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Apple/EMI Press Conference Coverage

Avatar74 said:
Technically, you shouldn't be able to hear a difference between 128Kbps AAC and 16-bit Linear PCM... but some people will insist that you can despite a total lack of any technical understanding of how perceptual coding schema work relative to the A-weighted spectrum.

I'll be supporting the premium tracks, but mainly to help boost the figures for non-DRM file sales.
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I'm afraid I disagree. Very high frequencies definitely seem to lose something on my 128k AAC tracks, normally with cymbals, most notably on the hi-hat. I don't really notice anything at 160k unless you were to play it on a cd straight after where there is a definite loss of...how can I put this technically...OOOOMPH!

I'm very happy that they're pushing album sales as opposed to singles but I don't really completely approve of non-physical media. Sure, I rip all my CDs to iTunes, but I've still got a bookcase full of cds with booklets and cover art that I can actually hold. As a musician, the cover is a very important part of making an album. It's a visual representation of the music that is not being appreciated so much with digital stuff. I mean look at the track listing on the back of your favourite cd and then look at your list of tracks written in Lucida Grande typeface in a grey box on a monitor.

...and let's not forget about your local independent record shop that isn't being done any favours by digital music.

Most of this post probably belongs in a different forum, namely the "whining musician" thread.
 
Rocketman in EMI rumor thread said:
4-1-07

A better question is since there IS a press event with Steve Jobs present,
what might he announce as "one more thing"?

Primary:
EMI content on iTunes
PROVED RIGHT

Likely:
Watermarked vs DRM format
PROVED RIGHT

Apple loseless format

HD 720i music videos
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I was close at least.

Upgrades is a feature rich offering.

Rocketman
 
Cant wait to see Cory "I very much doubt Steve Jobs sincerity" Doctorow worm his way out of this announcement.
 
Mac Fly (film) said:
I urge everyone here to copy and paste this in this link, or write some similar feedback there and send it to Apple. This is our chance to get heard people:

"This EMI DRM-Free thing is good news. There are still a few small annoyances right now however; 1. The tracks cost more, if one still wants to go with the .99c a song thing, that will still encompass DRM. I don't think going DRM-free is a risky move for any of the two cpmpanies involved (Apple or EMI), it can only mean higher sales and more profit for both companies IMO, so the customer shouldn't have to pay for that luxury. 2. Another little niggle now is the gap where only a certain amount of songs on iTunes will be DRM free thus causing confusion. "Is this a DRM free song?" "Will the song I'm searching for be DRM free" etc. etc.

I think a better overall solution would have been to drop DRM completely for all EMI content and keep existing bitrate songs DRM-free and .99c (128bit), and make them also 1.29c at double bitrate. This is the only solution IMO that could please all people properly, both consumers and audiophiles alike."
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LOL. Obviously someone lives in an ideal world. DO you think the Media companies want to get paid less for music that isnt DRM? Like seriously they probably love to just forgo something for nothing. Thats not how buisness works. The higher price is nothing and covers the DRM-free and the extra cost of downloading a song that will be twice the size. And Im sure it cant be that confusing, they can putt little sticker DRM-free. Or any song thats 1.29 would be DRM-free. That seemed obvious. :rolleyes:
 
Evangelion said:
Well, it's premium if you compare it to the DRM'ed 128kb/s version. Above 256kb/s the differences would be negligible in any case.
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Yah but if you compare it to iTMS competition which is already at 256 kb/s or higher "premium" becomes more of a buzz word then an actually being "premium". *shrugs* At any rate I'm bitching about an upgrade. Its more which does suck but...*shrugs* at least you have the choice.
 
mpetason said:
I've ripped my share of CD's, and the best for size and quality is VBR. if they ripped in VBR there wouldn't be all this talk about quality. it wouldn't be lossless, but it wouldn't be bulky and have 256kbs when you are listening to a song that doesn't need that high of quality. lossless may be good for you, but for the common person, they don't need it. i have hundreds of CD's and am fine with VBR when i rip, if i'm too lazy i'll just do 192. i just don't see the merit in making a "higher quality" rip that costs more and doesn't have DRM. it's a step in the wrong direction. and the fact that you rip in lossless is fine, but most of the music that isn't bought, but downloaded is VBR and it is scene standard, meaning IRC, which.... is like the mouth of a river for pirated music. go download EAC, download lame, find out the VBR line of code, enter it in, and bam, perfect music for your listening ears. if everyone knew how easy it was to rip a CD even with copy protection, they would have no reason to pay for or buy it online anyways. go to best buy, buy the CD, put it on your ipod. it's that easy, or get into the music industry and get free CD's from labels before they come out, that's what I do... downloading music you pay for is a scan. and apple is the middle man. buy music directly from the band.
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I've been saying that all along. I'd rather buy a cd and own it. What I've been doing is buying used cds rip them and trade them for other cds. It winds up being cheaper than itunes and I think the ripped cds sound better than my itunes music. I will occasionally download a single song but for albums no way. I'm buying the cd.
 
