As many times as you want. This restriction is simply to make it impractical to make 1000 copies of some new album you downloaded from iTunes with a CD recorder tower. You can still burn the music that you bought an unlimited number of times (which, incidentally, strips it of all DRM as well).
Ask a Rio Karma owner who has tried using FLAC and they'll tell you the battery life is cut by about 40%
.mp3 on a Karma. Assuming you're playing the music continualy (not messing with the EQ, playlist, whatever) you'll get 11.5 rather than 15 hours.
Actually, FLAC will cut the battery life to 75% of what you'd get with
Curiously, Vorbis on the Karma cuts the battery life even more than FLAC
True, but this is because the Vorbis codec uses floating point precision in the decoding process rather than fixed point like other codecs. MP3 players are generally designed to utilize fixed point precision, so Ogg's floating point requires significatly more CPU usage and power to decode. Hence, shorter battery life per charge.
In conclusion, this lower battery life is not curious at all (btw, vorbis cut's battery life to around 8-10 hours on the Karma).
When is Apple going to allow unlimited playing of iTMS songs (while connected through broadband) for a flat fee? That's what keeps me on Rhapsody. For a flat fee I can play just about anything through my computer. The drawbacks are that you can't play downloaded songs through its interface, and it's Windows-only. I would love to use iTunes but I've become addicted to infinite choice of music.
If you call Apple and explain that your laptop was an authorized machine and has been stolen, they'll fix your account to make it look like the stolen laptop was deauthorized. If you search some Mac forums you'll find accounts of people calling Apple to do this.
All editorial writers ever do is come down from the hill after the battle is over and shoot the wounded.
When you buy a book, do you buy a physical object or someone else's intellectual property, dumbass? What you pay for with your 0.99$ is not the music itself, but a liscence to use the file with certain restrictions. With a book, you get nothing of the sort. You could photocopy the book, or scan it, which is illegal if you plan on distributing the copies, but essentially, the piracy potential is still there. Yet you don't see an equivalent to the RIAA suing people sharing e-books (yet). You don't hear book publishers saying that book revenues are down. Why? because they are not as corrupt. They know that piracy is there and they keep prices (relatively) low to incite people to buy the real deal. This has been said tons of times before but still, people continue to buy and support a system that breaks down your rights. A law that can't be enforced is a law that makes no sense.
We should have been
So much more by now
Too dead inside
To even know the guilt
Naw, I found a better way to get all the music you want for a fraction of the price (Free).
Suprnova offers alot of CD's which are free. I don't care about legalitiys. I get all the tunes I want and don't have to pay like you suckers.
Meh, the artists arn't losing anything because im not costing them a cent to steal there CD's nor would I buy it even if I couldn't download it. Plus full CD's have the advantage of not sucking like P2P downloads. P2P downloads are bad for children encoding them wrong or fucking with the EQ so it's 99% bass and 1% highs.
Of course you guys are going to take a shitfit cause im not buying music and mod me to oblivion but please do. All I know is I don't have to spend a penny of my hard earned dollar on 1's and 0's. And who would "buy" a compressed medium. Like Mp3 or AAC it does have sound loss. I would almost consider purchasing flacs or some other one of the non lossy codecs. But it seems the ratio for bandwidth to cost would be too much.
Till then Suprnova is my friend.
Solosoft.org - Your Online Resource to Nothing
There was a bug (dev oversight, whatever) in the previous version of iTunes that would not let a user sync an iPod and an ipod mini on the same system under Windows. Why would anyone want to do this? I have an ipod, I would like to have an ipod mini for when I go running or work out. Less weight, and I don't need more than 4GB worth of music for a two our use time.
The previous resolution to this problem was to unhook the ipod from the computer, load the ipod mini software, hook the ipod mini in, sync, then unhook the mini, rehook the ipod.. remove the mini software, reinstall the ipod software.. you get the drill, a real pain.
The guy at the "genius bar" told me to get a mac, because I would JUST need to log in as a different user to use both devices on one system.
Has anyone tried this with the new version on Windows yet?
Seeing as the other reply mentioned some things to add to your test..
Add the bitrates and codecs used. Are you using LAME? Are the MP3's VBR? What kind of music are you compressing? What format was the original music in when you began your test?
It is no surprise that there are no major new features, or that Playfair doesn't work. The main purpose of this release is to close some security holes. This is not surprising; if they didn't do this then RIAA would not let them distribute music any more. Nor is this a big deal. Apple seems to be trying to treat their customers decently. Why should a few pirates be allowed to force them out of the music business? I have no respect or sympathy for the hypocrites at RIAA, who prate endlessly about starving artists while causing said starvation by shamelessly ripping the artists off, but I do respect what Apple is trying to do.
