1src Forums - DRM-free music from iTunes this May

Joel

04-02-2007, 11:09 AM

Apple Unveils Higher Quality DRM-Free Music on the iTunes Store; DRM-Free Songs from EMI Available on iTunes for $1.29 in May
[details (http://www.1src.com/?m=show&id=1860)]

Clie Patra

04-02-2007, 11:19 AM

Great, but why 256 kbps AAC for crying out loud. Will they never learn?

Joel

04-02-2007, 11:47 AM

Great, but why 256 kbps AAC for crying out loud. Will they never learn?
Remember that Apple primarily sells iPods so the AAC format is understandably their choice.

However, any tech-savvy person who knows about the different audio formats can *easily* convert these from one format to another. :)

_Em

04-02-2007, 11:49 AM

The iPod (and iTunes) supports the Apple Lossless codec just fine; I think that would have made a better choice.

applejosh

04-02-2007, 01:42 PM

The iPod (and iTunes) supports the Apple Lossless codec just fine; I think that would have made a better choice.

I seem to recall that older iPods could not use the lossless codec. Only newish ones (not sure what the generational cutoff would be). Also, the lossless files are huge, so I'm sure that their bandwidth capacity (not to mention the end user's capacity) factored into it. I'm also guessing that pure digital, lossless formats (especially those without DRM) would be slightly discouraged by the record labels (and CD manufacturers). Not saying it won't ever happen, though...

dragonsgames

04-02-2007, 01:45 PM

$1.29? What???

I bet all the anti-Apple protestors feel like idiots now. Apple was never behind DRM.

applejosh

04-02-2007, 02:11 PM

I really don't much of a problem with the slight price increase. I'd gladly pay the extra 30 cents not to have to deal with that junk (plus the better bitrate).

Joel

04-02-2007, 02:20 PM

I really don't much of a problem with the slight price increase. I'd gladly pay the extra 30 cents not to have to deal with that junk (plus the better bitrate).
Same here :)

bulls96

04-02-2007, 05:30 PM

$1.29 still a little too much for me.

JAmerican

04-02-2007, 05:54 PM

OK, not trying to be rude but how does this relate to Palm news? Is this place really becoming iSRC, looking like it.

JAmerican

bh77a

04-02-2007, 06:54 PM

OK, not trying to be rude but how does this relate to Palm news? Is this place really becoming iSRC, looking like it.

JAmerican

Simple: non-DRM music can now easily be formatted to play on a Palm!

I for one am quite glad to hear the news, as the DRM stuff was always an annoyance. Guess the article with Jobs a while back in which he said he didn't like DRM was true (much to the dismay of some, I am sure).

The price increase isn't a problem either...

In complete agreement about the full quality lossless codec, who wants to fill their iPod or player of choice with ~45 MB files...

Joel

04-02-2007, 09:45 PM

@bulls96: it's the convenience and music quality that I'm after. I don't seem to have the time to convert music for my PDA anymore, so this news from Apple is fantastic.

@JAmerican: as bh77a said, now we can play these songs on our favorite music players, even our Palms. They don't need to be formatted either because (correct me if I'm wrong) Pocket Tunes, Aeroplayer, and CorePlayer can play AAC.

Alan G

04-02-2007, 10:19 PM

This is Palm news because AeroPlayer supports the AAC file format. I'm sure NormSoft is also looking to add support also. So, with a new DRM-free "premium" track sitting in your iTunes folder, you'll be able to dump that on a SD card and play that music, without modification, on your Palm OS device.

Alan G

Joel

04-02-2007, 10:23 PM

The Missing Sync for OS X also has the ability to "see" your Palm from within iTunes. So there's a big advantage right there.

I've had a lot of misconceptions about the AAC format. Here's an article at Newsvine about AAC (http://faruk.newsvine.com/_news/2007/04/02/644836-aac-dispelling-the-myth). It has answered a lot of my questions :)

JAmerican

04-02-2007, 10:37 PM

Nice save guys...

J/k. That's cool. Thanks for the explanation, althrough Apple is charing a $.30 tax to remove DRM basically. Stupidness.

JAmerican

Joel

04-02-2007, 11:04 PM

Nice save guys...

J/k. That's cool. Thanks for the explanation, althrough Apple is charing a $.30 tax to remove DRM basically. Stupidness.

JAmerican
Hehe. Thanks. ;)

30 cents for 256kbps, non-DRM songs is already a lot for me. What do you suggest Apple would do?

applejosh

04-03-2007, 09:08 AM

Nice save guys...

J/k. That's cool. Thanks for the explanation, althrough Apple is charing a $.30 tax to remove DRM basically. Stupidness.

I'm guessing it's really not Apple's call. I'm sure EMI is the one charging the premium, in an attempt to recoup some of their theoretical lost revenues of having music easily passed from one person to the next without any kind of control. If Jobs had his way, I'd guess he would probably keep the 0.99 price point like he's fought to do before (when the record labels wanted to raise the prices of "current" more popular songs and then tried to veil their intentions by saying older songs (i.e. songs that next to no one buys) could be bought for 0.79). I'm also guessing that part of the condition for the added cost would be that EMI had to allow the songs distributed with a better bitrate (pure speculation on my part).

