murrays 0 #1 April 29, 2003 Apple announced and started the iTunes Music Store yesterday. (You have to download iTunes 4 and Quicktime 6.2 to make it work.) It appears to be an interesting compromise between protecting artist's rights, collecting money for music and distributing music on the internet. The store works in iTunes. It seems very quick, searches are fast. You can listen to 30 second clips of any song. Songs are .99 each or 9.98 and up for an album. This gives you the right to have the song on 3 Macs, unlimited iPods, to burn it on unlimited CDs - subject to some restrictions I can't recall right now, and to use the song in iMovie, iDVD. There are 200,000 songs available right now. Appears to me to be a possible way to use commercial music on tandem videos and be sort of legal. Windows version should be available by the end of the year....and rumours are that this will be offered to AOL users. Oh yeah, the songs are encoded using MP4 or AAC. Very good quality at small file sizes.....a 128 MP4 sounds like a 256 MP3.-- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
quade 4 #2 April 29, 2003 QuoteAppears to me to be a possible way to use commercial music on tandem videos and be sort of legal. Uh, no. No more so than if you had gone to the store, purchased a CD and used a track from that without permission from the Copyright owner. SOMEWHERE tucked in the legal mumbo-jumbo that you were forces to agree to before you could install the software was a sentace or two about how the music was licensed for private use and that all other rights are still reserved by the artists. In reality, is anyone going to bust you on it? Probably not, the FBI has better things to do that track down camera flyers using music tracks on tandem skydiving videos. HOWEVER, if you were to make say, a video for retail, I can assure you that you'd be running a HUGE risk by using Copyrighted music without permission. BTW, the iTunes store has an impressive collection of stuff on-line right now, but I was -very- disappointed that some stuff didn't appear by artists, like Madonna, that have been so dang vocal about peer-to-peer. You'd think those artists would be the first in line to hop on this bandwagon.quade - The World's Most Boring Skydiver Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ltdiver 3 #3 April 30, 2003 iTunes Music Store Discussion Group And like iMovie3, this new program has it's hangups too...It doesn't play MP3 files? Only MP4's? ltdiver Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
quade 4 #4 April 30, 2003 QuoteAnd like iMovie3, this new program has it's hangups too... It doesn't play MP3 files? Only MP4's? Ok, I'm going to admit something, you were right, iMovie 3 is not yet ready for prime-time. I finally got frustrated enough with it's issues to go back to iMovie 2. I realize that some people on the discussion group may have problems, but a certain percentage of bugs are expected and even with the pathetic share that Apple has in the computer market, that's still hundreds of thousands of users. If one percent has an issue, maybe self induced, then that's still going to generate an awful lot of complaints. However, iTunes 4 seemed to be working for me just fine for me last night and I gave it a pretty good test drive. As I recall, it played my Lisa Marie Presley mp3s encoded with iTune 3 just fine and without any issues whatsoever. I'll check this again later tonight just to make certain. I also gave the iTune store a pretty good walk around and was happy by some of the stuff I saw and disappointed by others. If you want pop stuff from the big five lables they've signed up with, you'll have no issues whatsoever. If you like Marshal Mathers, I think you're probably going to REALLY like the iTunes store. If you go searching outside this, you'll find some sketchy stuff and some stuff isn't tagged correctly in the searches either. Searching "New Age" brought up Enya, but it also brought up a bunch of crap that didn't belong there at all - Spike Jones for instance. One way I like to test the depth of a music service is to look for a wide selection of covers. Searching for "Hot Rod Lincoln" only brought up the Commander Cody version, so that was pretty much a disaster, since it's widely covered. Searching for "Mack the Knife", possibly the MOST covered song of all time, brought up a very nice selection, but no Frank Sinatra version?!? How can your music library be complete without ol' blue eyes singing about a hit man? Lots of Roy Rogers, lots of "Happy Trails" but NO "Happy Trails" sung by Roy Rogers?!? That's just f'd up! AND it had plenty of ELVIS, but no Lisa Marie?!? What's up with that? Anyway, I'll check out this mp3 issue again tonight. I find THAT report to be very suspect.quade - The World's Most Boring Skydiver Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BoobieCootie 0 #5 April 30, 2003 Not to steer away from iTunes, but do check out Audion for your play back needs. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
