I don't understand the advantage of having your music "everywhere" if I still have to download it to each device.
While having streaming as an option would be better, you don't understand how being able to get a song that wasn't synced is an advantage?
Quote:
Originally Posted by -cj-
Can you download whole playlists at once? It's no fun to recreate playlists, certainly not on the fly.
As of the current beta, yes. You can download whole playlists or whole albums, plus if you create a new playlist on your mac it instantly appears on your mobile device.
Quote:
Originally Posted by brianus
As long as it plays seamlessly, as soon as you press it, isn't the difference still just a semantic one? My only question would be, what happens when you finish playing song 2 in an undownloaded multi-song album -- does it immediately move on to song 3 and download/stream that too? Or do you have to explicitly select each song you want downloaded?
Users have reported that you can play entire albums or playlists, it moves on to the next song.
Quote:
Originally Posted by solipsism
I get all that, but why wouldn't I want to take my music with me? As I expressed I already take all my music with me and capacity will just continue to double every 2-3 years while song file size will trend upward much, much slower. It's video that is large and can't be stored on my mobile devices at all times.
Video and other files are a big part of the equation. My entire music library may fit on a device, but if I can put a much smaller portion of that library on it, that leaves more space for things like video that aren't in the cloud (yet).
While having streaming as an option would be better, you don't understand how being able to get a song that wasn't synced is an advantage?
I would think the key benefit of storing music in the cloud is so that i don't have to fill up the storage space on my device with music files. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the article, but it sounds like the way it works now is that there is a pause while the device downloads the song and then there is a physical file on your device for that song until you delete it.
It would be helpful if someone could clarify if the file that is stored is the full iTunes quality file, now that "streaming" has been eliminated. I know that earlier in the week it was just storing a smaller cached file. But if my iPod app recognizes it as a full file that resides on my device, I'm assuming it's the full size file that will consume storage space. Please correct me if this is wrong. I WANT to love the matching service. Honestly.
The way I see it is I am getting 25,000 songs backed up (which is up to several hundred gigabytes worth) for $25 per year.
To back that stuff up into any other cloud service (or say Dropbox) it would cost hundreds per year, and it wouldn't even be neatly integrated with iTunes and my mobile devices (iPhone & iPhone), not to mention I wouldn't get the quality of the songs bumped up.
And as I add music over the years, I will never again have to burn another set of DVD backups or waste my external hard drive's space on backing up my iTunes folder, not to mention the time it takes to copy all the files and the hassle of managing physical backups.
For $25 a year I have absolute piece of mind that all my music is always backed up and easily accessible from any device (provided I have an internet connection which lets face it is pretty ubiquitous these days).
Now if they did the same thing for iPhoto (which is 40GB on my computer) at this price, I would be able to get rid of my external HD completely.
I don't understand why one would pay $25/year for what appears to simply be cloud storage.
Me neither. But I do a HUGE benefit to iTunes Match for those that have over 80 pre iTunes+ and/or self rips below 256k. $25 will get all (or nearly all) those songs upgraded to 256k permanently. Pretty sweet if you ask me!
I would think the key benefit of storing music in the cloud is so that i don't have to fill up the storage space on my device with music files. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the article, but it sounds like the way it works now is that there is a pause while the device downloads the song and then there is a physical file on your device for that song until you delete it.
It starts downloading the song immediately, and as soon as enough of the file has arrived for the decoder to start, the file will start playing, with the remainder of the file still downloading in the background. For typical broadband connections, the download in the background will finish long before the music finishes playing.
If you then skip to the next song in the playlist before the previous song had finished downloading, then presumably it will keep the original file in its download queue, but at the same time it will add the new file to the download queue as well. If you do this too many times in rapid succession, then you'll find you've got lots of files in the download queue simultaneously.
Quote:
It would be helpful if someone could clarify if the file that is stored is the full iTunes quality file, now that "streaming" has been eliminated. I know that earlier in the week it was just storing a smaller cached file. But if my iPod app recognizes it as a full file that resides on my device, I'm assuming it's the full size file that will consume storage space. Please correct me if this is wrong. I WANT to love the matching service. Honestly.
I suspect -- but cannot confirm -- that it was never a downsampled file. The file in the cache was always full-quality, full-size, exactly as it existed either on iTunes (for music originally purchased from iTunes, and for ripped music that was matched) or in your original ripped file (for ripped music that could not be matched).
The difference is, now the file that gets downloaded will be explicitly added to your device's library and it will need to be deleted manually when you're done with it; whereas in the earlier beta, the file was hidden in a cache which could be flushed automatically to make space for other cached files as needed.
Thanks for the extra info. Sounds like the download and play process is pretty smooth, but I'll still want the 32 GB version for storage. I wonder if I could get into the habit of removing music regularly to open up space for other stuff. I'm more likely to leave it on there and let it accumulate.
Agreed though the real benifit of it is for the upgraded quality of tracks that were either ripped at a lower bit rate or obtained by legally murky methods
My question is how good/complete does the ID3 tag have to be in order for iTunes to match it? If it's only based on tags, then iTunes will have to deal with giving good quality files to a library of low-bitrate tracks.
Does this also mean that MP3 tracks encoded at 320Kbps or Apple Lossless will only get the lesser quality file in the cloud that iTunes offers? That is a deal killer for someone like me who undestands technically and aurally the differences in bitrate quality and has painstakingly spent long hours ensuring a high-quality digital music library.
