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

[iSee]

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.

iTunes match will upload the songs it can't match, right? So is that really a scam?

[saintforlife]

Doesn't Apple have the patent on the word 'Match'? Oh...Amazon done messed up!

[imthenachoman]

Does anyone know how Amazon's matching handles explicit content and tags? Does it use your tags or replace with their tags? These are the two gripes I have with iTunes Match and, as of now, the only thing holding me back.

Originally Posted by dethmaShine

You must be kidding. No body copies Apple. Apple did not invent 'Scan and Match' although they were the first ones to do it.

'Scan and Match' have been going on for years. Or simply Google it.

You Apple fanboys think Apple invented the world. Puff!!!

Now let me cite my rhetoric LG Prada B.S., The Story of the Almighty Xerox B.S., and more to come.

/idiotic_android_fanclub_member #666

Wait. What? Apple didn't invent the world. Don't...don't..say it ain't so. How...how shall I ever continue to live.

I'm with you. I'm sick and tired of this competitive BS on Apple vs Google vs Microsoft vs Amazon vs anything. I wish people just spoke facts and let readers draw their own conclusions.

Originally Posted by Aragornii

MP3 = no thank you. I'll stick with AAC on iTunes Match.

Why? I have always been curious about why MP3 is better/worse than AAC.

[TimTheEnchanter]

Originally Posted by scottwaugh

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

Plus Amazon still sells physical product, CDs, DVDs, official merchandise, which the labels still like.... the old model.

[imthenachoman]

Originally Posted by Mike Valmike

Well, you won't get any matches on Tool or Def Leppard or other bands that are exclusive to vendors other than iTMS. But that's just how it is.

I currently have ~18k tracks and about ~15k of them match. In fairness, at least ~2k tracks are bootleg concerts so they weren't going to match anyhow. Out of the remaining ~800-1200 songs, perhaps 200 of them are my own personal performance recordings (so no match), 200 of them are apparently, despite my lack of coolness, so hipster indie that you've never heard of them (so no match) and the rest are authentic match failures by iTMS. That's pretty decent. If iTunes Match were a college midterm, it would qualify for an "A" with that percentage of correct answers.

I've heard of them. I heard them before they were born.

[baleensavage]

Originally Posted by imthenachoman

Does anyone know how Amazon's matching handles explicit content and tags? Does it use your tags or replace with their tags? These are the two gripes I have with iTunes Match and, as of now, the only thing holding me back.

You can't have explicit tags on an MP3. They are a part of Apple's proprietary AAC format and only apply to content purchased from the iTunes store. As for whether Amazon will replace explicit versions with clean ones like iTunes Match or vice versa, that has yet to be seen.

[nick_elt]

This world would be a very different place if Apple never existed.

[maril1111]

Why can't they use Flac or at least AIFF...??

I understand that they most likely wouldn't use ALAC but come on the other two should be a must... if Apple would offer that I would pay more (if it were to ever come to Denmark)

Great idea this in the cloud thing but at least give the option for better quality as-well.

[Tinyluph]

256kbps m4a? Because Amazon traditionally does .mp3 files which is not the same thing.

[benpatient]

Originally Posted by jabingla2810

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

Are you freaking kidding? Apple PURCHASED lala.com, which developed the "matching" software and featured it as one of the most important parts of their free streaming service, and then Apple shut down lala and charged everyone $25 a year for a less-effective iteration of the same functionality that pulled from Apple's databases instead of lala's.

They didn't "develop" anything. They bought out a competitor and re-packaged their product with a new logo on it and charged a fee.

[skottichan]

Huh, to those of us who have the occasional issue with getting clean versions of explicit via Match. I found tagging your explicit imports with Lostify seems to fix it right up.

[mactmaster]

Originally Posted by skottichan

Then please, explain to me the graphic that includes storage space.

The storage is for Amazon Cloud Drive. like dropbox...

[NumberNine]

Originally Posted by nick_elt

What???? Have u seen the price of a windows upgrade??????

Yeah and have you seen how long MS supports operating systems with updates? 10 years

How long does Apple do it?

[Porco]

Competition is good. Your move Apple!

The more competition the better, we might get to where we should be already, which is 'lossless', truly CD-quality files. Then we can hope for the option of even better quality. After all, it's only been about 30 years since a mainstream quality upgrade, that's not long in technology is it?

