Europe iTunes 15th of June maybe ?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/07/apple_itunes_launch/

 

OH GREAT - they choose to launch a site full of squelchy, wishy washy sounding files on my birthday - grrrr...

How about opening some more vinyl pressing plants instead??

 

Pffft ..............

Get an iPod then comment, vinyl melts at this temp

 

Sorry - anything with Crapple on it or with a built in rechargeable battery gets ignored by me by default. When someone other than an obscure computer company (and that includes Creative et al) comes out with a similar device that can run on AA's for 48 hours like my discman can, and store 1000 50 minute CDs at PROPER CD quality, I might be interested, but I will not use any lossy format barring MD to store my music, either now or at any time in the forseeable future.

I spend enough time on the PCs here at work or home without wanting to spend more time ripping my CDs

(sorry for the argumentative tone - trying to get house contents insurance for a person who actually HAS contents, and am thus trying to get through to the insurance helpline and it's really hecking me off!)

 

Spoken Dom like some one who dosn't have a clue.

The ipod is a fantastic device, I bought a pair of decent headphones and the quality is as good as you could hope on a train or what ever, I have 5000+ songs on here and I personally cannot wait to be able to stuff more on it from the apple store.

Whats the betting it will cost a quid a download though?

 

Dom, I dont see why you wont use lossy codecs, at worst they are no worse than minidisc, and at best they are better. And you would have to record to minidisc anyway whereas ripping is faster. You try telling the difference between the higher bitrate formats like lossless or high-bitrate AAC or even MP3 IMO ...

:duck:

Garyi, I think they said they would be 50p each. Not 100% sure, but thats still a little pricey IMO, when I can get them all free

 

Fair enough Paul but I prefer to pay

 

I just can't get on with digital formats, even now I have a decent CD player I still prefer my vinyl. There is just somthing I love about the 12" plastic that I can't get from any other formats.

To me half the point of a record is the product which includes the sleeve/case. If it is just a file you miss out on that. I can't imagine somebody selling a copy of a rare MP3 file in 20 years time!

So for my CD and Vinyl will always win as its not just about sound quality.

 

Aaah - but I don't have to rip to MD: I have a CD portable, MD and tape/radio. The only player that gets used is the CD one, and like I say, at 48 hours battery life, it'll eat the iPod for breakfast IN THIS AREA at least...

I have to admit though that I like the look of it. If the 60gb one is affordable, I'd use it to rip at standard CD data rate - ~100 CDs on a portable at the same quality as I get right now would be fine by me. But ripping? On my Athlon 750 it'd overheat before it had ripped one CD!!!

And no, I'm not upgrading the PC - until it dies. I have better things to spend money on... Since I don't play games any more, I'm SERIOUSLY considering a Mac (yep, believe it or not!!!!)

BTW - through Sennheiser 493 Manhattons (thanks HFC, subscription freebie, 1998!) and my £50 Panasonic discman, I was getting some very good sounds last night - surprisingly so!

 

The Europe iTunes store is open

TBH if I like anything i'm more likely to buy it on CD

 

Apple has a funny definition of "Europe". The "Europe" iTunes store is only available to people with a CCard and billing address in the UK, Germany or France

As Sgt Rock said though, I might buy the odd track just to check stuff out but I'd probably buy it on CD later if I liked it. All assuming that they expand the service to the whole of Europe

Michael.

 

Hmmm, so is this compressed audio that they expect us to pay full CD prices for?

I will never ever be guilty of handing over money for compressed audio

 

So how much are they charging per tune?

 

It looks like about 79p per tune which is a bit steep considering it's 99c (about 55p) per tune in the US. Still that's only £7.90 for your average 10 track album which is significantly cheaper than any normal CD.

Chris - most users will be happy with the 128Kbps compressed audio and quite clearly (going by the US experience) there are many people prepared to pay for it. If it were 55p a tune, on a par with the US prices, then I think it would be a pretty fair deal.

Michael.

 

A BIT steep? you're 'avin a larf arntcha?? That's a complete bloody rip off. Browse the racks at Fopp or similar and there are hundreds of CDs for less than 8 quid a pop. Sure brand new ones are more, but usually only for a few months. At least you've got the CD then and not a bunch of bits on a hard drive that'll die in 18 months time when the battery carks it.

15p a track - that's what I'd pay.

 

There is a thread over on Naim about this and the UK pricing is suggested at 79p per song / £7.99 per album. This seems outrageously expensive to me as there is no physical item involved so you can't sell it on the way you can a CD or record you don't like any more. I bet the powers that be wouldn't take too kindly to you eBaying your 'used once' mp3s, though you can shift unwanted vinyl and CDs easily and legally (often for more than you paid for them!). £7.99 is only a couple of quid below a typical online CD price, and CD singles are often just 1.99 for 4 tracks (and can be very good investments) so who would bother?

Tony.

 

128kbps? That's not even half decent. That is utter crap! What a con :grrr:

If you're only getting 10% of the music you should only pay 10% of the price :bub:

 

Ok, it is expensive but judging by the success in the US, it's not going to put people off.

The "MP3 generation" aren't really fused either about sound quality (within reason) or having a physical item. They also tend to buy individual tracks and make playlists instead of whole albums so they may well view it as cost effective.

Most £1.99 CD singles with "4 tracks" on them often really only have one track. I've seen them with:

1. Song (radio edit - clean)
2. Song (radio edit - uncensored)
3. Song (album version - clean)
4. Song (album version - uncensored)



If you think 79p is expensive, just take a look at what kids are paying for polyphonic ring tones . It can be as much as £2.50 for a 30 second (if that), badly done, instrumental and barely recognizable snippet of a song.

Michael.

 

Chris, you know that makes no sense . 128kbps is more than adequate for the kids. As far as 99% of them are concerned it's CD quality and that's all that matters. They're getting 100% of the music.

It's absolutely pointless people like us carping on about low bitrates at inflated prices. The record companies don't give a monkeys about us because we generate about 0.1% of their income.

Michael.

PS: if you had lossless compression that was giving you a 2:1 compression ratio would you call that 50% of the music? No? Well then you can't say that 128kbps is 10% of the music. If you really want to analyse it that way, once uncompressed and played through an MP3 device it's probably much more like 95% of the music.

 

Especially given the kit it's probably going to be played through. i.e portable devices, computer speakers etc. Nobody, even on this forum, would probably be able to difference through such equipment IMHO