can you play wmas?

[geestring]

can you play wmas on minidisc players?

I tried the digital music stores for the first time... and i was surprised that I got licensed wmas....kind of mad.. never again.,

and converting wma to mp3 would decrease the quality... also can you even do that witrh the license?

[1kyle]

I know I might be like King Canute trying to prevent the tide from coming in but until Downloadable Purchased Music is available in UNCOMPRESSED WAV (or other UNCOMPRESSED / COMPRESSED LOSSLESS) formats which I can play on WHATEVER piece of equipment I care to choose (like CD rips etc) then I'm NOT going to touch this type of music with the proverbial bargepole.

I'd really advise other people to do the same --some of the DRM issues now are so stupid it's a joke.

I'd be quite happy to buy CD downloads in WAV format --broadband is perfectly fast enough for this --but once they start adding DRM restrictions --forget it --I'll stick to "Dinosaur CD's" / Real time recordings from Satellite radio,concerts etc etc.

Just look at this type of download nonsense from one of the UK's bigger supermarkets

OK say you want to download an album -- well here's the STUPID restrictions you'll get.

----Quote

You will need

Windows 98 Second Edition or above

Windows Media Player 9 or above

If using a digital music player, one that supports Windows Media files with Digital Rights Management encryption

Note

This service is not compatible with Apple iPod

Check your system

--Endquote

What a load of Dogpoo --if I want an album I want to play it on any high quality decks I have in the house, OR a portable CD / MD player if I'm out in the Garden, Or any other type of portable music player --especially if I'm in the car or train etc etc.

I certainly don't need to be stuck in front of a computer on a nice sunny day. I certainly don't need restrictions on what devices I can play it on or how many times I can copy the music to another device --I don't have but I could be mad or eccentric enough to have 500 CD players in the house --my music should work on EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM.

It's like buying a book with the restriction it can only be read while doing your business in the loo.

In addition since the book will be in "Compressed Format" you will have to use a HUGE magnifying glass to be able to see the text and it's possible one or two paragraphs may be unreadable.

This whole Music download nonsense has taken everybody for a BIG BIG RIDE.

BTW look at the nonsense with regional DVD encoding -- who even needs hacks anymore when you can get a second DVD player for as little as 20 GBP (Tesco's the other day 19.99 GBP).

Cheers

-K

Edited March 8, 2006 by 1kyle

[geestring]

yep. i should have read whatever in the faqs...

i was surprised to see them sending me crap....pretty much useless...

[Sparky191]

I agree, low bitrate DRM strangled formats are a waste of time.

[ATELETRONICS]

JUST BURN AN AUDIO CD. THEN USE SIMPLE BURNER AT HI-SP 256K AND YOU WONT NOTICE MUCH OF ANY DIFFERENCE. IT WILL SOUND ALMOST THE SAME BUT THERE WILL BE SOME LOSSES.

[1kyle]

some of these "music downloads" won't even allow you to burn a music CD at ANY bitrate --so a total waste of time even bothering with these sort of music services.

Cheers

-K

[ATELETRONICS]

that really sucks if you cant even burn an audio cd. you could always use the total recorder method. or just use the line in on the md recorder and make an alalog copy. they you can upload and do whatever you want with the songs after their converted to wave files. record the songs from the computer in pcm.

[1kyle]

But the problem is you are starting with a compressed format in any case so converting it to PCM or wav won't improve the base quality of the music --even if it does allow you to then make a CD or other option.

Recording in Real Time will always work -- my main beef is having to pay for a product which

1) won't sound like the original musicions / composers intended it to be heard (AFAIK all music download services only offer Lossy / compressed formats)

2) Without a lot of "jiggery Pokery" severely restricts where and how you can play the music

3) If you get round the irksome restrictions you get another level of quality degradition ( The compressed format ===> D/A converter to Analog out ==>speakers / phones ==> Ears)

Now if you capture the analog out with total recorder etc. then you've got

===analog ==> A/D (reverse of the Digital to Analog when playing) ==> transcode to Atrac / mp3 or whatever device you are playing on.

I'm not sure at what point the transcode is done --probably just after the A/D conversion --but I'm sure some of the Sound Engineers on this board will put me right here.

You really are much better off getting CD's (whilst they still exist. At least you can rip in LOSSLESS and do what you like with the music.

Cheers

-K

[Qwakrz]

I think of it like this..

You can pay £20 for a poor lossy copy of a record, it arrives in several files that can be lost, has nothing but the files so no nice artwork. The files are so wrapped up in DRM that you can only just get them to play on one PC if you are lucky, God forbid you want to listen to them away from the PC you downloaded them on (infact I think the RIAA would prefer it if you could not play them at all)

Or

You can pay £12 for an original PCM lossless version on a silver disc that comes with inlays and all cover art work but might have some DRM restrictions that can be removed if needed (CD > TOSLink > Hi-MD in PCM > PC). You can play this disc on ANY CD player and if it does not work you can either exchange it or get a refund.

So, you can pay less and get more.. hmmmm, I wounder why I will NEVER buy music online.