In the first part I mention lossless files, where the music is essentially equivalent to the digital file it came from. Hi-Fidelity music without the loss of dynamic range and such. In the second part I mention purchased files being retrieved after my hard drive bites the dust, or my house burns down... people don't usually treat their music as a business might treat their data. Meaning, a business has backups. So, I would like a purchase record, and be able to treat my downloaded music as being essentially an asset. If my house gets robbed, and I have insurance, I can ideally relpace my CDs, can i do this with downloaded audio?
You can now use other playlists as criteria for a Smart Playlist. Create one playlist that is a combination of several other playlists.
I still don't see how I can isolate a label. Like I want to see all the music provided by NinjaTune only. Am I missing something here? Am I wrong?
Let's face it, most of us are scoffers. But moments before zero hour, it does not pay to take chances.
Actually, I would suspect that 60% is "about half" when viewed from a marketing perspective. To a marketer, 60% is just 10% more than 50%, so that's pretty close (those with more than third grade math will, of course, note that 60% is 20% more than 50%, but I wouldn't even attempt to explain that to a communications major for fear of encountering glazed-eye syndrome).
FWIW - here's a comparison of other lossless codecs and their representative compression ratios:
http://flac.sourceforge.net/comparison.html
You'll note that FLAC is squarely in the middle of the pack at about 53%-54%, which is certainly "about half", and Monkey's and others can dip below the half mark. One of FLAC's advantages is the highly asymetric coding, which minimizes the decode half of the codec for low decode processor burden (not that it's really necessary today).
Neither here nor there, really, but it's good to know where everybody stands. I compress to FLAC now, since HD space is cheap and I've only got 200-220 CDs in my collection. Foobar lets me transcode easily to suit the target storage size.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Hasn't worked since Apple shut down the second site for PlayFair, the one located in another country. They made some slight changes to their DRM so any files purchased recently would not be decrypted with PlayFair. Would give the generic "Cannot find key for user" error. M4P's purchased before that date will decrypt fine.
Funnily enough, DeDRMS still works.
Not All Who Wander Are Lost
Check out the "Handy Concept for Concept Rock" section on this page: http://www.apple.com/itunes/import.html
iTunes will let you meld tracks together.
I think the only organization we can blame for the lack of market forces is the RIAA. God knows the various problems with their current methods of distribution (albums while marketing only singles) have been discussed to death on /. so I won't cover them all again, but the bottom line is that their unprecedented ability to issue subpoenas at will is the only market force allowing the major labels to contine selling their wares.
The inability to resell music has had a much smaller impact economically than the threat of legal action levied by the RIAA. Even the inability to convert your purchased music endlessly (due to it's lossy nature) is a more serious issue than the inablity to resell it.
And let's not forget that the entire price of the file ($1) goes almost directly to the RIAA (Apple apparently keeps enough to recoup bandwidth costs) so the traditional market force of "profit" is no longer a selling point for the retailer (thus there will be little competition and even less difference in price).
I rant.
"I know it sucks for the little guy who wants to give music to all of their friends, "
Newsflash buddy. With all old versions of Itunes you could already burn to cd and then either rip it or just give copies of the cd to friends. So how does this stop anything?
Enjoy your DRM'd low quality music. I hope for your sake Apple doesn't decide to revoke all of your music or eliminate burning all together.
I'll take buying $14 Cd's anyday over buying low quality music that I don't even own. Sure I think CD's should be cheaper but they are a hell of a lot better deal than this online DRM'd crap which you people seem to so eagerly embrace. The day all music is only available online in restricted form is the day I stop listening to music.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
I guess I have a question since so many people are wondering if Apple is going to start offering file downloads in a lossless format. Apple has stated many times that the profit margin of 99 cent songs is very low to nothing. (They only use iTunes to pump up the sales of iPods which is where they make the big iMoney)
So how could they start offering a download format that averages around 45 megs per song and not loose even more money on the bandwidth?
I don't know about everyone else, but I have gotten use to being able to download a full album of audio, and have it take up less bandwidth and HD space than an MPEG2 movie.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
I was really expecting the free downloads would be available to everybody as kind of a taster to keep people outside the USA interested and excited about getting music via iTunes.
:(
It seems alas, that you have to setup an account (no problem) that needs a USA registered billing address
[)amien
[)amien
Flac is only good because you get the full quality music which you can encode to your own mp3 preference (using your own encoder and what not) or you can burn it to audio disk giving a perfect quality snapshot.
Bittorrent is a good form of P2P. It FORCES people to share thus the speeds are usually very good. Plus there is alot of BIG collections offered on there. (Where else can you download 3gb of ACDC all in one click). Also the lamers havn't hit Bittorrent yet so all the shit is named correctly and encoded properly.
Just thought I would correct that.
Solosoft.org - Your Online Resource to Nothing
I believe they said that iTunes will be available for the iTMS service this summer.
blame your stupid EU or canadian Copy right office.
it is not like Apple WANTS to keep people outside the US from buying music from ITMS, it is that your stupid laws are in the way right now and Apple has to file the right forms and crap.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Your last statement is the point. A good debate is always good for the body in the morning. Plus, it keeps the moderators on their toes.
