To be precise, the music is encoded in 160 Kbps VBR, peak constrained to 256 Kbps with a 1.5 s buffer. This means that the complicated parts of the music get as much as 256 kbps of bandwidth, but the average is 160 kbps and you can't "steal" bits from further away than 1.5s in the stream.
This was found after testing to be the best possible encoding specs that would still play back on all popular portable devices. (DRMed audio cannot be transcripted on transfer so eg 256 kbps CBR causes skipping on some earlier devices.)
Adding a free sample song so people could check out the audio quality (and try out the whole DRM thing) would be a good idea.
There are plenty of valid criticisms of the service, but some of these are off the mark:
MS has announced that they've licensed 1M songs and they'll be up by mid October. Apple didn't have anywhere near 500K songs when it opened. In 6 weeks, their catalog sizes will be the same.
Ads on the search page are contextual Overture ads, not dissimilar from Google. Search for Madonna and you're offered concert tickets and memorabilia. It's not intrusive at all. http://beta.music.msn.com/search/all/?ss=madonna
The thousands of songs that are more than $1 are either not available or available only as an album on iTunes. For example check out Animals by Pink Floyd http://beta.music.msn.com/album/?album=10017465 - you can only buy this as an album on iTunes. On MSN, you at least have the option of buying the 17 minute song "Dogs" for $2.97. If you'd prefer you can buy the whole album. Who doesn't like more choice?
The "can't synchronize with other services" problem is a new one I haven't heard of - we'll check it out.
The rest of the criticisms he mentions (No gift certificates, no audio books, some bugs) are totally valid and are being worked on.
These are actually the default setting, even in Windows XP SP2 which is rather strict security wise. ("Active Scripting" is Microsoft-ese for "turn on javascript")
You should definitely be cautious about installing binary code on your machine, but whether it's an ActiveX control or the iTunes installer, you're making a trust decision based on (among other things) the signature attached to the file and the reputation of the distributor.
MS could certainly use some rehabilitation on the latter front, but don't forget that it's iTunes that installs two seperate system services and grabs all your file extensions every time you start it - there isn't even a way to turn this off.
The MSN Music ActiveX control exits once the downloads are finished and you close the UI window.
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This (embarassing oversight) has been fixed. It wasn't not written, it just wasn't linked properly.
This was found after testing to be the best possible encoding specs that would still play back on all popular portable devices. (DRMed audio cannot be transcripted on transfer so eg 256 kbps CBR causes skipping on some earlier devices.)
Adding a free sample song so people could check out the audio quality (and try out the whole DRM thing) would be a good idea.
There are plenty of valid criticisms of the service, but some of these are off the mark:
- MS has announced that they've licensed 1M songs and they'll be up by mid October. Apple didn't have anywhere near 500K songs when it opened. In 6 weeks, their catalog sizes will be the same.
- Ads on the search page are contextual Overture ads, not dissimilar from Google. Search for Madonna and you're offered concert tickets and memorabilia. It's not intrusive at all. http://beta.music.msn.com/search/all/?ss=madonna
- The thousands of songs that are more than $1 are either not available or available only as an album on iTunes. For example check out Animals by Pink Floyd http://beta.music.msn.com/album/?album=10017465 - you can only buy this as an album on iTunes. On MSN, you at least have the option of buying the 17 minute song "Dogs" for $2.97. If you'd prefer you can buy the whole album. Who doesn't like more choice?
- The "can't synchronize with other services" problem is a new one I haven't heard of - we'll check it out.
The rest of the criticisms he mentions (No gift certificates, no audio books, some bugs) are totally valid and are being worked on.These are actually the default setting, even in Windows XP SP2 which is rather strict security wise. ("Active Scripting" is Microsoft-ese for "turn on javascript")
You should definitely be cautious about installing binary code on your machine, but whether it's an ActiveX control or the iTunes installer, you're making a trust decision based on (among other things) the signature attached to the file and the reputation of the distributor.
MS could certainly use some rehabilitation on the latter front, but don't forget that it's iTunes that installs two seperate system services and grabs all your file extensions every time you start it - there isn't even a way to turn this off.
The MSN Music ActiveX control exits once the downloads are finished and you close the UI window.