iTunes 4.5 Released

[MacRumors]

Apple released (http://www.apple.com/) iTunes 4.5 today.

The newest version of iTunes offers several new features.

- iMix - Share your taste. Publish your playlists
- Party Shuffle
- Printing - Creating Jewel case inserts
- Radio Charts - What's playing around the U.S.
- Movie trailers. Music Videos
- WAM - Convert WMA to AAC
- Apple Lossless - CD Quality Sound. Half the size.

iTunes now has over 700,000 songs in the iTunes Music Store.

[BrianKonarsMac]

so how do i print the jewel case insert?

[JFreak]

Apple Lossless - CD Quality Sound. Half the size.

somebody please confirm if this is really a lossless one and not a 1024k aac...

[soosy]

Plus now you can play on 5 Macs rather than 3. Way to go Apple for making the DRM LESS restrictive. Who'd of thought we'd see that?

EDIT: I discovered this in their press release:

"Honoring Apple’s commitment to discourage music theft while preserving fair personal use rights, the number of times a user can burn the same playlist onto CDs with iTunes is being reduced from ten burns to seven. Users can still burn a single song an unlimited number of times and listen to their music on an unlimited number of iPods."

What's the point when you can just change the playlist... this must be to keep dumb non-techie record execs happy. Mwah Ha Ha.

[~Shard~]

Nice upgrade! Damn, I wish I had iLife '04 now... Looks like iTunes 4.5 gives me even more reasons to upgrade now! Damn you Apple... ;)

Anyway, there looks like there are some cool new features in 4.5 - and I see WMA in there as well - very interesting! Well done Apple!

[1macker1]

Way to go Apple, even though I erased all my WMA's.

[MacManDan]

Apple released (http://www.apple.com/) - Apple Lossless - CD Quality Sound. Half the size.

Ack. and I JUST finished converting my entire collection to FLAC..
Does anyone know what kind of lossless file format this is? As the previous person noted, is it just a very high bitrate lossy format?

[1macker1]

eh? you dont need iLife 04' to get iTunes!
Nice upgrade! Damn, I wish I had iLife '04 now... Looks like iTunes 4.5 gives me even more reasons to upgrade now! Damn you Apple... ;)

Anyway, there looks like there are some cool new features in 4.5 - and I see WMA in there as well - very interesting! Well done Apple!

[russed]

so how do i print the jewel case insert? o and first post :cool:

file>print as simple as that!

[restiffbard]

It's nice to not have to go to work today. W00t!

[adamberti]

Downloaded it, some observations:

First thing I noticed... Every song / artist /album in your library has that arrow to the right of it - and if you click on it, it searches the music store for that song. Interesting... Option Click goes to it in your library

"Windows Media Player 9 or later must be installed to convert unprotected WMA files" -> PC only I guess.

Printing covers is pretty easy - File -> Print, it gives you a preview. I had a playlist with about 55 songs, and it shows the first 25 on the print and then "and 30 more..." Plus it prints "Printed with iTunes" at the bottom. It even has a bleed, crop and fold marks!

This party mode thing... I was hoping to just put iTunes in Party mode, and someone could double-click on a song and it would be added to an 'on-the-go' type playlist. Cause thats what most people do, just double click on it, cause they want it. What this does it pick random music from your choice of a source (any playlist or library) and will show 0-100 upcoming songs along with 0-100 already played songs. If you have those selected to something more than 0, and you delete something in the playlist, it just adds another. If you have it at 0, you have to add your own songs. there is an option to play higher rated songs more often.

I guess the point is that you can have it choose from a playlist or your library and see whats coming up, remove something if you don't like it, or rearrage it, all without disturbing any existing playlist.

iTMS - I was hoping that based on the long load time it would say "Your country is now supported" (Canada) but no - Just a long load time for the first time. the one free song a week is cool, but you still have to have an account of course.

The iMix allows anyone to publish a playlist to iTMS - and Steve already has a playlist that is rated 5 stars out of 5 with 100,000 votes, and so it is at the top. You have to have an account to vote on an iMix

Lastly the movie trailers are cool, its an easy way to see new trailers and browse them - except that they still remind you you are in a store and there are things to buy (soundtracks).

All in all a decent upgrade, but nothing spectacular in my books, the only feature I may use is the party shuffle.

Enjoy the new toy.

And as a PS. there is a new iPod update:

iPod Update 2004-04-28 supports all models of iPod and iPod mini introduced before April 28, 2004. This update is required to take advantage of new features in iTunes 4.5 and the iTunes Music Store.

Changes for iPod without a Dock connector
-Compatibility with iTunes 4.5 and the iTunes Music Store
-Improved playback performance

Changes for iPod with a Dock connector and iPod mini
-Compatibility with iTunes 4.5 and the iTunes Music Store
-Improved playback performance
-Support for the Apple Lossless Encoder, to enable compressed music encoding at high quality

Let the rumours begin "All models introduced before April 28, 2004" So what about the ones introduced after or on this date?

[denm316]

A better DRM, I am surprised at that one, and the cover art thing is really cool, even though I dont print cover art it is still cool

[Mac]

This is good news! Especially WMA to AAC and Jewel case printing. I am so thankful that I recently switched and bought a 'heap' of Macs instead. Never regretted a minute.

Thank you, Apple. :)

[memphismac]

- Apple Lossless - CD Quality Sound. Half the size.

So does this mean I should re-import all my stuff?

I just bought an iPod a few weeks ago and I've imported a little over half of my CDs. If space on the iPod is a consideration (and it might be later on), should I reimport in this lossless/half the size stuff?

Brian

[Le Big Mac]

Nice upgrade! Damn, I wish I had iLife '04 now... Looks like iTunes 4.5 gives me even more reasons to upgrade now! Damn you Apple... ;)

Anyway, there looks like there are some cool new features in 4.5 - and I see WMA in there as well - very interesting! Well done Apple!

This will be a free download regardless of whether you have iLife 04, right?

[1macker1]

I"m glad they finally did more with the video section. I was waiting on that.

[srobert]

BAM! "WAM - Convert WMA to AAC." Right into Microsft's genitalias. That's gotta hurt.
:D

[Frisco]

Let the rumours begin "All models introduced before April 28, 2004" So what about the ones introduced after or on this date?"


I assume they already have the update?

[robsworld]

Can you conform this?

When I try to create a new account in the iTMS:
First I enter my .mac-account, than I must agree to the iTMS-license, but when I now press 'Agree' iTunes is crashing.

I am using iTunes from europe. Is this maybe a sign that iTMS-Europe will come very soon? :rolleyes:
I have already posted that topic to a german forum and all the people there have confirmed this crashing!!!!!!!!!

How about you?

Greetings from Germany,
rob

[encro]

Some nice little additions to iTunes.

Some form of pitch control or time stretching would be fantastic in version 5.

[Chopper]

So does this mean I should re-import all my stuff?

I just bought an iPod a few weeks ago and I've imported a little over half of my CDs. If space on the iPod is a consideration (and it might be later on), should I reimport in this lossless/half the size stuff?

I have no idea (and yes, I know that I'm being zero help). Has anyone tried this yet, to see what the size is, in comparison to other formats (AAC @ 192, etc)?

[dragula53]

wma on windows only

links to the music store from every song in my library.


the party shuffle is nice.

and cd covers.. cool.

[idkew]

you can remove the annoying arrows in the general preferences pane.

[Chopper]

This will be a free download regardless of whether you have iLife 04, right?

It was free for me this morning & I don't have iLife 04.

[Klopsi69]

so do we have to download the whole thing just to upgrade at the moment?

?

[chibianh]

When i installed it, it suggested I also install Quicktime 6.5.1 via software update. I checked software update and there is no Quicktime 6.5.1. I also checked the quicktime I have installed and it's version 6.5. Anyone else get this? Other than that, it's a solid update.

[MattG]

Handy Concept for Concept Rock


Many music CDs contain songs that blend into each other, and importing them to iTunes may create a small gap between songs that interrupts the flow. If you use the iTunes Join Tracks feature, the program melds two or more songs into one, continuous gap-free track. So now you can enjoy listening to classical music, concept rock albums and extended dance mixes without the silent treatment.

I've been waiting for this!!!

[Raid]

While I do think the features of the new iTunes version sound very nice (I have yet to play with the app), if this was their big announcment I'm very disappointed. I was really hoping for an iTMS announcement telling us they've opened in several different countries. I'm this <making hand gesture to indicate a very narrow gap between fingers> close to checking out puretracks and shopping there! :mad:

[denm316]

Song - Eminem - Sing for the Moment

128 kbps AAC - 5.3MB
830 kbps Lossless - 33.9MB
**It automatically chooses the bit rate for the lossless quality, hence why it is done is 830 kbps.

[wordmunger]

When i installed it, it suggested I also install Quicktime 6.5.1 via software update. I checked software update and there is no Quicktime 6.5.1. I also checked the quicktime I have installed and it's version 6.5. Anyone else get this? Other than that, it's a solid update.

Yeah, not in software update--neither was iTunes. I just went to quicktime.com and downloaded from there.

[thecow]

Does anyone else not have QT 6.5.1 on their sowtware update? iTunes requires it. :confused: Oh. I didn't bother reading the whole thread. I guess I'm not the only one with this problem. I just downloaded it manually off of apple.com.

[idkew]

Maybe I never new this, but it seems the DRM will allow 5 machines now, instead of 3.



and it works fine with QT 6.5 for me.

[Nemesis]

I have no idea (and yes, I know that I'm being zero help). Has anyone tried this yet, to see what the size is, in comparison to other formats (AAC @ 192, etc)?

There's NO WAY you can distinguish AAC@192 from the orginal CD, on a hi-fi equipment costing less than $50,000. You're not a music conductor like Herbert von Karajan, and you're not Mozart too, and of course you're not a bat :D
So, please stop worrying about it!

:rolleyes:

[restiffbard]

none of these updates are in SWUpdate yet. I just went to apple.com/itunes, apple.com/quicktime/download, and apple.com/ipod

[srobert]

This will be a free download regardless of whether you have iLife 04, right?

They won't charge for a "Trojan Horse" ^_^

[Frisco]

While I do think the features of the new iTunes version sound very nice (I have yet to play with the app), if this was their big announcment I'm very disappointed. I was really hoping for an iTMS announcement telling us they've opened in several different countries. I'm this <making hand gesture to indicate a very narrow gap between fingers> close to checking out puretracks and shopping there! :mad:

I think iTMS Europe is rumored to come in June.

[bbarnhart]

Yea! They fixed the firewall issue that I was having at work. I couldn't buy songs or listen to songs that I had previously purchased on my Mac at home. This is great.

[CmdrLaForge]

BAM! "WAM - Convert WMA to AAC." Right into Microsft's genitalias. That's gotta hurt.
:D

Thats what I thought as well. WMA to AAC IS THE BIG NEWS

[MatMistake]

love the new 'group compilations when browsing' feature. I'm a big fan of compilations and have 300+ artists in my itunes library, but only about 150 albums, so previously the 'artists' column in the browser was littered with hundreds of artists that I only have one song by, but now thay are all under 'compilations'

woo. I'm really hoping this is included with the ipod update, that would be ace

[Stewie]

I am confused about the losses feature. I tried converting a random mp3 and the size went from 4mb to almost 30mb?!?!?

[uzombie]

There's NO WAY you can distinguish AAC@192 from the orginal CD, on a hi-fi equipment costing less than $50,000.
So, please stop worrying about it!
:rolleyes:

Maybe YOU can't, but there are many with superb hearing that can hear the compression/difference.

I heard that!

:D

[coolfactor]

So does this mean I should re-import all my stuff?

I just bought an iPod a few weeks ago and I've imported a little over half of my CDs. If space on the iPod is a consideration (and it might be later on), should I reimport in this lossless/half the size stuff?


Brian,

If you imported using AAC and a decent bit-rate, then don't worry about it. The "half-size" file will still be larger than an AAC. It's half the size that a fully uncompressed file would be.