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
I just tried to snag the free Foo Fighters download Apple's advertising as an iTunes Anniversary present to their users, but I can't get it -- I think it's because I'm from Canada! Can we Canadians not even get FREE downloads from iTMS?
I'm not normally an irrational zealous dickhead, but I figure "When in Rome..."
Ok, so why don't you tell me why you feel this is the case? I will assume you are educated enough to understand the facts so I won't try to convince you otherwise, but I want to know why you would say such a thing.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
Um.....
I can listen to music from her computer without permanently adding it to mine, adding some of her music to my own playlists... And then when she turns her computer off iTunes would just gracefully ignore those songs, and perhaps indicate with a little icon that the song is no longer available.
iTunes 4.x most definitely has that feature - Shared Playlists (via Rendezvous). Make sure "Share my music" and "Look for shared playlists" are on in Preferences. When you both log in to the same network, there'll be a blue playlist sort of icon representing the other person's music, which gets played over the network. One of you leaves, the playlist disappears. With third-party apps like Leechster you can download the songs themselves directly into your library.
I've got more mod points and GMail invi
Of course iTunes 4.5 will play the file that you de-DRM'd previously.
But playfair/FairTunes do *NOT* work now. I just tried to de-DRM a file I bought from iTMS, and guess what? Now it errors out, telling me that this computer isn't authorized to play the file. I can still play the file in iTunes, but I can't de-DRM it with FairTunes.
So no, it doesn't still work.
I'm annoyed that Apple won't let you download the videos. I would even be willing to pay for such a service. Instead I guess I'll just have to keep repeatedly sucking their bandwidth. I can only guess that licensing issues barred them from offering this. I also find it interesting that the videos effectively give you a full preview of an entire song, and not just the 30 second clip.
Hi Josh,
iTunes can play any audio file that Quicktime can play, so we could very easily have FLAC in iTunes if someone with the relevant expertise could be found to make a Quicktime Component that plays back FLAC.
There's already one for Ogg-Vorbis, but it doesn't seem to do Ogg-FLAC.
Of course, this wouldn't be as good as native FLAC support in iTunes, because I doubt things like the track meta data tags would be recognized through Quicktime. Still, it would be cool...
Lord Pixel - The cat who walks through walls
A little bigger on the inside than out
Apple is simply the first to offer it integrated into a big package...with a marketing campaign... 50% percent on average compression has been available for some time: http://www.firstpr.com.au/audiocomp/lossless/
Yeah, I kept requesting Cradle and was glad to see them show up. Maybe I'll by the forthcoming COF album from iTunes...
Yes, you can.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Don't let those guys (plairfair's and FairTunes' authors) turn WMA into an industry standard.
Information wants to be free... yeah. Give me your credit card numbers then...
The iPod (and iTunes) already supports WAV format.
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
You're gonna have to wait a while for Deceide to show up on iTunes. ;)
Not really. I thought you might have some intelligent reasons. You don't provide any facts. You hardly provide reasons (How is "OS X belongs where Windows does, in a Windows." a reason for disliking OS X?).
I thought you were going to provide some interesting assertions.
BTW, 1. Apple held well over 15% market share in he 1980's, 2. You can choose to have iTunes NOT move your music by selecting so in the preferences.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
I wish they would get a usability person on the iTunes team. Every time a CD burn finishes I get dumped to the 'Library'. If I want to burn another copy I have to go through the click fest again to get the playlist, wait for the cd to init, click the burn button before it times out... Nevermind, I'll use Toast..
TallGreen CMS hosting
Interesting how the very next day after I download iTunes and hack at iTMS-4-all to create a "screen saver" of iTunes clips from the search results for random words, they break the entire iTMS protocol. Is that bad timing or what?
Can anyone explain why it's so difficult to get seamless playback? It seems you'd just have to say "ok, we got music from bytes 12312-234902384 in this track, and again starting at byte 23423 in this one, so as soon as we get close to the end of track 1, let's start decoding track 2". What's wrong with my assumption? Why do we ever get gaps (except for the recorded silence at the end of most tracks)?
peter
You own a car that has an interior noise floor lower than 40-50dB? You'd have to have such a vehicle to be able to detect a S/N ratio of better than 65dB or so, which is what it sounds like you're describing (max volume - noise floor > source S/N ratio). Have you even TRIED listening to an iPod coming in through RCA inputs to compare the sound against your in-dash unit's D/A conversion? If you've done so, and the results were truly audible, then I apologize.
Look, I'm a car audio snob as much as the next guy (sealed-box sub in the trunk, 5-channel amp, component door units with high-mounted tweeters, etc.), but I'm not about to suggest that true audiophile quality sound is possible in MY car (1997 Nissan Maxima). In my experience, there's simply too much ambient road noise, particularly in the sub50 Hz range and too many issues concerning accurate soundstage (misc reflections as well as dramatic phase issues related to my proximity to the driver's side speakers) to consider any car-audio system to be truly competitive with an above-average home system.
