[diane1960]

complete newbie here, have googled this problem and don't know easy way to solve - have purchased music for iTunes that will not play via my Roku SoundBridge. Frustrating, as I pretty much bought it for this purpose.

any ideas/solutions would be much apprecaited



diane

[Mithras]

If you purchased it with iTunes 5 or lower, hymn-project.org. If purchased with iTunes 6, no solution (yet).

[diane1960]

Originally Posted by Mithras

If you purchased it with iTunes 5 or lower, hymn-project.org. If purchased with iTunes 6, no solution (yet).

thank you - it's a brand new version of iTunes - i contacted apple - they said to write a letter...so i will...how frustrating!!!!!!

[Tesseract]

Yes, write a letter.

If you are in the US, it would probably be more effective for you to write to your congressman than to write to Apple.

[CaptainHaddock]

Remember, if you buy music with built-in playback prevention (DRM), trivial activities become difficult or impossible. Apple's a nice company, but if you let a third party dictate when you can and can't listen to music, you will inevitably run into these sorts of problems.

In the meantime, you can burn your tracks to CD and re-rip, as long as you don't mind the significant decrease in audio quality.

[TETENAL]

Originally Posted by CaptainHaddock

In the meantime, you can burn your tracks to CD and re-rip, as long as you don't mind the significant decrease in audio quality.

If you re-rip with the AIFF or Apple Lossless Codec there is no loss in audio quality whatsoever compared to the AAC you purchased in the iTMS. You'd get a significantly larger file though.

http://www.rokulabs.com/products/soundbridge/index.php

The website of the product does mention that it doesn't work with protected AAC files by the way.

[CaptainHaddock]

Originally Posted by TETENAL

If you re-rip with the AIFF or Apple Lossless Codec there is no loss in audio quality whatsoever compared to the AAC you purchased in the iTMS. You'd get a significantly larger file though.

Good point, Apple Lossless sounds like the way to go if you have enough storage space.

[ShotgunEd]

Can you please explain why burning and re-reipping will cause a loss in sound quality?

Do apple use a different encoding algorithim?

I know aac is lossy, but surely it'll be the same data lost in each encoding?

If burn, rip, burn, rip...x100 will I have a really crappy sounding song?

Sorry for being so dumb.

[CaptainHaddock]

Originally Posted by ShotgunEd

I know aac is lossy, but surely it'll be the same data lost in each encoding?

Lossy music compression relies on pretty complex algorithms that subjectively look for data that can be discarded and ways to fit complex patterns into mathematical instructions. Since the input data you're using is very different from the original masters that the iTunes store used, the output is likely to be quite different as well, and certainly lower in quality.

Originally Posted by ShotgunEd

If burn, rip, burn, rip...x100 will I have a really crappy sounding song?

If any settings or conversion methods change between rip iterations, you probably won't have a recognizable song after a few dozen conversions.

What would happen using identical settings each time is an interesting question, and probably depends on how the algorithms work. My own guess (and I'm no expert) is that it might settle into a "stable" state after 2 or 3 rips and be encoded the same way every time after that. That sounds like an interesting experiment.

[ShotgunEd]

Originally Posted by CaptainHaddock

Lossy music compression relies on pretty complex algorithms that subjectively look for data that can be discarded and ways to fit complex patterns into mathematical instructions. Since the input data you're using is very different from the original masters that the iTunes store used, the output is likely to be quite different as well, and certainly lower in quality.

Of course. I had forgotten that the original material that the iTMS encode probably isn't just CD Audio.

Has anybody ever done a byte for byte comparison on a aac encoded file ripped from a CD and the same song bought from the iTMS?

[diane1960]

minor update: someone had suggested that i copy the music i bought to CD, then import it back to my mac (and iTunes) in another format. I did that, merrily making 10 CDs, only to discover that I couldn't not retrieve any of the data re song names etc via gracenote or whatever it's called.




(I'm loving this brick wall thing!)

So my options now are to a) write the letter lol; b) to sit down and manually input all the song info for 100s of songs that I BOUGHT, but not capturing all the info; c) to forget it, sell the soundbridge on ebay and buy a good set of docking-type speakers for my iPod.

I'm just pissed off!

i'll keep watching your replies - thanks!

diane

[wataru]

The Hymn project should eventually crack the iTunes 6 protocol. I'd hold out for that, though it may be a while.

[Cadaver]

Originally Posted by diane1960

minor update: someone had suggested that i copy the music i bought to CD, then import it back to my mac (and iTunes) in another format. I did that, merrily making 10 CDs, only to discover that I couldn't not retrieve any of the data re song names etc via gracenote or whatever it's called.




(I'm loving this brick wall thing!)

So my options now are to a) write the letter lol; b) to sit down and manually input all the song info for 100s of songs that I BOUGHT, but not capturing all the info; c) to forget it, sell the soundbridge on ebay and buy a good set of docking-type speakers for my iPod.

I'm just pissed off!

i'll keep watching your replies - thanks!

diane

The iTunes Music Store EULA specifically states that purchased songs may only be playable on hardware/software that supports the Apple FairPlay Digital Rights Management System. As of now, the only such devices are Macs/PC using iTunes, iPods and the AirPort Express (controlled via iTunes). Apple has not as of yet licensed its system to anyone else.