[TheT]

:eek: OMG, I don't get the US-only reminder any more... is it because I've been browing the store for the last 2 hours or is it bacause... I dare not say it... someone outside the US check please!

[achmafooma]

Handy Concept for Concept Rock


Many music CDs contain songs that blend into each other, and importing them to iTunes may create a small gap between songs that interrupts the flow. If you use the iTunes Join Tracks feature, the program melds two or more songs into one, continuous gap-free track. So now you can enjoy listening to classical music, concept rock albums and extended dance mixes without the silent treatment.

I've been waiting for this!!!
Not to rain on your parade, but that's been around a while... I think it was introduced with iTunes 4, but might have even come earlier.

When I went to reimport all my albums as AAC, I went ahead and did this with a few things -- lots of Pink Floyd stuff, etc. But all it does is combine the tracks so they get imported as 1 file. I don't want the entire Dark Side of the Moon album to be one file! I ended up only combining the ones that I always want to hear together (Brain Damage & Eclipse, or -- from another Pink Floyd album -- The Happiest Days of Our Lives & Another Brick in the Wall Pt. 2).

I would think that they could just make them play correctly without the little jump between tracks ... isn't that as easy as buffering the next song? The best workaround I've found is to turn on crossfading, and then take the slider down to 0 seconds. It's not perfect, but it sounds closer to how it's supposed to.

[SilentPanda]

Song - Eminem - Sing for the Moment

128 kbps AAC - 5.3MB
830 kbps Lossless - 33.9MB
**It automatically chooses the bit rate for the lossless quality, hence why it is done is 830 kbps.

Thanks for doing that. I know now that 128 kbps will suit me plenty fine. I don't think my high end iBook internal speakers are going to make it sound much different either way... :)

[mgargan1]

and they're offering a free download of the foo fighters!!

[coolfactor]

I am confused about the losses feature. I tried converting a random mp3 and the size went from 4mb to almost 30mb?!?!?

You *can't* go from a lossy format, such as mp3 to a lossless (or near lossless) format.

This lossless format is for importing your music CDs into a file that is half the size that the fully uncompressed version would be, but has the same sound quality.

Too bad they haven't provided more technical background information on this. People are really interested.

[srobert]

That little CD jewel case insert printing feature is pretty nifty. I can actually portray me using that.

I had trouble finding it at first but then I stopped and simply told myself "think mac" ... command-P ... Bam! Worked. ^_^

[SilentPanda]

iPod Update 2004-04-28 supports all models of iPod and iPod mini introduced before April 28, 2004. This update is required to take advantage of new features in iTunes 4.5 and the iTunes Music Store.

Changes for iPod without a Dock connector
-Compatibility with iTunes 4.5 and the iTunes Music Store
-Improved playback performance

Changes for iPod with a Dock connector and iPod mini
-Compatibility with iTunes 4.5 and the iTunes Music Store
-Improved playback performance
-Support for the Apple Lossless Encoder, to enable compressed music encoding at high quality

I'm totally not complaining but does this mean that my old school non-dock enabled iPod can't play songs that are encoded in the Apple Lossless Encoder? It's not a huge deal because from what I see above the file size difference is huge (I only have a 10gig iPod) so I'll be sticking to 128 aac... but mainly just curious. I can test it when I get home I suppose.

[SilentPanda]

That little CD jewel case insert printing feature is pretty nifty. I can actually portray me using that.

I had trouble finding it at first but then I stopped and simply told myself "think mac" ... command-P ... Bam! Worked. ^_^

Same here. I was ctrl-clicking on stuff trying to find it (on the jewel art, on the playlist, etc). Then I was like... hmmm... wouldn't "print" be where it *always* is? Bam! That's what I get for having to use Windows 2000 at work.

[amichalo]

you can remove the annoying arrows in the general preferences pane.

The arrows are cool because they do link to the iTMS but ALSO if you hodl down OPTION (not command?) and click them, they search just YOUR library.

This is really helpful when in a playlist or looking for songs from a compilation album!

[legacyb4]

Is is a specific track or any "one track" that you want to try out?

and they're offering a free download of the foo fighters!!

[Chaszmyr]

This is a MAJOR iTunes update... Yet they called it 4.5 rather than 5.

Makes you wonder what's in store for iTunes 5, no?

[1macker1]

Where is your iMix published at? I'm confused.

[legacyb4]

Scratch that... too early in the morning and i NEED my coffee.

The link clearly brings up a song for $0.00... doh!

Is is a specific track or any "one track" that you want to try out?

[jfruh]

Anyone else having this problem? I downloaded the iTunes update from Apple's Website fine. However, when I try to download the iPod update, I get this error message:

"Email address required. Please enter a valid email address. An email address is required to register and download this software."

But I'm putting a valid email address in on the previous page! This is happening in both Safari and Camino, too, so it's not a browser problem.

jf

EDIT: Oops, never mind: While you didn't need to give your name to download the iTunes update, apparently you do for the iPod update. Not that the error message *said* that or anything, mind you ....

[amichalo]

Is is a specific track or any "one track" that you want to try out?

It is just the Foo Fighters today...but it also says "next free single 4/29" so who knows - perhaps a free song a day promotion! ??? !

http://www.apple.com/itunes/store/discover.html
Look for the Foo Fighters image on the right side

[mgargan1]

hey, can't get much better than free right. Well, unless they paid us to download it.

[CmdrLaForge]

:eek: OMG, I don't get the US-only reminder any more... is it because I've been browing the store for the last 2 hours or is it bacause... I dare not say it... someone outside the US check please!


SAME HERE ! THAT WOULD BE SO COOL :D :eek:

[rmac1979]

Wish they had incorporated a feature request I had submitted: smart playlists are great, but it's a bummer that when you have multiple criteria you can only choose "match any" or "match all". For example, if I want to do something like "genre is soundtrack AND album isn't Fight Club or artist is Pink Floyd," can't do it with the limited logic of the smart playlists now.

Seems like this search criteria scheme is used elsewhere too (iPhoto, Finder find, xCode), and could similarly benefit from the finer control. Maybe they will be just haven't found an elegant way to do it yet that wouldn't confuse people....

[macridah]

i like the update. the best just got even better.

[Wash!!]

This is a cool feature :cool: :D
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPublishedPlaylist?id=10653

[Mr.Hey]

The arrows are cool because they do link to the iTMS but ALSO if you hodl down OPTION (not command?) and click them, they search just YOUR library.

This is really helpful when in a playlist or looking for songs from a compilation album!

Yes! I found that this feature was needed when I was burning CDs for fam and I couldn't remember the exact name of a couple of songs, the search feature was useless--Library of over 2000 songs--but this should save a users a lot of time... thank you Apple! :)

[Nemesis]

Maybe YOU can't, but there are many with superb hearing that can hear the compression/difference.

I heard that!

:D

You live in a bat cave and testing your radar-like ear sight by dropping needles onto ground? :D
Of course you can hear the difference, and not just that, there are some people which can distinguish solely by their ears which codec have you used for compresson (MP3, AAc or WMA) and also tell the exact bitrate used (192, 256, etc) ...
Ha, ha, I love this forum :D

[TheT]

SAME HERE ! THAT WOULD BE SO COOL :D :eek:
Well, I got it again... seemed to be temporary... while they change it for Steve's official introduction!!! :D
I will be a poor man... :cool:

[Zaty]

SAME HERE ! THAT WOULD BE SO COOL :D :eek:

Lucky you! I'm still getting it (I'm in Switzerland, but the country warning still says your billing address must be in the US. If iTMS Europe really is about to open its doors, the warning would have been altered to include other countries, right?)

[1macker1]

Frickin COOL!
This is a cool feature :cool: :D
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPublishedPlaylist?id=10653

[redAPPLE]

[QUOTE=JFreak]somebody please confirm if this is really a lossless one and not a 1024k aac...[/QUOTE

AAC & LOSSLESS is an oxymoron.

[littlejim]

SAME HERE ! THAT WOULD BE SO COOL :D :eek:

Hmmm.

In the UK, I clicked on the 'little arrow' and I entered ITMS without a country warning. Wahhhaahhhyy - I thought ... but clicking on the 'home' icon brings up the same old 'iTunes is not available in your country' message.

[jvaska]

so...a person on a pc can purchase/download a song from the other competing music services in wma format...

then, just convert that to aac using itunes and put it on your ipod...

this, is a good thing for apple.

[CmdrLaForge]

SAME HERE ! THAT WOULD BE SO COOL :D :eek:



:( :( Now its back :( :(

I guess we are not lucky today

[TheT]

so...a person on a pc can purchase/download a song from the other competing music services in wma format...

then, just convert that to aac using itunes and put it on your ipod...

this, is a good thing for apple.
Ehm, no. It says unprotected WMA only... because some Windows users *might* have some WMA files...

[CmdrLaForge]

Hmmm.

In the UK, I clicked on the 'little arrow' and I entered ITMS without a country warning. Wahhhaahhhyy - I thought ... but clicking on the 'home' icon brings up the same old 'iTunes is not available in your country' message.


Yes - same here. Sorry for me previous happyness

[TheT]

Yes - same here. Sorry for me previous happyness
Just wait a couple of hours ;)

[Chaszmyr]

Anyone else unable to use iTunes to convert WMA to AAC?

[Porchland]

This is a MAJOR iTunes update... Yet they called it 4.5 rather than 5.

Makes you wonder what's in store for iTunes 5, no?

I wondered the same thing, though I wouldn't necessarily call this a "major" update. I take the 4.5-vs.-5.0 version numbering to mean that there will be a more significant release sooner rather than later -- and certainly before WWDC in January '05.

[jvaska]

Yes - same here. Sorry for me previous happyness

Can you not see the store at all? From Brussels I can get it - I just downloaded the free song.

[duklaprague]

love the new 'group compilations when browsing' feature. I'm a big fan of compilations and have 300+ artists in my itunes library, but only about 150 albums, so previously the 'artists' column in the browser was littered with hundreds of artists that I only have one song by, but now thay are all under 'compilations'

god spot! i know exactly what you mean - i have a few ministry of sound ibiza type compilations - which, as you say, litter the artists browse list with loads of artists i haven't really even flippin' heard of! the ability to syphon these off into a seperate list will be pretty useful.

i can go home and play in 50 minutes.

[hopes and longs for new ipod today too. and itms europe.]

Iain

[centauratlas]

What I find amazing is that none of the rumors sites predicted this or even hinted at an iTunes update for today (at least that I've seen). This isn't a knock on MacRumors - I like the news. But for all the sites that claim to have sources - from ThinkSecret to Spymac to Macosrumors to Appleinsider etc - none got this. They must not have many sources in reality and I think much of what is published are just WAGs (wild a-- guesses).

The good thing is that (perhaps) Apple employees are to busy to submit stories or they are abiding by their contracts.

[Chaszmyr]

I wondered the same thing, though I wouldn't necessarily call this a "major" update. I take the 4.5-vs.-5.0 version numbering to mean that there will be a more significant release sooner rather than later -- and certainly before WWDC in January '05.

WWDC is in June, MWSF is in January :-)

[Classic]

Anybody else notice the funky image on Apple's homepage?

http://a464.g.akamai.net/7/464/51/7d867d1ceb9781/www.apple.com/home/images/2004/04/itunes45screen04282004.jpg

I'm sure it will be fixed soon...

[TheT]

Can you not see the store at all? From Brussels I can get it - I just downloaded the free song.
How did you do that without an US billing address?!?

[dmbfan]

You can now unmount your iPod by clicking the little unmount icon that appears beside your ipod in the Source area. Nice touch.

[guyute]

There's NO WAY you can distinguish AAC@192 from the orginal CD, on a hi-fi equipment costing less than $50,000. You're not a music conductor like Herbert von Karajan, and you're not Mozart too, and of course you're not a bat :D
So, please stop worrying about it!

