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SanDisk, Music Publishers Push DRM-free SlotMusic Format
Strudelkugel writes "The LA Times and others are reporting the music industry is working with SanDisk to try unrestricted music files on microSD memory cards to improve sales of physical media: 'In addition to music, the slotMusic cards will come pre-loaded with other things, such as liner notes, album-cover artwork and sometimes video.' The important part: 'The music on slotMusic comes without copyright protection, so it can be used on almost all computers, mobile phones and music players — but it won't play on an iPod, which doesn't have a micro-SD memory slot. It has one gigabyte of memory, and the music tracks are played back at high quality.' Could it be the labels have finally recognized that providing features and convenience to customers is preferable to suing them?" Most computers also don't have microSD slots; according to EMI's press release, there will be a "tiny USB sleeve" packaged with each card, and the "high quality" format means up to 320kbps MP3. From the given description, it seems like it would be no harder to transfer the tracks to an iPod (via a computer) than to most other players.
I don't want a memory stick containing lossy 320kbit songs, I can get that easily enough off the CD (they are still giving you a real CD, right?).
Why not include a 24-bit 192 or 96 khz lossless format, and maybe something in 5.1 instead? DVD-Audio and SACD didn't take off because no one adopted the players, but it might take off if you made it easily playable. I might even pay a slight premium.
Ok, let me get this straight. No copy protection so it will play on anything, but it won't play on iPods because they don't have a SD slot? WTF?! If there's no copy protection, then you put the songs on your computer and then sync them to the iPod. I love how these sorts of articles are written when the person writing them has never used a computer before.
McCain/Palin '08. Now THAT's hope and change!
they dont have drm on their CDs for a while now. i have easily ripped 3 EMI label big classic music compilations i bought, and im listening them on my pc since. no hassles.
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But the biggest problem, he said, may be that Apple's iTunes and other download services have made customers used to buying a song at a time, not an album, and making their own compilations.
The horror! Now we don't have to pay for the album fillers that comes with the one song that we want?
My cell phone has a microSD slot, so I might consider *wince* buying music that way. But it would need to be at a reasonable price (I'd have to think more about at what price I would pay for this) and it would have to have music I didn't already have or couldn't acquire easier from other sources. I don't have an iPod (yeah I know, I'm one of those people), so that's not a problem for me. But I'm not sure I want to have a collection of 1GB microSD cards laying around. I have a hard enough time keeping track where my keys are.
At least they're finally trying to make something we want rather than forcing us to buy buggy whips though.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
I don't know about the rest of you guys, but the idea of buying music without in some way being able to damage the environment has been KILLING me.
Way to get on that EMI. Thank god!
RandomAndInteresting.comdefending the world from stupidity since 1979
Somehow I am a little doubtful, given that the article does not state which format the songs will be distributed in.
From the article:
Music, Retail and Tech Leaders to Offer "slotMusic(TM)": High Quality, DRM-Free MP3 Music on microSD(TM) Cards
My guess is, this is yet another "plays on most devices" that the record labels always cooks up
And your guess is wrong. This is genuinely good news, they're finally realizing that certain people will pirate regardless how inconvenient they make it.
we all know it'll only catch on if the porn industry start distributing on microSD as well.
-- Sex is the antonym of pringles. Once you pop it's time to stop.
Great. More crap to throw out. Isn't one of the big selling features of digital distribution that it produces less crap to landfill?
the number of speakers, or surround do not determine the quality of music.
Actually, it has a potential to make things sound much more clear. Stereo, for example, was invented to create more space for sounds in a recording. If you have too many things going on at once on the same speaker, you'll get distortion and generally unpleasant sounds because too many waveforms are cramped together on the same output. That's why it helps to split recordings into different speakers, so you get a more clear sound. On this logic, I can definitely see how 5.1 might help to bring better sound quality.
You can put the music *directly* into a non-apple player which supports MicroSD (or any other one that accepts cards, via an adapter).
To put it on an iPod, you would need to involve a PC. Part of the point of packing the files on an SD card in the first place is to avoid the annoying PC requirement. If you have to use a PC every time, you almost may as well buy a CD.
I don't get it. What's the difference between slotMusic and a read-only microSD card with a bunch of MP3 files on it?
I'm not sure if I'm real.
would that explain why samsung tried to take sandisk over?
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/samsung-mulls-buying-sandisk/story.aspx?guid={E9E929E4-4C0C-401B-91D1-05B44D4EA8B2}&dist=msr_33
Tell that to the people mixing albums from the ground up for 5.1 listening.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Binary_Universe
No copyright protection? So they are only releasing music that is in the public domain!?
Or did the newspaper screw up, and mean to write "no copy protection"?
Kudos to EMI for doing something digital without DRM, but how is this better than what Amazon.com offers us now?
I can download DRM-free songs from Amazon for less than a buck, and albums at about $8. Windows Media Player downloads the album art, and a plug-in gets me lyrics. I can transfer the song to other devices, friends, or burn to CD. Amazon's library is HUGE.
And internet distribution doesn't impact the environment.
About the only advantage I see to this is the "up to 320k", whereas Amazon's are 160k I believe. But, I don't think I'd be able to tell the difference.
