Technologic

[candidgamera]

I've been digitizing my music collection. It's not a very big collection, so I've only been working on it since Monday, and will probably finish this evening. Good thing, too - I have at least two CDs that have nontrivial physical defects that are interfering with playback. By going digital, I can reduce wear and tear.

I'm also working to organize and condense the mp3 collection while I'm at it. I have duplicates of several songs - the current record holders are Sephiroth's theme from Final Fantasy 7 (AKA One-Winged Angel) at four copies (now reduced to one) and Particle Man by They Might Be Giants, also at four copies (reduced to three, because it's on three different albums I own).

I have been uniformly impressed by Windows Media Player's ability to identify a CD as it is being ripped. Only one or two had to be manually identified, and the automatic identification took anywhere from as long as two minutes to as little as fifteen seconds. Considering the size of the database it has to be hitting to do that - that's pretty damn good.

I assume some of my LJ-homies use iTunes - do they sell mp3's, or are they using Apple's proprietary sound file format, still? I may want to legitimize some of the older tunes I acquired during my college years, but only if I can get them DRM free.

Comments

[pullthestars.livejournal.com]

I'd check out Amazon for DRM-free MP3's first.

I believe that they're selling DRM free songs on iTunes, but you pay more for them (1.29/song as opposed to .99).

[candidgamera.livejournal.com]

Indeed, good thought. And I believe I have a $1 credit in the Amazon mp3 store!

[katyrnyn.livejournal.com]

I was of the impression all AAC formatted songs are now DRM-free, and the older DRMesque formats had been retired and converted to the new style. At least that's what an iTunes update claimed a few years back....

But they're still in the Apple-proprietary AAC format. (Which, like Ogg, is still (generally) better than mp3 (depending on the sample rate). And probably more prolific at this point.) No mp3s.

[candidgamera.livejournal.com]

Will AAC's play in Windows Media Player?

[katyrnyn.livejournal.com]

Good question. Not sure. Haven't tried. I know there was a plug-in for several Linux media players that could decode them. There may be something similar for WMP.

[pullthestars.livejournal.com]

It's entirely possible. I don't buy a whole lot from them anymore, mainly because of the AAC format being such a pain in the butt to deal with if I want to listen to it anywhere outside of iTunes.

My workaround, used because I am a n00b when it comes to anything more complicated than downloading, is just to burn the songs to a CD in MP3 format.

Or to find it on Amazon. They tend to be cheaper (.99 instead of 1.29) and they've had some smashing deals on new albums recently.

[katyrnyn.livejournal.com]

I agree - AAC is a pain for non-Apple uses. In the days before the iPhone and after the WalkMan I used a Creative Zen. Without mods it would /only/ play stereo-mp3s (despite their claims). At the time, about 70% of my music was .ogg, about 15% the older DRM-ish .aac, with the other 15% being mp3. Getting anything on that little devil was problematic, but the .aacs were the worst.

[katyrnyn.livejournal.com]

2 minutes for a CD track/album info lookup is way too long. 15 seconds is also too long, but acceptable. The old cd-ripper abcde in Linux used to get it from CDDB near-instantly. Even copied CDs take less than 15 to get a track response for me. I'd say WMP is a bit slow if it takes anywhere near 2 minutes. (And most CDDB-like searches check against serial number, track number and length, and a few other things before they go the Shazaam-like route of comparing waveforms. Database seek time should be quick... except under insane loads.)

[candidgamera.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and you used to have to walk uphill to school, both ways, in the snow.

[katyrnyn.livejournal.com]

Seriously. Track-lookups from CDDB or other sources have /never/ taken me 2 minutes. Maybe if my net connection timed out, but that's the only case.

I don't even recall iTunes having much of a delay when I re-ripped all of my stuff last year. Unless it wasn't in the iTunes library, which only happened in two cases - one of my Origin Game Soundtracks (the one with Wing Commander 3), and a CD from an independent rapper in Charleston (One of my former customers, but still not worth listening to....). When that happened, iTunes was all-but locked up. "Music that's not in my library? Inconceivable."

[candidgamera.livejournal.com]

I'm very happy for you, I suppose?

[katyrnyn.livejournal.com]

Just saying - maybe WMP isn't/wasn't the right tool for the job. (At least not yet.)

[candidgamera.livejournal.com]

It got the job done in a time factor that I consider well above 'acceptable'. That there exists something that does it faster in no way changes that.

[katyrnyn.livejournal.com]

True.

[eemick2.livejournal.com]

iTunes music files haven't had DRM in ages, as others noted, and they're still $.99. There was a brief period where the DRM-free version was more expensive, but nowadays they're all under a buck.

That said, it is still AAC. WMP CAN play AAC, but if you don't have an iPod then I'd recommend looking on Amazon first, and only look in the ITMS if you can't find it elsewhere.

[candidgamera.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a plan.