:rolleyes:
But if you are archiving music this is big deal. Who wants to archive cheapened quality music. This is big news for apple. With the popularity of FLAC and SHN this may spread quickly to new areas and maybe we can get some live recordings in this lossless format. I personally hate purchasing low quality sounds. With this new format maybe more people will be drawn in.

[CmdrLaForge]

Anyone else unable to use iTunes to convert WMA to AAC?

Works perfect. :eek:

[redAPPLE]

this is old news... it could do this a long time ago.

i have my mtv unplugged and pearl jam concerts done like this...


Handy Concept for Concept Rock


Many music CDs contain songs that blend into each other, and importing them to iTunes may create a small gap between songs that interrupts the flow. If you use the iTunes Join Tracks feature, the program melds two or more songs into one, continuous gap-free track. So now you can enjoy listening to classical music, concept rock albums and extended dance mixes without the silent treatment.

I've been waiting for this!!!

[wrldwzrd89]

I want to try out iTunes 4.5 (I don't use or want to use the iTMS), but I can't since I'm away from my Mac :mad: I'll download and install it when I return home in about 5 hours.

[jvaska]

How did you do that without an US billing address?!?

Uh, I just walked right in. I get some notice that says I'm from out of the U.S. but I can still go in. I already have an Apple ID so I just logged in with that. Then I simply downloaded - no credit card necessary.

Perhaps I should see if I can download other stuff. :D

[UKMacBod]

Can you not see the store at all? From Brussels I can get it - I just downloaded the free song.



You are outside the States and were able to download the free song??? How?

Are you registered with a US Billing Address, or??

[TheT]

How did you do that without an US billing address?!?
The iTMS is now available in German!!!!!!! i mean, the buttons are in German now... 10 minutes ago, they were English.... :cool:

[Sincere]

Well, I'm glad to see an update, but it doesn't do much for overall functionality, and most importantly, library management. I have a library of over 50000 mp3s and do endless ID3 editing and sent in several suggestions to them for improvements, but haven't heard any surface yet. The "keep compilations together while browsing" or whatever feature is probably the best addition. Jewel case printing is nice, but I usually just print out CD labels and use those instead... Hopefully an update might contain that, some add-on to rival lame shareware or crap like Discus.

I'm not going to go lossless, certainly, and I can't see many people doing it. I'm an audio professional, but this is my collection of music to listen to for fun... Sure, 128MP3 sounds like ass, but 128AAC or even 192MP3 is tolerable, and sure I can hear the difference, but unless the encoding is ****, it rarely takes away from my enjoyment. If I want to sample something, I'm going to rip it as an AIFF, or even better, sample it from vinyl. In my opinion this makes pitch-altering or other time compression rather useless except for amateurs trying to remix Jay-Z's Black album for the millionth time (there are better rappers to remix, how about some variety?).

Radio Charts and music videos are very interesting, but I'm on dialup, so they're rather useless to me... Not their fault, I'd surely check them out, had I the speed.

Overall, some nice add-ons, but almost all seem rather gimmicky to me. I'm very interested if anyone (especially users with large collections) is seeing performance enchancements. Things have been getting awful slow for me on a rev 1. 17", and it breaks my heart. More ID3 management (Most of the source for ID3 things are in AppleScripts I know, but they're painfully slow and often severely lacking), improved CDDB lookup (let me at least input the name and get some tracks for an incomplete album), label printing, and better support for networked libraries, and I'll be happy... Until then, this update is mostly "cute."

--Sincere

[CmdrLaForge]

How did you do that without an US billing address?!?

I guess he faked it :D

[TheT]

Uh, I just walked right in. I get some notice that says I'm from out of the U.S. but I can still go in. I already have an Apple ID so I just logged in with that. Then I simply downloaded - no credit card necessary.

Perhaps I should see if I can download other stuff. :D
You probably gave em your Credit Card # previously.. cuz it still asks me for mine...

[wrldwzrd89]

The iTMS is now available in German!!!!!!! i mean, the buttons are in German now... 10 minutes ago, they were English.... :cool:
Is it true? Is Apple FINALLY launching the European iTMS? If so, that's GREAT! Apple could use the additional sales this would generate.

[robsworld]

Looks like somebody already has cracked the iMix Votes System

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPublishedPlaylist?id=10031

Take a look at the first playlist....there are more than 100000 votes for this playlist. All other playlist have only max 5 votes.


rob

[TheT]

Well, I'm glad to see an update, but it doesn't do much for overall functionality, and most importantly, library management. I have a library of over 50000 mp3s and do endless ID3 editing and sent in several suggestions to them for improvements, but haven't heard any surface yet. The "keep compilations together while browsing" or whatever feature is probably the best addition. Jewel case printing is nice, but I usually just print out CD labels and use those instead... Hopefully an update might contain that, some add-on to rival lame shareware or crap like Discus.

I'm not going to go lossless, certainly, and I can't see many people doing it. I'm an audio professional, but this is my collection of music to listen to for fun... Sure, 128MP3 sounds like ass, but 128AAC or even 192MP3 is tolerable, and sure I can hear the difference, but unless the encoding is ****, it rarely takes away from my enjoyment. If I want to sample something, I'm going to rip it as an AIFF, or even better, sample it from vinyl. In my opinion this makes pitch-altering or other time compression rather useless except for amateurs trying to remix Jay-Z's Black album for the millionth time (there are better rappers to remix, how about some variety?).

Radio Charts and music videos are very interesting, but I'm on dialup, so they're rather useless to me... Not their fault, I'd surely check them out, had I the speed.

Overall, some nice add-ons, but almost all seem rather gimmicky to me. I'm very interested if anyone (especially users with large collections) is seeing performance enchancements. Things have been getting awful slow for me on a rev 1. 17", and it breaks my heart. More ID3 management (Most of the source for ID3 things are in AppleScripts I know, but they're painfully slow and often severely lacking), improved CDDB lookup (let me at least input the name and get some tracks for an incomplete album), label printing, and better support for networked libraries, and I'll be happy... Until then, this update is mostly "cute."

--Sincere
I have "only 3K songs, but I noticed that iTunes is slower after this update... might be because of the European iTMS :D

[dongmin]

Wish they had incorporated a feature request I had submitted: smart playlists are great, but it's a bummer that when you have multiple criteria you can only choose "match any" or "match all". For example, if I want to do something like "genre is soundtrack AND album isn't Fight Club or artist is Pink Floyd," can't do it with the limited logic of the smart playlists now.

Seems like this search criteria scheme is used elsewhere too (iPhoto, Finder find, xCode), and could similarly benefit from the finer control. Maybe they will be just haven't found an elegant way to do it yet that wouldn't confuse people....

Uhh, itunes lets you do that alredy. That's what the plus and minus buttons are for. At least in 4.1

[jvaska]

You probably gave em your Credit Card # previously.. cuz it still asks me for mine...

I'm sorry for confusing things...

I'm from the states but living in Brussels currently. Yep, I registered 4 years ago with them and bought something. But they don't have my credit card number on file as I just checked. Strange.

You need a U.S. address to register? ;)

[CmdrLaForge]

The iTMS is now available in German!!!!!!! i mean, the buttons are in German now... 10 minutes ago, they were English.... :cool:

As the billing adress information you still cannot enter a german adress.

But still "ONE CAN HOPE!"
:p

[raynegus]

Not to rain on your parade, but that's been around a while... I think it was introduced with iTunes 4, but might have even come earlier.

When I went to reimport all my albums as AAC, I went ahead and did this with a few things -- lots of Pink Floyd stuff, etc. But all it does is combine the tracks so they get imported as 1 file. I don't want the entire Dark Side of the Moon album to be one file! I ended up only combining the ones that I always want to hear together (Brain Damage & Eclipse, or -- from another Pink Floyd album -- The Happiest Days of Our Lives & Another Brick in the Wall Pt. 2).

I would think that they could just make them play correctly without the little jump between tracks ... isn't that as easy as buffering the next song? The best workaround I've found is to turn on crossfading, and then take the slider down to 0 seconds. It's not perfect, but it sounds closer to how it's supposed to.

I did the exact same thing! Works like a charm. Used it with select songs off The Wall, Abbey Road, Nirvana Unplugged, etc.

[wrldwzrd89]

Looks like somebody already has cracked the iMix Votes System

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPublishedPlaylist?id=10031

Take a look at the first playlist....there are more than 100000 votes for this playlist. All other playlist have only max 5 votes.


rob
I think Steve Jobs himself is responsible for this - he used his inside iTMS access to rig the votes for his own iMix. Shame on him if this is true!

[dongmin]

Also on Apple website:

-70 million songs sold. doesn't say whether this includes the Pepsi promo or not.

-700,000 tracks in the store. We're approaching 1 mil, baby!

[MatMistake]

Anyone else unable to use iTunes to convert WMA to AAC?

I just tryed, after finally finding a .wma (none on my computer, but there was one of my brother's band on his computer) but I don't have wmp9 so it didn't work
as much as it pains me to, I'm downloading it now to try

it amuses me that it needs wmp9 to work, its like apple are using MS's own program against them :D :D


edit : works brilliantly :)

[TheT]

Well, those are about the only German buttons, but still...

[SiliconAddict]

- Apple Lossless - CD Quality Sound. Half the size.



NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

I'm going to have to rerip my entire collection again aren’t I?!?!

Is this what is known as a good PITA!?!?! :eek: :D

What I would really like to know is what Apple did to my music library on install of iTunes 4.5. It said "updating library" and had a progress bar that lasted about 30 seconds. I wonder if they did dbase tweaks under the hood? :confused:
And if there are any Apple reps out there reading the boards THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for the extra systems that can be activated. I can Now activate all my computers with one to spare. Anyone who has been bitching about Apple's DRM has just lost any complaint, well other then Linux and PDA users but that's another topic.

[wrldwzrd89]

Well, those are about the only German buttons, but still...
This is encouraging, if nothing else...Even if Apple's not ready to launch the Europe iTMS, at least the language porting process is (partially? fully?) done.

[CmdrLaForge]

Well, those are about the only German buttons, but still...

Are you sure that this has changed within the version 4.5 or has it changed between 4.2 and 4.5 ? Maybe they are just preparing a later launch.

[Rower_CPU]

Looks like somebody already has cracked the iMix Votes System

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPublishedPlaylist?id=10031

Take a look at the first playlist....there are more than 100000 votes for this playlist. All other playlist have only max 5 votes.


rob

That's Steve Jobs' playlist and was referenced in post #11 by adamberti.

For those saying WMA->AAC doesn't work, make sure you've got WMP 9 for Mac (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/software/Macintosh/osx/default.aspx) on your machine.

[Lancetx]

I just tryed, after finally finding a .wma (none on my computer, but there was one of my brother's band on his computer) but I don't have wmp9 so it didn't work
as much as it pains me to, I'm downloading it now to try

it amuses me that it needs wmp9 to work, its like apple are using MS's own program against them :D :D

WMA conversion only works with the Windows version of iTunes 4.5.

Save to AAC from unprotected WMA (Windows only)

[Chaszmyr]

WMA conversion only works with the Windows version of iTunes 4.5.

Are you serious? How lame


EDIT: I just verified this on Apple's support site. That SUCKS!

I don't have a whole lot of WMA files on my comp, but when someone on AIM sends me a WMA file i'd like to be able to play it

[SilentPanda]

I'm going to have to rerip my entire collection again aren’t I?!?!

I wouldn't do it. Check out the difference in file size. One previous poster showed the 128 aac was about 5 meg and the lossless was 33 meg. Not sure if it's worth it in my opinion.

[Lancetx]

Are you serious? How lame

Well, I honestly doubt many Mac users have any WMA files anyway was their thinking. I assume it also has to do with the crappy version of Windows Media Player 9 for Mac not including something that is required in order to do this. Since virtually all Windows XP/2000 machines have WMP 9 installed, this isn't a problem on Windows machines.

[wrldwzrd89]

Are you serious? How lame


EDIT: I just verified this on Apple's support site. That SUCKS!