Tim
Dylan is crap? Ok, you lose credibility. Run along now, big people are talking.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
You can run iTunes through MOL on any PPC box. That includes non-Apple boxes. Sorry, X86 linux users are out of luck.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
The battery life of an iPod is dependent on the size of the audio files that it is playing back (higher encoding rates means more data must be moved from hard drive to memory cache). Isn't the lossless codec going to kill battery performance dramatically?
On an unrelated note, I wonder if iTMS is going to start offering lossless files. That would be cool.
Magnatune has lossless files, including WAV and FLAC.
When I upgraded my iTunes and launched it for the first time, Little Snitch reported that it was trying to communicate to a server on wcg.net. Here is a "Whois" for wcg.net.
Registrant:
Williams Communications Group (WCG3-DOM)
111 E. 1st ST.
Tulsa, OK 74103-2808
US
Domain Name: WCG.NET
Administrative Contact:
Center, Network Operations (YDAAUAZAAI) noc@wcg.net
Wiltel Communications
3180 Rider Trail South
Bridgeton, MO 63045
US
800-934-8434
Anyone have a clue why?
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Check the Leechster link I included.
I've got more mod points and GMail invi
Reasons to use FLAC:
- It's free and open; I'm not going to find my files are suddenly unplayable because developers are unable to support it properly. I think it's even part of fb2k's std_input array, meaning it's supported in a player who's installer is less than 800k (the bloated "special" one which will play just about anything and do just about anything to the resulting sound is a shade over 2MB).
- It's lossless; I can transcode to any lossy format I like for playback on a portable.. maybe I get a player that only does MP3, maybe I find one which can play back MusePack; either way I can choose to create a lossy file which is tuned to my portable usage (100kbps Vorbis might be a good one for portable use, but man that'll suck on my desktop). Additionally if FLAC were ever to become unusable (maybe someone finds a patent against it or so.. whatever), I can convert to any other lossless format and get the same benefits without worrying about losing anything. I like a futureproof music collection.
- It's lossless; even at high bitrates, lossy formats aren't perfect, especially MP3. I don't want to worry about compression artifacts or encoder bugs or what quality setting to use; lossless is an easy choice, with no quality tradeoffs. With 600GB+ of disk space I couldn't really care less about the 4x increase in size.
- It's robust; I've lost track of the number of MP3's I've seen with serious sync errors (bit errors, basically). Despite having more FLAC files, I'm yet to come across a corrupt one, even through the less official channels (in fact, I've yet to be able to buy a set of FLAC files complete with
.PAR2's, .MD5's and .LOG files). Pirate FLAC files are usually of at least identical quality to a CD you've ripped yourself.. pirate MP3's are usually encoded using stupid settings using a badly configured burst ripper. No thanks.
- It's well supported; it even has hardware support, which bodes well for the next few generations of portable audio players (if you had a 100G+ player wouldn't you like to be able to play lossless files instead of faffing about with lossy stuff?)
- It's fast. I can encode and decode FLAC faster than most lossy formats, including low bitrate Vorbis files. Yes, this is a big deal when I'm waiting for an album to ReplayGain or transcoding to other formats; going from 1% CPU to 0.5% CPU during normal playback is the difference between decoding at 100x and decoding at 200x.
- It's well specified. I'll be impressed if you can point me at a document describing MP3, and even then you're not going to find any metadata standards with an official specification; ID3v[12] and co are unofficial addons, and they suck (ever seen the ID3v2 spec? A ID3v2 reader/writer can be easily twice the size of a complete decoder and metadata reader/writer for most sane formats).
And yes, I've bought a fair few albums in FLAC format from Magnatune and Allofmp3. Why would I pay for anything less?To quickly assess how well the new iTunes 4.5 lossless compression scheme works I picked 10 songs at random from my collection to convert to Apple Lossless Encoder format. The good news is that each song only took a few seconds to convert on my 1.0 GHz PowerBook. Noticeably faster than when I ripped them to WAV files. Unfortunately the compression ratio is not that good. The aggregate compression ratio of the ten songs was 1.5:1. The min, median and max were 1.3:1, 1.5:1 and 1.8:1. This is by no means a thorough evaluation, as my collection is heavily skewed to rock music and far more samples would be required. I would have expected far better however, given that the high correlation between the two stereo channels gives an almost brain dead 2:1 compression to start with, and other lossless projects on the web claim closer to 4:1.
You can now use other playlists as criteria for a Smart Playlist. Create one playlist that is a combination of several other playlists.
I've been enjoying doing exactly this for several years with Media Center, as well as directly transcoding WMA->AAC.
It's nice to know you can usually rely on Apple to do the right thing, once it has exhausted all the alternatives.
Da Blog
Hah. I will trade you a DBA for that Comm major.
