So let me get this straight, a web site with no code or corporate involvement was hoping to create a standard for audio? What was this technology going to do differently than OGG? Don't we have enough lossy audio formats out there?
Standards either evolve over time (mp3), are created by groups of large media companies (DVD, CD), and there are even a few technologies that accidently become a standard over time (Linux). Heck I think OGG and FLAC are just starting to show some of their promise in the form of device support. I'm busy rencoding my CD collection.
People tend to forget that MP3 has been around since the EARLY 90's, it takes a long time for any technology to become a REAL standard.
For me besides the low bitrates (yes i know AAC is better than mp3), is the fact that I cannot easily play music on my audiotron. All of these DRM based music services restrict the users ability to format shift under the supposed intent of preventing piracy. Apparently, these music execs have forgotten that with P2P, you only need one seed to propogate quickly across the network.
So as a person who is a heavy music buyer, audio freak, and computer lover, you think I and others would be gun ho about these music services. Nope, I'm continuing to buy CDs. I recently decided to build my own stereo appliance, since there doesn't seem to be any affordable home players out there that support OGG and FLAC. At least there is now a portable that does.
Its called a thinkpad, IBM has been making rock solid laptops for years. The orginal toughbook series is a great concept, but this particular model is just a branding exercise. Seriously though, the X31 has a 1.4 centrino processor, 5400 rpm drive, 1 gig of memory, wifi, and ports galore in a 3.5 pound footprint.
Higher Bitrate downloads (there is no reason why apple can't offer higher price, higher quality downloads) Not to be an audio snob but when I buy music in 2003 i expect it to be the same quality of the CD music I bought in the 80's.
Format Shifting (I want the ability to shift to mp3 for support with my audiotron and the 1000 other mp3 ONLY devices)
OGG and FLAC support (For iTunes and the iPod)
Better burner support (lots of "unsupported burners out there)
I understand that these companies want to prevent casual piracy but any of these activation schemes never deter piracy. The only people who end up dealing with activation problems are legitimate licensed users. What happens is legitimate users end up having to download cracked versions for convience. Look at windows XP, most people I know that use windows XP actually own legitimate copies but choose to download OEM XP ISO's so they don't have to deal with WPA.
As one of the developers of LionShare and a/. addict, I feel obligated to shed a little light on this story, unfortunatly I don't have time at the momement. I managed to post a quick journal entry to dispel some of the myths. In a few weeks, when we have detailed information on the web, I will see if the/. editors would be kind enough to post an accurate followup submission.
BOINC keeps track of your computer's work in terms of actual computation, not workunits. This is necessary because BOINC projects may have workunits of many different "sizes". Because of this change, all SETI@home/BOINC accounts will start with zero credit.
So after 4 years of building my seti@home stats I will be starting from scratch! I guess now is the time to upgrade my equipment so I can get a jump on the competition:)
Why must these PC music services insist on using WMA? WMA is not even compatible with the most popular portable player, the ipod. Not that AAC with DRM is much better, but at least the audio container is a standard format.
On a similar note why design a site that is platform specific? There is simply no reason why a music delivery website (thats what all these services are anyway) needs to be designed for a particular platform. I guess the current excuse is media player integration or DRM format capabilities.
That just leads to the question why use DRM? I realize licensing negotiation in the main reason why, but people who request DRM don't understand the nature of propagation on P2P networks. Once a file is seeded from one source, that is it! The cat is out of the bag. DRM is simply ineffective at prohibiting sharing of files on P2P networks and as seen from the many copy protected CD's, its like putting a big flashing sign on the packaging saying "Crack Me, Trade Me, Please!"
The problem with Sun, SGI, and the hundreds of thousands of established companies that go down the tubes every year is complacency. Most established and profitable companies have a real tough time changing their business models. This is even more true in small business, just look at Mom and pop retailers when large retail outfits move in. Instead of differentiating themselves, innovating, and finding other business strategies, most small retailers just stick to their existing sales/strategies, eventually going out of business
Sun seems to be displaying the same behavior as a small retail shop being outed by a new supercenter. Instead of trying to innovate, Sun is holding on to its existing business model for dear
life. The only difference in this scenario, is that the supercenter is Linux on commodity hardware.