I don't have a whole lot of WMA files on my comp, but when someone on AIM sends me a WMA file i'd like to be able to play it
You might just have to download and install the latest Windows Media Player for Mac OS X on your computer and live with the fact that you are going to encounter Windows Media files on the Internet, I guess.

[macguymike]

It is just the Foo Fighters today...but it also says "next free single 4/29" so who knows - perhaps a free song a day promotion! ???

It does say that, but it also says:

"The iTunes Music Store features a new free single every week. On Tuesday of course."

In the main text, second paragraph on the page you linked.

Not that I'd complain if they give away something new tomorrow! :)

[MacManDan]

Now if the iTMS would allow for downloads in the Apple Lossless format then I would purchase more songs off of it. I still only purchase CDs because the 128kb/s AACs off the iTMS are not that great sounding..

Unfortunately, the "Apple Lossless" appears to use AAC at a high bitrate to compress it ... so I wonder if it is truly a lossless format, since AAC is lossy?

[SiliconAddict]

Er.....Steve's mix is "interesting". Not my taste in music but on the bright side it isn't country. I do like Hold On! I'm Comin' Good song.

On a side note. Microsoft is going to have to work their *** off to catch up to iTMS. The features iTMS is providing borders on outstanding. I just wish they would do wishlists.

[TheT]

Are you sure that this has changed within the version 4.5 or has it changed between 4.2 and 4.5 ? Maybe they are just preparing a later launch.
Now that you ask I am not that sure anymore :rolleyes:
But I *think* it was within 4.5... anyone know if those buttons are in the iTunes app or not?

[cringer]

Uhh, itunes lets you do that alredy. That's what the plus and minus buttons are for. At least in 4.1
No, it doesn't. Just try to replicate the exact expression he gave and you'll understand the problem.

[MightyB]

Er.....Steve's mix is "interesting". Not my taste in music but on the bright side it isn't country. I do like Hold On! I'm Comin' Good song.

On a side note. Microsoft is going to have to work their *** off to catch up to iTMS. The features iTMS is providing borders on outstanding. I just wish they would do wishlists.

They do have a "wishlist" feature now.
Simply drag a song from the iTMS to a playlist on the left.

The track will then show up in your playlist with the 30 second sample and a "Buy" link!

[ingenious]

Downloaded it, some observations:

First thing I noticed... Every song / artist /album in your library has that arrow to the right of it - and if you click on it, it searches the music store for that song. Interesting... Option Click goes to it in your library

"Windows Media Player 9 or later must be installed to convert unprotected WMA files" -> PC only I guess.

Printing covers is pretty easy - File -> Print, it gives you a preview. I had a playlist with about 55 songs, and it shows the first 25 on the print and then "and 30 more..." Plus it prints "Printed with iTunes" at the bottom. It even has a bleed, crop and fold marks!

This party mode thing... I was hoping to just put iTunes in Party mode, and someone could double-click on a song and it would be added to an 'on-the-go' type playlist. Cause thats what most people do, just double click on it, cause they want it. What this does it pick random music from your choice of a source (any playlist or library) and will show 0-100 upcoming songs along with 0-100 already played songs. If you have those selected to something more than 0, and you delete something in the playlist, it just adds another. If you have it at 0, you have to add your own songs. there is an option to play higher rated songs more often.

I guess the point is that you can have it choose from a playlist or your library and see whats coming up, remove something if you don't like it, or rearrage it, all without disturbing any existing playlist.

iTMS - I was hoping that based on the long load time it would say "Your country is now supported" (Canada) but no - Just a long load time for the first time. the one free song a week is cool, but you still have to have an account of course.

The iMix allows anyone to publish a playlist to iTMS - and Steve already has a playlist that is rated 5 stars out of 5 with 100,000 votes, and so it is at the top. You have to have an account to vote on an iMix

Lastly the movie trailers are cool, its an easy way to see new trailers and browse them - except that they still remind you you are in a store and there are things to buy (soundtracks).

All in all a decent upgrade, but nothing spectacular in my books, the only feature I may use is the party shuffle.

Enjoy the new toy.

And as a PS. there is a new iPod update:

iPod Update 2004-04-28 supports all models of iPod and iPod mini introduced before April 28, 2004. This update is required to take advantage of new features in iTunes 4.5 and the iTunes Music Store.

Changes for iPod without a Dock connector
-Compatibility with iTunes 4.5 and the iTunes Music Store
-Improved playback performance

Changes for iPod with a Dock connector and iPod mini
-Compatibility with iTunes 4.5 and the iTunes Music Store
-Improved playback performance
-Support for the Apple Lossless Encoder, to enable compressed music encoding at high quality

Let the rumours begin "All models introduced before April 28, 2004" So what about the ones introduced after or on this date?


WMP 9 exists for Mac......

[TheT]

They do have a "wishlist" feature now.
Simply drag a song from the iTMS to a playlist on the left.

The track will then show up in your playlist with the 30 second sample and a "Buy" link!
Will it save the preview? Will it be on my iPod?

[MatMistake]

I just wish they would do wishlists.

you can put previews in a playlist. so just create a playlist called 'wishlist' or whatever, select a song you want to download in the future from the store, and drag it to the playlist you just created. you even get a 'buy song' button in the playlist.

[iChan]

It's nice to not have to go to work today. W00t!

off topic, but what is "w00t"?

[sillycybin]

I would have prefered support for the FLAC and SHN formats rather than creating yet another lossless music format. I have so much music (hundreds of gigabytes) in FLAC and SHN form and i have to use a third party player to listen to them all (MacAmp). Which is actually a cool player besides the fact that they are no longer developing the software (because of iTunes popularity). I NEED FLAC & SHN ON iTUNES!!! anyways......

If that Grateful Dead on iTunes rumor is true, hopefully this update is a sign that Grateful Dead music will be offered in a lossless format on iTMS. This will ensure far more purchases. Dead heads require a lossless format or they will not be interested.

[Porchland]

There have been times when I've downloaded a single track or two tracks from a CD and then later wanted to buy the whole CD. I'd like to see a way to credit previously purchased tracks to the cost of downloading a CD.

For example, if I downloaded "Karma Police" from Radiohead's "OK Computer" on Monday for 99 cents, I'd like to be able to download the entire CD on Tuesday for $9.99 with a credit for 99 cents, or $8.99 for the "rest" of the CD.

This would certainly give me the incentive to try more single tracks with the possibility of buying the CD down the road.

[idkew]

WMP 9 exists for Mac......


Calebj14- lets not quote 50 lines of text when you are only referring to 1 line.

[1macker1]

This is a great feature!!! The sun keeps shining brighter.
They do have a "wishlist" feature now.
Simply drag a song from the iTMS to a playlist on the left.

The track will then show up in your playlist with the 30 second sample and a "Buy" link!

[sinisterdesign]

Are you serious? How lame


EDIT: I just verified this on Apple's support site. That SUCKS!

I don't have a whole lot of WMA files on my comp, but when someone on AIM sends me a WMA file i'd like to be able to play it

yeah, i guess it would be nice for Mac, but we're just not the primary audience for this feature (although it may yet come). think of all the PC folks thinking, "those iPods are pretty sweet, but i've just got a sh!+load of WMA's already ripped. it's just not worth reripping everything, i'll just buy a Dell player & use Musicmatch..."

you know bill is sitting around today thinking, "those SOB's, why didn't WE think of that?" of course, that's assuming M$ wasn't behind the Playfair software...

[redAPPLE]

Can you not see the store at all? From Brussels I can get it - I just downloaded the free song.

are you kidding? how'd you do that?

[Kirtus]

Does anyone know what the keyboard short cut to add a song to the Party shuffle?

[Macmaniac]

Rats I'm stuck on a PC here at school. As soon as I get home I'm gonna Download iTunes! The CD case thing is a great idea, I have been waiting for an easy way to make covers!!!

[jvaska]

are you kidding? how'd you do that?

I posted shortly after that as to how I did it. But, I registered while I was still in the states. That might be the key...

[macdong]

That little CD jewel case insert printing feature is pretty nifty. I can actually portray me using that.

I had trouble finding it at first but then I stopped and simply told myself "think mac" ... command-P ... Bam! Worked. ^_^

haha
if that would happen on a windows user...

"think windows"... *dialing* "hi, i need help on my windows computer, can you send a technician over?" Bam!! 300 dollars :D

[Lancetx]

I haven't seen it referenced so I doubt it's there, but does anyone know if iTunes now has CD Text support? This is has been one of the very few glaring weaknesses I've found with iTunes and why I have had to use Toast to burn music CDs to play on systems that can read it.

[manu chao]

Does anybody have any indication/proof that the WMA to AAC conversion is indeed a lossless (the produced AAC does exactly the same as the original WMA) conversion and not just an automated decompression (via WMP 9) and recompression?

[Porchland]

Can someone give me the quick hit on what "lossless" is, file size comparisons and why it matters?

Thanks.

[brooklyn]

With the movie preview feature added to iTunes, I bet it won’t be long until Apple implements Pay-To-View Movies on iTunes.

[Juventuz]

So with the movie trailers now available is this some sort of foreshadowing? Can we possibly see downloadable movies at some point?

[Porchland]

With the movie preview feature added to iTunes, I bet it won’t be long until Apple implements Pay-To-View Movies on iTunes.

Could it be that iTMS 5.0 will instead be iMedia 1.0?

[Rincewind42]

AAC & LOSSLESS is an oxymoron.

Not at a high enough bit-rate. Lossy encodings work by first determining what they are going to encode. Then they use various algorithms to remove information until they reach their target bitrate. If the target bitrate is high enough that they don't have to throw anything away, then nothing is thrown away and you get a lossless encoding.

[jncrow]

Tried out the wishlist feature works great. You just create a playlist (I called mine "music store wishlist") then as you are browsing the music store you can drag songs to that playlist. When you open the playlist it has those songs listed with the 30 second preview and a "add song" button that puts it into your shopping cart for purchase.

Great feature have been waiting for something like this...

[MatMistake]

Does anybody have any indication/proof that the WMA to AAC conversion is indeed a lossless (the produced AAC does exactly the same as the original WMA) conversion and not just an automated decompression (via WMP 9) and recompression?

I can't hear any diffrence playing through my combo stero thing. if anyone wants a little more 'proof' I could go plug my computer in to my dad's hi-fi and give both original .wma and converted .aac a listen...

[DrGruv1]

There's NO WAY you can distinguish AAC@192 from the orginal CD, on a hi-fi equipment costing less than $50,000. You're not a music conductor like Herbert von Karajan, and you're not Mozart too, and of course you're not a bat :D
So, please stop worrying about it!

:rolleyes:

I have a pair of Mackie HR624's and can DEFINITELY hear the difference, the aac songs are flat or have no depth (I will continue to purchase and have purchased over 100 tunes from the online store...) I import my cds at 1411kbps (exact cd copy) to a sep. 250gb western digital drive.

There is a difference and it does matter...

With hard drives SO cheap (250gb western for $150 on Ebay) it doesn't take much to get it going. As the storage medium becomes greater and cheaper I'll move my files to the next medium.

-mike

[russed]

can someone tell me how you can group all of the artist together say off a dance cd so you dont have like 400 artists? also how do you group 2 tracks together so if they follow on you dont have the gap?

[slughead]

This is exactly what the anti-DRM nazis were talking about.. they CHANGED the licensing agreement and nobody cares.

Do you realize what this means? They could simply one day revoke all but 1 of your machine licenses, put all your m4p's into one big encrypted image, and turn your genitals into scrambled eggs and there's nothing you can do about it because YOU agreed to it by buying DRM.

Sure, THIS time it's not a big deal, in fact most people will be happy with this new way of doing things.. but doesn't it bother you that they can take as well as give?

Seven burns down from Ten on tracks you already own.
Think about that; Think Different :)

[TheT]

This is exactly what the anti-DRM nazis were talking about.. they CHANGED the licensing agreement and nobody cares.

Do you realize what this means? They could simply one day revoke all but 1 of your machine licenses, put all your m4p's into one big encrypted image, and turn your genitals into scrambled eggs and there's nothing you can do about it because YOU agreed to it by buying DRM.