I once had to explain the concept of adding a negative number to a positive number, and why 1 + (-1) = 0 instead of 2. I found it very scary when that DBA got the "glazed-eye syndrome".
Secure multi-mediation is the future of all webbing...
Why can't iTunes share songs over the net?
I've been enjoying doing exactly this for several years with Media Center, as well as directly transcoding for different zones.
I enjoy sharing music over intra- or internet connections with Media Center. Client-Server streaming, shared libraries, configurable ports, the whole enchilada.
It's nice to know you can usually rely on Apple to do the right thing, once it has exhausted all the alternatives.
Da Blog
it's really pleasing to see a major company release a tool which will reduce the number of Windows Media files in existence in the world.
I've been enjoying doing exactly this for several years with Media Center.
It's nice to know you can usually rely on Apple to do the right thing, once it has exhausted all the alternatives.
Da Blog
I think that's about it for now.
I've been enjoying doing almost exactly what you specify for several years with Media Center.
It's nice to know you can usually rely on Apple to do the right thing, once it has exhausted all the alternatives.
Da Blog
I read somewhere that iTunes may support another mp3 player besides the iPod
My gf uses iTunes to manage her Archos recorder. She got the iTunes plugin from the Archos website. It seems to work pretty well.
Da Blog
Does anyone know what that is all about? I couldn't find any details...
while I too love the new Party Shuffle, it's a shame it's not also available on the iPod...
However, a new feature that got added to the iPod (with the new v3 update), is the ability to use Grouping in smart play lists (don't ask me why it didn't work in the first place...). Before this, any smart playlist that used a Grouping rule, came out empty on the iPod.
I use it to mostly as anti-grouping: I either mark songs DUPLICATE (if I have multiple copies of them at album/single/compilation), or simply DO_NOT_PLAY (if it's something like an hour+ of a DJ set or a Noam Chomsky speech). Also, when I ripped all of my CDs and some of my brother's/sister's/father's, I marked them as My_CDs etc., so I can now use that as well...
One of the best features of iTunes is the ability to listen to the libraries of other people on a corporate LAN (or even a home LAN).
Agreed. You know what is cooler? The ability to browse libraries and stream music over WANs as well as LANs.
I've been enjoying doing exactly this for several years with Media Center. And of course, with a trifecta or maxi, mini, and fullscreen skin options, Media Center rules for customization.
It's nice to know you can usually rely on Apple to do the right thing, once it has exhausted all the alternatives.
Da Blog
Try using Expose when you have multiple text files open at once -- say about 10 or so. Now, try to predict which window will equal which file so that you don't have to spend time hunting around to see which (now indecipherable scribbles on white) window you want. Expose (just like the Dock) is only really good to use if windows are somehow easy to idenfity at a glance from a "zoomed-out" state. I basically have to use a pager-like setup and a little memory to quickly access different documents since Mac OS X provides no real way of organizing documents in an easily remember state (like alphabetical order as opposed to most recent access).
(If BBEdit or some other Mac editor supported a single-window, multiple-document mode to allow for quick switching between multiple files, I wouldn't even have noticed this problem.)
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
but you could indeed sell your entire library at once by simply transferring your account to someone else.
How inconvenient is that? I find it interesting that there is no mechanism to transfer single song purchases amongst users. Since I don't use itunes, maybe somebody can enlighten me on this.
I also think that Apple's terms of service are deliberately ambiguous in this area. Noticably absent (as far as I coud find) is the issue of transferring of music to other users. Sure you can purchase gift certificates, but that is obviously not the same. Only "noncommercial" use is permitted. Who knows what that means.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Does this update, as usual, break the MPEG 2 plug-in? It is very annoying when you upgrade Quicktime just to realize that you have to pay again (and again...) for MPEG2 playback. Especially when QT is so difficult to uninstall, it is most of the time actually easier to reinstall the system than to unistall a Quicktime update:-(
I see 99c per song as a complete rip-off; why would I pay 99c for a DRM restricted low bitrate AAC? If I were getting DRM free lossless files then yes, that's pretty good, but I'm not. Other services seem to do just fine selling lossless DRM free files alongside lossy DRM free files with similar if not better pricing structures, so iTunes can bite me. Plus I'm in the UK; I don't think I'm allowed to use iTunes.
see if this version will install under wine. None of the other ones have. I would love to be able to bring my purchased tracks from work home.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
You can continue using iTunes just as you have in the past if you don't upgrade to v4.5. v4.5 comes with new terms. If you want the 10 playlist burn count and 3 computer limit stick to 4.2, if you're ok with 7 playlist burns and 5 computers then move to 4.5.
If Apple makes some crappy license change in the future that I don't like then I'm burning all my purchased music to CD and re-ripping to AAC and then I can do whatever I please.
What the...? You don't need a credit card to create an iTMS account. You did originally, but when they started the Pepsi promo, they allowed you to check "none" for your credit card. I think you're still able to do that. I'm in the US, and I don't have a credit card registered (I do all my purchases via Pepsi caps and Gift Certificates ^_^).
