Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
iTunes Store: More Songs, International Licensing and More
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
As Arn mentioned it depends on the song/type of music, the user and their definetion of good and bad quality. But going from
ACC-->standard CD-->ACC will degrade the quality. How much and if it's a "big deal" or not can only be told on a case-by-case basis.
Lethal
It all depends on your speakers etc but for a good 95% of people it's untrue... for most of us that will work just fine... you could (most likely although I haven't tried it) make an audio CD image with toast, mount the image, then rip the tracks from the image... the benefit of this is you haven't burned a CD and you could probably do some AppleScript to rig it up... you still loose little bits of quality here and there but... eh... it doesn't bother me... btw even if you make a disc image in toast you still lost the same amount of quality as if you had burned a disc.
One thing that I'm wondering is how an unlimited amount of iPods can play the music... has anybody tried to deauthenticate their computer then sync the iPod up... would the iPod be authenticated even though the computer wasn't? Either way is that iPod authenticated with my account also? If not then can't you take the m4p files from the iPod and do something or other with them? I've not tried any of this and I'd say there's a good chance it won't work but it's always good to toss ideas out there because sometimes the more knowledgeable can overlook obvious things... anyhow I doubt it'd work but... whatever...
I'm not disagreeing with you Arn, in fact I agree if that is the process it goes through. However, I believe Steve said at the launch that many of the tracks had been ripped from the master tapes - not from CD (which is itself a lossy format being a digital rendering of an anaologue source). Could a tune ripped from a master to AAC then burnt to CD and then ripped to MP3/AAC be of slightly better quality than an origianl AAC ripped from a commercial CD? I don't know. Am I even making sense. It was just a thought...
jx
Re: They've already added...
There is now a "Just Added" link in the Home page. It works for each genre just like the other links like Staff Favorites etc
Originally posted by marcsiry
There should be some mechanism to indicate "new albums since your last visit..." heck, I'm going to go on right now and suggest that!
There is now a "Just Added" link in the Home page. It works for each genre just like the other links like Staff Favorites etc
No, a Master->AAC->CD disk should not be of higher quality (and will likely be of lessor quality) than a Master->CD disk.
Master->CD will be as "perfect" of a sampling as possible (assuming accurate and reliable equipment is being used in the CD mastering process). Master->AAC may end up with a better representation of the music than Master->CD, but still the AAC representation is not quite 100% the same as the original Master. Thus, taking that AAC and putting it on CD will likely be of lesser fidelity than the original Mater->CD pressing.
Add to that the vagueries of CD-R ersus pressed disks (CD-R are more likely to induce read errors, which causes approximations in the D/A circuitry of the player) and there's really no way you'll be getting a better disk from the iTunes Music Store than from Best Buy or Tower (or Strawberries for my East Coast friends
).On the other hand, it is quite likely that the AAC's you buy from Apple will be of higher quality than those you would rip yourself (although ripping yourself you have your choice of bit rates and formats ...)
Just to be a dork, a better way to say this is:
CD -> AAC (filter out some info)
AAC -> CD (essentially faithful)
CD -> AAC (try to filter stuff out again)
The only difference between the two AAC files will be because the AAC -> CD translation is not entirely faithful. While AAC is lossy, the point is that it "loses" the right stuff. The second time around, it will see that the stuff it would have dumped is already gone (unless the AAC .> CD tranlsation introduces artifacts).
iTunes Music Store in Canada
The licensing issues around a service like Apple's iTunes Music Store are more complex than what a room full of lawyers and accountants could imagine. Apple not only has to deal with the record companies for the rights to the song masters ( i.e. the recordings ) but they also have to deal with the music publishers for the rights to use the songs ( i.e. the song lyrics and musical arrangements ). The best example I can think of is Britney Spears; she does not write her own songs. So, to use a Britney song ( which are not available in the music store btw ) you need to talk to the song writer and the record producer/company. It is likely that such complex issues are why a) the store is US only, and b) there are only 200,000 songs in it. But Apple had to start some where and the apparent success so far will get the ball rolling!
As for the issue of the Music Store going international, I draw your attention to this discussion on a blog site (http://www.benhammersley.com/archives/004603.html#004603) where about half way down the page the CEO of a Canadian licensing agency, CMRRA, stated he has called Apple to start the discussion of licensing the Music Store in Canada.