And how does iCloud keep track of knowing where the master file resides as not to delete a song from the master library/hard drive when Match makes a mistake and deletes songs through iCloud?
Comments
I don't understand the advantage of having your music "everywhere" if I still have to download it to each device.
While having streaming as an option would be better, you don't understand how being able to get a song that wasn't synced is an advantage?
Can you download whole playlists at once? It's no fun to recreate playlists, certainly not on the fly.
As of the current beta, yes. You can download whole playlists or whole albums, plus if you create a new playlist on your mac it instantly appears on your mobile device.
As long as it plays seamlessly, as soon as you press it, isn't the difference still just a semantic one? My only question would be, what happens when you finish playing song 2 in an undownloaded multi-song album -- does it immediately move on to song 3 and download/stream that too? Or do you have to explicitly select each song you want downloaded?
Users have reported that you can play entire albums or playlists, it moves on to the next song.
I get all that, but why wouldn't I want to take my music with me? As I expressed I already take all my music with me and capacity will just continue to double every 2-3 years while song file size will trend upward much, much slower. It's video that is large and can't be stored on my mobile devices at all times.
Video and other files are a big part of the equation. My entire music library may fit on a device, but if I can put a much smaller portion of that library on it, that leaves more space for things like video that aren't in the cloud (yet).
While having streaming as an option would be better, you don't understand how being able to get a song that wasn't synced is an advantage?
I would think the key benefit of storing music in the cloud is so that i don't have to fill up the storage space on my device with music files. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the article, but it sounds like the way it works now is that there is a pause while the device downloads the song and then there is a physical file on your device for that song until you delete it.
It would be helpful if someone could clarify if the file that is stored is the full iTunes quality file, now that "streaming" has been eliminated. I know that earlier in the week it was just storing a smaller cached file. But if my iPod app recognizes it as a full file that resides on my device, I'm assuming it's the full size file that will consume storage space. Please correct me if this is wrong. I WANT to love the matching service. Honestly.
To back that stuff up into any other cloud service (or say Dropbox) it would cost hundreds per year, and it wouldn't even be neatly integrated with iTunes and my mobile devices (iPhone & iPhone), not to mention I wouldn't get the quality of the songs bumped up.
And as I add music over the years, I will never again have to burn another set of DVD backups or waste my external hard drive's space on backing up my iTunes folder, not to mention the time it takes to copy all the files and the hassle of managing physical backups.
For $25 a year I have absolute piece of mind that all my music is always backed up and easily accessible from any device (provided I have an internet connection which lets face it is pretty ubiquitous these days).
Now if they did the same thing for iPhoto (which is 40GB on my computer) at this price, I would be able to get rid of my external HD completely.
The way I see it is I am getting 25,000 songs backed up (which is up to several hundred gigabytes worth) for $25 per year.
I don't understand why one would pay $25/year for what appears to simply be cloud storage.
Me neither. But I do a HUGE benefit to iTunes Match for those that have over 80 pre iTunes+ and/or self rips below 256k. $25 will get all (or nearly all) those songs upgraded to 256k permanently. Pretty sweet if you ask me!
I would think the key benefit of storing music in the cloud is so that i don't have to fill up the storage space on my device with music files. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the article, but it sounds like the way it works now is that there is a pause while the device downloads the song and then there is a physical file on your device for that song until you delete it.
It starts downloading the song immediately, and as soon as enough of the file has arrived for the decoder to start, the file will start playing, with the remainder of the file still downloading in the background. For typical broadband connections, the download in the background will finish long before the music finishes playing.
If you then skip to the next song in the playlist before the previous song had finished downloading, then presumably it will keep the original file in its download queue, but at the same time it will add the new file to the download queue as well. If you do this too many times in rapid succession, then you'll find you've got lots of files in the download queue simultaneously.
It would be helpful if someone could clarify if the file that is stored is the full iTunes quality file, now that "streaming" has been eliminated. I know that earlier in the week it was just storing a smaller cached file. But if my iPod app recognizes it as a full file that resides on my device, I'm assuming it's the full size file that will consume storage space. Please correct me if this is wrong. I WANT to love the matching service. Honestly.
I suspect -- but cannot confirm -- that it was never a downsampled file. The file in the cache was always full-quality, full-size, exactly as it existed either on iTunes (for music originally purchased from iTunes, and for ripped music that was matched) or in your original ripped file (for ripped music that could not be matched).
The difference is, now the file that gets downloaded will be explicitly added to your device's library and it will need to be deleted manually when you're done with it; whereas in the earlier beta, the file was hidden in a cache which could be flushed automatically to make space for other cached files as needed.
Agreed though the real benifit of it is for the upgraded quality of tracks that were either ripped at a lower bit rate or obtained by legally murky methods
My question is how good/complete does the ID3 tag have to be in order for iTunes to match it? If it's only based on tags, then iTunes will have to deal with giving good quality files to a library of low-bitrate tracks.
Does this also mean that MP3 tracks encoded at 320Kbps or Apple Lossless will only get the lesser quality file in the cloud that iTunes offers?
And how does iCloud keep track of knowing where the master file resides as not to delete a song from the master library/hard drive when Match makes a mistake and deletes songs through iCloud?