Amazon Cloud Player Upgraded with Scan and Match, 256 Kbps Audio

[MacRumors]

Amazon today announced a significant upgrade to its Cloud Player music service, bringing iTunes Match-like "scan and match" technology to assist users in making their entire music libraries available in the cloud. The upgraded service also mirrors iTunes Match in delivering all matched tracks at 256 Kbps, even if the user's original material is at a lower quality.

New Cloud Player features include:

- Amazon MP3 purchases -- including music that customers purchased in the past -- are automatically saved to Cloud Player, which means that customers have a secure backup copy of the music they buy from Amazon, free of charge.

- Amazon scans customers' iTunes and Windows Media Player libraries and matches the songs on their computers to Amazon's 20 million song catalog. All matched songs - even music purchased from iTunes or ripped from CDs - are instantly made available in Cloud Player and are upgraded for free to high-quality 256 Kbps audio. Music that customers have already uploaded to Cloud Player also will be upgraded.

- Any customer with a Kindle Fire, Android device, iPhone, iPod touch, or any web browser -- and soon, a Roku streaming player or Sonos home entertainment system -- can play their music anywhere.

Amazon Cloud Player is available in free and paid tiers, with the free tier limited to 250 tracks, although tracks purchased from Amazon do not count against the total. Amazon's Premium tier costs $24.99 per year and allows users to store up to 250,000 tracks in the cloud, with tracks purchased from Amazon similarly not counting toward that limit. Apple's iTunes Match service is also priced at $24.99 per year, but currently limits users to 25,000 tracks, excluding those purchased through iTunes.




As part of the upgrades, Amazon is separating Cloud Player from its Cloud Drive service, which offers file storage in the cloud. Users with paid Cloud Drive storage plans will keep their current plan and receive free access to Cloud Player Premium for the remainder of their subscription periods. With the split in Cloud Drive and Cloud Player services, Amazon is also reducing pricing on Cloud Drive storage plans. Beyond the free 5 GB plan, users can choose from paid plans starting at $10 per year for 20 GB and moving up to a maximum of 1000 GB for $500 per year.

Article Link: Amazon Cloud Player Upgraded with Scan and Match, 256 Kbps Audio

[ZacNicholson]

hopefully apple can get itunes match to work better than it does now.

[jabingla2810]

Another example of how Apple is becoming the developer for the rest of the world.

[vincebio]

Originally Posted by ZacNicholson

hopefully apple can get itunes match to work better than it does now.

Hopefully we can STOP posting news about AMAZON on the FRONT page...



lame

[Jessica Lares]

I just tried to match my downloads on Amazon, and it only did 2 songs out of 15 on an album... Still, it's getting better! Wish it came with Prime though.

[Shakko]

I think this is great. I've had some issues with iTunes match, but I love the idea of having all my music synced everywhere. It works almost flawlessly on my macs, but on iPhone its much slower (the Music app itself is incredibly laggy). For $25 / year, its worth it to give Amazon a shot and see how they stack up.

[OzyOly]

Apple had to fight so much to bring this service because of the record labels. How can amazon achieve the same so freely?

[Rayd5365]

SWEET! I am a Apple hardware buyer/user through and through, but I buy all my music either on disc, or from Amazon.
Great news.

[applesith]

This is what I want Match to be. Only replicate my library in the cloud and leave my local music alone.

[Cubeeless]

Good deal!

[ScottYelich]

> All matched songs - even music purchased from iTunes or ripped from CDs - are instantly made available in Cloud Player

Has anyone ever managed to get iTunes match to match anything other than songs purchased via iTunes? I tried it on a few beatles songs and there was no match. At that point, I figured it was a scam.

[scottwaugh]

Originally Posted by OzyOly

Apple had to fight so much to bring this service because of the record labels. How can amazon achieve the same so freely?

Because the record companies want someone, anyone to compete with Apple - they don't like being so dependent on Apple.

[motulist]

store up to 250,000 tracks in the cloud

Apple's iTunes Match service ... limits users to 25,000 tracks

THIS is a very key difference. Many serious music lovers have more than 25,000 songs, but even the most avid music collectors usually don't have 250,000 songs. So this opens up Amazon's service to a whole segment of potential customers that aren't able to make use of the iTunes Match service.

[lifeinhd]

So if someone had low-quality rips (or pirated tracks), could they upload 250 to Amazon at a time, get them converted to 256kb/s, and redownload the higher quality files? (Serious question, I don't know if you can redownload higher quality versions of uploaded tracks or not.)

And how can Amazon afford to do this for free, when Apple charges $25? Maybe we'll see a reduction in price from Apple? One can hope.

[IscariotJ]

Originally Posted by ScottYelich

> All matched songs - even music purchased from iTunes or ripped from CDs - are instantly made available in Cloud Player

Has anyone ever managed to get iTunes match to match anything other than songs purchased via iTunes? I tried it on a few beatles songs and there was no match. At that point, I figured it was a scam.

Despite some issues ( playlist sorting, tracks refusing to play unless removed and re-imported ) iTunes Match works quite well ( for me ). I only have 3, maybe 4 albums bought from iTMS, the rest are ripped, and they've all been matched....