If you read the intial post, the payment model would be the same as it is now, by a percentage of sales. One company would provide web and marketing services in turn for a reasonable percentange. The profits would be much higher for both parties involved (musicians & the "new" recording company) since middlemen, retailers, and high distribution costs are avoided.
The distribution would be a replacement for CD's in retail stores, not for radio play. The radio end of things would be handled by a marketing consultant. The point of the consultant is to promote awareness of the album through traditional means, you misunderstood my intial post, I was not looking to replace radio.
The fact that recording costs are going way down is just another nail in the RIAA's coffin. In the golden days a band would sign with a record company that would give them money/assistence with:
Recording and Production
Packaging
Distribution
Promotion and Radio airtime
The band would get this by signing a multiple record deal that would be heavily in favor on the record company, the band would only make good money if they were able to sustain their popularity past their intial record deal.
What musicians need to do is break away from the tradional recording industry model:
Recording: In-house or through a cheap studio
Distribution: Website
Promotion: Consultant
It would be interesting to see the development of recording industry model where the record company is basically just a web and marketing consultant for bands in exchange for a FAIR comission.
As mentioned before on/., the Rio Karma is another hard drive based player with MP3, WMA, OGG, and FLAC support. I like the Karma because its smaller than the ipod, doesn't look like an ipod clone, and it has an ethernet port too. The karma will come in 20 and 40GB versions.
Apple sells to its current customers because they can make a steady income that way. Repeat customers are good for business, new customers typically aren't because the cost of aquiring them is usually more than you make off them.
If IBM and GE followed your business logic, both companies would probably be out of business today. In the 1990's IBM decided to focus of the services business while in the 1980's GE added financial services, among a 1000 other markets. The fundamental problem with Apple's concentration in hardware sales is that the company has missed numerous opportunties to expand their business with their many non-computer hardware innovations.
A 128kbps AAC is phsycoacoustically identical to the music coming off a CD.
Any studies to back that up that lofty claim? Thought so.. Hearing is just eyesight, not all ears are the same.
A majority of music customers are not audiophiles and do not have $2,000+ audio systems.
This point was already covered in my previous reply, I suggest you read back a little.
So far the only thing you have managed to showcase is a reliance on emotional personal attacks, instead of trying to provide reasonable counterpoints to my initial post. Here is a list in case you suffer from amnesia:
How come people are Apple fan boy cheerleaders when you make retarded arguments?
Save your "golden ears" bullshit for someone else.
Your response reads like you're concentrating really hard on sticking a bowling pin up your ass and not paying any attention to anything else you're doing
You should wear a t-shirt that says "I do not understand economics".
You should wear a t-shirt that says "I do not understand economics". Customer acquisition is expensive and time consuming
Well assuming conservatively, that they have spent $75 million on development and marketing, they are going to have tough time getting out of the hole on this one.
The iTMS is just such a business idea. It is designed to get people who already have a Mac to buy an iPod as well.
This is probably the biggest flaw with any Apple strategy, every innovative software, service, and consumer item Apple sells is designed to move their computers. Instead of trying to make the most money possible with OSX, Ipods (windows ipod was released much later), iSight, etc, Apple tries to use these innovations to push their hardware. News Flash: Switching computing platforms is a pain in the ass. An extremely small percentage of consumers will switch computing platforms for a music service, ipod, etc. A very small percentage of users will buy ipod to use the itms.
The iTMS is just such an excuse. Being able to pick up full high quality albums for $10 is a bargain
128 kpbs DRMed AAC files are not even close to being considered high quality. When I buy music in 2003 I expect it to be of the same quality of the CD's I purchased in 1988. 128kpbs AAC is good enough to play on a computer or on an ipod with earbuds, but is nowhere near the quality of a uncompressed 44.1 CD. Why pay $10 an album for low quality, when I can buy used CD's for $8 on amazon.com and rip them to FLAC. Yes yes, for most consumers 128kpbs aac is fine, but for music collectors, audiophiles, ie the people who buy large amounts of music, the quality of itms is simply unacceptable.
Lets face it, pay music services have been around for years and so have hard drive based mp3 portables. Apple was just the first to release a decent music service and an excellent small mp3 portable.
Apple should have realized that to make any money of their music service, they needed to have a solid pc version of their service soon after the release of the mac service. How many songs have they sold so far, 10 Million was the figure at the beginning on the month. At first that figure sounds impressive but just considering royalties Apple may be left with around $3 million. I don't know how much their music service cost to develop but considering the television advertising barrage, that $3 million probably doesn't even cover the cost of the television ads for opening week.
