CDs aren't lossless, so I'm not sure why you expect more from your online music.
It depends on what you mean. As you weren't specific about what you mean, it's hard to comment on it. Some people think that digitization is lossy, but it's not lossy in the same context as a lossy codec.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Halvri
Agreed, go listen to a DVD-Audio disc and see if you still think CDs are lossless.
Again, same as above. Resampling losses aren't the same as compression losses.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Halvri
They come from a loss-less sample and that's it. Compressing the file for CDs inherently causes loss. It does the same thing even at higher bitrates. Stop trying to justify your error and just move on. Physical media is dead one way or another so this entire argument is ultimately irrelevant.
If you're going to school people, why not try to use better terminology? Blatantly using the wrong terminology isn't helping you here. Making a CD bitstream from a master isn't compression, it is resampling. It's like the rescaling a photo in Photoshop, that's not compression or decompression, it is resampling. The compression is what happens when you're saving as JPG or similar type of codec for distribution. In determining whether a codec is lossy or not, you do a bit comparison of the data going into the compressor and compare it to the decompressed data, and the resampling doesn't figure into that determination. Anything else is out of context and an improper use of terminology for the context.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris_CA
Copyright is a civil, not criminal matter, which is why it's RIAA against person x, not State of Minnesota/Feds against person x and also why no one goes to jail.
I think copyright used to be just a civil matter, but criminal aspects have been gradually added to it over the years.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil-TB2
This is actually not true.
It's not Apple's fault (other than negotiating a bad deal), but it isn't due to P2P/Torrents either. The price is up because of the monopoly position of the labels and the sweetheart deal they get on copyright law.
All the labels act in unison as a cartel, which is just a monopoly by any other name (an oligarchy technically). Because they are allowed to set the prices artificially and because (with the help of various governments), nothing goes out of copyright anymore, they have carte blanche to do whatever the heck they want.
Monopolies in business are always bad for the consumer. It's always been that way, and it's why from time to time laws are passed that attempt to eliminate or control them. Monopolies stifle freedom and innovation and are inherently fascist in design.
Until something is purposely done to free up the market (government intervention), the consumer will be preyed upon. It really is as simple as that.
Copyright is a legal distribution monopoly on a particular work. That doesn't prevent others from making songs to compete against them. You don't have to buy or listen to major label music. BTW: the existence and length of copyright is a form of government intervention in itself, it looks like you're arguing for government to intervene on the results of government intervention.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hmurchison
Folks
The only thing lossless by any stretch is the analog waveform from instrument to your ears.
The CD format is lossy.
Even a bump to a 20-bit word length will yield differences you can hear. Increase the sampling rate and it'll cause differences you can hear. This is of course provided you have proper AD/DA conversion.
I'm curious how 20 bit changes anything if human hearing doesn't have that level of dynamic range. As I understand it, 18 bits is the most you can expect from the best ears and best equipment, and that's assuming the equipment is good, and that's not cheap.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GordonComstock
Yup. the mic, the pre, the desk, the headstack, the tape formulation, the transport, the playback compensation, the amp, and the speakers to name a few things that adulterate the original signal in the "analog" world of reproduction (and we haven't even gotten to the lathe).
Yes, different kinds of losses. At least with sampling, you can inexpensively cut your losses along most of the rest of the chain, up until the output DAC, then there are conversion & amplification losses, and the limitations of the speakers, environment and ears.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gxcad
Blind tests have in the past proven no difference between DVD-Audio and CD. For that matter, the same holds true between 256kbps mp3's and CD's on very expensive and highly respected setups. People who say otherwise need to prove it in a blind test before they go boasting how they are audiophiles and they have superior ears or trained ears that can hear the difference.
Having said that, yes, TECHNICALLY, 24 bit 96khz audio SHOULD produce better quality audio. We certainly won't be able to hear it though.
Same goes for SACD - all marketing.
Maybe the difference is that the SACD / DVD-Audio releases don't employ the same dynamic range compression that is on the CD/MP3/etc? I think that could explain a lot.
For what you get (a compressed digital file with no physical product), the prices were already way too high. The price needs to get progressively lower over time if the recording industry really wants to fend off piracy.
