h a l f b a k e r yI like this idea, only I think it should be run by the government.
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I used mp3 players for a few years but I honestly never really got into
it. There are several reasons-2 of which could be solved with the
cooperation of several music download services and electronics
manufacturers.
1. there's never been any kind of standard for digital downloads of
music-
when you download stuff from the internet it's always some
weird thing like .m4a or .c8ny0ugu355wh1chpl8y3r1sc0mp8t1ble3
(ok I was kidding about that last one) different formats often have
"special sauce" or some such BS that is no doubt INTENDED to stop
piracy (or at least make it more difficult) but often causes
compatibility headaches-If you get a different player than the one
that the jukebox software is designed for, you always have to
convert files with all sorts of special software and all that garbage,
because the jukebox program with this "sauced" music doesn't have
facilities to do that! (again a measure against piracy)
It's not a format war, it's not as though one came after the other and
the newest one dominated, it's basically like there's 10 different
formats, not one of them being any more popular than the next!
2. you CAN rip from CD's, because ripping software allows you to rip
to a myriad of different formats, BUT!!!!!!! the CD has to be
absolutely brand new-if there's the TEENIEST TINIEST MICROSCOPIC
"dropout" or as I like to call them "sour notes" (tiny missing parts)
many MP3 players will simply freeze completely, requiring a reboot
or (if removable) a removal of the battery-from such infinitesimal
dropouts/skips that would have absolutely ZERO effect on even the
world's worst CD player!!!!!!! In fact, one mp3 walkman I had to
reformat just because I tried to play such a song, it crashed and
when I rebooted it, several items had been erased AND SOME MENU
ITEMS WERE MISSING????? So basically a CD that has been played one
too many times before ripping, or even the tiniest hiccup in an
internet connection during a download, can leave you with a
permanently unplayable song.
So here's 2 possible solutions-
1. do away with any kind of obscure formats that have "special
sauce" and just use MP3's FOR DOWNLOADING
2. Use a "special sauce" format that is compatible with a wide variety
of players, any player supporting it comes with a CD with the
software for this, and has a big logo of some description both on the
box, and the player itself.
#1 may sound great-but it also widely opens the door for piracy to
even someone who has a very old computer, so that's probably not
going to be adopted by many download services. #2 sounds more
realistic to me.
This format's jukebox software will "sync" with the player and put on
whatever you want that you have- BUT! as a measure against piracy,
any player that is "synced" with your computer, if plugged into a
different one, will not allow you to copy the files FROM THE PLAYER
INTO THAT COMPUTER. It will simply prompt you to sync with this
computer, and clearly say that if you do so, all the music that was
not on this computer is erased from the player. And yes, you can still
rip CD's with this jukebox software if you want to.
What if my computer dies and I need to copy the music left on my
player to my new computer (and I didn't have a backup- DOH!)? No
problem-grab the CD that came with your player and look at the
back of the player, and the CD itself-there will be a number written
here! if you need to copy stuff back, you must enter the ID # written
on the back of the walkman, and the # written on the CD itself. If
the #'s are correct, the walkman will be "synced" AND any music on
the walkman will once again be copied to your library.
Any walkman that supports this file format (and it's jukebox
software) will have some kind of error correction/recovery
programming. If the walkman encounters a "dropout" it will simply
"skip" ahead by a second, and if there's still nothing there, it will
repeat the process until it finds something that can be played. It will
then place a "mark" on the file that can be read by both the walkman
and the jukebox software. If you want to "fix" this problem you
simply connect to the internet and select "fix a song or other audio
file" and you simply select it. The online service then verifies that it's
really a song (i.e. it's not just a renamed text or picture file:) then it
will find the missing or messed up part of the song, and "stitch" it
back in!
If the walkman you have has a memory card slot, the jukebox
software will allow you to EITHER put music on the card OR on the
player's memory. The walkman itself will allow you to MOVE files
between the memory card and itself, but not COPY the files. The
memory card will be an existing format, such as a CF or SD card
Wikipedia: mp4? m4a? What's the difference?