Thanks a million. Push Start to replay.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
I cannot believe that is does not allow sorting by the exclamation column (at least on windows). My biggest problem is when I have to remove the underlying files and rebuild the database. It would be nice to sort by all the missing songs and then delete a large chunk of them at once. Or add an option to rebuild the database for you.
Does sorting work on OS X for anyone?
All AAC files can either be protected with DRM or not. .m4a files are not DRM'd .m4p files are DRM'd.
.m4a its not DRM'd, if you saw one with .m4p it will be.
.mov, but the video encoding could be any one of 20 different codecs (Cinepak, Sorension, Indeo etc) and ditto for the audio encoding on the movie. The filename extension is telling you the overall container format, not the specific algorithms used to encode the file.
I'm sure the new Apple Lossless Encoding (ALE) is similar. If you have an ALE encoded file ending in
I'm sure AAC is just a container format like Quicktime Most Quicktime files will be
Lord Pixel - The cat who walks through walls
A little bigger on the inside than out
Well, Apple has been dying for almost 30 years now, right? I don't think now is the time to get all paranoid about seeing them disappear.
Moof.
You can copy AIFF files to ipod now. you will save battery life over AIFF.
Anyone else have troubles updating their iPod? I try and it tells me my iPod is not connected -- even though it shows up in the Finder.
Which seems weird since it is free to download anyhow. Maybe so that a university can include iTunes on a CD that it gives students to set up their computers to use their network, I suppose.
Toon toon! Black and white army!
I found a slightly worrying comment on Versiontracker about the new iTunes:
(the poster lists new functions and comments them, these two points are what worries me)
------
* preventing me from using another mp3 player (not aac) - Completely bogus
I bought songs for the first time from itms because I could use them on my ipod and my 'other brand' player easily. now it's back to cds. DMCA is rubbish
------
I have looked all over Apples site and many Mac related news sites without finding any mention of something that could explain the comments above.
Any ideas? Is this just a typical Versiontracker-luser making false statements?
Moreover, that minor hassle of having to rearrange playlists more often (if you make _that_ many burns) is well worth being able to play the songs on 2 more computers than before.
What ever happened to FLAC, Monkey Audio, and all the other lossless audio compression formats ? Why couldn't apple use one of those rather than reinvent the wheel yet again ?
They are acting more and more like Microsoft.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
.. what would be another improvement, along the "nested lists" format = playlist folders.
In iTunes itself, I could care less how many playlists clutter my space, but when I'm quickly trying to track down a playlist I use for driving, and it is one of 17 different playlists all relating to j-pop, it quickly gets difficult. I would love either nested lists, or folders, to chuck those lists into. That way, under "Car Tunes," I could shuffle between those lists, or simply pick "Genki Anime List" and be on my merry way with two punches, and not a lot of scrolling.
Smart playlists are great, but you do have to create a seperate one for each and every one of your needs, and that clutters the screen on the iPod.
-
If we do not do what we must do, then what we must do does not get done.
sig: I'm not at home, or busy. please leave new sig after the tone.
.ogg support? Anyone tried yet?
If you want Nightwish, just go and buy their discs. Nightwish deserves better than some crappy 128 kbit/s AACs are. And you don't need individual songs, because not a single song on their albums suck...
Those who do not know the band, go there to listen some samples (as 192 kbit MP3).
according to CNet, the 70 million songs in the first year included 5 million given away during the Pepsi 100 Million song give away, far feweer than the projected 1/3.
Caps may still be redeemed through April 30th.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
Not now, if I go into the ITMS and try to sign up for a new account my CC choices are visa, mc, amex, and discover, and if you try not to enter one you're put back to the same page.
Why does a book have chapters? Why does a play have acts? Why does a symphony have movements, for that matter?
For an interesting counter-example, one of Kyuss's albums has 4 tracks, with 3 tracks per song. Although a couple of them were later separated out on the 'best of' cd.
I thought you might have some intelligent reasons. You don't provide any facts.
He's a "Flaming Conservative." They never do.
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
Damn, looks like you're right. Well, hang in there, Apple'l let you foreigners in on the fun eventually. Otherwise, they wouldn't have left the Music Store in your version of iTunes. Just be patient and optimistic...
Thanks a million. Push Start to replay.
Winamp, xmms, and several others, not to mention a <2k perl script I came up with awhile ago for dealing with when X won't start (so no xmms, but I can play sound while I wait).
No, wait -- the script wasn't easy. No really, it wasn't! I swear to God it should have taken weeks (by Apple standards) to come up with a way to change the order of a playlist while playing it! But with my uber-sk1lls -- excuse me, "advanced skill set" -- I did it in a matter of minutes!
Now will Apple hire me?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I've had few gripes about using full-window on a 12". I think I'd rather have the uber-compactness that comes with a 12" than the ablility to see all the information at one time. You just have to be efficient and decide what not to display, versus what you feel you need.