Dippo said:
That's true, it would be no different than ripping a CD (high quality) to 128bit AAC (lower quality).
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Not that there would be no difference, but the difference would be very hard to percieve since its at such a low bit-rate in the first place. So there might be a difference, but it could be said it was negligible.
 
Project said:
Cant wait to see Cory "I very much doubt Steve Jobs sincerity" Doctorow worm his way out of this announcement.
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I'm more interested in watching that idiot Edgar Bronfman start backpedaling from his "Why doesn't Jobs put his money where his mouth is" diatribe.

Well, money say hello to mouth. Bronfman, say hello to crow.
 
My two main, and fundamental, complaints about the iTunes music store have been unacceptably low audio quality and DRM. If this change propagates to all product on the iTunes music store, Apple will gain 100% of my business (assuming I can find everything I want), compared to the current 0%. Good stuff.
 
Why are you guys so thrilled?

I must say I'm quite surprised at the generally positive response most of you are having to this.

I'm sorry guys, but this really should've been a "free" enhancement. 256k really should be the standard (and please don't say that Apple needs that much extra cash for the additional bandwidth), and it probably costs Apple LESS to not have to apply Fairplay.

The fact that we have to pay additional money to NOT have our tracks crippled is setting a really, really bad precedent. This would've been a huge step forward if it didn't cost extra. As long as there's any sort of tradeoff in order to not have music that I paid be crippled, then they still don't get it.

I find this really disappointing. Sell us our tracks without DRM and don't make us pay extra for the "privilege" and then you've got something, because at that point it means that you get it. Not until then.

Come on guys, this isn't a good thing. It's a step sideways.
 
johnee said:
I have done a few crude experiments where I would play the first 5 seconds of a song that I ripped, then play the same song from a CD. Even at high sample rates, the highs were higher, and the sound quality a bit less "muddy" from the CD, but if I hadn't done my little experiment, I would never have noticed it.
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The resulting sound depends mostly on the encoder used to compress it. Artifacts are introduced in the process so that the music sounds different. In mp3, its a warbling of highs thats most prominent. One way for the encoder to reduce artifacts is to reduce the highs when encoding, this leaves it with more bits it can use to properly encode the rest of the music.

Many people focus on how loud the highs are, yet this is a red herring. Many times its preferable to lose some highs rather than endure the warbling effects. Most people don't notice it, but its one of those things where once you hear it, you'll recognize it everywhere and it could become a real irritant.

I can clearly here the difference between 128kbps MP3 and a CD. Different encoders do it differently but I can hear it in all cases.

I haven't (yet) been able to hear the difference between 128kbps AAC and a CD although I'm sure I'd be able to if I tried hard enough.

On one particular song, which starts with very quiet tinkling rain drops, I can clearly hear the difference between the CD and any bitrate mp3 no matter how high. So there are definitely times that lossless format can be heard to be better.
 
rew said:
I find this really disappointing. Sell us our tracks without DRM and don't make us pay extra for the "privilege" and then you've got something, because at that point it means that you get it. Not until then.
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What if, in an alternate universe, Steve Jobs announced the iTunes Music Store back in 2003 (or whenever it was) and offered, right from the start, non-DRM'd music at $1.29 a track?

Would you still be complaining?
 
Lucy Brown said:
I've been saying that all along. I'd rather buy a cd and own it. What I've been doing is buying used cds rip them and trade them for other cds. It winds up being cheaper than itunes and I think the ripped cds sound better than my itunes music. I will occasionally download a single song but for albums no way. I'm buying the cd.
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This is true. That is exactly what I used to do. Well Ill still go on doing that. But for new CDs. $10 is a lot less than $18-24. (Especially since they charge $.99 CAD, which is less than $.99 USD, but at a store they charge more in CAD than in USD) So, its a bigger saving for me. Plus while it is a small drop in Quality and not having the actual CD is kinda a bummer. But at half the price, plus not having to leave the house, Im getting enticed. But yeah, I can get used CDs for like $5.00, so why would I pay double for less quality. But you see..... there are some times when I would find this usefull.
 