Sure, THIS time it's not a big deal, in fact most people will be happy with this new way of doing things.. but doesn't it bother you that they can take as well as give?

Seven burns down from Ten on tracks you already own.
Think about that; Think Different :)
Don't install the new version, don't agree to the new license and stay with what you have... :rolleyes:

[Penman]

This is a MAJOR iTunes update... Yet they called it 4.5 rather than 5.

Makes you wonder what's in store for iTunes 5, no?

It's really obvious to me at least. The big thing about iTunes is the trailers. It's the first test of the popularity of video. iTunes 5 will arrive in time with new Pods which will allow the distribution of movie trailers and the sale of music videos (which I've mentioned here before). 20 years of expensive content the record companies have never sold now has a new channel. It's going to be huge...

Oh yeah - I realize many will say 'Who'd watch video on a 2" screen' or 'Who wants to plug an iPod into a TV'. The answer is me and me. To me those objections sound like 'Who needs a phone you can use in the car?' and 'Who needs a DVD burner in a notebook'.

I'll tell you now that in 2 years iTunes will make more revenue from video than audio.

[ingenious]

Sharing only works between iTunes of the same version number. i.e. 4.2 does not share with 4.5

[stoid]

I'll tell you now that in 2 years iTunes will make more revenue from video than audio.

Since Apple makes roughly squat from music, that might not be too hard ;)

[dongmin]

No, it doesn't. Just try to replicate the exact expression he gave and you'll understand the problem.

Maybe I misunderstood, but it works for me.

GENRE + IS + SOUNDTRACK (and)
ALBUM + IS NOT + TRAINSPOTTING

OR

GENRE + IS + SOUNDTRACK (and)
ARTIST + IS + IGGY POP

For example, if I want to do something like "genre is soundtrack AND album isn't Fight Club or artist is Pink Floyd," can't do it with the limited logic of the smart playlists now.

[stoid]

Sharing only works between iTunes of the same version number. i.e. 4.2 does not share with 4.5

Probably due to issues caused by the Apple Lossless Audio for one. I know that you have to update QuickTime to 6.5.1 or it thinks that those files are corrupt.

[Wash!!]

This is exactly what the anti-DRM nazis were talking about.. they CHANGED the licensing agreement and nobody cares.

Do you realize what this means? They could simply one day revoke all but 1 of your machine licenses, put all your m4p's into one big encrypted image, and turn your genitals into scrambled eggs and there's nothing you can do about it because YOU agreed to it by buying DRM.

Sure, THIS time it's not a big deal, in fact most people will be happy with this new way of doing things.. but doesn't it bother you that they can take as well as give?

Seven burns down from Ten on tracks you already own.
Think about that; Think Different :)

It seems to me that this cuts into your little operation... :D

[gekko513]

The lossless format is like zip or stuffit for music. It compresses the bits in the music file, but when the file is played as music, the bits are decompressed (on the fly I suppose) to the EXACT same bits as the original.

Since someone wonders how this is possible ... here's an example of compression of a text string ... the same would go for bits and bytes:

Original: ABCAEABCFCABCFCDABCBFCABCBABCFC

To compress this string I can look for the most common sequence of characters and replace them with one character, so I can say:
A = ABC
B = FC
C = C
D = D
E = E
FA = A
FB = B
FF = F

Compressed: AFAEABABDAFBBAFBAB

Applying the rule again, gives me back the original string. As you can see, the compressed string is almost half the size of the original.

Of course the decompression rule also has to stored in a compressed file, which in this example would make the compressed file larger than the original, but for larger strings/files this wouldn't be a problem, of course.

[Damek]

There is a difference and it does matter...

...to you. As long as people like you keep your audiophile concerns to yourselves and don't make out like it's a big problem when it doesn't matter to other people, fine. Sure, people should try out the Lossless codecs and hear if they notice a difference, and if it matters to them enough to spend the extra money for greater storage, then fine. But I can't hear the difference, so it doesn't matter to me. I know there is an objective difference in the data files themselves, but it doesn't matter to me.

As for the new iTunes, yay - I like the party shuffle function the best, and grouping by compilations next. Being able to do wishlist(s) for iTMS is a nice feature, though I still don't think I'll be buying much, since the store doesn't have too much that I'd want or don't already have.

Hey, check out Bleep.com - online music store run by Warp Records, with artists like Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada, Autechre... MP3s encoded at LAME --alt-preset standard, no DRM. I have most of what they have, too, so I haven't bought much except for a few rare, previously vinyl-only tracks. But they're growing and will include other indy electronic labels in the future that I'll want to check out...

[slughead]

Ok I suppose I'll help out since my first post was kind of trolly

Can someone give me the quick hit on what "lossless" is, file size comparisons and why it matters?

Well with a lossless CD -> file conversion, you can go CD -> file -> CD -> file -> CD a million times and the final CD you end up with will be identical to the first.

If you went from CD -> mp3 -> CD ->mp3 ->CD, eventually it'd be so garbled and terrible you'd vomit all over your keyboard and become incontinent.

A loss-less conversion from one lossy file to another means you're not trimming the data with each new conversion. That's why Playfair was so awesome, you could go from m4p -> m4a with ZERO loss, as opposed to m4p -> CD -> m4a which IS lossy.

So with this new WMA -> AAC capability, one wonders if indeed anyone should actually use this, as it might be lossy.

A way to test would be to go AAC -> WMA -> AAC like 40 times and then listen, as all the errors would be amplified by quite a bit.

[MatMistake]

Maybe I misunderstood, but it works for me.

GENRE + IS + SOUNDTRACK (and)
ARTIST + IS + IGGY POP

but that would only give iggy pop songs that are in the soundtrack genre. there isn't anyway to have iggy pop songs, plus soundtracks. I think thats what he was getting at

unless I'm stupid and just haven't figure it out

[BornAgainMac]

This is a MAJOR iTunes update... Yet they called it 4.5 rather than 5.

Makes you wonder what's in store for iTunes 5, no?

I bet they are saving iTunes 5 for iLife '05.

[LaMerVipere]

Eh, I am unimpressed.

What a boring update. *yawn*

[jcshas]

Overall I'm pretty happy with the new "enhancements" - I like the new "party shuffle" option, but wish it would have been included with in the iPod update. :cool:

[greenstork]

Now if the iTMS would allow for downloads in the Apple Lossless format then I would purchase more songs off of it. I still only purchase CDs because the 128kb/s AACs off the iTMS are not that great sounding..

Unfortunately, the "Apple Lossless" appears to use AAC at a high bitrate to compress it ... so I wonder if it is truly a lossless format, since AAC is lossy?

Can you post a link to this info about the lossless encoding?

[DrGruv1]

Imported Let it Be... Naked

The Long And Winding Road 758 kbps Apple Lossless audio file
Get Back 801 kbps Apple Lossless audio file
Let It Be 805 kbps Apple Lossless audio file
For You Blue 812 kbps Apple Lossless audio file
Across The Universe 825 kbps Apple Lossless audio file
I Me Mine 857 kbps Apple Lossless audio file
Dig A Pony 864 kbps Apple Lossless audio file
Two Of Us 878 kbps Apple Lossless audio file
Don't Let Me Down 882 kbps Apple Lossless audio file
I've Got A Feeling 900 kbps Apple Lossless audio file
One After 909 976 kbps Apple Lossless audio file

-mike

[Tovarizzle]

I'm actually quite pleased with this update. I'm glad the little arrows are removable, as they're very clutterful, and I'm a little skeptical that maybe something new slipped in under the radar DRM wise (sounds too good to be true getting MORE access ;)). Then again, I'm a charter member of the RIAA Tinfoil hat club.

Also, one great little thing I noticed in the "Party Mixes" list is that you can specify which playlists you want the mix to come from. This is actually a great feature for those of us who use smart playlists to protect against overplaying songs.

The WMA->AAC thing is great to help the WinAMP/WMP crowd ease over to iTunes. When my roomie made the WMP to iTunes conversion, that was a royal pain to deal with. Kudos to Apple. The iPod update seems to work as advertised as well. I'm just afraid my poor little 30gb Docker is going to be obsolete soon, and knowing my past history, as soon as Apple releases a new iPod, my old generation one dies.

One other quick thing, remember, the Docking pods were released at an event on May 2nd, last year (I camped out :p), so the anniversary is less than a week away. You know what that means... G5 Powerbooks!!!! :p

[ingenious]

Calebj14- lets not quote 50 lines of text when you are only referring to 1 line.

sorry i was in a hurry to post..... :rolleyes:


has anyone verified that the WMA to AAC conversion only works on windows? i have WMP 9 on my PB in case i run into any non iTunes music... i was hoping this would work :( i guess theres always iTunes 5.... btw... is the store up for non US ppl now?!?!

[slughead]

It seems to me that this cuts into your little operation... :D

Actually this new change to the licensing agreement IS a good thing for me. I don't burn very many CDs, I have an iPod. Besides, even if I did burn CDs I could just use toast to convert m4p -> AIFF and burn 10 quadrillion copies from there :D

Someone else pointed out that I could just "not upgrade".. well ..

When I install OS 10.4 (or get my G5 whenever that 3GHZ one comes out), I'll be forced to install iTunes X.X that comes with it, and thus will be subject to whatever changes they deemed appropriate, even though I already paid for my music, and only agreed to one licensing plan.

We libertarians generally don't wait until everything goes to crap to point out the bad principles... I'm not saying Apple will turn into M$ LicenseWhores 3.1 but the fact that they have that right does not make me happy.

[1macker1]

I cant wait to have carry around movies. Apple needs to hurry though RCA, and this other company that i cant rememer, already have some nice products out.
It's really obvious to me at least. The big thing about iTunes is the trailers. It's the first test of the popularity of video. iTunes 5 will arrive in time with new Pods which will allow the distribution of movie trailers and the sale of music videos (which I've mentioned here before). 20 years of expensive content the record companies have never sold now has a new channel. It's going to be huge...

Oh yeah - I realize many will say 'Who'd watch video on a 2" screen' or 'Who wants to plug an iPod into a TV'. The answer is me and me. To me those objections sound like 'Who needs a phone you can use in the car?' and 'Who needs a DVD burner in a notebook'.

I'll tell you now that in 2 years iTunes will make more revenue from video than audio.

[Frisco]

I wonder who is paying for the free weekly download?

[Powerbook G5]

Well I read through this thread already but haven't found anyone who has addressed thins yet. How come iTunes 4.5 says it requires a Quicktime update that doesn't currently exist yet?

[dmbfan]

Well I read through this thread already but haven't found anyone who has addressed thins yet. How come iTunes 4.5 says it requires a Quicktime update that doesn't currently exist yet?

The update is included in the download.

[gorkonapple]

When i installed it, it suggested I also install Quicktime 6.5.1 via software update. I checked software update and there is no Quicktime 6.5.1. I also checked the quicktime I have installed and it's version 6.5. Anyone else get this? Other than that, it's a solid update.


I got it. Went to the link listed on MacRumors and downloaded the 6.5.1 update.

Went and made sure one of my purchased songs worked.

Everything seems cool. I noticed a new option on the menu called Party Shuffle. Didn't see that before. Sounds very cool.

[merges]

Can someone give me the quick hit on what "lossless" is, file size comparisons and why it matters?


Most compression schema actually "remove" data from music, graphics, or video, to shrink the file size. In a nutshell, what they try to do is get rid of stuff that humans probably won't notice too much--so what you've got in an AAC is an "approximate" version of your favourite song. The upside is that this "lossy" compression leaves you with small files (good for iPod), the downside is that fine details can be lost.

JPEG is a lossy image compression scheme. So if you look closely at images coming from your digital camera, you can probably see blocky areas where it was decided that the fine details are too unnoticeable to be worried about; JPEG is analogous to AAC. You get small files (good for digital cameras or for downloading over dialup internet) but you lose some of the fine details.