Here's a screenshot of mine.
==========
support the arts!
www.smadness.com
Apple includes support for converting WMA into AAC or other codecs. This is huge, and Microsoft has to be really ticked off.
I don't know how you think "noncommercial" is at all ambiguous, at least for 95% of the cases.
You are allowed to use you music in your home movies, on your web site, on portable players and on your computers as long as the use is not related to business/commercial operations, and you are not producing income from the use of the music.
As for the sale of individual songs... it is inconvenient, but then if you want temporary music, iTMS isn't for you. Go use Rhapsody or buy CDs you can trade in or sell.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
How long were the album-exclusive tracks? U.S. copyright law caps the songwriter's mechanical royalties per song at about eight cents, but it raises the cap somewhat for longer recordings.
Let's say we have self-clocked digital streams. Let's say we're detecting digital level in the middle of the digital pulse, in order to minimize possible jitter effects. If jitter approaches 1/2 clock, then it can and will effect the output.
That's a channel bit error, not jitter per se. The checksum mechanisms designed into most digital channels, typically placed within the data link layer, can detect or even correct bit errors. By the time you have received a stream recognizable in the presentation layer as linear PCM audio, channel bit errors are either gone or obvious.
ABX testing can be used to confirm whether a user can tell the difference between a master recording and a recording reconstructed using a codec at a near-transparent setting. But when I'm encoding audio at low bitrates for use in streaming or handheld applications, I can often reliably ABX a difference between the master and the codec. What test should one use to determine which of two codecs, both of which are obviously not transparent, sounds closer to the master? Or should Hydrogenaudio members not discuss low bitrates?
I do, and it's fine. "The Wall" is mixed into my music playback along with everything else.
Sure it's good as something to listen to in order, but many of the songs are just fine alone as well.
Bitchslapped. Neat.
Anyone who's spent $10k at iTMS deserves to be able to download load them again.
Anyone who has spent $10,000 at iTunes Music Store can easily afford $100 for a CD burner and $100 for blank CDs to store 10,000 purchased tracks.
I didn't realize I was being forced to upgrade my software.
See my other comment.
Perhaps Josh Coalson, like many other free software developers, uses a platform that Apple has chosen not to develop for. "Downloading" Windows to a system running FreeBSD or GNU/Linux costs $150 plus the price of a hard drive.
"A free song from another bland RIAA-sponsored band?"
The Brobdingnagian Bards are about as indie as you can get, and they have over 25k downloads on iTMS. In fact, any independent artist selling through CD Baby has the option to have albums available on iTMS.
Sky Valley was released in the USA. It had three 3-song tracks (plus one bonus track with one song).
Picky, I know. I spent too much time yesterday trying to find the correct details so I could tag it properly.For everyone else, there was Welcome to Sky Valley, which has one song per track.
Keeping it on topic: I think plays, books and symphonies tend to have more structure than albums. It's rare that an album will introduce a musical 'idea' in one track, and then go on to develop the idea in later tracks.
That's in general. Specifically, something like the Dead Man soundtrack wouldn't make a lot of sense if it was shuffled..
No one seems to have mentioned that the new iTunes
includes a really neat tool which creates a nice jewel case
insert with a mosaic of album covers (assuming you have downloaded the album covers using e.g. Clutter, or iTMS).
The world is everything that is the case
Apple probably just added the trailers to iTMS because it was an easy addition to the feature list. It may however be an opening for movie distribution via iTMS (or iCinema or iWhatever)
Mr. Jobs has previosly denied that internet movie sales was something for Apple. But it should certainly be possible, there is certainly an emerging market, and if anyone could do it at this time, it would be Apple. They already have a customer base, payment solution, Quicktime and Jobs is well connected in the movie business.
Just speculating of course...
Scitne aliquis remedium potimum crapulae?
YES, I wish I could do this SOOO much! All my mp3's are stored on my boyfriends tower since he's got 200 some gigs to my 40, but he doesn't like them in his main library (he's big on the hit random and go idea), so he unchecks them. I can't add them to a playlist on MY machine, so I can't listen to my music. MOST annoying. I don't want to store it locally, I just wanna listen to it.
...if you haven't already...
... and works it's way to the other until they're both together at max volume (in MONO of course).
...Oh, and using any application to import [using Quicktime] the DRM'd garbage files ... doesn't work anymore. You end up with SILENCE. Yeah, AudioHiJack or burning/ripping still works, but more of a pain.
Sound Sticks: now playing in MONO, thank you Apple.
Volume control? It rather acts like a BALANCE control, though getting louder as expected. Starts raising volume on one channel (for me the right is first)
I've checked the Sound Sticks with another Mac that wasn't upgraded. They work just fine.
So now my music sounds like shit and I feel like I'm using a Microsoft product. Great.
