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.