Some comrpession schema don't "remove" any data from music, graphics, or video. In a nutshell (and this is not "technically accurate", but it will illustrate the point), these "lossless" schema look for areas of duplication in a file and figure out a more efficient way of "writing" it in the file. So, for instance, "this exact sound occurs 15 times in the whole song… why write it out 15 times?" and so the compression scheme would rewrite it so that it says "here's a sound, which we'll call X instead of some really long name… every time you see an X, play the whole long sound that X represents". It's like shopping for huge furniture: instead of trying to lug the furniture around the store, you can just bring some barcodes to the cashier--but the real furniture is still there in the back room or wherever. The upside is that you don't lose any details, the downside is that the files are bigger (bad for iPod).

TIFF is a lossless compression scheme for graphics. You can look as closely as you want at a TIFF image but you'll find that it is indistinguishable from a source, uncompressed image (there are exceptions, but they're not important for this discussion). They're also much much larger than JPEGs as a rule; however, assuming Apple Lossless is what it claims to be, TIFF would be an analogous compression scheme.

So, to sum up: Lossy compression = tiny files with less detail, good for portability; Lossless compression = big files with all the detail, good for archiving, professionals, or ____philes. HTH!

[jayscheuerle]

There is a difference and it does matter...


To you and some others, but not many. ;) Welcome to a McMusic culture.

Certainly not to me when I'm jogging in the city with my iPod and its little headphones!

[iChan]

Since Apple makes roughly squat from music, that might not be too hard ;)

It would be quite hard it actuality as apple has made, give or take a few thousand, $69,300,000 in revenue from music at the iTMS.

should apple intend on taking more REVENUE on sales of video than music within two years, and considering that movies would likely cost on average $20 each, Apple would need to sell about 3,465,000 movies to catch up with the revenue Music earned for apple in its first year.

I have also not accounted for the revenue apple makes from the sales of iPods as a result of the popularity of the music store. however, this figure is simply speculative.

now if we were talking about profit, that would be a different story, but revenue was clearly stated in the post you responded to.

[idkew]

The update is included in the download.

no it is not.


download it at the quicktime homepage (http://www.apple.com/quicktime/products/qt/)

[gorkonapple]

Does anyone else not have QT 6.5.1 on their sowtware update? iTunes requires it. :confused: Oh. I didn't bother reading the whole thread. I guess I'm not the only one with this problem. I just downloaded it manually off of apple.com.


Itunes does not require it. That's only if you want/need to use your iTMS music in your iMovie/iDVD and other iLife apps.

[rishio]

Burning a cd of photos in iPhoto gives you a graphical representation of how much cd disk space you have available to burn the pictures. iTunes still only has the amount of time your playlist runs - which makes it a clunky interface for burning cds. The iPhoto cd icon is really cool and should definately be part of the iTunes burning-a-cd interface.

[UKMacBod]

This was posted by Paul Thurrott on his web site http://www.internet-nexus.com/ about the iTunes update.

All he does is talk about the conversion from WMA to AAC, which is valid enough I suppose, but just can't say something good about it!!!!


Notice that he does NOT mention that:


700,000 tracks
70,000,000 tracks sold
Estimated 70% market share
GREAT new features





Is it just me, or does this guy never really have much good to say about Apple... :mad:


Wednesday, April 28, 2004


As promised, Apple [sort of] embraces WMA in iTunes
Thanks Claudio: Apple today released iTunes 4.5, which allows you to convert WMA songs to AAC format so they'll play on the iPod. In typical Apple fashion, this is the hard way to do things, as the iPod would support WMA naturally if they just let it (Apple turns off this feature in the iPod bios). But give Apple credit: A file transcoded from WMA to AAC will sound like crap, so the company can point to the sound quality difference as a reason to stick with its proprietary format.

More info on the iTunes import page: "If you’re excited about using iTunes, but have already have a music collection built up in other programs, you’re in luck. iTunes can import music from Windows Media Player, MusicMatch and any other app that uses MP3, AAC or WMA (unprotected). iTunes 4.5 will now convert files digitized by Windows Media Player in unprotected format to AAC, so you can use them in iTunes or on iPod. When you import your MusicMatch library or other MP3 collection, you can choose to let iTunes make a copy of the library, or point to the old files. If you want to gather up all your music later, iTunes lets you consolidate your library anytime."
posted 4/28/2004 08:57:00 AM

[idkew]

It would be quite hard it actuality as apple has made, give or take a few thousand, $69,300,000 in revenue from music at the iTMS.


i doubt apple has pulled a profit yet. they may have made some money, but they are still operating at a loss.

remember, most of the 99¢ goes to the music companies. then, apple has to pay for all the equipment for the iTMS, upkeep it, and pay people to work there and code iTunes. I highly doubt these costs are less than income, yet.

[Geetar]

You live in a bat cave and testing your radar-like ear sight by dropping needles onto ground? :D
Of course you can hear the difference, and not just that, there are some people which can distinguish solely by their ears which codec have you used for compresson (MP3, AAc or WMA) and also tell the exact bitrate used (192, 256, etc) ...
Ha, ha, I love this forum :D


Me too- it helps me realise that, while those of us in the pro-audio business kill ourselves chasing the highest quality we can possibly produce, our efforts are often wasted on the stone-deaf portions of our prospective audience - and this is for you too, Damek:D

But seriously, children, listening is a skill that can be learned. The more time and energy you devote to it, the better your ability becomes. Like anything, you can learn to do it better with practice: but do you care?

Disclaimer: Of course, at the age of 43 and therefore being almost a part of the fossil record, I come from a generation that used to sit and listen/read/write a great deal. Do people still sit to listen to music? And how prepared are you to devote time to just listening to music, to the exclusion of everything else? If people won't do this anymore, then the higher bit-rate and lossless codecs are indeed irrelevant.... there's probably even a codec so lossy you couldn't tell Britney from Shostakovich.

Music - "that irritating stuff in the background" ?

[dmbfan]

Yes, it is. I now have 6.5.1 without having downloaded it from the QT homepage. :)

[Kirtus]

Does anyone know the keyboard shortcut to ass a song to the Party shuffle?

[gerardrj]

I am confused about the losses feature. I tried converting a random mp3 and the size went from 4mb to almost 30mb?!?!?

Converting from an AAC or MP3 to loss-less is pointless, you should only do this if you are importing from a CD or other loss-less format like AIFF or WAV (perhaps you imported some analog stuff from tape or vinyl).

Loss-less will be about 50% smaller than the equivalent AIFF or WAV file, not a lossy format like AAC or MP3.

Ex: a 4 minute track on CD becomes:
AIFF: ~35MB
Loss-less: ~ 18MB
MP3 (160Kb): ~4.7MB
AAC (128Kb) ~3.7MB

The thing about loss-less is it compresses the file more like a .zip or .sit file, it doesn't allow any information to be lost, it's all stored in a more compact form. 50% compression is fairly good for loss-less, 70% is pushing or breaking the limits.
AAC and MP3 allow bits to be tossed away and thus get very small file sizes, and allow up to like 97% compression if you really want.

[velkr0]

"Movie trailers. Music Videos"

Where's this?

[nsb3000]

Probably due to issues caused by the Apple Lossless Audio for one. I know that you have to update QuickTime to 6.5.1 or it thinks that those files are corrupt.

Even if this is true, this is a copout solution. There is *no* reason for example, why iTunes 4.5 shouldn't be able use itunes 4.1/4.2 Shares. That is just ridicules. The only conceivable reason for Apple doing this is to encourage people to upgrade. This seems like a very Microsoft thing to do. ...

It is a little less ridiculous that iTunes 4.2 can't read 4.5..but even so, Apple could have made it so it would have skipped over the songs it could not read.

As someone who lives on a college campus and love to explore new music by listen to other students shares, this is very annoying...and now has me considering trying to go back to the old version of iTunes...if that is even possible.

[wdlove]

i doubt apple has pulled a profit yet. they may have made some money, but they are still operating at a loss.

remember, most of the 99¢ goes to the music companies. then, apple has to pay for all the equipment for the iTMS, upkeep it, and pay people to work there and code iTunes. I highly doubt these costs are less than income, yet.

Congratulations to Apple iTMS on its 1st anniversary. I think that it's awesome that they 70% of the market for legal downloads. This at some point should lead to those who enjoy the service to take a look at Apple computers. They a attracting a new generation not yet able to purchase computer.

Hopefully with time Apple will turn a profit.

[TheT]

Even if this is try, this is a cop out solution. There is *no* reason for example, why iTunes 4.5 shouldn't be able use itunes 4.1/4.2 Shares.
Actually, there is. New, improved library structure. Noticed the updating bar at the first launch of 4.5?

[blybug]

A loss-less conversion from one lossy file to another means you're not trimming the data with each new conversion. That's why Playfair was so awesome, you could go from m4p -> m4a with ZERO loss, as opposed to m4p -> CD -> m4a which IS lossy.

Just a little experiment...it appears after buying a few new songs today that iTunes 4.5 and/or the new iPod update breaks PlayFair. But now that they've upped the authorized computers to 5, I don't really have a need for PlayFair anymore.

Hopefully this loosening of DRM for computers while tightening the CD restrictions will continue...allowing unlimited portables (iPods) and devices on a shared subnet (computers, SliMP3s, TiVos, other yet to be invented components) share/stream music makes sense and eventually (if not already) will not even be noticeable for most. While burning CDs is becoming so "90s" and still allows for potential unauthorized sharing.

Go Apple!

[russed]

"Movie trailers. Music Videos"

Where's this?

in the music store on the left hand side.


can anyone tell me how to group two tracks together - well remove the gap between them when they play. also how do you make it so that the artists of compitation cd's are not mentioned in the artists list?

[BrianKonarsMac]

I have no idea (and yes, I know that I'm being zero help). Has anyone tried this yet, to see what the size is, in comparison to other formats (AAC @ 192, etc)? if you imported your CD collection at this bit rate, you'd be using close to 325 MB per CD you re-encoded...I believe using AAC at 256 it's closer to 70-80 MB per CD. An uncompressed CD is typically 650 MB (give or take). The difference is this is lossLESS compression, meaning it will be an indistinguishable copy of the CD, but take up half the space. This is great for Audiophile's who imported all their audio uncompressed (AIFF) now they have a smaller file size alternative. You'll only see a benefit when encoding from the source material however, and you'll need plenty of dedicated free space. Without having used the lossless encoder, i'd guesstimate it's about a 3:1 file size difference (lossless:AAC).

[SiliconAddict]

With the movie preview feature added to iTunes, I bet it won’t be long until Apple implements Pay-To-View Movies on iTunes.

Don't bet on it. Codec's have gotten better but to get DVD quality you are still dealing with triple digit file sizes and by the time a movie is downloaded I could have gone to Blockbuster come home, found that the wrong movie is in the case, gone back, exchanged the movie, and I’d probably still have a half an hour left. :p We won’t even get into how much it would cost Apple for that kind of bandwidth.
Its wishful thinking guys. Apple has its hands full with iTunes right now. What I think people aren’t picking up on, or maybe they are since I didn’t read all 7 pages, is that I think Apple is going to take a tip from Microsoft in the not too distant future and smash the QuickTime player and iTunes into one cohesive media player. In this regards Microsoft is well ahead of Apple.

[TorbX]

The iTMS is now available in German!!!!!!! i mean, the buttons are in German now... 10 minutes ago, they were English.... :cool:

NORWEGIAN TOO!

[louden]

There's NO WAY you can distinguish AAC@192 from the orginal CD, on a hi-fi equipment costing less than $50,000. You're not a music conductor like Herbert von Karajan, and you're not Mozart too, and of course you're not a bat :D
So, please stop worrying about it!

:rolleyes:

Well, it is an issue in case you want to convert to some other format in the future. If you start with something less then lossless, it will only get worse with future conversions.

I'd like to start with an open lossless - AAC Lossless, then let everything else sort itself out. Apple lossless is just as proprietary as WMA lossless. I don't want to be locked to either Apple or MS.

