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HP Music Player and Music Store

Re: HP's market leverage

Originally posted by peejay
Furthermore, although HP is a respected brand name, do you think the average person thinks "Hewlett-Packard" when they want music? No: they think HP when they want scientific calculators or oscilloscopes. "HP Music Store" is like "IBM Film Studios."
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Well, I certainly hope the average person does NOT think about calculators and ocilloscopes when they think of HP, or HP has done a less than effective job of rebranding itself than we thought. While I believe we still make calculators, HP divested itself of O-scopes several years ago with the Agilent spinoff. HP is a computer company, and is vying to become a digital entertainment technology company. You can expect HP to dive deeper and deeper into consumer electronics over the next few years.
 
Originally posted by rjstanford
Did you even bother to follow THE LINK IN MY POST (sorry for the shouting, but I guess some people missed it earlier) listing the Zen for $249 with the free noise-cancelling headphones? Apparently not...

-Richard
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Yes I did follow your link and it showed the Zen at $314.99 and sold out not $249 as you suggest. So don't shout get yours links straight.

Having owned several Creative products over the years and hating most of them when they were touted as being the best this and that I will never again buy a Creative product again until I see/hear it in action.

As all good sellers they have to state hwo well the work or no one would buy them.
 
Re: Re: Me too!

Originally posted by edenwaith
Dang, you too, huh?

Seriously, this is getting ridiculous. Apple gets the recipe right and then suddenly everybody and their mother wants to steal the pie.
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Aren't we used to this if we are Apple users? This is nothing new to the Macintosh community. Can we say eMachine?
 
provide better value and superior sound quality than Apple and a good number of people will come to you." Elsewhere, "Like its predecessor, it boasts a 98dB SNR, which puts it at the top of the jukebox heap. There is no portable on the market that can compete with the Zen family of portables in terms of audio fidelity
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I'm not saying that the Zen doesn't sound better than an iPod, BUT don't be fooled by specs--use your ears. I was very impressed with my iPod. And I have spent many years listening to 24bit uncompressed audio in a studio situation. BTW: if it is 98db, then they must be using a higher bit depth than 16bit (which has a THEORETICAL dynamic range of 96db). CDs are ALL 16bit (except SACD which hasn't taken off as a mainstream format). So my point is that that's a typo, or Zen are on some good smack.
 
Originally posted by rjstanford
Well, people are creating WMA files at home (its built into Windows) and have been for years - many of these people won't want to rerip their collections. Also, people are buying songs from these other services - most of these people don't want to repurchase their songs from iTMS. These people, with WMA files, feel that they have usable files. They can play them on most devices.

If Apple intends to support these users in the future as potential iPod users, then their iPod needs to support the WMA format. If the iPod plays any given format, then iTunes (at least on Windows, ideally on Mac) should also play it. Therefore, if Apple wants to target users who have, in the past, used WMP (many) or a non-iTunes music store (growing by leaps and bounds), it will have to support WMA.

Referencing your quote, I'm not talking about sharing purchased music files between users, just sharing existing (to that user) music between devices. And while WMA may not be appealing to you, it is appealing to many people (heck, so is Brittney Spears music). The question is whether Apple will target the iPod to the market reality, or to Steve Jobs' own personal music preferences. And the iPod is far from the only HD based player available in stores...

-Richard
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I understand what you are saying about WMA, but the majority of personal music is in MP3 format which the iPod does support. iTMS had 80% marketshare of downloaded music. I don't think it is cost effective to pay licensing fees to support 20% of the market that are not guaranteed to switch to iTMS. The marketshare of iTMS is important to apple because they are able to provide an end to end solution. Supporting WMA uncovers more headaches as far as a solid service than it is worth right now. I agree Apple should find someway to allow people to switch to iPod/iTMS by transferring their songs. Maybe when they are comfortable with market dominance they will support WMA for the iPod.
 
I recently had a discussion with another new iPod user today:

Him: "I love how the iPod works for windows, but my windows audio files won't work on it."

Me: "Yeah, I know."

