why does the "Party Shuffle" have that "3D" blue bar over the currently playing song, and the Library doesn't???
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iTunes 4.5 Released
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Geetar said:
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.
can you hear the difference?
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.
DrGruv1 said:
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.
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.micvog said:This is a concerning development... Apple releasing a Windows-only feature?
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.
craigiest said:
If you had those Mackie reference monitors then you would notice the difference between an encode and a cd.
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.
www.apple.com/quicktime
...and no it's definately not in the iTunes 4.5 installer on the Mac.
craigiest said:
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.
bitfactory said:
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!
eSnow said:
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.
mainstreetmark said:
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.
dmbfan said:
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.
slughead said: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.
Questions about the lossless format
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.
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.
Damek said:
Come on- you must allow me the occasional opportunity to be cantankerous and curmudgeonly as I advance into my extreme old age
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.
Powerbook G5 said:
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.
Usually
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:
Argh. Update already!
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!
MattG said:
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).
Damek said: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.
Geetar said:
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.