[micvog]

WMA conversion only works with the Windows version of iTunes 4.5.

This is a concerning development... Apple releasing a Windows-only feature? :eek:

I understand that WMP is not as popular on the Mac, but I would still like to be able to download radio programs (legally, from sites such as www.kfuo.org) and play them on my iPod. Apparently I will need a Wintel PC to do this. :(

[mainstreetmark]

Ok, well, I've been waiting for the "little arrow" next to each title, artist and track, but wow, I'm not sure I get what the point of is to having it link to the music store. Why would I buy a song from the store, and then have a link always there that I can press to, what, go back to the store and remember the day I bought it?

You think there'll be a hack to get the default action of that arrow to be to link to the same artist (or album, etc..) in your own library? After all, that's what I'd use it for... some song comes up and I'd think "Perfect, I'll listen to this band for a while..."

The iMix thing is rather groovy.

[louden]

What bit rate does Apple offer on tunes from the store? Can you get lossless for 99 cents?

[Rower_CPU]

Yes, it is. I now have 6.5.1 without having downloaded it from the QT homepage. :)

It looks like it does for Windows, but not Macs.

[SiliconAddict]

Guys. How dang cool would it be if Apple had all those local radio stations available to stream to your computer. :eek:

[eSnow]

Me too- it helps me realise that, while those of us in the pro-audio business kill ourselves chasing the highest quality we can possibly produce, our efforts are often wasted on the stone-deaf portions of our prospective audience - and this is for you too, Damek:D

Excuse me, but you are wrong, wrong, wrong.

At the age of 43, the biological basis of your hearing has deterioriated enough that you will have troubles hearing anything _at all_ above 15Khz. This is nothing that can be salvaged or trained, it just goes away.

People who believe they can identify the codec music was compressed at 128Kbit or more are just fooling themselves. At a compression rate like this, few people will have a chance to hear the difference between compressed and uncompressed music in a double-blind trial. This experiment has been done.

I know, audiophiles will not believe this. They go to great lenght to fool themselves into believing they can hear differences between burned CDs and bought CDs, different kinds of audio cables and stuff like that. None of this holds up in controlled double-blind trials - however if it makes you happy to believe you still got the pristine hearing capabilities of a 9-year old, go ahead and buy that 15K audio setup - it certainly makes the company selling it happy :)

[1macker1]

Yeah that's what i was wishing for when i fist saw it. The radio stream would be a cool feature.
Guys. How dang cool would it be if Apple had all those local radio stations available to stream to your computer. :eek:

[SiliconAddict]

What bit rate does Apple offer on tunes from the store? Can you get lossless for 99 cents?


AAC 128

[chabig]

Does anyone know the keyboard shortcut to add a song to the Party shuffle?

Hey! We're talking Apple software here, not Windows. Just drag the song over to your Party Shuffle playlist.

[bitfactory]

why does the "Party Shuffle" have that "3D" blue bar over the currently playing song, and the Library doesn't???

[russed]

Handy Concept for Concept Rock


Many music CDs contain songs that blend into each other, and importing them to iTunes may create a small gap between songs that interrupts the flow. If you use the iTunes Join Tracks feature, the program melds two or more songs into one, continuous gap-free track. So now you can enjoy listening to classical music, concept rock albums and extended dance mixes without the silent treatment.

I've been waiting for this!!!


how do you do this?????? i need to know and i cant find out anywhere!

[Damek]

But seriously, children, listening is a skill that can be learned. The more time and energy you devote to it, the better your ability becomes. Like anything, you can learn to do it better with practice: but do you care?

Disclaimer: Of course, at the age of 43 and therefore being almost a part of the fossil record, I come from a generation that used to sit and listen/read/write a great deal. Do people still sit to listen to music? And how prepared are you to devote time to just listening to music, to the exclusion of everything else? If people won't do this anymore, then the higher bit-rate and lossless codecs are indeed irrelevant.... there's probably even a codec so lossy you couldn't tell Britney from Shostakovich.

Music - "that irritating stuff in the background" ?

OK, you are almost twice my age (I'm 26), but, seriously, "children"? Come on. And then a small rant about people just sitting and listening to music. I do that all the time. Often I turn everything off and just listen. Not adopting the obsessive audiophile persona doesn't mean not being able to listen.

I can tell the difference between some poorly encoded or low quality music and some well-encoded or high quality music, but I can't really tell the difference between good AAC or MP3 and the original. I assume it's a combination of A) the cheaper hardware I use, and B) biological limitations of my ears (which will also degrade over time). I accept that some people may A) have better hardware, and/or B) have been bestowed with greater hearing abilities. But that's their issue to deal with, not mine.

Music is music, and I also have my life to live. Often it's in the background because I'm doing something else like gardening or socialising or sitting in my little cubicle at work. Sometimes I can afford to bring it to the foreground and drink it in. I try to have reasonably good headphones/speakers/playing hardware to allow me to hear it with enough clarity and depth to appreciate it, but "enough" is the subjective part of that equation. I have had the experience in my life of getting some new hardware and suddenly hearing new things in a song or album that I hadn't heard there before. But I'm not going to obsess over it... "What if there's still more I can't hear?" I consider such concerns to be the ultimate luxury of time, effort & money, and I'm not going to worry about them. There are more important things to do.

[craigiest]

I have a pair of Mackie HR624's and can DEFINITELY hear the difference, the aac songs are flat or have no depth (I will continue to purchase and have purchased over 100 tunes from the online store...) I import my cds at 1411kbps (exact cd copy) to a sep. 250gb western digital drive.


Have you had someone set up a blind test?

If you know beforehand which is which, that knowledge is bound to affect your perception. Think how much different orange juice tastes normally versus when you are barely awake and think you are about to take a glug from a glass of milk. Expectation alters perception.

When you say that you import cds at 1411kbps, is that as an aac? or are you using aiff? I'm no expert on compression, but I wouldn't trust that an encoder doesn't change anything just because you set it to the same bit-rate as a cd.

[srobert]

why does the "Party Shuffle" have that "3D" blue bar over the currently playing song, and the Library doesn't???

hmmm... good point. It almost seem like they missed a spot.

[wrldwzrd89]

This is a concerning development... Apple releasing a Windows-only feature? :eek:

I understand that WMP is not as popular on the Mac, but I would still like to be able to download radio programs (legally, from sites such as www.kfuo.org) and play them on my iPod. Apparently I will need a Wintel PC to do this. :(
There's a reason for this - blame Microsoft for not releasing a Windows Media SDK for the Mac, as the Windows version of iTunes uses the SDK built-in to Windows Media Player 9 to read the WMA data. Since the Mac version of Windows Media Player lacks the SDK hooks needed for other apps to use WMA (or any other Windows Media format), WMA conversions aren't possible on the Mac.

[encro]

Have you had someone set up a blind test?


If you had those Mackie reference monitors then you would notice the difference between an encode and a cd.

[encro]

For those that have grabbed iTunes 4.5 make sure you definately grab the new QuickTime 6.5.1 version also as it has dramatic quality enhancement to new AAC encodes, plus lossless codec and better integration with iLife apps

www.apple.com/quicktime

...and no it's definately not in the iTunes 4.5 installer on the Mac.

[Damek]

If you had those Mackie reference monitors then you would notice the difference between an encode and a cd.

Obsessive-compulsives are always so sure about themselves and others.

[mainstreetmark]

Have you had someone set up a blind test?


I have!

A decent stereo and a reasonably encoded MP3 vs the CD. The "subject" could tell there was a difference in sound, but could not identify which was better.

And, as a previous user pointed out, your ears will very quickly adapt to whatever sound quality is coming out. You'll have more interference from your environment. Your brain is able to sort it all out and make it sounds good in your brain. This is the same reason that you can go to the movies, sit in the corner of the front row, yet your memory of the movie doesn't have this oblique view of the screen. Heh... brains are cool. I should get another one.

[Damek]

why does the "Party Shuffle" have that "3D" blue bar over the currently playing song, and the Library doesn't???

Perhaps to further deliniate between songs that have played, what's playing now, and songs that haven't played yet? It seems such a feature would only make sense on the Party Shuffle function. Especially since one is usually pretty much drunk at parties, this makes it easier to pick out what's playing!
:p

[Geetar]

Excuse me, but you are wrong, wrong, wrong.

At the age of 43, the biological basis of your hearing has deterioriated enough that you will have troubles hearing anything _at all_ above 15Khz.

No, it's you that is wrong. Hopelessly, utterly and obviously irremediably.

When you've worked with the likes of Bob Ludwig (I suggest you Google his name- I can't be arsed to help you out any more than that) and can match his (even-older-than-my) ears..... then and only then will you have a right to pronounce on matters of frequency/phase/amplitude perception and how it's affected by age. So you lose some top end as you get older- do you really think that THAT is all there is to hearing?



It seems possible to conclude from this, however, that silliness may be inversely related to physical age.

[Damek]

You think there'll be a hack to get the default action of that arrow to be to link to the same artist (or album, etc..) in your own library? After all, that's what I'd use it for... some song comes up and I'd think "Perfect, I'll listen to this band for a while..."

There is, Apple hacked it for you ;)

If you're on a Mac, option-click the arrow.

If you're on Windows, shift-click the arrow.

Voila: you've just found the same artist or album in your own library.

[gorkonapple]

The update is included in the download.

No, it is NOT included in the iTunes update. It is a separate update you need when you want to use your purchased music in iMovie and other iApps other than iTuns.

[svenas1]

This is exactly what the anti-DRM nazis were talking about.. they CHANGED the licensing agreement and nobody cares.

Do you realize what this means? They could simply one day revoke all but 1 of your machine licenses, put all your m4p's into one big encrypted image, and turn your genitals into scrambled eggs and there's nothing you can do about it because YOU agreed to it by buying DRM.

Sure, THIS time it's not a big deal, in fact most people will be happy with this new way of doing things.. but doesn't it bother you that they can take as well as give?

Seven burns down from Ten on tracks you already own.
Think about that; Think Different :)

Burn to a CD, burn to a DVD, DRM is gone.

[crees!]

Here's my test on each encoder from the actual CD:

Black Shuck - The Darkness (3:21)

AIFF/WAV (1411kbps) - 33.9MB
APPLE LOSSLESS (1079kbps) - 26MB
AAC (192kbps) - 4.7MB
MP3 (192kbps) - 4.7MB

[jocknerd]

1. Can you convert from the lossless format to aac or mp3? No sense in storing cd's in a lossless format if you can't convert to something smaller for an iPod or something. And I'd rather not put the lossless file on my iPod.

2. Why did Apple create their own lossless format? What was wrong with supporting flac? I won't convert my cd's to this format if its OS dependent. I love OS X, but I also use Linux.

[Geetar]

OK, you are almost twice my age (I'm 26), but, seriously, "children"? Come on.

Come on- you must allow me the occasional opportunity to be cantankerous and curmudgeonly as I advance into my extreme old age :D



And there's the deafness too. After all, I'm 43, so I must be deaf. You know, it makes people act all unreasonable- just study Goya's "Quinta del Sordo" work if you don't believe me.

[greenstork]

Well I read through this thread already but haven't found anyone who has addressed thins yet. How come iTunes 4.5 says it requires a Quicktime update that doesn't currently exist yet?

I can't say why the Quicktime update isn't available but I speculate that the reason for the update is to subvert program like PlayFair, which according to Slashdot, does not work with the new iTunes.

[Borg3of5]

I usually post replies that may be taken as ranking from positive to neutral, so this is probably the only negative I've posted, at least to my perception.

iTunes 4.5...hmm, that's great and all, but hasn't it been more than a full year since the iPod has been revised? Where is the 4G iPod? What the heck is going on? Apart from the revisions to the *Book line, reviews from Apple so far this year have been mediocre at best.

From June through the end of the year, BETTER be a "knock-my-socks-off" year, because these infintessimal updates have become annoying. Although Apple and SJ really don't have a track record of announcing what's up and coming, I've come to expect the following this year:

4G iPod
Updated G5's
iMac with single proc. G5

Argh. Update already!