Physical distribution is dead. If they want to cater to impulse buyers at a retailer, install a kiosk with a variety of ports, card readers, BlueTooth, etc and let people download stuff instantly.
-David
...they have conceived of a method of using physical media to transport bits. And they'll still charge $15 for an album.
You know, watching these guys over the last decade has been like watching a retarded child learning to go poo in the toilet. They're six years old when they finally get it right, and then they look at you like they've just won the Olympics.
No disrespect to retarded children intended.
excuse me but are you clueless about music?
Insulting people (by stating or implying they are clueless) is generally not a good way to get positive moderation. Just thought you might want to have more karma to burn ;)
Also, the question you're addressing is not music (composition and performance), but recording, playback and auditory perception (production, HiFi, sound).
The number of speakers, or surround do not determine the quality of music.
True. Because music is composition and performance. In fact, the two are orthogonal; I've recently auditioned for a band and I quite liked their recorded songs even though the production on average was (gently put) not on par with commercial music.
The number of speakers does affect some dimension of the quality of what you're going to perceive. I've found that I even when I'm just listening to stereo, I want to have sound coming from behind me in addition to in front; whether it's the bigger, better speakers in the back (should be easy to test) or just the sound coming from all directions, it is subjectively more pleasant to listen to.
Also, if you do have real surround sound (even just 4.0), you can do nifty tricks like putting the drummer in the back, guitar and base subtly to either side and vocals in center/front. I'd think this makes each instrument more distinguishable while not destroying the integration into one auditory whole.
But I'm not audiophile, I just like having four speakers and sound coming from all directions.
No, but it adds to the experience.
I would love to have some 5.1 surround music.
Classical music would kick ass if you could hear where the violins were and so on.
Normal rock would also benefit to a degree.
but it won't play on an iPod, which doesn't have a micro-SD memory slot. It has one gigabyte of memory, and the music tracks are played back at high quality.
I don't know about you guys, but my ipod doesn't have a CD-ROM drive, either. Hasn't stopped me yet.
Am I missing something here? Is it supposed to be some kind of deterrent that I can't just shove the thing into my little white music thingy?
Tell that to the people mixing albums from the ground up for 5.1 listening.
What, to all five of them ?
That's too much work !
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
what an ignorant generalization.
concept of marginal returns also apply to quality of music. buy a crappy pair of speakers, buy a crappy cable, you get crap out of your set. buy good speakers and cable, and a good set, you get good quality. the point beyond where marginal returns start declining steeply in regard to quality-price, is the point for luxury - minimal returns, huge cash.
its the same with sports cars. a honda sports car is good and acceptably priced. and it can satisfy any enthusiast. a porche on the other hand, may give comparably less increase in performance and satisfaction, but much more expensive. still there are those who buy porches.
simple as that.
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Ms. Quinn, the author of the Los Angeles Times article, is not a very good technology writer. She not only quotes that it won't work with iPods (which is terribly misleading; the microSD card won't, but the contained DRM-free MP3s will be very easy to work with), but she also refers to this as a "new music format".
Medium, yes; format, no. Distributing on the microSD cards is new, but seems like something people may latch onto quickly. MP3 is old and a de facto universal format, which is what makes this even better.
"Give a man fire, and he'll be warm for a day; set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life
It's important for the music industry to keep people thinking, even unconsciously, that these bits and bytes need to be attached to physical media. When the nebulous nature of intellectual property is emphasised then it's more difficult to associate conventional property rights to them.
Am I thinking about the same micro-SD as everyone else? Smaller than my little finger nail?
It's small enough to get lost in your pocket, sucked up by a vacuum cleaner or whatever. They're also fiddly to handle: can you imagine picking through your album collection with a pair of tweezers, squinting at the 3mm x 5mm labels to find the one you're after?
It seems a bizzarre choice for a portable music medium. If they're not intended for carrying around but supposed to be used only once, to get the music onto your player/computer, why not just sell the download?
the number of speakers are irrelevant to quality of music. let me briefly explain :
you need different ranges assigned to different speakers that can give out that frequencies. but, there has to be more of the same speakers assigned to a particular frequency range - lets say, you got a certain size of tweeter. if there are 4 of this, and you divide a small incremental range of high frequency sound to four of these in small increments, you'll have, say, seperated two sopranos' (each soprano will have differences in their frequencies, even if minute and hardly identifiable by human ear) voices to two tweeters of the SAME kind, but while playing these two sopranos' voices, each of their voices will come from the different tweeters. this will increase the distinctiveness of each sound. here, the quality of the tweeters matter VERY much.
just like tweeters, if you have many mid range speakers to assign incremental frequencies, the clarity of sound will increase.
people generally err in that if there are 5.1 speakers, or 7.1, you can do more of that, because there are more speakers - that is not the case. in almost all 4.1 and more speaker systems, the satellite speakers generally come with the same size, therefore being able to effect efficient and clear playback of a certain frequency range. whereas it is good for positioning through different channels through software, it is bad for music quality and sound clarity - because you will have to play a broader frequency range from that speakers.