This is a lose-lose proposition for everyone but the labels.
iTunes already had a somewhat limited selection, this morning it has dropped by about 15% by removing all the tracks that the studios were not willing to offer DRM free. I listen to a lot of J-pop right now for instance and some of the biggest groups have literally hundreds of albums out but what's available in iTunes? Two or three at most, and half of those disappeared last night because they are "imports" in the eyes of studio execs who are still living in the 60's.
Curiously though, I'd like to know where the heck all the $.69 tracks are???
I looked up a dozen or two groups from my distant youth in the 70's and about ten from the 1960's and they are all $.99 not $.69. If 45 year old tracks by people who are mostly dead now recorded at studios that no longer exist and owned by people who weren't alive when they were recorded are not $.69 tracks what are?
Just for laughs look up "Glenn Miller" (he died almost 75 years ago).
125 tracks, all of them $.99.
Because he's so "current" right?
Just set up a iTunes account in Japan. Go to Jlist for directions on how to do this. You can get all the Jpop you want. Or just import from yesasia.com
Because none of us are going to pay $5/month to rent music and because the Zune, especially now, is completely and utterly irrelevant. Subscription services like that will always fail.
Do the math.
$15.00 a month buys 1 CD with 15 tracks (being generous)
This is 9000 songs purchased over 50 years (600 CDs)
This is what you would get buying the music.
$15.00 to rent (and keep 10 a month). This doesn't have to Zune.
UNLIMITED music to listen to as long as you have the HDD space for 50 years.
Also, you get to keep 6000 songs (400 CDs).
Please explain how this is a bad idea? Unless you are overly concerned about willing your CDs to your kids, how is renting music a bad idea? You rent movies and TV via cable.
$15.00 a month buys 1 CD with 15 tracks (being generous)
This is 9000 songs purchased over 50 years (600 CDs)
This is what you would get buying the music.
$15.00 to rent (and keep 10 a month). This doesn't have to Zune.
UNLIMITED music to listen to as long as you have the HDD space for 50 years.
Also, you get to keep 6000 songs (400 CDs).
Please explain how this is a bad idea? Unless you are overly concerned about willing your CDs to your kids, how is renting music a bad idea? You rent movies and TV via cable.
If it doesn't have to be Zune to rent, can you play those on an iPod? Or other non-zune MP3 players?
They come from a loss-less sample and that's it. Compressing the file for CDs inherently causes loss. It does the same thing even at higher bitrates. Stop trying to justify your error and just move on. Physical media is dead one way or another so this entire argument is ultimately irrelevant.
Sample and bit rate conversion is different from compression.
Audio files are not compressed before burning to a traditional CD, they are sample and bit rate converted if they were mastered at anything other than 16/44.
Please explain how this is a bad idea? Unless you are overly concerned about willing your CDs to your kids, how is renting music a bad idea? You rent movies and TV via cable.
Maybe I'm an idealist but I don't see music, or art in general as transitory. Movies because of their length and the specificity of the way we experience them (sorry, I don't really have better words to describe it) are not something I want to experience over and over again on a regular basis.
Music on the other hand, for me at least, is permanent. Songs only last a few minutes and you experience them on a more gut level. I have music I've been listening to for 40 years now (since childhood). Although I probably don't listen to the first batch of "favorites" from my life as often as I do the more recent ones, I still listen to them. I enjoy them in a different way depending on the moment because good music is a bit ambiguous and open ended. The same song can seem very different depending on my mood or the circumstances I'm listening in. You can revisit the same piece over and over again and experience it differently each time. I only tend to buy music (and listen to music) that fits in that category. Any music I don't don't want to "live" with is not really music I want to spend my time with.
For me, renting music just doesn't fit with how I personally enjoy it. I'm not saying that's the way it is for anyone else, or should be. However, if your asking why, for some, renting music vs. having it permanently is not a good thing, well, there it is.
For me, renting music just doesn't fit with how I personally enjoy it. I'm not saying that's the way it is for anyone else, or should be. However, if your asking why, for some, renting music vs. having it permanently is not a good thing, well, there it is.
