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AnalogWhole, an Alternative To FairUse4WM
Squidmarks writes, "AnalogWhole is a free application that allows any file that can be played in Windows Media Player to be transferred to iTunes as an MP3. It uses, you guessed it, the 'analog hole' to re-record any DRM'ed song as an MP3. Because the analog signal doesn't actually leave the computer, but is simply looped back in the sound card, sound quality of the re-recording is excellent. All meta data is transferred as well. The MP3 file is automagically added to iTunes. Just show it where you store your DRM music and walk away."
Users have always been able to do this manually, if they had a decent recording program. Why the hoopla over a fancy software tool designed to do this one thing specifically? Does it save a few seconds? Further, this is really beside the point. DRM often still prevents users from making faithful digital copies of their own -- purchased, paid for, and legal -- media. This is a non-issue.
The wma is decoded to produce the sound signal that is played through your speakers. This program just recaptures the signal and encodes it as an MP3. It is no different than reencoding a file from one format to another, but you cannot reencode easily on DRM'd files.
DRM'd music and .wma have mediocre sound quality to begin with
.WMA file (or even one of the "lossless" compression ones.) and the same song playing from CD. The Klipshe setup i have was also one of the "Kick Ass" rated setups from Maximum PC before they changed the styling and unfortunatly lost some sound quality in ~2002. .wav 128K 296K and the 392K compression schemes (well it was on MP3 format but still the same goes) and most of the people got them wrong.
:-(
Can you please justify this? I have a Klipshe ProMedia 5.1 surrounds system with an SB Audigy Gamer Edition (yes ancient sound card but it sounds beautiful to me) and I can not tell the difference between a high bit rate
Now don't get me wrong, maybe you DO hear a difference, but I don't and I have been a "audiophile" for many years, i can't listem to music unless it is on a HI-FI stereo in my car, same for my home theater system.
I even remember a Maximum PC article ( lete 2005-ish) where they took a bunch of people and played music THEY brought in and had them try to tellthe difference between
I apologize if i rambled a bit i am posting from a hospital. They have free WIFI....woot! Now if only the painkillers were free
To err is human; effective mayhem requires the root password!
Yes, but if you have those DRM'ed files, it means you have bought them. Your dollars told the record company that you accept DRM, even if you find a workaround later. Of course, it is a good thing that this workaround exists; but, as a principle, one should not have bought that junk in the first place!
Circumcision is child abuse.
I know a number of audiophiles who detest MP3s. I've tricked them into saying that the actual CD was an MP3 and the MP3 I ripped from that CD was the real CD. They couldn't actually tell a difference and were taking guesses.
If you use LAME, set your Q to 9. A 320kbps MP3 with Q=1 and 320kbps mp3 with Q=9 are WILDLY different, while both the same bitrate and same size. Whatever garbage MP3 files you have, re-encoding them as 320kbps/Q9 files isn't going to make them sound any worse to 99.9% of humans. Of course it takes more time to encode them this way.
Another point, not for you, but for some of your parent posts - think about a soundcard with a digital out. That means, the bits get decoded and sent to the amp - if the amp (or whatever you plug the digital line into) can capture the bits, you've got a perfect/lossless rip - no DAC was involved. Volume controls and DSP's may change the bits somehow, and it will take playing-with to get it right... but it will produce satisfactory results once you do.
I would test this for people, but I own (and will always own) absolutely ZERO DRM content.
I own a Creative SoundBlaster Audigy... I know even a cheap SBLive! can do this... I would try the following to get a pure digital copy, in this order:
1. Play a DRM'd file, set the recording channel to "What U Hear", and record. If that doesn't work...
2. Get a LiveDrive (plugs into SB Live's & Audigy's) cheap on eBay, and an optical cable... then plug optical out into optical in and try to record the optical in. If that doesn't work...
3. Get two computers, one with a digital out and one with a digital in. Try it that way. If that doesn't work...
4. Uninstall iTunes or whichever thing is giving you this unplayable worthless crap to begin with, and tell their distributor to go to hell. Then take your stereo equipment and hurl it at Sony-Poo's nuts, and sing to yourself until a better solution comes along.
I can actually guarantee positive results with that last one.
...build your own USB "converter". Companies like Texas Instruments have lots of devices like PCM2704, that allow access to an unprotected sound bitstream. It's pretty simple to build a fake digital speaker that just redirects the data to a fake digital line in. Some microcontrolled usb sound devices contain both input and output devices on the same IC, so you can software redirect the output (coming from the computer) to the input (going back to it).
So you don't even need an "Analog hole". You can use a digital hole and don't lose any quality at all. And this kind of device is perfectly accepted by any "content protection" driver schemes.
It's impossible to protect sound files.