Diatribe said:
Even though you will have people (like Avatar74) claiming techinally you cannot hear the difference, it has been shown over and over that on the right equipment you can hear differences. It is just that most people cannot afford that kind of equipment....
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And these self-proclaimed "experts" on the subject don't understand the concept that everyone has different hearing abilities. The people that can't hear the difference are people that weren't born with, or didn't develop, the ability to hear the difference.

Round up 10 people randomly, give them hearing tests, and you'll have 10 different sets of plots showing the frequency range each can hear.

But it's not just freq. range: Most of those 10 people won't be able to distinguish the difference between a violin and a viola. That's just how it works in the real world.
 
the real question is.... why hasn't apple made something to compete with the xbox 360 so that I can have basically an apple TV that plays all of my favorite games like RB6 vegas, and doesn't freeze every 5 minutes or overheat, or just pretty much suck. plus... it would have to have a built in isight, like my macbook pro.
 
more ipod sales?

rew said:
I must say I'm quite surprised at the generally positive response most of you are having to this.

I'm sorry guys, but this really should've been a "free" enhancement. 256k really should be the standard (and please don't say that Apple needs that much extra cash for the additional bandwidth), and it probably costs Apple LESS to not have to apply Fairplay.

The fact that we have to pay additional money to NOT have our tracks crippled is setting a really, really bad precedent. This would've been a huge step forward if it didn't cost extra. As long as there's any sort of tradeoff in order to not have music that I paid be crippled, then they still don't get it.

I find this really disappointing. Sell us our tracks without DRM and don't make us pay extra for the "privilege" and then you've got something, because at that point it means that you get it. Not until then.

Come on guys, this isn't a good thing. It's a step sideways.
Click to expand...


I think its a step in the right direction. First EMI and then other companies. However, I can see them coming back 3 years from now and saying they are going to upgrade the quality to 320 and we should pay 1.59. But that's just the cynic in me, LOL :D

Larger tracks require more space which means we all have to upgrade our ipods too? Sounds like win-win for apple.:)
 
mpetason said:
the real question is.... why hasn't apple made something to compete with the xbox 360 so that I can have basically an apple TV that plays all of my favorite games like RB6 vegas, and doesn't freeze every 5 minutes or overheat, or just pretty much suck. plus... it would have to have a built in isight, like my macbook pro.
Click to expand...

No, that's not "the real question" :).
 
rew said:
I must say I'm quite surprised at the generally positive response most of you are having to this.

I'm sorry guys, but this really should've been a "free" enhancement. 256k really should be the standard (and please don't say that Apple needs that much extra cash for the additional bandwidth), and it probably costs Apple LESS to not have to apply Fairplay.

The fact that we have to pay additional money to NOT have our tracks crippled is setting a really, really bad precedent. This would've been a huge step forward if it didn't cost extra. As long as there's any sort of tradeoff in order to not have music that I paid be crippled, then they still don't get it.

I find this really disappointing. Sell us our tracks without DRM and don't make us pay extra for the "privilege" and then you've got something, because at that point it means that you get it. Not until then.

Come on guys, this isn't a good thing. It's a step sideways.
Click to expand...
I dont know what world you live in? But usually when you get more, then youre charged extra. Thats the way of capitalism buddy. Do you want to just have more for less money? Oh yeah... ideal world I forgot.

Please people be realistic. Apple is a business working out deals with other businesses. Like what do you expect free music at Lossless Quality. I rather have that than $.30 less, because $.30 doesnt make that much of a difference for trying to dissolve the pillars of business and capitalism.
 
Chef Medeski said:
I dont know what world you live in? But usually when you get more, then youre charged extra. Thats the way of capitalism buddy. Do you want to just have more for less money? Oh yeah... ideal world I forgot.

Please people be realistic. Apple is a business working out deals with other businesses. Like what do you expect free music at Lossless Quality. I rather have that than $.30 less, because $.30 doesnt make that much of a difference for trying to dissolve the pillars of business and capitalism.
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You just can't win!
People are forgetting the fact that deals cost money and that higher quality files take up more bandwidth.
 
rew said:
I must say I'm quite surprised at the generally positive response most of you are having to this.

I'm sorry guys, but this really should've been a "free" enhancement.
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To me, I think songs are woth $1.99 each. I really would pay that and I'd think that's fair. For the past 2 years I've been getting them on iTunes for $1.00 less than my ideal price. Whoo, good for me!And now I can get them for $0.70 less than my ideal price.

I'm sorry you're unhappy, but I'm going to be buying a lot of music that STILL costs 35% less than what I think it's worth even AFTER this fantastic change.

Although if being unhappy is what you want, why don't you go around talking about how the songs should all cosst 50 cents? That would allow you to be even MORE indignant and annoyed.
 
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