Him: "Why?"

Me: "I don't know."

Him: "What should I do?"

Me: "Re-rip into aac or mp3 using iTunes for Windows."


Lets all mediate on that....
 
And another thing about audio and specs...

I'd rather use and listen to well built 16bit converters (IE old Apogee converters), than poorly built 24bit converters (most new PC sound cards). Also, the analogue signal portion of the unit plays a BIG part in quality.

My point is that you get what you pay for.

And you pay for what you skimp on!

Are we all forgetting that Apple is the BMW/Audi (and MINI!) of the computer world? There will always be cheaper and worse products. Fine by me, but I'm not buying them.
 
Correct me if i'm wrong but...

Isn't the battle ground really AAC vs WMA?
I mean all this talk about the ipod and itunes supporting WMA kindof presupposes one format has already 'won'. I don't think so and i don't think apple does either. I mean the same could be said for WMP then. Why don't they support AAC playback?

Whoever wins the format will win the war. And right now the jury's still out. if itunes is the trojan horse for ipods, i think the ipod is the trojan horse for AAC.

i sure hope apple wins this one...
 
Re: Correct me if i'm wrong but...

Originally posted by kwtneo
I mean the same could be said for WMP then. Why don't they support AAC playback?
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Bingo. Thank you. Nail on the head! Everyone thinks Windoze is gotta be the standard, they're Microsloth, I mean, everything they make is gold right?!? BZZZTTT!! Dumbass Windoze lusers think this because they're used to being fed donkey doo and slopping it up by the plateful. Windoze and their slimy scum won't think backwards to ACC, and Microsuck wouldn't want it any other way, they dominate certainly not by their inferior bile, but by the fact they can crush the market because 1. people are in fact incredibly stupid/lemmings and 2. they don't have to budge an inch because see 1. It's a bummer, and yes, it'd be nice if Apple would win, but as the Refreshments sang so well a few years back "everybody knows, that the world is full of stupid people..."
 
Guys, Apple will win. The people who don't care how high-quality something is are the same people who won't buy online music. Simple as that.
 
Originally posted by mdntcallr
Yes, Apple may have the best mp3 player, the ipod, but it is NOT compatible with any of the other competing music services.

best way for apple to protect its sales, make it also compatible with Window protected audio files also.

otherwise, they are going to lose out on sales.
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We make all of this out to be such a big deal. The thing we all forget though is there isn't a market for this. Almost everyone I know would rather just get all the songs they want for free. Just being honest. I know it shouldn't be that way.
 
Everybody is missing a larger point here (apparently that happens often here) -- Market saturation will not only kill many of these competitors that are popping up, it will kill the entire market when that happens.

Just wait until a service goes out of business, leaving all of their customers unable to authorize any of their downloads. Let's see how many people keep downloading music online... Personally, I trust Apple to stay in this for the foreseeable future. But most of my windows-using friends don't trust Apple as much as I do, and as soon as the masses realize that once your music distributor is gone, so is your music (well, it doesn't disappear until you buy a new computer, but it does eventually disappear), I suspect that even those who are willing to pay will sour on the DRM part.
 
Until they realise that iTunes DRM is easily defeatable, and WMA files are not... but then again, how long do you think it'll take for someone to make unDRM software for both? 2 weeks? 3 weeks? I don't see this as an issue.
 
Originally posted by Highland
Until they realise that iTunes DRM is easily defeatable, and WMA files are not... but then again, how long do you think it'll take for someone to make unDRM software for both? 2 weeks? 3 weeks? I don't see this as an issue.
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Because we all know that people will just jump to use arcane command line tools to decrypt their music libraries :rolleyes:
 
Yes, the more tech savvy will probably crack the DRM when they are left in the dark by their e-tailer, but once that happens, I think they'll be going the illegal way in the future, since once you take the ease of use out the equation for the online stores they have no advantage other than karma (which is not usually all that great a selling point).

Not to mention the loss in average user appeal.
 
