Someone's bound to point this out, might as well be me.
There has been significant development on "alternative codec" to both Real and Quicktime.
Google for "Real alternative" or "Quicktime alternative" to find the codecs. They can also be downloaded in a "bundle" of sorts from here : http://www.k-litecodecpack.com/
I've used the quicktime one with Media Player Classic and have been very happy with it.
I kind of despise Real player, and rarely find any good content that uses it, so I haven't actually wasted time downloading the replacement codec, but I'd be willing to bet it works fine.
No matter what they do to CDs, if you can play them at all (whether it is in a Car stereo, home stereo, computer, discman, whatever) you can always feed your line out to the line in on your computer.
Obviously this is a pain in the ass. But if you're set on not buying a CD nothing "they" can do can keep you from making copies.
As far as signal degradation goes, your line in can [theoretically] be of the same quality as your stereo's line out, which is as good as your going to hear it anyway. So while it's not a purely digital transfer (although it could be with a high end stereo/soundcard) you shouldn't really notice the difference.
If you're an Audiophile that can notice the difference, you're probably not going to be copying CDs/Making MP3s anyway.
I know, I know, you read all this and you're saying, but what about the time it takes.... Yeah you're right, but you gotta deal with that. Start it and walk away, or check your email, or read/. I'm sure you can find something to do for an hour.
My two cents
(Read this 999 more times and you can afford one CD)
Creative did a little advertising campaign where they went around from college to college, giving away free stuff (muvos, t-shirts, etc.) about a month ago. I had the oppurtunity to try one of these out and was pretty impressed. It does have a few flaws; lack of storage, no LCD (not a big deal), lack of EQ, no OGG support, but it also could be a really handy gadget to have, especially for college students. At my school, where we're required to have laptops, this means that you no longer need a disk drive, zip drive, whatever, to transfer small (or large) files from laptop to laptop/desktop. If I weren't the stereotypical poor college student, I would have grabbed this right away, even if only for the USB Key storage. The fact that it's an MP3 player too, and is about the size of my thumb, makes it even better.
If this Duex is everything the Muvo is and more, I don't see why this can't be an even better replacement, for MP3 players, disk drives, etc, for any college student, or anyone else for that matter.
Recently in my school newspaper, there was an article detailing how laws such as the DMCA and other copyright "protection" laws have been making our campus radio station doubt whether it can continue it's online broadcast. We were informed that we would need to buy new hardware and software to monitor what songs were being played and how often, as well as how frequentlty they were aired. They also said that due to certain legislation we would not be able to play whole albums on the air, or multiple songs by the same artist. All in all it was said that we would need to pay back fees (royalties? i'm not sure) somewhere to the tune of $4000, just to keep our internet broadcast up.
i don't know about you, but i think this is a bunch of crap and is limiting the expression of our student body as well as keeping us from using new technology. (being that we're a well known Tech/ Engineering school, you might expect us to do stuff like this.)
Theres an article documenting someones attempting at beating a PSOne game... ? That's kinda weird, anyway i like the name of the site so i won't complain.
Slashdot Mirror
Someone's bound to point this out, might as well be me.
There has been significant development on "alternative codec" to both Real and Quicktime. Google for "Real alternative" or "Quicktime alternative" to find the codecs. They can also be downloaded in a "bundle" of sorts from here : http://www.k-litecodecpack.com/
I've used the quicktime one with Media Player Classic and have been very happy with it.
I kind of despise Real player, and rarely find any good content that uses it, so I haven't actually wasted time downloading the replacement codec, but I'd be willing to bet it works fine.
If people want to copy CDs, they will.
/. I'm sure you can find something to do for an hour.
No matter what they do to CDs, if you can play them at all (whether it is in a Car stereo, home stereo, computer, discman, whatever) you can always feed your line out to the line in on your computer.
Obviously this is a pain in the ass. But if you're set on not buying a CD nothing "they" can do can keep you from making copies.
As far as signal degradation goes, your line in can [theoretically] be of the same quality as your stereo's line out, which is as good as your going to hear it anyway. So while it's not a purely digital transfer (although it could be with a high end stereo/soundcard) you shouldn't really notice the difference.
If you're an Audiophile that can notice the difference, you're probably not going to be copying CDs/Making MP3s anyway.
I know, I know, you read all this and you're saying, but what about the time it takes.... Yeah you're right, but you gotta deal with that. Start it and walk away, or check your email, or read
My two cents
(Read this 999 more times and you can afford one CD)
Creative did a little advertising campaign where they went around from college to college, giving away free stuff (muvos, t-shirts, etc.) about a month ago. I had the oppurtunity to try one of these out and was pretty impressed. It does have a few flaws; lack of storage, no LCD (not a big deal), lack of EQ, no OGG support, but it also could be a really handy gadget to have, especially for college students. At my school, where we're required to have laptops, this means that you no longer need a disk drive, zip drive, whatever, to transfer small (or large) files from laptop to laptop/desktop. If I weren't the stereotypical poor college student, I would have grabbed this right away, even if only for the USB Key storage. The fact that it's an MP3 player too, and is about the size of my thumb, makes it even better.
If this Duex is everything the Muvo is and more, I don't see why this can't be an even better replacement, for MP3 players, disk drives, etc, for any college student, or anyone else for that matter.
Just my two cents.
Recently in my school newspaper, there was an article detailing how laws such as the DMCA and other copyright "protection" laws have been making our campus radio station doubt whether it can continue it's online broadcast. We were informed that we would need to buy new hardware and software to monitor what songs were being played and how often, as well as how frequentlty they were aired. They also said that due to certain legislation we would not be able to play whole albums on the air, or multiple songs by the same artist. All in all it was said that we would need to pay back fees (royalties? i'm not sure) somewhere to the tune of $4000, just to keep our internet broadcast up.
i don't know about you, but i think this is a bunch of crap and is limiting the expression of our student body as well as keeping us from using new technology. (being that we're a well known Tech/ Engineering school, you might expect us to do stuff like this.)
oh well thats just my 2 cents.
Theres an article documenting someones attempting at beating a PSOne game... ? That's kinda weird, anyway i like the name of the site so i won't complain.