Just like CaptainHaddock said, when you buy anything (music, video, etc) encoded with a DRM system - be it for the Mac or for Windows - you give up certain abilities.

My advice is if you want to use devices like the SoundBridge, you buy the audio CDs from the a store from now on. That is the only way to be 100% sure* you have control over the music you've purchased.

*of course, DRM-controlled audio "CDs" also exist (witness the recent Sony/BMG debacle), so do read the labels carefully.

Personally, I have an AirPort Express connected to my stereo. This allows me full access to my iTunes library (protected iTMS tracks or not). My iTunes library is on my G5 desktop. When I want to listen off my stereo, I can either set my G5's iTunes to send audio to the AirPort Express, and then control the AirPort Express with a Keyspan Express Remote, or I pull out my PowerBook, connect to my G5's shared iTunes library via WiFi, and tell iTunes on my PB to send the audio to the AirPort Express - thus my PB becomes one big remote control for my iTunes library. Works quite well, actually, and isn't inconvenient for me at all.

[diane1960]

Originally Posted by Cadaver

The iTunes Music Store EULA specifically states that purchased songs may only be playable on hardware/software that supports the Apple FairPlay Digital Rights Management System. As of now, the only such devices are Macs/PC using iTunes, iPods and the AirPort Express (controlled via iTunes). Apple has not as of yet licensed its system to anyone else.

Just like CaptainHaddock said, when you buy anything (music, video, etc) encoded with a DRM system - be it for the Mac or for Windows - you give up certain abilities.

My advice is if you want to use devices like the SoundBridge, you buy the audio CDs from the a store from now on. That is the only way to be 100% sure* you have control over the music you've purchased.

*of course, DRM-controlled audio "CDs" also exist (witness the recent Sony/BMG debacle), so do read the labels carefully.

Personally, I have an AirPort Express connected to my stereo. This allows me full access to my iTunes library (protected iTMS tracks or not). My iTunes library is on my G5 desktop. When I want to listen off my stereo, I can either set my G5's iTunes to send audio to the AirPort Express, and then control the AirPort Express with a Keyspan Express Remote, or I pull out my PowerBook, connect to my G5's shared iTunes library via WiFi, and tell iTunes on my PB to send the audio to the AirPort Express - thus my PB becomes one big remote control for my iTunes library. Works quite well, actually, and isn't inconvenient for me at all.

i guess i'm too new to this all and just assumed that if i bought the soundbridge, i'd be able to "beam" my music through my speakers - it never occurred to me that this would be an issue and i'd never have though to look in the manual. I asked the mac guy in the store, but i never mentioned purchased music, i didn't think to differentiate it. Just complete ignorance, is all - to me, music is music and i am soooo new to this stuff (being middle-aged and all) that I had never even downloaded anything at all, ever, before.

i have a mac powerbook - i don't know what an airport express is, even, but will look it up. All i want to do in my tiny house where i don't have room for a desk or full stereo system, is have my music come out of excellent speakers and not out of my powerbook! who'd'a'thunk that it would be so complicated!!

thanks again for the replies,

diane

[wataru]

It sounds like you should have gotten an Airport Express instead of the Soundbridge.

[diane1960]

Originally Posted by wataru

It sounds like you should have gotten an Airport Express instead of the Soundbridge.

yeah...i was just looking them up on the apple site - who knew?

rats!

[power142]

Wataru is certainly right - sounds like you must already have speakers, since the Roku must plug into something....

The Airport Express doesn't have the blue matrix LED display that the Roku does, but at least it would work the way it sounds like you want it to.

Alternatively, you could try something like Audio Hijack to record the decompressed audio from iTunes as it plays and save it as an AIFF/WAV type file, however I don't see this as any better than the CD method other than not suffering any generational sound loss (so long as you keep it as AIFF or WAV)... you'd still have to sit and name all your files, though

[wataru]

Sounds like the best thing to do would be to sell the Soundbridge and get an Airport Express.

[OAW]

That's why I went with the Airport Express instead of the Roku Soundbridge or other similar products. I wanted to avoid hassles like this since I buy most of my new music from the ITMS.

OAW

[diane1960]

yes, i think i'll be revisiting this decision...but am wondering why, given the above, would anyone buy a soundbridge? Is there something it does that i'm missing?

i should add that the other reason I wanted something like this was to be able to listen to internet radio - i live in a part of canada where i'm unable to receive much in the way of stations - would the airport express allow me to do that via my iBook?

thanks again for all the help and suggestions...

[power142]

A number of people object to the principle of paying for encrypted music (the encryption prevents you from distributing the songs over too many computers because you have to authenticate it for each one), and others simply have no desire to purchase music online. For those that only purchase music on CD or in an unencrypted format, the Soundbridge works well and has a nice display and remote. The Airport Express can play these as well as music purchased from the iTunes Music Store, but lacks the display and remote.

As for Internet radio, the Airport Express should work well for that. You can use iTunes running on any computer in your network, including your iBook, to stream music, podcasts and Internet radio to the Airport Express. (But note that normal system sounds can't be sent to it without extra programs.)