The way the package is with the Zune system sounds very interesting though, and I think it would be conducive with your desires. Each month you get to legally sample any song in the catalog to see if you like anything that you haven't listened to before, and you can pick 10 a month that you can keep forever, so it's not as if you're losing your library when you cancel. It's too bad that system is tied to the Zune.
The way the package is with the Zune system sounds very interesting though, and I think it would be conducive with your desires. Each month you get to legally sample any song in the catalog to see if you like anything that you haven't listened to before, and you can pick 10 a month that you can keep forever, so it's not as if you're losing your library when you cancel. It's too bad that system is tied to the Zune.
Maybe I should revisit the idea. Trying new music with "an option to own" is a good idea. If they would allow you to choose any 10 songs OR any album, that would be better (maybe with a discount for any songs over 10 on an album if an album has more than 10 songs—think "best of").
One of the challenges I have, not being a teen ager with access to a world of like-minded people to learn about new music, is discovering new music that isn't the flash in the pan pop crap on the radio. I've found people as varied as Bon Iver to Rob Zombie that fit with music that I want to to keep.
However, I am tied to the Apple model (OS, computer, ipod, stereo equipment car and home that's compatible) unless itunes has a less artist specific plan for a "seasonal pass" then the one they're experimenting with now (as I understand it) it's doesn't appeal to me and zune has a very hard sell to get me to switch.
That's an understatement. I've checked about 50 artists in my music library, ranging from the 1930s to the 1990s. In the thousand-plus results from those searches, I haven't found anything under 99 cents.
Three songs by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers are $0.69
I never said they loved Amazon, but they hated Steve Jobs and Apple. Sometimes things are simply done for personal reasons. Time will tell. In my part of the world it is night so tomorrow when I wake up we will see if suddenly Amazon tunes are now higher priced.
Either way, I could not care less. If a song is $1.69 or $10.69, or $169.00 and I want it, I will simply buy it. Luckily I can usually afford what I want to purchase. It is about the record companies pushing crap music (BEP's new song) on us and wanting consumers to pay a premium for it. It was like when Jay-Z got pissed at iTunes and decided to pull his American Gangster trax. Who suffered? He did. Then Jermaine the Midget Dupree actually had the gall to call consumers stupid and say that we should be thankful for the music they make. What a bunch of arrogant effers.
Well, guess what? it already started. To be fair, I expected Amazon to raise the price within a year not today!!
I don't think Amazon "followed Apple into the fray" as much as they were both dragged into it at gun point against their will.
Maybe I'm reading to much into this, but it seems like capitalism is experiencing some much needed growing pains of late. Sellers of everything from mortgage backed derivatives, to union demanded pension plans, to golden parachutes for failed billionaire CEOs are hitting the wall. Now, I'm guessing, it will be the music industry's turn (maybe Apple too).
I remember from the one econ class I had in college that a 6% profit margin for retailers was a good general target. Now every one who sells something wants to recreate the magical, illogical success of AOL by winning the lottery and getting the masses to let you have huge, gigantic profit margins that don't jive with what the consumer will bare over the long term once the delirium of new and cool wares off.
Maybe our current economic woes are a good thing. Fear of job loss and stagnant annual income may mean the consumer in the first world will simply have to do without the niceties of modernity in favor of food and shelter, thereby forcing modern digital robber barons into offering good products driven by realistic consumer demand at profit margins derived from product merit rather than a fat and happy consumer populous lusting after convenience and a self-indulgent desire for immediate gratification (people like me?until now).
If you want a $1.29 song, why not throw it in a 'wish list' until it's not as popular and goes back down to 99 cents before buying (assume any price will go down when the songs go down in popularity...)
I don't think Amazon "followed Apple into the fray" as much as they were both dragged into it at gun point against their will.
If you follow my post you will see that that was my point. The record labels gave Amazon an advantage just to force Apple into accepting their terms regarding DRM free music. Now they don't need Amazon anymore and can force them into accepting new terms and pricing.
Comments
Yes, inflation does that too.
Yes, but we currently hitting a state of global deflation and not 30% inflation
Why would I need a dictionary to explain what i've known for two decades?
You've known about lossy data compression for two decades? 20 years ago, there weren't even any formats using it available to the public.