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.

iTunes has matched the vast majority of the music I would hope it would, but it can be quite fussy and when a CD track is a second or two longer (even just for silence between tracks on a CD rip) it can fail. You can sometimes do a quick and dirty edit with iTunes 'stop time' preference, then re-encode the track to shorten the resulting copy, then re-match, and it sometimes stop you from having to dig out an old CD for just one track to match. There is definitely room for improvement, but it's not as terrible for me as has been in your experiment.

With any of these services I can only advise everyone to always have a full backup of your existing music library before you start matching and replacing any files. Otherwise, if you have a large collection you might not realise that Apple replaced your ever-so-slightly-different recording version you got on a limited edition promo CD until it's too late. Though if you only ever listen to top 4o hits you will probably be ok.

Originally Posted by imthenachoman

[....]
Why? I have always been curious about why MP3 is better/worse than AAC.

To cut a long story short, AAC is a newer, better codec so can do better with the quality for our human ears than MP3 can at the same bitrate. Though at 256kbps, many would argue that most people won't really hear much difference between AAC and MP3, if any, unless they are using atypically good audio equipment. When everyone was selling 128kbps I think it did make an appreciable difference though, IMHO.

[imthenachoman]

Originally Posted by baleensavage

You can't have explicit tags on an MP3. They are a part of Apple's proprietary AAC format and only apply to content purchased from the iTunes store. As for whether Amazon will replace explicit versions with clean ones like iTunes Match or vice versa, that has yet to be seen.

Sorry, I did not mean explicit tags but will they replace the tags matched songs with information they have or with what information I have?

[benpatient]

Originally Posted by JHankwitz

No one said that Apple 'invented' it. It's Apple's business model to develop, build, market, and distribute inventions to the masses. And by the way, they do it very well.

Once apple develops a model of demand and distribution for the product, others jump in and copy the developed model and offer similar products on the cheap, not having to cover the development costs.

They didn't develop or build. They bought out a finished product that was available for free and charged everyone $25 for the trouble.

[NumberNine]

Originally Posted by nick_elt

This world would be a very different place if Apple never existed.

Yeah, their would be less arrogant people who think they are superior for using Apple products.

[imthenachoman]

Originally Posted by Porco

Competition is good. Your move Apple!
...
To cut a long story short, AAC is a newer, better codec so can do better with the quality for our human ears than MP3 can at the same bitrate. Though at 256kbps, many would argue that most people won't really hear much difference between AAC and MP3, if any, unless they are using atypically good audio equipment. When everyone was selling 128kbps I think it did make an appreciable difference though, IMHO.

Thanks!!

[mactmaster]

iTunes Match has been working really well for me. My library is currently at 11144 songs and 98% are matched or purchased only 246 songs are uploaded.

I've always preferred AAC over MP3 especially in the way that song tags/metadata are stored into the files.

I will keep using iTunes Match but it's good to see someone competing with Apple in the music space; I think Amazon is really the only company who can do it. 250,000 songs is a big upgrade from the 25,000 we get with iTunes Match so I hope this competition will push Apple to offer more.

[imthenachoman]

Originally Posted by NumberNine

Yeah, their would be less arrogant people who think they are superior for using Apple products.

You think Apple has in anyway shape or form added to the number of arrogant people? They meerely congregated them. :-P

[a.gomez]

hmm, interesting... I guess I get it for free till next year with my old account.

Only reason I have it is for the web player access - I can just sit on any computer and have my music library via the browser.

[Glideslope]

Originally Posted by vincebio

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



lame

YES. THAT WOULD BE NICE.

[jjbrennan1994]

Originally Posted by NumberNine

Yeah and have you seen how long MS supports operating systems with updates? 10 years

How long does Apple do it?

Thing is, Apple doesn't need to do it. By setting the OS price so low, a much larger percentage of people upgrade, compared to Windows (how many people are still on XP??? ) And besides, I find OS X is generally much more stable than Windows, meaning less problems need to be fixed unlike Windows.

[tarasis]

The 25k limit is the only thing stopping me trying out iTunes Match. Once thats raised I will gladly sign up to try it.

[baleensavage]

Originally Posted by imthenachoman

Sorry, I did not mean explicit tags but will they replace the tags matched songs with information they have or with what information I have?

I'm curious about this too. I can verify that it unfortunately changes cover art, but I haven't noticed any changes to ID tags. Of course most of my ID tag editing was to make the albums work correctly on my iPod and were for things like Album artist and compilations that won't be readily apparent with the streaming player.