I was hoping Apple would release a better network share option. I use my PC as an mp3 server for my mac, this works great with the itunes share, but i can't make playlists, rate songs, or see how many times a song has been played from the client mac. This option would be great. maybe the next version.
iTunes 4.5 (and thus ITMS) for Windows still isn't accessible for blind folks who rely on a screen reader like JAWS or WindowEyes. Those folks are stuck with Napster or Walmart. Let's hope 5.0 fixes this.
I paid the going retail price for a Windows screen reader and got a free Unix computer!
It might be annoying, and too much work, but you know that if you put your mouse over one of the zoomed-out windows, it will tell you what the title of the window is.
You do know that having to continuously mouse-over windows is very inefficient compared to knowing ahead of time which window to click, right? Having to hunt for which window you want is a productivity waster and adds to frustration in using the system.
People today just honestly don't appreciate good, unobtrusive user-interface design anymore.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Which is why I said that it might be too much work. See, right up there, where I wasn't being a jerk, but just providing information that I wasn't sure you had?
Having to hunt for a window IS a productivity waster, but it can be done. I'll agree that having multiple text files would be hard to distinguish in Expose, but since I switched from Windows 2 years ago, I am much more likely to Apple+Tab my way to something I want to work on.
I'm actually sort of miffed that they have that new translucent window that shows you what you're tabbing to. I liked it better when it was by the order of the programs in the Dock. That was at least consistent.
Which is why I said that it might be too much work.
Sorry. I thought that was sarcasm. My bad.
I'm just a curmudgeon about Apple. I can't really think of a UI change made since Mac OS X debuted that didn't increase inconsistency, and it constantly miffs me to hear people sing praise of how much better it is. I just triggered on something innocuous.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
the TV lied?
No, he is feeding a troll. Off topic is correct.
So, iTMS-Europe for November 2005, then?
(Sorry, but I've been messed around by release dates slipping in the UK Entertainment Industry for enough years to "Beleive it when I see it" - and even then wait for cock-ups)
(Tiggs:-1, Cynical)Tiggs
"120 chars should be enough for everyone..."
as long as the use is not related to business/commercial operations
So, would advertising and selling your "archive" of music to someone else be considered "commercial"? What if it was for a greater amount of money than you paid for it? There is no guarantee of a steady price at the iTMS store.
I have a number of CDs that I purchased that I bought on a whim or to investigate the music. And there are a few that I am simply tired of.
If you have any sizable music collection, even on itunes, this is bound to happen. With CDs, I can always sale them or give it away to friends. Some CDs actually appreciate in value due to their rarity.
But with itunes, the music you no longer want is like a ball and chain.
While these points may seem like a minor inconvenience for some itunes users, this feeling will not be universal.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
So, would advertising and selling your "archive" of music to someone else be considered "commercial"?... With CDs, I can always sale them or give it away to friends.
But with iTunes most people, I think, are not purchasing entire albums, they are purchasing individual tracks. If you tire of a single song you would not have the rest of the album to sell anyway. My suggestion is to become a music pack rat, store your "old" music on CD or DVD in case you want it again later. If you want to give your old tracks away to your friends, then go to their computer and authorize it to play tracks from your account, you only need to do it once unless something drastic happens to iTunes. You are allowed to authorize up to 5 computers at once.
My next question is what is the cost for you to sell a track, or even an album or group of tracks/albums to another party. I don't see anyone reclaiming anything more than about $.40 by selling used iTMS tracks after costs and depreciation. Remember, you have a hard upper limit of $.99 for your price.
If a few cents is worth the time and effort it would take to recoup it, then I suggest there are other ways that take just about the same time and effort that would yield higher gains: asking for money on the street, selling plasma once a month, skipping one cup of coffee a week, etc.
But with itunes, the music you no longer want is like a ball and chain.
That just doesn't make sense. Now wanting to listen to a track any more is not at all hindering your ability to listen to others, or purchase more tracks. Besides that, I've already shown that selling your track(s) are not likely to produce any profit, and indeed would loose you money.
Delete them and move on, or archive them for later use, or consider a music "leasing" or streaming service, you pay a flat fee and never have to worry about disposing of your library because it isn't yours to begin with.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
Copying a Radio URL from the Info dialog is also broken in the past few versions.
Note:
when I said "lossless compression" I meant "Lossless audio compression with respect to music."
What the hell are you talking about? Yellow Dog beats OS X on PDF rendering, on low-latency audio? I don't think so.
Why am I even biting? You can't even spell ITS.
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
Stereo as broadcast over FM is sum and difference, however a CD is interleaved left and right. I'm not making an assumption. I worked on an audio project a year ago. The measured correlation between the two channels for the audio tracks used on the project ranged from 85% to 95%, and this was before accounting for the time and phase delays. This, along with the fact that music rarely takes up the full dynamic range all of the time (pieces are composed of loud segments and quieter ones), would allow for much better lossless compression than is currently available. Unfortunately not much algorthmic research has been done in this area.