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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."
It is still looped through the sound card, so while quality may still be "excellent", there is still loss. I would rather use a program such as QTFairUse which doesn't lose any sound quality.
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.
So, it's just like using Audacity to record whatever goes through the sound card?
"I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
Considering its targeting stuff like ipod playback, this shouldn't be a problem.
Look at http://www.highcriteria.com/ Total recorder when I was more windows centric I used it and I was happy.
If it just pipes sound output from the mixer to MP3, what are the chances that Vista could block off access to mixer output except for low-level (driver) access, which is then blocked by PatchGuard?
"I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
I dare you to find anything at all funny about the word "AnalogWhole".
I hope you're right, I get the feeling heads would roll if the general public found out the digital music stuff they sold a kidney for was just converting it back to what they already had before they actually hear it.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Very high. Windows Millennium Edition and Windows XP operating systems already support the Secure Audio Path, which places the (WHQL logo approved) decrypter, (WHQL logo approved) decoder, and (WHQL logo approved) audio output driver in kernel space. Part of the WHQL logo requirement is that no driver may mix Secure Audio Path audio into any cleartext digital output, and no driver without a logo is a valid Secure Audio Path playback device. However, few if any WMA files that require the Secure Audio Path are in the wild yet. However, record labels will begin to change their requirements as WMA stores' customers replace their computers that came with Windows 98 or Windows 2000 with newer computers that come with Windows Vista.
For WMA files that use Secure Audio Path, you'll need a $5 audio cable and Audacity.
Not as terrible as buying low-bitrate music with DRM was in the first place.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
Right. So unless it's going through a DAC, it's the digital hole. Anyway, I thought everyone knew not to transcode files.
Ewige Blumenkraft.
Shouldn't be a problem. Heck, you could even say that it plays for sure.
Good name for a pr0n flick about open source audio codecs, yes?
Yes, I know what you're saying.. there aren't any porn flicks about open source software.
I aim to change that.
As soon as I get a video camera and work up the nerve to leave mom's basement. *peeks out window*
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!
What can be seen or heard can be copied, no matter how difficult you make it.
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.
...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.
Well seeing as we've been told it's using the 'analog hole' I think it's a fair assumption that that's how it works.
Seems the analogue in can capture the analogue out before it leaves the card, presumably bypassing whatever DRM enforcement happens in the lower level Windows Media layers:
"Windows Media Player does the tough job of converting the 1's and 0's particular to that codec the music was stored as into an analog output that is played through the sound card. While the song is playing, AnalogWhole re-routes this analog signal back into the recording input of the sound card. "
Most people who say this are used to mp3s being low quality. I too can easily tell the difference when quality is that low.
But for "LAME --preset insane" quality files, which tend to be about 2x the filesize, I've done my own blind tests on high end equipment: i.e.:
Winamp
->Audiophile24/96 sound card
-> Benchmark DAC1
-> Decware Zen Triode Integrated Amplifier
-> Gallo Nucleus Reference II speakers
Or replace the DAC and amp with a Denon AVC-A1SE amplifier (that's a ref. quality $5000 a/v amp)
I've also listened with Sony MDR D77 headphones, and Shure E3 studio monitor earphones with both of these amps.
In my own conclusion I couldn't tell the difference.
I coded the files back to WAV, a mix of high quality recordings of classical, rock, techno and Clapton, and invited a self-professed bunch of audiophiles to volunteer their opinion on which were the true WAVs and which had gone through the mp3 coding process. Nobody volunteered an opinion.
Since then I always code my music to mp3 using that setting. I've DJd using that quality of file with Virtual DJ with no pitch correction (important, this affects quality a lot) and had other DJs tell me they couldn't believe I was not using Vinyl.
I wish I still had the files I prepared, I would post them here for your enjoyment, but I don't doubt some slashdot genius would come back with the correct answers by examining the files digitally.
j'ai découvert une démonstration vraiment admirable (de ce théorème général) que cette si
Bullshit. Or, if you like it that way, you're right, but that's completely not applicable here. It's just that signal - still in digital form - is received by another app, that's all. Sort of like JACK works - manages exchange of many (digital) audio "streams" between applications. So it's something completely different than "physical" loopback, like plugging your card's line-out to its line-in. Some audio apps already work that way (mentioned JACK for Linux, for example), the only new thing here is automatisation of the whole process and using already available players in the system.
Apple has a lossless codec in addition to AAC. It's playable in itunes and the ipod.
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses