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Mr. Bob · Dec 31, 2003, 08:02 AM

Ok, I just downloaded iTunes and am overly unhappy with my experience. I paid my dollar for a song, however was unable to play it with my music player of choice, or on my palm T3. Sadly, the song is a different format then mp3. I know Apple did this because they want to sell iPods. Going the same route of Microsoft and other large companies, Apple has decided to make their products proprietary. Personally, as a smart consumer this means that I will stay away from both the iPod, and iTunes.

Does anyone know if the new Napster will let me download in mp3 format? What about some other legal way of getting mp3s? Personally I would rather just download music for free "no one can intelligently say that many big name artists are not grossly overpaid", but sadly this era is coming to a end.

Overall for an Apple computer, what options do you recommend for someone wanted to download music in the industry standard mp3 format. Also, what are your opinions about iTunes and other music gathering services?

Maflynn · Dec 31, 2003, 08:11 AM

Actually Apple is using an industry standard format AAC Encoding which allows the encryption or locking of music to prevent unauthorized copies of the music. Microsoft is the one that uses proprietory formats.

Your right itunes is made to be used in conjunction with the ipod and why not, the iPod is very popular, apple sells the ipod and gives itunes away. Why would apple support other mp3 players that would hurt their sales.

I can't speak for naptster so give it a whirl and report back, since that's a good question you have.

Good luck in your quest.
Mike

Developer · Dec 31, 2003, 08:31 AM

Napster uses WMA. That's a proprietary audio format which smart users will stay away from.

Mr. Bob · Dec 31, 2003, 08:50 AM

I see Maflynn, AAC is not an Apple only format. I just did a search on google, and turned up some info on Apples website "http://www.apple.com/mpeg4/aac/". Now is this truly a better format, or is this just mainly so Apple can get the jump on other mp3 players to sell more iPods? Anyway, I then retract my last comment about Apple going proprietary. I just need to find a AAC player for my palm T3 �anyone know of any, right now I am using AeroPlayer�.

Developer, Indeed WMA has no real advantages to mp3, and is just to gain market share. Do you know of any other music search services?

Developer · Dec 31, 2003, 09:16 AM

Originally posted by Mr. Bob:
Now is this truly a better format, or is this just mainly so Apple can get the jump on other mp3 players to sell more iPods?

� It is truly a better format.
� It supports digital rights management (unlike mp3).
� It sells iPods.

typoon · Dec 31, 2003, 12:15 PM

Originally posted by Mr. Bob:
Ok, I just downloaded iTunes and am overly unhappy with my experience. I paid my dollar for a song, however was unable to play it with my music player of choice, or on my palm T3. Sadly, the song is a different format then mp3. I know Apple did this because they want to sell iPods. Going the same route of Microsoft and other large companies, Apple has decided to make their products proprietary. Personally, as a smart consumer this means that I will stay away from both the iPod, and iTunes.

Does anyone know if the new Napster will let me download in mp3 format? What about some other legal way of getting mp3s? Personally I would rather just download music for free "no one can intelligently say that many big name artists are not grossly overpaid", but sadly this era is coming to a end.

Overall for an Apple computer, what options do you recommend for someone wanted to download music in the industry standard mp3 format. Also, what are your opinions about iTunes and other music gathering services?

Well considering none of the other music services use MP3 I'd say none. You would have to go to not very leagl means to get MP3's. NONE of the Major services use MP3 format so it's not really industry standard.

There really isn't any legal way to get MP3's Unless you buy the album and rip them to MP3 yourself.

I for one have been VERY hapy with my iTMS music downloads.

SilentEchoes · Dec 31, 2003, 12:43 PM

Well you always could burn your songs on a CDRW and then rip them back to MP3

Mr. Bob · Dec 31, 2003, 01:21 PM

I see, well then, does anyone know of any kind of AAC to mp3 converter, besides what SilentEchoes said by doing the cd burn thing?

Thanks.

stevek · Dec 31, 2003, 01:36 PM

Originally posted by Mr. Bob:
I just need to find a AAC player for my palm T3 �anyone know of any, right now I am using AeroPlayer�.

After a quick google search "palm media player", I found a message board thread of someone asking the same question. From the responses I read it seems like there are currently no players capable of this but the program they kept talking about is Pocket tunes. Upon further investigation it seems like they currently do not support AAC (but people have requested it and suggested different 'price points' for the AAC-enabled versions... read on for more explanation).

From the Pocket Tunes FAQ page:

Does Pocket Tunes Play XYZ Format?

Pocket Tunes currently plays MP3, Ogg Vorbis, and uncompressed WAV files. Pocket Tunes uses a plugin architecture, so developers are free to add additional formats. If you are a developer interested in writing a Pocket Tunes plugin, please email [email protected]

We are always keeping an eye out on the available music formats and may support new formats that become available to us. Unfortunately, many of the emerging formats (such as AAC) require hefty licensing fees from the owners of the patents, and some formats (such as iTunes) include DRM (digital rights management) technology. DRM technology limits what consumers can do with music that they download. Most companies are reluctant to license their DRM technology for fear that people will figure out how to remove the protection from their files.

