tyler_durden;192113 Wrote: > I guess they figure that if people were dumb enough to buy into the > restrictions and compression in the first place they won't be smart > enough to realize that they are paying 2x what they used to for the > same product (albeit with hardware restrictions due to the proprietary > format).
Actually, AAC is NOT a "propriatary format", rather it is a standard format and part of MPEG specifications. Apple's DRM is proprietary to Apple, but the AAC music format is not. Also, these newer higher quality tracks are not twice the price but rather only a third more ($1.30 vs $0.99) for individual tracks. And the price for full albums at the higher quality are supposed to remain the same) Which still comes out cheaper than buying a physical CD, new, from the store. Even my Linux box can play unprotected AAC without hassle. And AAC gives a better audio quality then the more common (but patent encumbered) mp3 at the same bitrate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding tyler_durden;192113 Wrote: > And why would anyone prefer apple lossless to an open source format > such as flac? Only because we would more likely see iTunes selling Apple Lossless (which isn't AAC) then FLAC. But if we have an unprotected file in one Lossless format such as Apples Lossless format, it can be transcoded into any other lossless format such as FLAC without any loss of quality (of course if we transcode it to a lossy format it's a different story...) I would love to be able to download lossless and DRM Free music in FLAC. And I can and have http://www.thephiladelphiaorchestra.com/ tyler_durden;192113 Wrote: > Is it because you like being restricted to buying apple hardware or > paying a higher price for a non-apple, but licensed player? There are plenty of non-apple players that play AAC files (and while there are patent licenses required for the format, no special permission from Apple is required. In fact, AAC patent licensing is a LOT less restrictive then say the de-facto "standard" of mp3. Apple does not even license their DRM), its just that Apple's iPod is the most popular and best known example. Heck, even Microsoft's Zune supports unprotected AAC. tyler_durden;192113 Wrote: > Oh yeah, I forget. You were suckered into buying apple lossless music > from itunes and now they have you by the short hairs because you can't > play your library on anything but apple hardware. Actually, iTMS currently does not sell any lossless files, until this announcement it's all been 128kbit AAC within a DRM wrapper. Even this "upgrade" is going to be 256kbit AAC, not Apple Lossless. iTunes itself can convert unprotected AAC files to another format (such as mp3 which is supported by 99% of players) and there are plenty of other apps that can convert it too. The only "lock in" is provided by the DRM which goes away when it goes away. You can take an non-DRM m4a file right NOW (as opposed to a DRM-ed m4p) and convert it into a format that will play on just about every digital music player ever sold using no software but iTunes itself. And for DRMed files there are ways to do that too, iTunes will gladly burn DRMed files as an Audio CD. Personally, I think this is a great step and look forward to this "going live". I have several tracks that I plan to utilize the upgrade option on and several more that I plan to purchase once these DRM Free, 256kbit tracks become available. Oh, and while my Fiancee does, I don't own an iPod. All of my music players are non-Apple. My portable players are manufactured by Rio and Archos. As I said, iTunes will gladly burn purchased music to CD (and there are other things floating around the "grayer areas" net that I will not mention here). -- Marauder ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Marauder's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=6647 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=34128 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