Sooner or later, the store will go international ( Canada seems like an easy first step for Apple ). I just wonder what the first priority of Apple will be; iTunes/Music Store for Windows or International Music Stores. I suspect they may work on both and get as much done as possible for the Christmas 2003 season.
jc
The licensing issues around a service like Apple's iTunes Music Store are more complex than what a room full of lawyers and accountants could imagine. Apple not only has to deal with the record companies for the rights to the song masters ( i.e. the recordings ) but they also have to deal with the music publishers for the rights to use the songs ( i.e. the song lyrics and musical arrangements ). The best example I can think of is Britney Spears; she does not write her own songs. So, to use a Britney song ( which are not available in the music store btw ) you need to talk to the song writer and the record producer/company. It is likely that such complex issues are why a) the store is US only, and b) there are only 200,000 songs in it. But Apple had to start some where and the apparent success so far will get the ball rolling!
As for the issue of the Music Store going international, I draw your attention to this discussion on a blog site (http://www.benhammersley.com/archives/004603.html#004603) where about half way down the page the CEO of a Canadian licensing agency, CMRRA, stated he has called Apple to start the discussion of licensing the Music Store in Canada.
Sooner or later, the store will go international ( Canada seems like an easy first step for Apple ). I just wonder what the first priority of Apple will be; iTunes/Music Store for Windows or International Music Stores. I suspect they may work on both and get as much done as possible for the Christmas 2003 season.
jc
If we really wanted to keep the hype going...
I think they should treat the promotions and advertising for the iTunes Music Store the same way that people treat movies:
Announce sales after 1 week.
Announce sales after 2nd week.
Announce sales after 4th week.
Announce sales after 1 quarter.
Announce sales after 1 year.
I think they should treat the promotions and advertising for the iTunes Music Store the same way that people treat movies:
Announce sales after 1 week.
Announce sales after 2nd week.
Announce sales after 4th week.
Announce sales after 1 quarter.
Announce sales after 1 year.
jayscheuerle
macrumors 68020
A lot of masters and mixes are digital. The only analog conversion comes from the microphone. Remember the labeling of CDs DDD, ADD, and AAD?
AIFF files on an audeo CD are not a "lossy" format as there is no compression involved, though that's not to say that the masters don't have more information and some is discarded in the transfer. I guess it could be considered "reductive" in that it can't capture everything the master contains.
I would guess that there is room for a compressed, lossy format that actually sounds better than CD quality provided the source is up to it, but I'm guessing that mp3s and AAC files are based on the source being CDs.
- j
It was this bit I was trying to get at (excuse the vagueries of my post)... That the quality of AAC from the apple store is likely to be higher than from an AAC you ripped from a CD yourself... Therefore
Master >> AAC >> CD >> MP3/AAC will be higher quality tham CD >> AAC >> CD >> MP3/AAC...
jx
Wooooo! Deftones are the bestest. =D
Back on topic: since AAC and MP3 both have their own methods of filtering out sounds... to solve the lossy issue at hand:
Download AAC file (128k)
--> Burn CD (no change in quality)
--> rerip as AAC file (but at 256k)
In this case, since the initial file was encoded as AAC, shouldn't reripping it AS a higher bitrate AAC yiels a pretty decent quality, as both bitrates of AAC use the same basic waveform for filtering? (versus using MP3's waveform on TOP of an AAC)
Just a thought...
Back on topic: since AAC and MP3 both have their own methods of filtering out sounds... to solve the lossy issue at hand:
Download AAC file (128k)
--> Burn CD (no change in quality)
--> rerip as AAC file (but at 256k)
In this case, since the initial file was encoded as AAC, shouldn't reripping it AS a higher bitrate AAC yiels a pretty decent quality, as both bitrates of AAC use the same basic waveform for filtering? (versus using MP3's waveform on TOP of an AAC)
Just a thought...
Yeah, it freaks me out too!
Yes, that's every Mac user's feeling (at least everyone that takes the time to post here and on other Mac fora). I don't know why it is like that (that Apple's being looked down upon by the rest of the computer industry), but it's their problem more than ours. Even the PC using crowd is beginning to see that now. Once the PPC970 is here we will have the best platform again.
(Of course, we have it already, just not the processor...
People will come in hordes, I hope. (Or is that dreaming?!)
Yes, that's every Mac user's feeling (at least everyone that takes the time to post here and on other Mac fora). I don't know why it is like that (that Apple's being looked down upon by the rest of the computer industry), but it's their problem more than ours. Even the PC using crowd is beginning to see that now. Once the PPC970 is here we will have the best platform again.
(Of course, we have it already, just not the processor...
People will come in hordes, I hope. (Or is that dreaming?!)
jayscheuerle
macrumors 68020
That depends on if the parameters for AAC files are higher than those for CDs. I'm guessing they're not. If they don't have some aspect which is superior to CDs, be it dynamic range or sampling rate, then there's nothing to be gained from taking it from the original source, unless the CD has been remastered to a higher quality since you last bought it.