I don't get the "negative" votes. Competition is good for users and I look forward to see what HP brings to the market. If it sucks, then I'll have nothing to do with it... if it's cool, well... the king is dead, long live the king

Seeing as HP's mobile group produces the iPAQ, if they integrate a hard disk music player with that, it will be awesome. If they cheapout, then it'll be boring and will fade into history.

No reason why to be down on that... (after all, I am not Apple, I buy Apple by choice if they make the better product.. no need to blindly follow just because of a brand)

As for a HP music store, well... I don't buy from any online music store at the moment (iTMS, Napster2, whatever...) since I like CD media from record stores and the ability to rip and rerip at any quality I want... plus financially there's no savings. I would like to thank iTMS for letting me have 30sec previews in order to find the right song I'm looking for, but I'm not thanking them with my money.
 
HP own product or others

Who knows maybe HP will brand Apple's iPod and not some other product. Wouldn't that be a gas.
 
It's really sad that there's so much competition, but nothing will really work with anything else (easily). If I buy a CD it'll play in any CD or DVD player I purchase (hey, it might even work in my computer if the stupid record label hasn't put some dumb-ass protection on it)!

Does anyone know if it'll be easy to move files between the different WMA based players/stores??? (ie. If I download on Dell Music Store, and then want to transfer to my HP player).

Also, does anyone know if the quality of WMAs are as good as AACs? AACs seem to be a big step up from MP3...

Thanks.
 
I would like to say that without enforcement of digital laws, there is no way to stop this rampant digital crime. This is the same as saying, "As soon as I can take out my lock cutters/picks, these so called department stores won't have a market to sell to." Yeah, that sounds silly because there are laws that are ENFORCED to prevent the use of such devices in such a way. Until the enforcement of digital laws is in place it will be hard for anyone to make a successful business out of online digital media. Wouldn't it be nice if everyone just did the right thing. Then again locks do exist.:rolleyes:
 
Re: HP own product or others

Originally posted by eazyway
Who knows maybe HP will brand Apple's iPod and not some other product. Wouldn't that be a gas.
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Are you a clairvoyant or something? HP are bundling iPods right this moment for pro customers.

Maybe Apple are a lot cleverer and more appealing to the "PC world" than we think. AOL did a deal with MS over WMA which was lauded as a great breakthrough for MS. Then what do you see? A deal for one click to the AAC Apple iTunes Music Store on AOL. Maybe HP just thought the same, using Apple's kit for a piggy back marketing tool. Add in deals from Pepsi and MacDonalds, you could be seeing a huge wave of support for what Apple is all about in the music game.

In the past Apple have been a bit shy with their marketing, ie going it alone, but perhaps they have seen the light ie its better to have a small percent of something shared than 100% of almost nothing.
 
Originally posted by SiliconAddict
You are questioning hardware that we know nothing about. If they started it last week yah there could be problems. But last month? 2 months? 6 months? When did HP start working on these devices? And truth be told there isn't a whole heck of a lot that goes into these devices.
Hard drive, LCD, RAM, ROM, battery, USB/FW controller, a few other chips

It’s more about integrating the parts in a manner that makes the device as small as possible. As others have already mentioned HP makes some dang fine hardware. (The software is another matter. It typically sucks.) Unlike Dell who has some company in Taiwan design and manufacturer their products HP, with a few exceptions, designs their own products. I still own a first gen HP Jornada Pocket PC and I have to tell you it is the only Pocket PC that has an honest to god metal shell that is down right sexy. When HP designs something right it can go the distance with an Apple product.
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And a hardware design that isn't completed yet either. It would be one thing to be in a testing phase, but still in "the works" does not sound very promising. Even if that make the hardware with no bugs, they still have the software. A PPC is nothing compared to a player. The PPC platform was pretty much given to them as was the OS.

Apple doesn't make their own hardware, neither does Cisco, you mentioned Dell. There are many that do not. The reason is simple; it's cheaper to have someone else do it. The same holds true for chip manufacturing. Unless you produce a lot of product and will fully utilize a manufacturing plant, it's just not worth it.
 
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