Legal Downloads

[drunkturkey]

OK. So, now we have iTunes for the Mac, and a new service called BuyMusic.Com (http://www.buymusic.com) for the PC world. Both have about the same number of songs, however BuyMusic.Com doesn’t have all the licensing perks Jobs mustered up for unlimited burning (yet...).

Anyway, my question is - why the hell are they not offering these songs in a better format for high bandwidth users?

If a song is only, on average, 4 megs, it's not full CD quality - it's closer to an MP3. I know, not a big deal, but the selling point of a CD is it's audio quality versus an MP3 or WMA file.

I guess buying a single or two off these services would not be such a bad thing, if it's just that hit-of-the-day (if that's what you listen to). But I can't see real music fans buying whole albums from these services for near the same price as the CD, which includes all the additional packaging.

If they would offer these in SHN format, however, I wouldn't have a problem buying everything online!

Thoughts?

[bluecell]

Thoughts?

It's a piece of shit. I know a lot of Windows users are waiting for Apple to release the Windows port of iTunes. You get a lot better sound quality out of AAC than WMA (or MP3 for that matter) and Apple's Fairplay DRM. You're very, very limited with BuyMusic/Microsoft's DRM policy. iTMS is growing everyday and version 2.0 will most likely surface before the end of the year. More and more labels and artists are being added, both major and independent. I hate tell you, but Apple did it much better.

My advice, wait until next month for iTunes for Windows.

[bluecell]

I just realized that some might think that my view of BuyMusic or WMA, for that matter, may be a bit biased. So, here's some of the more objective articles that I've read on BuyMusic's service:

http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,59718,00.html
http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030725.gtsandyjuly25/BNStory/TechReviews/

[drunkturkey]

Either way, it still doesn’t get you CD quality audio.

AAC is still compressed, and limited. The only lossless audio I know about is SHN and FLAC (or WAV, but that's a bit ridiculous!).

Anyway, give me lossless audio, and you have a decent service.

[bluecell]

Originally posted by drunkturkey
Either way, it still doesn’t get you CD quality audio.

AAC is still compressed, and limited. The only lossless audio I know about is SHN and FLAC (or WAV, but that's a bit ridiculous!).

Anyway, give me lossless audio, and you have a decent service. Unfortunately, lossless audio formats such as AIFF and WAV aren't at all efficient for internet use. That's one of the reasons why MP3 became so popular. AAC, however, delivers higher quality audio than MP3 or WMA at any given bit rate. I recommend giving it a listen and judge for yourself. You probably won't be able to tell the difference between CDDA or AAC.