[motulist]

Originally Posted by lifeinhd

So if someone had low-quality rips (or pirated tracks), could they upload 250 to Amazon at a time, get them converted to 256kb/s, and redownload the higher quality files? (Serious question, I don't know if you can redownload higher quality versions of uploaded tracks or not.)

If a person wanted high quality rips of any album, then they've already been able to easily obtain them for free through illicit file sharing.

Originally Posted by lifeinhd

And how can Amazon afford to do this for free, when Apple charges $25? Maybe we'll see a reduction in price from Apple? One can hope.

Because the free amazon service only includes 250 tracks. That's a nice number, but at that small of an amount it doesn't really replace or expand on the amount of songs that you could fit onto all your portable devices anyway. In other words, the free 250 song package is just to try out the service to see if you want to pay for the larger package that actually would be significantly useful.

[Razeus]

Originally Posted by lifeinhd

So if someone had low-quality rips (or pirated tracks), could they upload 250 to Amazon at a time, get them converted to 256kb/s, and redownload the higher quality files? (Serious question, I don't know if you can redownload higher quality versions of uploaded tracks or not.)

And how can Amazon afford to do this for free, when Apple charges $25? Maybe we'll see a reduction in price from Apple? One can hope.

Because Apple charges for every little thing that should be offered for free. For example, Mac OS X Mountain Lion.

I'm sick of it frankly. I paid for iTunes Match when it launched. And that's the last time I'll do that. I expect iTunes to 1) up their 25k limit 2) offer an option to match only explicit material (which they STILL haven't done, but will probably tout this as "feature" in iTunes Match 2), and 3) stream the music instead of downloading. I'd ditch Rdio/Spotify in an instant.

If Google follows suit, I'm done with iTunes.

[chrisbru]

Originally Posted by ScottYelich

> All matched songs - even music purchased from iTunes or ripped from CDs - are instantly made available in Cloud Player

Has anyone ever managed to get iTunes match to match anything other than songs purchased via iTunes? I tried it on a few beatles songs and there was no match. At that point, I figured it was a scam.

Mine matched like 3400 out of 3600 or something like that, and uploaded the rest.

[samcraig]

Originally Posted by jabingla2810

Another example of how Apple is becoming the developer for the rest of the world.

No. This is an example of how Apple opens the door with a sales model for the music industry. This has nothing to do with "developing."

[skottichan]

Originally Posted by ScottYelich

> All matched songs - even music purchased from iTunes or ripped from CDs - are instantly made available in Cloud Player

Has anyone ever managed to get iTunes match to match anything other than songs purchased via iTunes? I tried it on a few beatles songs and there was no match. At that point, I figured it was a scam.

Unno, I have a bit over 4000 tracks, and I haaave, 518 unmatched.



Tho I'll admit, iTunes Match needs a little work. I'll randomly have a song on an album that won't match, even though I know it's in iTMS. I've a few where I get the clean version on my phone/ipad, but have the explicit in iTunes.


Edit: Also, looking at pricing, I'd be paying $75 (100GB + Cloud Player Premium) to get what I have spending $25 with Apple

[starbird]

Originally Posted by applesith

This is what I want Match to be. Only replicate my library in the cloud and leave my local music alone.

This is exactly what iTunes Match does. It only uploads songs it couldn't match. It's up to you if you want to download the iTunes file of matched songs.

Originally Posted by ScottYelich

> All matched songs - even music purchased from iTunes or ripped from CDs - are instantly made available in Cloud Player

Has anyone ever managed to get iTunes match to match anything other than songs purchased via iTunes? I tried it on a few beatles songs and there was no match. At that point, I figured it was a scam.

Originally Posted by IscariotJ

Despite some issues ( playlist sorting, tracks refusing to play unless removed and re-imported ) iTunes Match works quite well ( for me ). I only have 3, maybe 4 albums bought from iTMS, the rest are ripped, and they've all been matched....

I've had great success. I have about 10K tracks, and over 9K matched.

[Zimmy68]

Originally Posted by Jessica Lares

Still, it's getting better! Wish it came with Prime though.

This.

I don't expect it for free but it would be nice to get a discount with my $80 a year I pay them.

So far the pros and cons (as I see them, I didn't subscribe)

Huge + You can edit the metadata
10 x more songs allowed
Huge + true streaming. This should be fixed in iOS6 though.

Minus
If all your music is in iTunes, hard to manage which is matched and downloading matched songs is probably laborious.

Unknown - Album artwork, etc? For instance, if I have an untagged song and it matches, does the downloaded Amazon track fix it and show artwork? I would think so.

[Big-TDI-Guy]

Amazon - you want more business? Allow video on-demand for iPad / iPhone - I'd ditch iTunes entirely if Amazon brought that to the table.

[mshepp]

Isn't this service still US only?

[Chupa Chupa]

Originally Posted by Razeus

Because Apple charges for every little thing that should be offered for free. For example, Mac OS X Mountain Lion.

But ML is free for those who bought a Mac after the WWDC keynote. But why should Apple make ML free to everyone who bought a Mac in the last 4 years? And, really, at $20 bucks it's pretty much free. What Microsoft Windows OS update was ever $20 for the general public?

You can make the case Apple overcharges for some things like the Magsafe to Magsafe2 adapter or Airport base stations or Thunderbolt cables, but ML isn't one of those.