Why would I need a dictionary to explain what i've known for two decades?
Yes, but we currently hitting a state of global deflation and not 30% inflation
99 cent songs on iTunes arrived three years ago, so that would be 10% annually, not 30%. And what makes you think we currently have deflation?
CDs aren't lossless, so I'm not sure why you expect more from your online music.
It depends on what you mean. As you weren't specific about what you mean, it's hard to comment on it. Some people think that digitization is lossy, but it's not lossy in the same context as a lossy codec.
Agreed, go listen to a DVD-Audio disc and see if you still think CDs are lossless.
Again, same as above. Resampling losses aren't the same as compression losses.
They come from a loss-less sample and that's it. Compressing the file for CDs inherently causes loss. It does the same thing even at higher bitrates. Stop trying to justify your error and just move on. Physical media is dead one way or another so this entire argument is ultimately irrelevant.
If you're going to school people, why not try to use better terminology? Blatantly using the wrong terminology isn't helping you here. Making a CD bitstream from a master isn't compression, it is resampling. It's like the rescaling a photo in Photoshop, that's not compression or decompression, it is resampling. The compression is what happens when you're saving as JPG or similar type of codec for distribution. In determining whether a codec is lossy or not, you do a bit comparison of the data going into the compressor and compare it to the decompressed data, and the resampling doesn't figure into that determination. Anything else is out of context and an improper use of terminology for the context.
Copyright is a civil, not criminal matter, which is why it's RIAA against person x, not State of Minnesota/Feds against person x and also why no one goes to jail.
I think copyright used to be just a civil matter, but criminal aspects have been gradually added to it over the years.
This is actually not true.
It's not Apple's fault (other than negotiating a bad deal), but it isn't due to P2P/Torrents either. The price is up because of the monopoly position of the labels and the sweetheart deal they get on copyright law.
All the labels act in unison as a cartel, which is just a monopoly by any other name (an oligarchy technically). Because they are allowed to set the prices artificially and because (with the help of various governments), nothing goes out of copyright anymore, they have carte blanche to do whatever the heck they want.
Monopolies in business are always bad for the consumer. It's always been that way, and it's why from time to time laws are passed that attempt to eliminate or control them. Monopolies stifle freedom and innovation and are inherently fascist in design.
Until something is purposely done to free up the market (government intervention), the consumer will be preyed upon. It really is as simple as that.
Copyright is a legal distribution monopoly on a particular work. That doesn't prevent others from making songs to compete against them. You don't have to buy or listen to major label music. BTW: the existence and length of copyright is a form of government intervention in itself, it looks like you're arguing for government to intervene on the results of government intervention.
Folks
The only thing lossless by any stretch is the analog waveform from instrument to your ears.
The CD format is lossy.
Even a bump to a 20-bit word length will yield differences you can hear. Increase the sampling rate and it'll cause differences you can hear. This is of course provided you have proper AD/DA conversion.
I'm curious how 20 bit changes anything if human hearing doesn't have that level of dynamic range. As I understand it, 18 bits is the most you can expect from the best ears and best equipment, and that's assuming the equipment is good, and that's not cheap.
Yup. the mic, the pre, the desk, the headstack, the tape formulation, the transport, the playback compensation, the amp, and the speakers to name a few things that adulterate the original signal in the "analog" world of reproduction (and we haven't even gotten to the lathe).
Yes, different kinds of losses. At least with sampling, you can inexpensively cut your losses along most of the rest of the chain, up until the output DAC, then there are conversion & amplification losses, and the limitations of the speakers, environment and ears.
Blind tests have in the past proven no difference between DVD-Audio and CD. For that matter, the same holds true between 256kbps mp3's and CD's on very expensive and highly respected setups. People who say otherwise need to prove it in a blind test before they go boasting how they are audiophiles and they have superior ears or trained ears that can hear the difference.
Having said that, yes, TECHNICALLY, 24 bit 96khz audio SHOULD produce better quality audio. We certainly won't be able to hear it though.
Same goes for SACD - all marketing.
Maybe the difference is that the SACD / DVD-Audio releases don't employ the same dynamic range compression that is on the CD/MP3/etc? I think that could explain a lot.
i don't mind this at all. maybe this will get people to stop listening to awful music that dominates the top 100... could be a positive change lol.