http://en.wikipedia...M4A_file_extensions
[jutta, Oct 11 2009]
[link]
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Kind of a "let's all" idea, isn't it? |
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By the time I got to the bottom of this screed I was thinking it was a [Vernon] idea and that he'd suddenly become a download pirate. Imagine my surprise to find it was you. |
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Anyway, none of this pile of horse pucks would be necessary if you were to actually PAY FOR YOUR MUSIC, instead of expecting the music industry to aid and abet your theft of their product, by standardising file formats. |
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Before finishing this rant, I need to address that, UnaBubba: |
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You're right. We should be paying for our music. But not as much as it would cost to listen to music in the manner we should be able to. The present sales system for music doesn't allow for per user instant access to all the music each user might appreciate. The present technology does. And the ease of free music that then can be listened to on an mp3 player freely is quite a corrupter. |
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I got a headache. Kept forgetting if I was reading rant or some solution. |
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What we need is an audio format based on the threshold of human hearing to distinguish digital from analogue with a large margin of overkill (to accommodate genetically superior humans in the future…I don’t know) and a video format of similar quality. Encode all public audio and video in these formats and along with all public text, programs, video games, etc. in its entirety place redundantly on huge storage facilities in bunkers around the world with the added redundancy of having all that info stored in segments randomly on the personal units that we all use to access that information with a per use charge system. |
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1. MP3s are a 'lossy compression' which means the sound quality is discernably poorer than other formats. |
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2. Many or most musicians have to sign away their rights to big entertainment companies in order to get published. These big entertainment companies have a lot of vested interest in continuing to charge for proprietary protected formats. |
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3. Many if not most personal portable audio players are purchased on price not quality. Is there any surprise that many people a) find them buggy and prone to crash, and b) can't hear the difference between a CD and an MP3? |
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i.e. your 'problems' can be easily solved by buying good equipment and using it properly. |
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Wow. I can't remember reading any other idea where the author tried so hard to misunderstand their subject, so that they could create an idea. But instead of posting a long preachy counter rant, let me just list off what you already know. 1. [pocmloc] is correct. 2. "special sauce" is DRM. 3. Apple/iPod 4. Apple doesn't want to sell music on MP3s (though they now do) because DRM sells iPods. |
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I find most music intensely irritating. It overloads my already crowded senses with unnecessary input and induces a corresponding sense of claustrophobia and panic. |
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Frankly, I turn it off or move away from it almost immediately it begins to affect me. How people can stand having it hammered into their earholes day and night is beyond my understanding. |
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Ogg vorbis or FLAC. MP3 (and ogg vorbis) are both lossy. |
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To prevent loss of financial income to capitalise the
yartz with, we'll none of that scurrilous sheet-music that
everyone just makes bit-for-bit copies of, and all music
should be performed live. |
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[UnaBubba] ...and I happen to be listening to Cypress Hill right now. Cypress hill really f**ks the earholes good. |
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I’m sorry you don’t appreciate music but what’s the solution for those of us that do? Do you enjoy video entertainment? |
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"Anyway, none of this pile of horse pucks would be
necessary if you were to actually PAY FOR YOUR MUSIC,
instead of expecting the music industry to aid and abet
your theft of their product, by standardising file formats." |
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This thing is based upon PAID DOWNLOADS!!!! I DO pay for
my music! If I were stealing crap of course I would be
pissed
about different formats and garbage- that's what all these
different formats are SUPPOSED to be pitted against.
However, the super-huge myriad of different formats also
makes it hard to find a player that is well designed that
ALSO supports your particular downloaded format. Again,
they can be converted with proper software, but it's
tedious to do this if you have anything more than the
most modest collection in your library. |
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This idea is to still have measures against piracy, but not
such that it will cause compatibility "headaches"- in other
words every player that can use this format has a standard
logo of some sort. The "measures against piracy" basically
are designed (in this idea) such that they will almost never
cause any problems with legitimate users- i.e. it's not an
obscure file format that is not widely supported.- all it
does is ensure that people can't copy, copy, copy a zillion
times to so many systems, but it *DOES NOT* prevent
someone who has had a problem with their computer from
re-loading their music back onto the computer. |
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This format would allow one to do PAID downloads of
music to their heart's content (and their wallet's) and use
it on a somewhat wide range of players with many
different feature sets, from several different
manufacturers, and buy players with confidence
that they will play their format of music. |
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"3. Apple/iPod" dude they're not the absolute only
company who makes both the players and the software
that "syncs" with them. but they are more popular... the
term "walkman" simply means compact portable music
player. Several different companies also have such players
that are designed around a specific piece of software. |
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"1. MP3s are a 'lossy compression' which means the sound
quality is discernably poorer than other formats." |
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This format is not an MP3-it's different than that. If it were
an MP3 it would not need to have it's own specific
"jukebox software". On that
note, I'll just say it will be of higher quality than that-
comparable to that of other paid downloads. |
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It so happens that i don't download music, but if i did, what if i also did the "equivalent" amount of work for the price of the download? For instance, i download a CD's worth of music which would have cost me fifteen quid, and in return i do three or four hours work for nothing, maybe for an employer in the music industry. So, i do the roadie stuff for one concert or work at HMV for half a day. Would that mitigate it?
The other thing is, just as home taping was said to be killing music, isn't this bringing live music back? Does it not mean that bands are encouraged to perform live because they can't make money off recordings? |
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3 or 4 hours work for a 15 quid CD?
Has the recession really hit that bad? |
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I was being generous. The work i've done as a shop assistant paid the minimum wage, which is now about six quid an hour, so i'm assuming that working in a record shop would pay the same. I was also taking into account the idea that stealing is wrong and so increasing the compensation. |
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God, why is it so often the kiss of death when i add an annotation? |
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Home Taping Is Skill In Music
(t-shirt, during the 80s) |
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I did download illegal MP3s in the past but over the last few years there has been no need to do so. There is now such a wealth of music available online for free and legally so that unless you insist on slavishly following the particular band the major record company is pushing this week then you can be both legal and keep your pennies. |
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Add to this the large number of online radio stations that allow you to listen to something more suited to your tastes than mainstream FM broadcasts and the justification for illegal downloads is entirely defeated. |
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Finally, MP3 players play files ending in .mp3, not .m4a or anything else. Download the right file and it will work fine. I have never seen an MP3 file crash, hang or damage an MP3 player; the worst case scenario is you get a clicking noise and have to skip to the next track. |
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