No thanks, ogg/Vorbis isn't natively supported by enough devices. Best
bets at this point would be MP3 or AAC for compatibility with the
largest possible subset of devices, with WMA unfortunately coming in a
close third. There might be motivation to support ogg if enough music
stores started supporting it, but the ecosystem generally works the
other way around--the devices have to support it first or there'd be
no guaranteed proffit for the stores. There are a few devices that
support ogg, but not nearly enough--the iRiver line comes to mind, as
well as the stream, and some of the Rio players (now defunct).
Perhaps a better solution would be to allow you to pick your format/
bitrate at download time, and the store would have a cluster of
servers performing audio encodes. This would actually be quite
feasible, and would satisfy everyone equally. Further, this could be
expanded. If you buy music, you buy the right to download that music.
Need it in ogg, but you bought in mp3? No problem, just redownload it,
since you didn't actually buy the files, you bought access to the
music. This is similar to what Audible does already, DRM aside, you
can redownload any book you bought any number of times and in any of
their formats. I think this would really work, but who knows if the
major labels or music stores would consider such an idea.
On Dec 10, 2008, at 08:24, David Poehlman wrote:
ogg!
On Dec 9, 2008, at 11:12 PM, Chris Blouch wrote:
Now if the studios would just do MP3s for all music from all
download services.
CB
Dan wrote:
Hello,
Also, in the US, Walmart has MP3 music at 256 bit with no DRM and
it's really nice.
Dan
On Dec 9, 2008, at 3:01 PM, Jacob Schmude wrote:
Of course, that's ridiculous. Basically, I'm breaking the law by
turning my own, legally purchased, DVD disks into iPod-format
files. Well, I've only got this to say to that: too darn bad :). I
bought them, I'm not going to buy it again just to have it in
another format. Of course that's just one of the ridiculous cases
for the DMCA.
As far as HDCP goes, you won't escape it for long. Even on iTunes,
some of the HD video already has a similar scheme known as DPCP.
This only affects newer Macbooks and Macbook Pros at the moment,
as this is an encryption method for the new display port (DVI and
Mini DVI aren't affected). Basically, both the display port and
your monitor need to support DPCP, it is similar in concept to
HDCP. Failure to support DPCP on your monitor gives an error
message, saying this display is not authorized to play this
content. Completely ridiculous, naturally, how many people are
going to want to buy a new monitor just to watch their movies--
movies, I might add, that they have already purchased before this
display port was introduced?
I don't get it, I really don't. The only thing these restrictive
DRM schemes do is drive customers away, in many cases to pirated
versions that have been cleaned of these restrictions. They are
penalizing those who are legally buying content, and letting the
piraters off the hook. It seems the movie industry wants to take
up where the music industry left off, most record labels have
gotten it into their heads that DRM causes more problems than it
solves, and we now have stores like Amazon MP3 and iTunes Plus is
growing as well. I don't mind basic DRM, iTunes's fair play is
fair enough: up to five machines authorized to play the content,
and you have control over those authorizations at any time. This
digital signal encryption for video, I think, is going to push a
lot of people over the edge--I do understand what they're
attempting to do, but I think in trying to close one hole they're
ripping an even larger one. That, plus Blue Ray's capability to
phone home and lock the disk to one player only will hopefully
cause an anti-DRM backlash if this "feature" actually goes into
widespread use. Fortunately as of yet it doesn't seem to have done
so.
Ok, done ranting :).
On Dec 9, 2008, at 17:39, Chris Blouch wrote:
From what I've read there is a whole encryption chain from the
player up to and including the output device (known as HDCP). So
if your TV doesn't support DRM or your player software or
whatever you get a downsampled version of the video or no video
at all. This is rather onerous and Apple has rejected the scheme
so far. Windows Vista has embraced it so it must be bad. I've
also read that the BlueRay encryption, like DVD encryption, was
very weak and is already cracked. Also like DVDs, in the US at
least, the mere act of breaking the encryption is illegal so
avoiding all the silliness is not possible without breaking the
law. Apple is probably banking that digital download via iTunes
(or NetFlix or BlockBuster) will be the new delivery platform of
choice and this whole bits on a disk with DRM distribution
channel can just die under the weight of its own torturous red
tape. Some links for your enjoyment:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/23/blu-ray_drm_cracked/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDCP
http://techdirt.com/articles/20081030/1954252694.shtml
CB
Jacob Schmude wrote:
Not as stock, and I'm not sure if there are any blue ray players
for OS X at the moment. You could use an external drive, but
you'd still need a program capable of decrypting and playing the
video. Apple isn't embrasing blue ray yet, and I don't blame
them for holding out at the moment. You're not going to find any
open source blue ray movie players yet either, as the DRM and
encryption hasn't yet been cracked... and blue ray sure has a
lot of DRM, I'd venture to say a ridiculous amount though not
all movies use all of it.
There are some blue ray burners that are OS X compatible though
they're not cheap, but as far as I know there's no way to
actually play a blue ray movie.
On Dec 5, 2008, at 18:13, Will Lomas wrote:
hi can the macbooks play blueray dvd's
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