Clie Patra

04-03-2007, 11:31 AM

Dolomite

04-03-2007, 01:43 PM

The price would be no object to me, if only they offered MP3 format, which is a whole lot more portable than AAC, specially if you want to use the TH55 AudioPlayer. And I bet there are a LOT of cheap players out there that only support MP3, plus the lot of DVD players that people often use to play MP3 disks on their home stereo sets. MP3's the way to go, all other formats are less wide spread, no matter how you turn it.

Not to worry, since there isn't DRM, converting to MP3 is as simple as selecting your AAC track in iTunes and going to menu item Advanced->Convert Selection to MP3. A few seconds later you will have your MP3.

_Em

04-03-2007, 02:54 PM

Also, at this point just about all hardware being released supports AAC -- you can thank the DVD market for making the firmware so inexpensive. Before this year, I would have agreed with you; now, it appears that there have been firmware updates to everything I own that plays digital music, so it all now supports AAC.

Of course, OGG would have been better :)

Modnar

04-03-2007, 03:46 PM

Yeah I do think 1SRC is really becoming iSRC as well :P (j/k)

Anyway I did see it as palm news when I was reading about this yesterday as well just yeah aac is supported on quite a few devices yet still a lot of mp3 players don't support aac as they would have to pay to get the license for it but as its drm free it can be easily converted.

Vampire Lestat

04-04-2007, 12:21 AM

philpalm

04-04-2007, 01:10 AM

Wait a gosh darn minute, didn't MicroSoft get charged for not paying another party for MP3 format? Is Apple preparing to exploit their non-MP3 approach? After all other foreign govt. are suing Apple because their format isn't open enough.

The whole music and video business is such a mess that I don't want to bother too much with listening to music on my PDA. I may get a CD player and just play CDs.

Yes I think 1src is becoming too isrc, I said it on April fools day and don't regret saying that I might have to go to Treo Central....

Joel

04-04-2007, 01:28 AM

...

Yes I think 1src is becoming too isrc, I said it on April fools day and don't regret saying that I might have to go to Treo Central....

I'm confused. Let me know why the reality of songs that are to be bought from EMI over iTunes and which can be directly loaded to any Palm device (via hotsync or drag and drop) and played via Pocket Tunes or AeroPlayer makes 1SRC too iSRC and makes you want to go to TreoCentral?

I have nothing against TreoCentral and I'm not stopping you in going there but just get ready because you'd see this same news about EMI and Apple over there and in all of the other PDA and gadget sites too.

Alan G

04-04-2007, 07:43 PM

That extra 30 cents also gets you double the bit rate.

Alan G

Icecruncher

04-04-2007, 08:12 PM

That extra 30 cents also gets you double the bit rate.

Alan G

I think that is what you need to remember everybody. Better quality for slightly more. Also AAC's compression is more accurate than MP3 for the same bitrate.

Apple Lossless is even better, but it's compression ratio is only about 50% whereas both AAC and MP3 are usually about 10% of original size (roughly!)

Plus the added NO DRM.

Question: Does Coreplayer or TCPMP support AAC?

I thought I remember seeing a codec for it a long time ago when I first installed TCPMP. But now bought CorePlayer, so maybe not???

Dolomite

04-04-2007, 08:25 PM

Question: Does Coreplayer or TCPMP support AAC?

I thought I remember seeing a codec for it a long time ago when I first installed TCPMP. But now bought CorePlayer, so maybe not???

TCPMP will play AAC just fine, but you need to find the now banned codec file.

Alan G

04-04-2007, 08:29 PM

Question: Does Coreplayer or TCPMP support AAC?

TCPMP beta 0.6x I think had the AAC plugin. You'll have to search the Internet for sites that may still have the file available for download. The reason it was dropped was because there was a per download fee for the AAC license.

I haven't used CorePlayer, so I'm not sure if the commercial version of TCPMP has the plugin or not.

Alan G

Edit: Rats! Dolo beat me to the punch!

Icecruncher

04-04-2007, 08:40 PM

What about CorePlayer?

Any idea?

Alan G

04-04-2007, 08:43 PM

You'll have to check the website or get a hold of the vendor. I don't know. I didn't buy a copy of CorePlayer.

Alan G

Icecruncher

04-04-2007, 08:51 PM

I should have done that in the first place. Thanks, I just didn't think of it

Yes, it supports it!

Audio
CorePlayer Mobile allows you to enjoy your music with these supported audio formats;
MP3, AAC, MKA, WMA, WAV, OGG, Speex, WAVPACK, FLAC, MPC, AMR, ADPCM, ALaw, MuLaw, Midi*

Video
"It simply works!' Is what we hear from the community and what sets CorePlayer apart from other mobile media players. It support these video formats and containers;
Video: H.264 (AVC), MKV, MPEG-1, MPEG-4 part 2 (ASP), DivX, XviD, WMV*, MJPEG
Containers: Matroska, TS, PS, 3GPP, MOV, AVI, MPEG-4, NSV

Maybe this will help anyone else who wants to know.