Well considering Mac Zelots refer to every non-apple computer as "pcees" I think the Mac community bears some responsibility for the misuse of the term.
the benchmark I want to see
on
Athlon 64 Debuts
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Tom, if your listening this is want we want to see:
A benchmark of Linux on the following systems:
2 GHZ Dual G5
2 GHZ Dual Opteron
Athlon 64 FX
Pentium 4 3.2 Spicy Edition
GCC Settings for each system should be optimized for the best possible stable performance. I'm so sick of seeing 32 bit windows benchmarks for testing 64bit processors.
Slightly off topic, but why is it that a company can pass the charges on to the end user whenever they have to pay a fee/fine?
Some people don't seem to understand that any time a goverment tax/fee/regulation is created for a given industry or company, the cost is passed on to the consumer.
Re:slow iBook boot indicates something wrong
on
Booting Linux Faster
·
· Score: 1
Thanks for the tip, that appears to be the issue.
Re:Parallel startup implemented in Mac OS X
on
Booting Linux Faster
·
· Score: 1
I am so sick of people using the term P2P as a replacement for file sharing. Yes, file sharing is one use of P2P, but there are plenty of other examples:
Slashdot Mirror
Standards either evolve over time (mp3), are created by groups of large media companies (DVD, CD), and there are even a few technologies that accidently become a standard over time (Linux). Heck I think OGG and FLAC are just starting to show some of their promise in the form of device support. I'm busy rencoding my CD collection.
People tend to forget that MP3 has been around since the EARLY 90's, it takes a long time for any technology to become a REAL standard.
So as a person who is a heavy music buyer, audio freak, and computer lover, you think I and others would be gun ho about these music services. Nope, I'm continuing to buy CDs. I recently decided to build my own stereo appliance, since there doesn't seem to be any affordable home players out there that support OGG and FLAC. At least there is now a portable that does.
Its called a thinkpad, IBM has been making rock solid laptops for years. The orginal toughbook series is a great concept, but this particular model is just a branding exercise. Seriously though, the X31 has a 1.4 centrino processor, 5400 rpm drive, 1 gig of memory, wifi, and ports galore in a 3.5 pound footprint.
I understand that these companies want to prevent casual piracy but any of these activation schemes never deter piracy. The only people who end up dealing with activation problems are legitimate licensed users. What happens is legitimate users end up having to download cracked versions for convience. Look at windows XP, most people I know that use windows XP actually own legitimate copies but choose to download OEM XP ISO's so they don't have to deal with WPA.
As one of the developers of LionShare and a /. addict, I feel obligated to shed a little light on this story, unfortunatly I don't have time at the momement. I managed to post a quick journal entry to dispel some of the myths. In a few weeks, when we have detailed information on the web, I will see if the /. editors would be kind enough to post an accurate followup submission.
What will happen to my workunit totals?
BOINC keeps track of your computer's work in terms of actual computation, not workunits. This is necessary because BOINC projects may have workunits of many different "sizes". Because of this change, all SETI@home/BOINC accounts will start with zero credit.
So after 4 years of building my seti@home stats I will be starting from scratch! I guess now is the time to upgrade my equipment so I can get a jump on the competition :)
On a similar note why design a site that is platform specific? There is simply no reason why a music delivery website (thats what all these services are anyway) needs to be designed for a particular platform. I guess the current excuse is media player integration or DRM format capabilities.
That just leads to the question why use DRM? I realize licensing negotiation in the main reason why, but people who request DRM don't understand the nature of propagation on P2P networks. Once a file is seeded from one source, that is it! The cat is out of the bag. DRM is simply ineffective at prohibiting sharing of files on P2P networks and as seen from the many copy protected CD's, its like putting a big flashing sign on the packaging saying "Crack Me, Trade Me, Please!"
Sun seems to be displaying the same behavior as a small retail shop being outed by a new supercenter. Instead of trying to innovate, Sun is holding on to its existing business model for dear life. The only difference in this scenario, is that the supercenter is Linux on commodity hardware.
If you read the intial post, the payment model would be the same as it is now, by a percentage of sales. One company would provide web and marketing services in turn for a reasonable percentange. The profits would be much higher for both parties involved (musicians & the "new" recording company) since middlemen, retailers, and high distribution costs are avoided.