[chabig]

how do you do this?????? i need to know and i cant find out anywhere!

iTunes Help...Join Tracks.

[Colonel Panik]

Handy Concept for Concept Rock


Many music CDs contain songs that blend into each other, and importing them to iTunes may create a small gap between songs that interrupts the flow. If you use the iTunes Join Tracks feature, the program melds two or more songs into one, continuous gap-free track. So now you can enjoy listening to classical music, concept rock albums and extended dance mixes without the silent treatment.

I've been waiting for this!!!

You've been waiting, but it's been there for a while... Advanced tab > Join music (you have to have all tracks selected for it to be active).

[chabig]

1. Can you convert from the lossless format to aac or mp3?

Yes.

2. Why did Apple create their own lossless format?

Don't know. But you can't please everyone. Just convert it to your preferred format.

[mainstreetmark]

There is, Apple hacked it for you ;)

If you're on a Mac, option-click the arrow.

If you're on Windows, shift-click the arrow.

Voila: you've just found the same artist or album in your own library.

Should have been more clear - I meant the *default* function should be my own library.

[bitfactory]

No, it's you that is wrong. Hopelessly, utterly and obviously irremediably.

When you've worked with the likes of Bob Ludwig (I suggest you Google his name- I can't be arsed to help you out any more than that) and can match his (even-older-than-my) ears..... then and only then will you have a right to pronounce on matters of frequency/phase/amplitude perception and how it's affected by age. So you lose some top end as you get older- do you really think that THAT is all there is to hearing?



It seems possible to conclude from this, however, that silliness may be inversely related to physical age.

being someone in the middle age-wise, i can say that you both are correct to some extent (though Geetar just has an, ummm... interesting way of proclaiming it).

and hey, i've always been a fan of Ludwig (even buying albums solely because he mastered them) when he reached total saturation at Masterdisk in the 80's.

[DStaal]

Best new feature (and entirely unmentioned): Multiple users on the same computer can have iTunes open!

That's right, no more "iTunes can't open because it is in use by another user." No more making sure you quit iTunes so the rest of your family can use it. It just works!

Related, but one I'm not so excited about: Switching users while playing iTunes no longer stops iTunes from playing. Good, in that I can hear the song, bad in that I can't stop the music or change the volume, or anything else...

[svenas1]

This was posted by Paul Thurrott on his web site http://www.internet-nexus.com/ about the iTunes update.

All he does is talk about the conversion from WMA to AAC, which is valid enough I suppose, but just can't say something good about it!!!!

Is it just me, or does this guy never really have much good to say about Apple... :mad:


No, it's him. This guy PT is a sad person. Sad and hilarious at the same time. Did you notice the pic of him next to his intellectual counterpart ? PT is the one with the short ears.

[centauratlas]

>lossless

To me this indicates that they intend to do bigger iPods in the not so distant future. I encoded all my CDs at 320kbps MP3 (I started back with the 1st version of iTunes) so they aren't small for sure. I have 12730 as of right now. I would have encoded higher but iTunes wouldn't go higher. But their lossless format will probably make them even bigger. For example, Dire Straits, "Brothers in Arms" song is about 16MB at 320kbsp MP3. I am re-encoding it with the "lossless" format to see how big it is and how the sound compares.

Anyway, the point was, if they are encouraging bigger encoding rates and therefore bigger file sizes, there is a market for bigger iPods to hold them all.

Edit: I did re-encode the entire Brothers in Arms CD (in particular that B in A track) and each was about doubled in size. It says it encoded around 800kbps (varies by song). I am going to selectively re-encode some CDs.

It would be nice if the Apple store sold the songs in "lossless" format. That is one reason I buy the CDs more often. I'd even pay a bit more for lossless.

[centauratlas]

I import my cds at 1411kbps (exact cd copy) to a sep. 250gb western digital drive.

What are you using to encode? Just curious.

[jmerk]

Porchland:
To my knowledge, Radiohead does not have their music for sale on the web ANYWHERE! Where on iTMS did you find this? I just did a search for Radiohead and came up with Christopher O'Riley's very cool piano renditions of Radiohead's music and a few other covers but, alas, no Radiohead themselves...

What are you talking about?

j

[jmerk]

I see a Quicktime update 6.3.1, post date: 4.27.04.

Quicktime is up to 6.5 so what the hell is this? After reading the "spec" on the update, it appears that it COULD be the 6.5.1 update. Is this a typo or what the hell?
I've run Software Update about 10 times...nothing.

j

[Rower_CPU]

I've only found it via direct download:
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/quicktime.html
or
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/

[idkew]

I see a Quicktime update 6.3.1, post date: 4.27.04.

Quicktime is up to 6.5 so what the hell is this? After reading the "spec" on the update, it appears that it COULD be the 6.5.1 update. Is this a typo or what the hell?
I've run Software Update about 10 times...nothing.

j


rower has posted the link for you, i did about 50 posts ago, as i am sure others have.

stop being lazy and read the thread.

[xhost_plus]

What I would like to see is a feature that resides in Window Media Player. In Media Player, you can update the song information in a slick way. You can search for the song or album information and it will update the song's ID3 tags automatically. If iTunes had this feature I think that more people would want make the switch.

[Kid Red]

wma on windows only

links to the music store from every song in my library.


the party shuffle is nice.

and cd covers.. cool.

Ah, did you happen to open your prefs and uncheck the 'link to the music store'? Try to learn a little more before basd mouthing something.

I personally think it's cool because I have a lot of tunes that I don't know which album it is from. Now I can simply find out.

[TheT]

Best new feature (and entirely unmentioned): Multiple users on the same computer can have iTunes open!

That's right, no more "iTunes can't open because it is in use by another user." No more making sure you quit iTunes so the rest of your family can use it. It just works!

Related, but one I'm not so excited about: Switching users while playing iTunes no longer stops iTunes from playing. Good, in that I can hear the song, bad in that I can't stop the music or change the volume, or anything else...
This is about the best thing! This has pissed me off for so long... awesome!

[dynamicd]

Well, I skipped the previous 9 pages so I don't know if this has been posted yet or not but since you can now click the arrows next to the song or artist in your library to go onto itms, I wish there was someway you could get the album art off there too by using a similar method.

[Spyky]

but that would only give iggy pop songs that are in the soundtrack genre. there isn't anyway to have iggy pop songs, plus soundtracks. I think thats what he was getting at

unless I'm stupid and just haven't figure it out

Use match "ANY" instead of match "ALL"

So, Match "Any" 1. artist is iggy pop + 2. genre is soundtrack

Unfortunately, one cannot select some to be matched all, and some to be matched any. However, you can now select in or not in a playlist, so you could make a playlist that say contains: All Iggy Pop songs of time < 2 minutes (Using ALL) and then another playlist that has everything from that playlist plus all of your songs from the genre soundtracks (using any).

-Spyky

[encro]

Obsessive-compulsives are always so sure about themselves and others.

rewind and go back a step :)

It's not because I'm 'obsessive-compulsive', it's because of knowledge in the recording industry (I am a musician/hobbyist-audioengineer). It has more to do with the fact that reference monitors present music purely as it is; not with the colorization that standard hi-fi speakers will present to you.

If you can't acknowledge that then me thinks you have been to too many loud concerts ;)

[looklost]

looks great..... until I quit itunes and tried lanching it later, now itunes doesn't work. Seen a post about Quicktime 6.5.1, going to try installing and see if that helps. Anyone else run into this problem?

[centauratlas]

What I would like to see too is SACD support on the Mac and in iTunes. Talk about even more audio data there. ;-) (And not just playing the CD layer, but the whole thing).

[egsaxy]

Did anyone else have to reload their library? When I opened it the first time my library was empty. Now my purchased music is not in that playlist (still loaded after I found it), and all of my playlists are bye-bye. Plus because I filled one drive up and started using a second my iTunes library is in multiple locations and am now "missing" 200+ songs and I dont know whats missing or where exactly it is. Anyone else having problems like this?

[egsaxy]

sorry for the second post in 10 seconds but does anyone have the .dmg of iTunes 4.2 I want to install it in addition to 4.5 if possible.

[jfruh]

Hello-

Sorry if this is a bit off-topic, I'm looking for help anywhere I can get it...

I just downloaded the new iTunes update (to 4.5) and accompanying iPod update. After updating iTunes, when I plug in my iPod, it appears as a volume on the desktop (even though I haven't set it to firewire disk mode) and a dialog pops up in iTunes: "iTunes has detected a software update for the iPod. Would you like to install it now?" I click yes, and it launches the updater app -- which tells me that "No iPod is attached"! I've tried rebooting to no avail. Has anyone else encountered this problem?

Oh, I should add that my iPod is the original, old school 5 GB model. Never had any problems with it before.

jf

[chabig]

What are you using to encode? Just curious.

He's not encoding. He's importing as AIFF, which is the native CD format. Or...he could simply be dragging and dropping the audio files from the CD to his hard drive, which is the same thing, except iTunes isn't managing it.

[Wonder Boy]

i was really hoping for an ipod software update that resolved the battery issue. ah well.

[JFreak]

There's NO WAY you can distinguish AAC@192 from the orginal CD, on a hi-fi equipment costing less than $50,000.

sure i can.

just give me a pair of shure E5 headphones and an ipod. put in an aiff original and an aac file and play it to me not telling which comes first. i bet i can tell you which is which. and it only costs a thousand, ipod included.

aac loses some of the high frequencies, which can be felt as "air". or seen with a frequency analyzer. either way, the difference is there and i can hear it with reference monitors.

[jesuscandle]

Did anyone else have to reload their library? When I opened it the first time my library was empty. Now my purchased music is not in that playlist (still loaded after I found it), and all of my playlists are bye-bye. Plus because I filled one drive up and started using a second my iTunes library is in multiple locations and am now "missing" 200+ songs and I dont know whats missing or where exactly it is. Anyone else having problems like this?

egsaxy,

I had the same problem at first. (In fact, 4.5 kinda screwed my system for a couple of consecutive restarts.) Things seemed fine when I left for work.

Anywho...

I was able to salvage my library completely intact by navigating to the folder:

~/Music/iTunes library (something like that?)

In there, my old library was chilling out with a name like "Itunes Library (Old)" I just renamed the "current" library file (and it's associated XML file) to be "New" and then renamed the "Old" file without the "Old."

Worked like a charm.

Um...I'm realizing that's not super descriptive. PM if you still need help.

[Rincewind42]

sure i can.

just give me a pair of shure E5 headphones and an ipod. put in an aiff original and an aac file and play it to me not telling which comes first. i bet i can tell you which is which. and it only costs a thousand, ipod included.

aac loses some of the high frequencies, which can be felt as "air". or seen with a frequency analyzer. either way, the difference is there and i can hear it with reference monitors.

Actually, QT before 6.5.1 did cut off frequencies above 16Khz. This is not the case with 6.5.1, so you may want to check your listening test again.

[TWinbrook46636]

I was able to participate in a double-blind listening test last year comparing various bit rates to CDs. The equipment was mid-range (high-end to most) but nothing extreme. Over speakers in the 128k vs 192k test I picked out the 192k samples 7 out of 10 times. Over headphones it was 9 out of 10 times. Over speakers in the 256k vs CD tests I picked out the CD samples 5 out of 10 times. Over headphones it was 7 out of 10 times. There were more but I don't remember them off hand.

I will say that the CD format is not the end all be all of quality sound to begin with. When I listened to an LP for the first time in many years I was blown away. It was so much better than a CD of the same album. It made the CD sound dull in comparison. Background noise is stripped away with CDs but so is everything else. Of course, LPs are not exactly practical in this day and age. I think as technology advances the quality of digital recordings will imporve.

Of course, this doesn't stop me from owning an iPod. I do wish there was a 192k option on iTMS for say $1.50 or so. Most of the songs I have bought from the iTMS are pretty good but I can hear room for improvement on a lot of them. One EP I bought recently was actually better than the CD though which is interesting.