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[sraymond]

No mention of JRiver...  but I'm guessing this is what the Minnesota testers will be doing.

Scott-


Dell tunes in to Musicmatch launch
Last modified: September 29, 2003, 6:01 AM PDT
By John Borland and John G. Spooner
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

update Musicmatch on Monday announced its entry into the digital song-selling business, and sources say PC maker Dell will be one of the first companies to promote the new download service to consumers.

.....

Full article here:
http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-5083282.html:

[crowfan]

My thoughts exactly. See my post in the "Legal Services" forum...

http://www.musicex.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=EMusic;action=display;num=1064857325

MusicMatch is the "official" software for the Windows iPod, yet you can't put songs from its store on your iPod because they are WMA....am I missing something here?

Can't *wait* to see what JRiver's got up their sleeve...

[LisaRCT]

First is not always best

and we all know MC is best!  

Listening to:
All Along The Watchtower - Dylan & The Dead  
[Time: 6:27 | 860 kbps ape | 39.8 MB]
on MC9.1

[sraymond]

First is not always best

and we all know MC is best!  

Yeah, tell that to the "Betamax" guys.  VHs wasn't best, but it was first.  And we all know how that turned out.

First to market can sometimes be a big deal.  But a few weeks or months probably won't matter - and we all hope it doesn't!

Just trying to stir the pot a bit...

Scott-

P.S.  I doubt I'd buy a $0.99 from other services - but brand loyalty being what it is, I'd probably give JRiver's offerings a try.

[LisaRCT]

Yeah, tell that to the "Betamax" guys.  VHs wasn't best, but it was first.  And we all know how that turned out.

Touche'
then again look at the 8-track tape  

[JeffB]

Actually, I believe Betamax was before VHS.  JVC created VHS because they were pissed at Sony for not allowing other companies to liscense Betamax.  JVC let other companies build and sell VHS machines and prices went down.

[KingSparta]

JVC let other companies build and sell VHS machines and prices went down.

and JVC got a cut of all VHS sales

[Charlemagne 8]

That was the demise of Betamax. JVC would (and did) license to ANYBODY and Sony held their potential license holders to a certain standard. Betamax was (and is ... a lot of TV news field teams still use it) a better quality video. But VHS was ubiquitous and you could record an extra 2 hours on the tapes.
If anybody still has one that works, use it as a tape deck. It sounds as good as a DAT.
CVIII

[sraymond]

Actually, I believe Betamax was before VHS.  JVC created VHS because they were pissed at Sony for not allowing other companies to liscense Betamax.  JVC let other companies build and sell VHS machines and prices went down.

You're not going to let reality get in the way of my example, are you?  Thanks for the refresher on history...  or maybe's it because you actually *LIVED* it as an adult that gives you an unfair advantage?

Scott-

[lOth]

You're not going to let reality get in the way of my example, are you?

Reality, reality... Just a collective hunch.

[modelmaker]

Charlemagne8 got it right. I was a JVC tech rep at the time. Sony beat JVC to the release of "home video cassettes" buy about 8 months. Actually, Panasonic was the first company to release a liscenced VHS machine - they beat JVC by 1 month.

The original video cassette, a 3/4' version was co-developed by JVC/Sony& HP.The helical scan system
was developed by JVC. The company line was that Sony took that design, and further developed it to what we all know as beta without JVCs permission. JVC sued Sony for patent infringement and eventually won.

The reason Beta had a very slightly better picture than VHS; the tape speed and scan speed were a bit faster and therfore less recording time in a given cassette size.

From my recollection, there were far more differences between TVs and Monitors. Sony Trinitons were the best TVs out and most of them had Beta machines hooked up to them. But in an A/B test with the same TV/Monitor the differences were more difficult to discern.

Broadcast used a 3/4" Beta not 1/2".

[sraymond]

I was a JVC tech rep at the time.

