New iPods and Online Music Store

A re-cap of the live press event is available at MacCentral.

*Sorry PC'ers - you gotta wait until the end of the year.

The first question that pops to my mind is, how can I easily convert the 128kbps AAC files to mp3 - and at what bit-rate?

And if you don't have MacOS or Windows, you're screwed no matter what hardware you have.

Well, there's this: http://aacplugin.sourceforge.net/

I'm not sure what kind of changes apple may have made to the aac format. I'm going to test it out when I get home tonight. If I can't easily move the AAC files to my linux box (which stores all my mp3s) and at least sync them to the empeg (native or converted) I won't use the service much.

Cool idea though.

There's no interface to buy. I can deal with AAC once I get it. How can I get it?

It looks like it's a plugin of sorts for iTunes, so you'll have to go get a Mac first.

Yeah, the "iTunes Music Store" is integrated into iTunes 4.

Apple may break me down yet and get me to buy a Mac. I have a clunky Dell laptop and I covet that sleek Apple hardware.

The key question for the downloadable content is what is really available? It looks like I can't even search the database without running iTunes.

-Dylan

Currently they say they have over 200,000 titles available. But they've partnered with all 5 big labels, so I'd imagine that there will be a lot more titles to come.

I'd imagine that if you were wanting to try iTunes4 out, you could stop by your local apple retailer (or Apple Store if you have one close by) and search around their song title database all you want.

I'll give it a shot a little later. Looking for anything in particular? Like maybe out of print stuff?

Right, look at my first message in this thread.

They really do have a lot of stuff. You don't need to sign up for anything to just browse or sample. And they're 30 second samples. Not bad. Their servers seem to be slightly overloaded right now for searching, but browsing is fast. Too bad you have to choose a genre as the first step in browsing. They have comedy and spoken word albums in addition to music, too.

It's certainly not as complete as a music store (no Husker Du, Sugar, or Bob Mould; no Foo Fighters; no Sebadoh, to pick things I might be interested in) but artists they do have seem to be complete (at least for the labels associated, I guess). No OOP stuff that I saw, either.

Altogether, not bad. I don't know that I'd pay $1 a song when its compressed in an as-yet nonstandard form (read ``can't play it on the empeg'') when I could go to the store and get uncompressed versions for less to a little more, depending, plus cover art and a nice piece of backup media. It might be nice for trying out new artists, though. It looks like it would be faster and easier to go through than CDNow was in its prime.

I thought you were talking (exclusively) about the iPods. Sorry.

There are open source iPod solutions, aren't there?

I'm waiting for the Pearl, anyway.

Hmm, the interface for this is pretty sweet and the previews are great. Too bad the files are copy protected though. I wonder if anybody will come up with a way to remove the copy protection without uncompressing and recompressing the files. So who is going to be the first to ask for AAC support on the empeg ;-)

So who is going to be the first to ask for AAC support on the empeg ;-)

Well, I already tried that, but didn't get anywhere.

Apple just behave like Microsoft with funny clothes. They both think they are right to the exclusion of all others.

Of course this is essentially the same service that PressPlay have been offering for some time. They use DRM protected WMA, Apple use their custom DRM to protect AAC. Only difference is you can download and play WMA DRM files on most modern portables, where as you can download and play Custom-DRM-AAC on... Mac iPod (right now anyway).

I believe PressPlay's catalogue is significantly larger, in that they have many indies as well as the big five.

Rob

Disclaimer: I've had a couple of nice dinners with the PressPlay guys, so I'm probably biased. I forget who paid though.

Doesn't press play have a monthly fee which got you so many downloads and burns per month. The only advantage I see in the apple plan is you can burn all the tracks you "buy" onto cd's so I would think you could just re-rip the cd's. I think 99 cents per song and 10 dollars a disk is expensive though.

Fatwreck has all of their cd's for 10.00 on their website and I get an actual CD. I have found many other small labels also have cheap cd's on their websites.

I have found many other small labels also have cheap cd's on their websites.

heh... almost every CD i buy costs around $8, shipping included. Another reason the indie music scene is where it's at. Buy direct from the labels and it's cheaper than that. http://www.noidearecords.com/ for example (i know i know... the website is muy annoying).

PS... if you haven't heard Against Me! yet... boy are you missing out. Get "ReInventing Axl Rose" and be amazed.

Of course this is essentially the same service that PressPlay have been offering for some time.

Okay, I never heard of Pressplay, so I went and looked them up.

I don't see how this is remotely the same service. Pressplay seems to charge to have access to the service. iTunes Music Store doesn't (unless you're counting the fact that you have to buy a Mac). That right there is a huge difference to me.

Last time I looked they charged a monthly fee like 10.00 dollars or something. Then they let you download so many songs, and burn so many. So you are not paying just to access the service it is like emusic with DRM.

I bet I can buy a lot of service access time for the price of a Mac.

where as you can download and play Custom-DRM-AAC on... Mac iPod (right now anyway).

Also, the forthcoming Nokia 3300 "music phone" is claimed to support MP3 and AAC audio.

Same with the new Panasonic portable audio players.

I think the pertinent part was "Custom DRM". Pretty much any of our players could play AAC if we paid the license fee.

Would the DRM prevent AAC play on a player other than the iPod you suppose? Or would it be ignored?

- trs

If it has any strength at all it will encrypt and bind the content to the device.

I just looked up the pressplay service too.. which goes to show you how good marketing can actually expose a service. Apparently pressplay has no marketing because a lot of us haven't heard of it.

Does a "Portable Download" from pressplay mean that it has no DRM.. can be copied onto as many portable devices as I like?

I believe, although I cannot find the quote right now, that Apple plans on releasing an iTunes for Windows in approx 6 months. I am definitely interested in their service, so count this as a vote for "I would pay to get an AAC license on my beloved Empeg." I know you guys are doing this in your spare time, though so I understand that my wishes probably won't come true.

-Hoagy.

I know you guys are doing this in your spare time, though so I understand that my wishes probably won't come true.

I think you need a patent licence to use AAC in countries where software patents are enforceable -- that's certainly the way the rest of MPEG-4 works. This means that, however easy it might be to implement, we couldn't offer it as a free upgrade.

Edit: how come I didn't read the parent post properly? Anyway, even getting a licence would need lawyering effort etc. which DNNA would be unlikely to feel like doing.

Peter

Ah, but if you implemented an extensible platform, then we could sneak in our own gray-market free software implementation.

Hey, cool. The Panasonic SD Multi A/V Device looks genuinely useful if you need a lot of different things and don't want to haul around lots of different gizmos. It's an MP3 player, a still camera, and a video camera, all in one. Toss in GSM cel phone support, and you've got everything you could possibly want.

Hmmm. That product page refers to layer 2 AAC support - not layer 4. I wonder if the other panasonic decives offer layer 2 only, too. They're not specific about that.