freakydiver 0 #6 April 30, 2003 Or soul seek. I know the site looks corny as all hell and back, decent availability tho... link... http://www.slsk.org/ -- (N.DG) "If all else fails – at least try and look under control." -- Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
murrays 0 #7 April 30, 2003 No Lori, it plays mp3s, AIFF, etc. but the music available in the Music Store is encoded in MP4 which has digital rights management features. No problem at all playing mp3s...this I guarantee you! -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
murrays 0 #8 April 30, 2003 In addition to the iTunes 4 update, the firmware for the iPod was also updated to allow mp4s to be played on them....which I really appreciate as I find the quality of mp4 is _very_ good. I think that the availability of music will improve as time goes on...depending on how well this store model is accepted. Here is a fairly good Business Week article on the Apple music store. 200,000 songs seems like a lot but it really isn't when you consider the size of the body of recorded music.-- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ltdiver 3 #9 May 1, 2003 Quote No Lori, it plays mp3s, AIFF, etc. but the music available in the Music Store is encoded in MP4 which has digital rights management features. No problem at all playing mp3s...this I guarantee you! Thanks, Murrays. Then how do you explain THIS post? (learning before downloading anything again after the iMovie3 debaucle) ltdiver Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ltdiver 3 #10 May 1, 2003 Quote Ok, I'm going to admit something, you were right, iMovie 3 is not yet ready for prime-time. I finally got frustrated enough with it's issues to go back to iMovie 2. Test and see if the new iTunes4 works well (or at all) with iMovie2. -If- iTunes4 plays everything on my current playlist in iTunes3 (MP3, AIFF, etc) will iMovie2 import the new formats that iTunes4 creates as well??? ltdiver Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
murrays 0 #11 May 1, 2003 Can't explain that post .... my mp3s play. I haven't had a hitch with iTunes4 of any description. The MP4/AAC encoded clips work in iMovie 3. As I believe they would in iMovie2. If you have Quicktime Pro 6 or up you can open an mp3 or AIFF in QTP and export it as an MP4 and then try importing that into iMovie2. I'm sure it works but can't test it as I'm still using iMovie3....which I just sent feedback on for the Effect preview not working. I really wish the rumored 3rd upgrade would arrive soon. The new features in iMovie3 are great but they certainly needed to do a lot more work before releasing it.-- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
slayer21016 2 #12 May 1, 2003 Nobody has pointed out that iTunes4 will not convert apple music store's AAC (.mp4) to any other format (protected file if gotten from the apple store) but i do like the new green color. i worked around this with Quick Time Pro and Final Cut Pro 3 and was able to convert to any format that i wanted. just throwing this info out so that i can get some more hate mail. scotty Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
murrays 0 #13 May 1, 2003 Scotty, You can burn an AAC from the Store to a regular music CD unlimited number of times...but you can only burn one playlist 10 times. So, it does convert to AIFF for the burn process.-- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ltdiver 3 #14 May 2, 2003 Quote The MP4/AAC encoded clips work in iMovie 3. As I believe they would in iMovie2. If you have Quicktime Pro 6 or up you can open an mp3 or AIFF in QTP and export it as an MP4 and then try importing that into iMovie2. I'm sure it works but can't test it as I'm still using iMovie3. Did this. The MP4 would -not- import into iMovie2. ltdiver Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
murrays 0 #15 May 2, 2003 Quote Quote The MP4/AAC encoded clips work in iMovie 3. As I believe they would in iMovie2. If you have Quicktime Pro 6 or up you can open an mp3 or AIFF in QTP and export it as an MP4 and then try importing that into iMovie2. I'm sure it works but can't test it as I'm still using iMovie3. Did this. The MP4 would -not- import into iMovie2. ltdiver Well, now we know. I guess the fix is to use QTP to export the MP4 as an AIFF...this you can do with an MP4 you've ripped yourself but I bet it wouldn't work with one you bought from the store. A good iMovie 3 update would sure make life easier wouldn't it? -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