Ouch...  you must be *old*!  Conservatively putting your age in the 20s as a tech rep in the 1970s, I'm going to guess you're in your 50s.  Yup.  That's old.  :-)

Scott-

[modelmaker]

Yeah, I just bought my casket and burial plot yesterday. I'm 52! Any other ancients want to chime in? I forgot (the first thing to go) most of us old people are in bed by 8.

Didn't KingSparta just celebrate his 52nd or was it Doof?

[LisaRCT]

Ouch...  you must be *old*!  Conservatively putting your age in the 20s as a tech rep in the 1970s, I'm going to guess you're in your 50s.  Yup.  That's old.  :-)
Scott-

           

Old huh?  
I'll give you old!
I'll beat you with my walker!  

[xen-uno]

Interesting...

I always thought that the BetaMax format could record NTSC line for line...not the case. BM is good to 260 horizontal lines of res. VHS is slightly lower at 240 lines. S-VHS pegs in at 400. NTSC hovers around 512. HDTV's max is 1080. Current system => 1024. Next system => 1200.

10^-27

edit: here's a good link on BM vs VHS

[KingSparta]

HDTV's max is 1080. Current system => 1024. Next system => 1200.

i think that depends on what country your from since some use other standards from country to country.

[bjsolem]

Back to the original topic.....

I am eagerly waiting, like the rest of us I'm sure, to see what J River has up their sleeve with the release of 9.1 and the music download test from a few days ago.

However, being the impatient person that I am, I downloaded Music Match 8.1 to try out the legal music download store.

I downloaded some single tracks that I wanted and imported them into MC.  They were in wma format of course and played fine.  

Just to play around I converted them to MP3.  They converted fine are now in my library instead of the wma versions.

So what I don't get is, what's the big deal about all the copy protection (limited burns, transfers etc.) that are supposed to be part of these Itunes like services?

If I can just convert it to mp3 and use it like any of the other tracks in my library, where's the copy protection?

Is the assumption that converting to mp3 is too complicated and that the majority of the users won't know how to do it?

I'm all for the legal online sites, way overdue if you ask me.  I love being able to get the 2 or three tracks that I want instead of having to get the whole album.  I used to be a heavy cd purchaser back when they were regularly $12-$13.  I haven't purchased a single album at $17 - $18 that they have been selling them for lately.

So since I want these online stores to succeed, I don't understand why so much is being made of the business model that limits what you can do with the tracks you buy.  Converting to MP3 took me about 2 minutes per song.

Are the record companies going to realize that the restrictions aren't really working and pull the plug before the online stores even get off the ground?

[salsbst1]

Converting from one lossy format to another does some pretty serious damage to the sound quality.

It may also be the case that there is a signature in the file that survives the translation well enough such that, should your MP3 show up on gnutella, it would be traceable back to your purchased WMA file.

[bjsolem]

I haven't had time to listen to the tracks through my stereo, only a quick listen through my laptop speakers.  Obviously not a good test.

I was not aware that this was part of the "security" for the copyrighted material.  I'll have to give a close listen tonight and see how bad it really is.

At least one of the tracks I bought (not sure of the rest) had a bitrate of something like 320.  Without knowing all the technicalities, wouldn't that convert to a 128 mp3 file on par with the rest of my collection?

I realize that 128 is not the highest quality but I had to compromise due to the limits of my laptop, can't exactly add anothere drive into an empty drive bay.....

I have no intention of uploading any of my files to gnutella or anywhere else.

[Kurt Young]

<snip!>
It may also be the case that there is a signature in the file that survives the translation well enough such that, should your MP3 show up on gnutella, it would be traceable back to your purchased WMA file.
<snip!>

I would disagree with this theory.  The conversion process, at least via Media Editor, involves decoding the file to a brand new .wav (which cannot hold signatures of this nature, if I'm not mistaken), then encoding it to a brand new .mp3.  Every time I convert anything, it's always completely tagless... brand new data.

[JimH]

This thread is wandering around.  Please start new threads if you would like to continue any discussion.