Your logic is flawed. Okay, the crappy music of the top 100 goes away. Whatever replaces it, good or not, will also be priced at a higher price.
This is a lose-lose proposition for everyone but the labels.
iTunes already had a somewhat limited selection, this morning it has dropped by about 15% by removing all the tracks that the studios were not willing to offer DRM free. I listen to a lot of J-pop right now for instance and some of the biggest groups have literally hundreds of albums out but what's available in iTunes? Two or three at most, and half of those disappeared last night because they are "imports" in the eyes of studio execs who are still living in the 60's.
Curiously though, I'd like to know where the heck all the $.69 tracks are???
I looked up a dozen or two groups from my distant youth in the 70's and about ten from the 1960's and they are all $.99 not $.69. If 45 year old tracks by people who are mostly dead now recorded at studios that no longer exist and owned by people who weren't alive when they were recorded are not $.69 tracks what are?
Just for laughs look up "Glenn Miller" (he died almost 75 years ago).
125 tracks, all of them $.99.
Because he's so "current" right?
Just set up a iTunes account in Japan. Go to Jlist for directions on how to do this. You can get all the Jpop you want. Or just import from yesasia.com
Because none of us are going to pay $5/month to rent music and because the Zune, especially now, is completely and utterly irrelevant. Subscription services like that will always fail.
Do the math.
$15.00 a month buys 1 CD with 15 tracks (being generous)
This is 9000 songs purchased over 50 years (600 CDs)
This is what you would get buying the music.
$15.00 to rent (and keep 10 a month). This doesn't have to Zune.
UNLIMITED music to listen to as long as you have the HDD space for 50 years.
Also, you get to keep 6000 songs (400 CDs).
Please explain how this is a bad idea? Unless you are overly concerned about willing your CDs to your kids, how is renting music a bad idea? You rent movies and TV via cable.
Do the math.
$15.00 a month buys 1 CD with 15 tracks (being generous)
This is 9000 songs purchased over 50 years (600 CDs)
This is what you would get buying the music.
$15.00 to rent (and keep 10 a month). This doesn't have to Zune.
UNLIMITED music to listen to as long as you have the HDD space for 50 years.
Also, you get to keep 6000 songs (400 CDs).
Please explain how this is a bad idea? Unless you are overly concerned about willing your CDs to your kids, how is renting music a bad idea? You rent movies and TV via cable.
If it doesn't have to be Zune to rent, can you play those on an iPod? Or other non-zune MP3 players?
They come from a loss-less sample and that's it. Compressing the file for CDs inherently causes loss. It does the same thing even at higher bitrates. Stop trying to justify your error and just move on. Physical media is dead one way or another so this entire argument is ultimately irrelevant.
Sample and bit rate conversion is different from compression.
Audio files are not compressed before burning to a traditional CD, they are sample and bit rate converted if they were mastered at anything other than 16/44.
Do the math.
Please explain how this is a bad idea? Unless you are overly concerned about willing your CDs to your kids, how is renting music a bad idea? You rent movies and TV via cable.
Maybe I'm an idealist but I don't see music, or art in general as transitory. Movies because of their length and the specificity of the way we experience them (sorry, I don't really have better words to describe it) are not something I want to experience over and over again on a regular basis.
Music on the other hand, for me at least, is permanent. Songs only last a few minutes and you experience them on a more gut level. I have music I've been listening to for 40 years now (since childhood). Although I probably don't listen to the first batch of "favorites" from my life as often as I do the more recent ones, I still listen to them. I enjoy them in a different way depending on the moment because good music is a bit ambiguous and open ended. The same song can seem very different depending on my mood or the circumstances I'm listening in. You can revisit the same piece over and over again and experience it differently each time. I only tend to buy music (and listen to music) that fits in that category. Any music I don't don't want to "live" with is not really music I want to spend my time with.
For me, renting music just doesn't fit with how I personally enjoy it. I'm not saying that's the way it is for anyone else, or should be. However, if your asking why, for some, renting music vs. having it permanently is not a good thing, well, there it is.