- j
Just found this:
AAC supports wide range of sampling rates (8 to 96kHz), 48 audio channels, 15 auxillary low-frequency enhancement channel and up to 15 embedded data streams. The format supports bit-rates from 8kbps to 320kbps.
96kHz is more than twice CDs 44.1kHz.. but is it used that way in iTunes or Apple's music store?
jayscheuerle you seem to know your stuff - I'm just an amateur who was trying to raise a point that the (some of) the AACs Apple were offering were of a higher quality than the sort you would fing on a p2p network ripped from commercial CDs...
jx
jayscheuerle
macrumors 68020
This music store is far to easy to buy tunes from. i bought 3 tunes in under a minute! F**** SICK!
I bought an album, burned a CD, then ripped the CD as 128 Kbps M4A. In my own personal convoluted listening tests (described in another thread) I couldn't tell the difference between the M4P and the M4A.
Which is good. It means that if I ever lose the M4P's for any reason, my audio CD is my backup. I can simply re-rip it to M4A and be right back where I started from.
More Chinese and Japanese Pop Music Please!
I really hope the recording industry in Asia takes note of iTunes' success. In order for Chinese and Japanese pop music fans to get their hands on the lastest offerings in the US, they usually have to either buy a cheap pirated copy or just download the songs from Kazaa. Online companies like YesAsia.com are pretty good, but I question whether or not they're offering legitimate copies.
Japanese pop music, moreover, is notoriously expensive to get here in the US, as typical legitimate album might cost around $20 - $25. For fans that want to get their hands on anime or game soundtracks usually resort to the net or pirated copies from SonMay and EverAnime. I think fans would respond positively if the iTunes Music Store would offer such songs for download--I know I would.
I really hope the recording industry in Asia takes note of iTunes' success. In order for Chinese and Japanese pop music fans to get their hands on the lastest offerings in the US, they usually have to either buy a cheap pirated copy or just download the songs from Kazaa. Online companies like YesAsia.com are pretty good, but I question whether or not they're offering legitimate copies.
Japanese pop music, moreover, is notoriously expensive to get here in the US, as typical legitimate album might cost around $20 - $25. For fans that want to get their hands on anime or game soundtracks usually resort to the net or pirated copies from SonMay and EverAnime. I think fans would respond positively if the iTunes Music Store would offer such songs for download--I know I would.
Isn't Apple following the other music services?
I can get any format I want (mp3. wma,ogg,aac,mpeg) through http://www.allofmp3.com/index2.shtml
Emusic uses tokens and works great with MediaJukebox, they have a decent selection with bands like Rancid & Guttermouth and an ok 80's section.
The Apple store is definately easier in a few ways, that's a big plus, but with Pressplay, those 3 built into WMP (I forget the names) there are already ample sources for legal music. mp3.com offers unlimited free downloads, no chart busters but some decent offspring & newfound glory.
If Apple could get all these libraries under one roof so to speak, that'd be cool. Tower Records is going to try something along those lines.
WMP has offerd 3 services for awhile, Pressplay & MusicNow for tunes, CinemaNow for movies.
Someone asked about quality AAC vs mp3, according to Apple "..a 128-kilobit-per-second (kbit/s) AAC file should sound as good as or better than a 160 kbit/s MP3 file"
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93013
There are so many mp3 players for Windows, it's hard to say how iTunes will be recieved. Keep in mind many "typical" Windows users probably know as much about Macs as they do Linux. Apple is that company that sells those computers in the newspaper adds that cost more, a 1Ghz 1Mac is $900 more than that 2Ghz e-machine, why? It seems every weekend the huge 2 page Frys ad has a really inexpensive PC, next to a much more expensive Mac with a lower Ghz cpu.
Some People get used to using one player and unless they have a reason to switch, dont. Others, like the Winamp crowd are loyal and see no reason to change to anything else.. why give up all those skins and plug ins? or access to shoutcast?
Time will tell but I see it as being another music player.
Spew, as far as whether Apple is leading the industry or following along, keep in mind that the Music Store sold something like 200,000 songs in its first 18 hours of operation. That's as many songs as were sold by all other online music distribution services combined in the past six months. (I can't remember exactly where I read that. The Journal, maybe?) And Apple has a tiny market of potential customers, due to the fact that the Music Store is only available to US users of Mac OS X Jaguar with broadband Internet access.
Yes, other services got there first. But Apple is, by all accounts, the first company that's doing it even remotely well.
Yes, other services got there first. But Apple is, by all accounts, the first company that's doing it even remotely well.
What do people think will happen in the future of AppleMusic?? Will prices go up from 99c or go down? I could see both...