The distribution would be a replacement for CD's in retail stores, not for radio play. The radio end of things would be handled by a marketing consultant. The point of the consultant is to promote awareness of the album through traditional means, you misunderstood my intial post, I was not looking to replace radio.
The SCO group filed a lawsuit today alleging that the leaked Half-Life 2 source violated System V IP.
The band would get this by signing a multiple record deal that would be heavily in favor on the record company, the band would only make good money if they were able to sustain their popularity past their intial record deal.
What musicians need to do is break away from the tradional recording industry model:
- Recording: In-house or through a cheap studio
- Distribution: Website
- Promotion: Consultant
It would be interesting to see the development of recording industry model where the record company is basically just a web and marketing consultant for bands in exchange for a FAIR comission.As mentioned before on /., the Rio Karma is another hard drive based player with MP3, WMA, OGG, and FLAC support. I like the Karma because its smaller than the ipod, doesn't look like an ipod clone, and it has an ethernet port too. The karma will come in 20 and 40GB versions.
If IBM and GE followed your business logic, both companies would probably be out of business today. In the 1990's IBM decided to focus of the services business while in the 1980's GE added financial services, among a 1000 other markets. The fundamental problem with Apple's concentration in hardware sales is that the company has missed numerous opportunties to expand their business with their many non-computer hardware innovations.
A 128kbps AAC is phsycoacoustically identical to the music coming off a CD.
Any studies to back that up that lofty claim? Thought so.. Hearing is just eyesight, not all ears are the same.
A majority of music customers are not audiophiles and do not have $2,000+ audio systems.
This point was already covered in my previous reply, I suggest you read back a little.
So far the only thing you have managed to showcase is a reliance on emotional personal attacks, instead of trying to provide reasonable counterpoints to my initial post. Here is a list in case you suffer from amnesia:
First Class form on your part, congrats.
Well assuming conservatively, that they have spent $75 million on development and marketing, they are going to have tough time getting out of the hole on this one.
The iTMS is just such a business idea. It is designed to get people who already have a Mac to buy an iPod as well.
This is probably the biggest flaw with any Apple strategy, every innovative software, service, and consumer item Apple sells is designed to move their computers. Instead of trying to make the most money possible with OSX, Ipods (windows ipod was released much later), iSight, etc, Apple tries to use these innovations to push their hardware. News Flash: Switching computing platforms is a pain in the ass. An extremely small percentage of consumers will switch computing platforms for a music service, ipod, etc. A very small percentage of users will buy ipod to use the itms.
The iTMS is just such an excuse. Being able to pick up full high quality albums for $10 is a bargain
128 kpbs DRMed AAC files are not even close to being considered high quality. When I buy music in 2003 I expect it to be of the same quality of the CD's I purchased in 1988. 128kpbs AAC is good enough to play on a computer or on an ipod with earbuds, but is nowhere near the quality of a uncompressed 44.1 CD. Why pay $10 an album for low quality, when I can buy used CD's for $8 on amazon .com and rip them to FLAC. Yes yes, for most consumers 128kpbs aac is fine, but for music collectors, audiophiles, ie the people who buy large amounts of music, the quality of itms is simply unacceptable.
Take your Apple Fanboy Cheerleading elsewhere.
Apple should have realized that to make any money of their music service, they needed to have a solid pc version of their service soon after the release of the mac service. How many songs have they sold so far, 10 Million was the figure at the beginning on the month. At first that figure sounds impressive but just considering royalties Apple may be left with around $3 million. I don't know how much their music service cost to develop but considering the television advertising barrage, that $3 million probably doesn't even cover the cost of the television ads for opening week.
Good point, I missed those..
Well considering Mac Zelots refer to every non-apple computer as "pcees" I think the Mac community bears some responsibility for the misuse of the term.
A benchmark of Linux on the following systems:
GCC Settings for each system should be optimized for the best possible stable performance. I'm so sick of seeing 32 bit windows benchmarks for testing 64bit processors.
Some people don't seem to understand that any time a goverment tax/fee/regulation is created for a given industry or company, the cost is passed on to the consumer.
Thanks for the tip, that appears to be the issue.
And my iBook still takes 5 mins to boot.
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