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Minidisc in the Cloud

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netmduser

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Attached are some links on the general topic.

But really anything could happen, so anything is possible. I thought I would ask the experts on here.

http://music.google.com/about/

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_15/b4223043644684.htm

There are basically three types:

1) Store your music library on a remote server (Amazon, or MP3Tunes) - literally copy your files from your hard drive to a remote server.

2) A service will scan your library and create a pointer to files that you have on your hard drive to songs that the service has in it's library and has made available to stream.

3) A subscription model, such as Rdio, Napster, Rhapsody, etc. in which you pay a fixed monthly fee to listen, on demand, to whatever they have made available to stream. Most support multiple devices - so Rhapsody, which I subscribe to, lets you listen via Tivo, Computer, Smart Phone, Logitech devices, Internet TVs, etc. etc.

The purpose of all of this is of course to be able to listen to large amounts of music without needing to store it on physical media. Also - the subscription services let you listen to millions and millions of songs for the same fee - so - if you were curious about a band, or a certain album - you could check it out and decide if you want to buy it or not. The drawback is bandwidth caps and charges, and some services use fairly low quality streams to keep (your) costs down and improve performance and reliability on slower networks.

The file format for most of these are either AAC+ or WMA because these formats support DRM.

BTW - there is nothing "bad" about MP3. It is just a file format. In my opinion, much of what we consider superior (in terms of sound quality) about ATRAC is because of Sony's hardware, not the file format. I think both AAC and WMA sound better than ATRAC at lower bitrates.

For me, the ideal would be a combination of a service that lets me listen to my library, and "their" library. Services like Rhapsody have millions of songs available, but not every band has gotten on board yet. For example, the three biggest selling bands in the US (historically) are The Beatles, Led Zeppelin and The Eagles - and none of them are available on subscription services.

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Option 2 sounds interesting.

If the cloud companies legally allow sharing of your playlists, it would be possible to use minidisc to record but recording is illegal of course?

Yes, you are correct. Rdio in particular does this - in fact - you can "follow" other users and thus have access to all of their playlists. Of course, you have access to all of the same music as they do, but you just may not be aware of certain artists. So - it is really about music discovery.

BTW - pretty sure #2 is what Apple is going to unveil today. They bought LaLa a couple of years ago and that is how LaLa worked.

If you were recording from a PC - you would likely be recording something similar to LP2-quality audio. If recording from a smart phone - most services let you download audio to the device - in some cases that is HE-AAC 64k+ - but in other cases it is much higher. MOG lets you download 320K MP3. Rdio is higher too but not sure exactly what it is. Sounds like 160K or maybe 192K to me. There is no way to transfer those files from the device so you would have to record via the headphone jack - or possibly through another device if you are using an iPhone attached to a dock, or using Airplay.

BTW- - Napster used to let you download 192k WMA files to your PC and listen to them there, and/or transfer them to compatible devices (i.e., my Sony Walkman). For test purposes, I did experiment with doing real-time SP recording via the optical out (via my old Xitel interface). The results were quite good, as 192k WMA is very high quality (it is in fact the highest quality WMA bit rate).

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Yes, you are correct. Rdio in particular does this - in fact - you can "follow" other users and thus have access to all of their playlists. Of course, you have access to all of the same music as they do, but you just may not be aware of certain artists. So - it is really about music discovery.

BTW - pretty sure #2 is what Apple is going to unveil today. They bought LaLa a couple of years ago and that is how LaLa worked.

If you were recording from a PC - you would likely be recording something similar to LP2-quality audio. If recording from a smart phone - most services let you download audio to the device - in some cases that is HE-AAC 64k+ - but in other cases it is much higher. MOG lets you download 320K MP3. Rdio is higher too but not sure exactly what it is. Sounds like 160K or maybe 192K to me. There is no way to transfer those files from the device so you would have to record via the headphone jack - or possibly through another device if you are using an iPhone attached to a dock, or using Airplay.

BTW- - Napster used to let you download 192k WMA files to your PC and listen to them there, and/or transfer them to compatible devices (i.e., my Sony Walkman). For test purposes, I did experiment with doing real-time SP recording via the optical out (via my old Xitel interface). The results were quite good, as 192k WMA is very high quality (it is in fact the highest quality WMA bit rate).

wma files go up to 320kbps, 192k is not the highest rate...

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wma files go up to 320kbps, 192k is not the highest rate...

Well, in Windows Media Player, that used to require a Registry edit to do that. I've been on a Mac for a while so am not sure what the setting are now.

I checked my Son's laptop running Windows 7 and 192k is still the highest setting in WMP, which I assume is the most common way "normal" people (and none of us on this forum are normal) rip WMA files.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I don't know much about the cloud but if you are storing your music on a web site ( cloud ), doesn't it cost you in MB not only to up load but also to down load?? even if you listen, you are charged in MB from your provider. is that smart?

Just asking...

Keep those MD's Spinning

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  • 3 months later...

I don't know much about the cloud but if you are storing your music on a web site ( cloud ), doesn't it cost you in MB not only to up load but also to down load?? even if you listen, you are charged in MB from your provider. is that smart?

Just asking...

Keep those MD's Spinning

I agree here. You have your own media now and can play it anytime you like, if you are accessing a cloud service you have to pay to upload it and also stream it back to you when you want to play it, so a new cost appears to listen to your own music. What happens if there is a technical issue and the cloud server is not available? What is the bit rate of the music you stream back to play? Is the quality the same? I'm not sure there are big advantages for me. I like to own my own music and play it when I like and not rely on an outside service like that. Are my thoughts on the matter.

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yes using the cloud will cause you to incur data charges to listen to your own music. i keep all mine on a removable hard disk with a backup and transfer to my sansa player for normal listening at work. than while the sansa is charging i listen to my sp 80 min disks. i have about 250 of them. i own all the music so its free to listen to, this cloud stuff is a really bad expensive idea.

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The point of music in the cloud is access. I have about 40 GB of music, so yes, I could put that all on one device. However, with the cloud - I can listen to my library on multiple devices - my computer (and in theory, anybody's computer), my internet radio (Squeezebox), my iPhone, etc. etc. As far as data charges - that depends on your ISP. Most ISPs are not yet charging overage fees, and compared to streaming a movie on Netflix, streaming music is small change.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I don't know much about the cloud but if you are storing your music on a web site ( cloud ), doesn't it cost you in MB not only to up load but also to down load?? even if you listen, you are charged in MB from your provider. is that smart?

Just asking...

Keep those MD's Spinning

Beware with comcast. For some light reading look here:

http://www.ozymandias.com/the-day-comcast%E2%80%99s-data-cap-policy-killed-my-internet-for-1-year

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