Hope that helps.

lavar78 · Dec 31, 2003, 01:53 PM

I see, well then, does anyone know of any kind of AAC to mp3 converter

There's one called AAChoo or something like that, isn't there?

NONE of the Major services use MP3 format

IIRC, Emusic does. It's a subscription service, but I think the selection is less mainstream.

stevek · Dec 31, 2003, 02:12 PM

Actually, AAChoo (http://www.ovolab.com/aachoo/) encodes files in any format to AAC. We need to find something that does this in reverse.

wataru · Dec 31, 2003, 02:38 PM

Don't you think it would have been in the news if there was a *protected AAC* to MP3 converter? Such a thing does not exist.

typoon · Dec 31, 2003, 03:58 PM

If someone wants to try it I'm sure you could change iTunes to convert to MP3 then see what happens when you convert a protected AAC file to MP3.

Since iTunes can convert MP3-AAC and reverse it would be worth a try.

wataru · Dec 31, 2003, 04:07 PM

Originally posted by typoon:
If someone wants to try it I'm sure you could change iTunes to convert to MP3 then see what happens when you convert a protected AAC file to MP3.

Since iTunes can convert MP3-AAC and reverse it would be worth a try.

It doesn't let you. You think they'd be that stupid?

The only way to unprotect a protected AAC is to burn it to audio CD, then rip that to MP3. Period.

AlphaQuam · Dec 31, 2003, 04:40 PM

Just throwing this out there: is there any program for OS X that allows the creation of virtual drives? Perhaps then you could mount a "virtual" CD-R and "burn" the AAC files to it with iTunes, then reimport them as MP3s. Is this possible?

waffffffle · Dec 31, 2003, 04:50 PM

Originally posted by AlphaQuam:
Just throwing this out there: is there any program for OS X that allows the creation of virtual drives? Perhaps then you could mount a "virtual" CD-R and "burn" the AAC files to it with iTunes, then reimport them as MP3s. Is this possible?

What you're saying (basically saving yourself a CD) could probably be accomplished with toast. You can make a CD of the itunes files using toast but instead of burning it to CD you could make it into a disk image and mount it, then import those files into itunes. I haven't tried it though.

Regardless, converting from 128kbit AAC to mp3 will probably sound terrible.

lavar78 · Dec 31, 2003, 05:13 PM

Originally posted by stevek:
Actually, AAChoo (http://www.ovolab.com/aachoo/) encodes files in any format to AAC. We need to find something that does this in reverse.

Yeah, I wasn't paying attention. I blame sleep deprivation.

bmedina · Jan 1, 2004, 02:49 AM

Just to further wataru's clarifications....

There is nothing inherent in AAC that allows Apple to use DRM. In fact, there is no standard for DRM with AAC files; Apple's DRM is proprietary, and they could have done the same thing with the MP3 format. But AAC is superior in pretty much all ways except market penetration. And with their emphasis on MPEG4 in Quicktime, it is a natural fit to use the MPEG4 audio standard as much as they can.

Additionally, 128kbps AACs actually sound pretty good and do not take up a large amount of space (good for a music store). The same cannot be said of MP3s at 128kbps. Can you imagine the uproar if Apple had decided to offer 128kbps MP3s at their music store?

mccabem · Jan 1, 2004, 12:07 PM

I just need to find a AAC player for my palm T3 �anyone know of any, right now I am using AeroPlayer�.[/B]

If you have (access to) a burner, use iTunes to burn an Audio CD of your new tunes and then rip the CD into mp3 format.

From there you're home free to use it as you could any CD.

-Matt

(P.S. If you're concerned about wasting a CD, use CD-RW media)

Mr. Bob · Jan 1, 2004, 12:53 PM

Ok, next thing. AAC has this whole digital rights management thingy, that I do not understand wholly. I looked up some info on the net, however have not gotten any straight answers anywhere. How does it work? Does it somehow know where it is copied to and prevents it from being transferred from one place to another? Does it now allow copying from one computer to another? How is this copy protection accomplished?

Again, thanks for all the info, all of this is very helpful.

wataru · Jan 1, 2004, 02:17 PM

Originally posted by Mr. Bob:
Ok, next thing. AAC has this whole digital rights management thingy, that I do not understand wholly. I looked up some info on the net, however have not gotten any straight answers anywhere. How does it work? Does it somehow know where it is copied to and prevents it from being transferred from one place to another? Does it now allow copying from one computer to another? How is this copy protection accomplished?

Again, thanks for all the info, all of this is very helpful.

All of this informations is readily available on Apple's website. I suggest you go there, as they explain it better than we can.