For me, renting music just doesn't fit with how I personally enjoy it. I'm not saying that's the way it is for anyone else, or should be. However, if your asking why, for some, renting music vs. having it permanently is not a good thing, well, there it is.
The way the package is with the Zune system sounds very interesting though, and I think it would be conducive with your desires. Each month you get to legally sample any song in the catalog to see if you like anything that you haven't listened to before, and you can pick 10 a month that you can keep forever, so it's not as if you're losing your library when you cancel. It's too bad that system is tied to the Zune.
The way the package is with the Zune system sounds very interesting though, and I think it would be conducive with your desires. Each month you get to legally sample any song in the catalog to see if you like anything that you haven't listened to before, and you can pick 10 a month that you can keep forever, so it's not as if you're losing your library when you cancel. It's too bad that system is tied to the Zune.
Maybe I should revisit the idea. Trying new music with "an option to own" is a good idea. If they would allow you to choose any 10 songs OR any album, that would be better (maybe with a discount for any songs over 10 on an album if an album has more than 10 songs—think "best of").
One of the challenges I have, not being a teen ager with access to a world of like-minded people to learn about new music, is discovering new music that isn't the flash in the pan pop crap on the radio. I've found people as varied as Bon Iver to Rob Zombie that fit with music that I want to to keep.
However, I am tied to the Apple model (OS, computer, ipod, stereo equipment car and home that's compatible) unless itunes has a less artist specific plan for a "seasonal pass" then the one they're experimenting with now (as I understand it) it's doesn't appeal to me and zune has a very hard sell to get me to switch.
That's an understatement. I've checked about 50 artists in my music library, ranging from the 1930s to the 1990s. In the thousand-plus results from those searches, I haven't found anything under 99 cents.
Three songs by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers are $0.69
I never said they loved Amazon, but they hated Steve Jobs and Apple. Sometimes things are simply done for personal reasons. Time will tell. In my part of the world it is night so tomorrow when I wake up we will see if suddenly Amazon tunes are now higher priced.
Either way, I could not care less. If a song is $1.69 or $10.69, or $169.00 and I want it, I will simply buy it. Luckily I can usually afford what I want to purchase. It is about the record companies pushing crap music (BEP's new song) on us and wanting consumers to pay a premium for it. It was like when Jay-Z got pissed at iTunes and decided to pull his American Gangster trax. Who suffered? He did. Then Jermaine the Midget Dupree actually had the gall to call consumers stupid and say that we should be thankful for the music they make. What a bunch of arrogant effers.
Well, guess what? it already started. To be fair, I expected Amazon to raise the price within a year not today!!
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13526_3-10214556-27.html
Well, guess what? it already started. To be fair, I expected Amazon to raise the price within a year not today!!
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13526_3-10214556-27.html
I don't think Amazon "followed Apple into the fray" as much as they were both dragged into it at gun point against their will.
Maybe I'm reading to much into this, but it seems like capitalism is experiencing some much needed growing pains of late. Sellers of everything from mortgage backed derivatives, to union demanded pension plans, to golden parachutes for failed billionaire CEOs are hitting the wall. Now, I'm guessing, it will be the music industry's turn (maybe Apple too).
I remember from the one econ class I had in college that a 6% profit margin for retailers was a good general target. Now every one who sells something wants to recreate the magical, illogical success of AOL by winning the lottery and getting the masses to let you have huge, gigantic profit margins that don't jive with what the consumer will bare over the long term once the delirium of new and cool wares off.
Maybe our current economic woes are a good thing. Fear of job loss and stagnant annual income may mean the consumer in the first world will simply have to do without the niceties of modernity in favor of food and shelter, thereby forcing modern digital robber barons into offering good products driven by realistic consumer demand at profit margins derived from product merit rather than a fat and happy consumer populous lusting after convenience and a self-indulgent desire for immediate gratification (people like me?until now).
I don't think Amazon "followed Apple into the fray" as much as they were both dragged into it at gun point against their will.
If you follow my post you will see that that was my point. The record labels gave Amazon an advantage just to force Apple into accepting their terms regarding DRM free music. Now they don't need Amazon anymore and can force them into accepting new terms and pricing.