also, positioning does not matter much when playing music - think - how many times were you able to sit in the middle of a symphony orchestra, or a rock band in concert, and listen to music ?
not only you cant, but also it doesnt make any sense - human ears are directional - you wont be able to hear the sounds coming from the back as distinctively and clearly as the ones coming from an angle from the front.
that is why all music concerts, gigs, playback and whatnot are done in front of the audience.
a stereo setup correctly reproduces that positioning. ie - your hearing field is like a letter 'V' while listening to a concert, your head, field of hearing starting from the bottom end of the V, and the arrayed speakers of the concert setup being placed in upper tips of the V.
in concerts array speakers are used. if you paid attention, there are a lot of speakers positioned in the same place to the right, and left of the stage, on top of each other. this creates a sound stage that encompasses you.
this concept was a niche concept in which only audiophiles knew and were able to use. because mainstream stereo producers were just skipping by it. we didnt have any chance of listening to such stuff on a pc speaker set at all. however altec lansing made a good entry with such a product a while ago, and it changed the way all the speaker system producers designed the speaker sets. see altec lansing fx 6021 here : http://www.alteclansing.com/index.php?file=north_product_detail&iproduct_id=fx6021 notice the 'in concert' technology, and notice how similar speakers are arrayed on top of each other. Read people's thoughts on this thing here : http://www.amazon.com/Altec-Lansing-FX6021-Speaker-System/dp/B0001EMLXE
this thing, is supposedly a pc speaker set. it should be nothing significant. but, when i bought this, it totally ousted my full deck pioneer stereo with $700 speakers each. i stopped listening to anything else.
one of my friends took this choice lightly, and went for a X.1 system from a known manufacturer, but after a while he decided to get the 6021, but he wasnt able to get one because it was out of stock. he is still looking for one since then, and its on the top of his list. he spends $350 on motherboards alone, when doing an upgrade.
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Record companies are distribution and advertising companies. They know people think the current price is too high for a CD. They're just looking for a new way to justify the price by finding a newer shinier format. They're hoping that Joe Consumer will see this electronic item and attribute a higher value to it than a plastic disc.
In Soviet Russia meme tires of you!
I've always wondered about this. Why do people say a single speaker will have distortion when it plays too many sounds at once, but my ear, a single microphone, doesn't have that sort of trouble when the sounds are all crammed together into a single input.
In Soviet Russia meme tires of you!
Stereo, for example, was invented to create more space for sounds in a recording.
No, it wasn't. Stereo is used to recreate the spatial component of music: when you record a number of instruments sitting at different positions in the studio, you should be able to hear where those instruments are. That has nothing to do with 'too many waveforms ...cramped together on the same output'.
In fact, in a stereo recording, most of the information will be played back by both speakers.
It is possible to make a recording where the left and right channels have nothing in common, but you'll find that those sound very unnatural, so these recordings are (thankfully) rare. It's like having half the musicians on the far left of the stage, and the other half on the far right, with nobody in the center.
Smaller size ? smaller than CD means no packaging, no physical album art, easier to lose...
Doesn't sound like an advantage (consumer side)
Most of us still buy physical medias (aka CDs et al) precisely because you get those things.
This might be the surest way to have even die-hards go all digital download.
This physical media dead horse really is starting to stink.
--- Back to the trees, back to the trees !
But I'm not audiophile, ...
They all say that until someone finds children's music on their computer!
In addition to music, the slotMusic cards will come pre-loaded with other things, such as liner notes, album-cover artwork and sometimes video
And advertisements, rootkits, DRM schemes, spyware ...
Why is it every keydisk manufacturer thinks I want their crappy software to run every time I put a disk in the USB slot ? Sick of this nonsense, meaning your 2GB memory is actually only 1.8GB plus some non removable crap, and not one but 2 drive letters to deal with :-(
It's the INPUTs! Having mixed a concert or two in my day, I can attest that there is a very big difference between the controls I have available at a mixing console and what I can do with previously-recorded music.
Consider a concert setup: EACH channel is the input from a single microphone on stage. There is no need to separate one singer's vocals from another; they are already separate! See: mixing console. Want the lead vocalist to be a little louder? No problem! Just boost the volume for THAT input. S/he is standing left of center? Adjust the pan and send more of the mix to the left output than to the right.
That kind of MIX is what gets put together and recorded to a CD. And once it is put together, it's much harder to get everything separated back again. That's why the mixer has all those separate inputs to begin with.
As to why there is an array of speakers, that's another matter. We had two active crossovers that split out low, mid, and highs that came out of the mixing console. One for the left and one for the right. From the active crossover, the bass went to its own amplifier which, in turn, fed the bass bins. The mids went to their own amp which fed the horns. Lastly, the highs went to its own amp which fed the tweeters. IIRC, we used a 300W amp for bass; 200W for horns, and 80W for the tweeters. On each side.
That kind of setup allowed us to use the speakers best able to reproduce certain parts of the audio spectrum and feed them the amount of power they needed. If we suddenly had available a larger venue, we could have taken the same mix as input, replaced the amps with more powerful ones, and added additional speakers.
Because the audiophile world is even more based on pseudoscience than is the alternative medicine world.