Skip to main content ↑ ↓

Notice

Please note that most of the software linked on this forum is likely to be safe to use. If you are unsure, feel free to ask in the relevant topics, or send a private message to an administrator or moderator. To help curb the problems of false positives, or in the event that you do find actual malware, you can contribute through the article linked here.
Topic: Yahoo Launches Its iTunes/Napster Alternative (Read 13734 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Yahoo Launches Its iTunes/Napster Alternative

Y! Music Engine

It looks like it is a subscription based service like Napster, for only about $5 per month.  The software encodes in WAV, MP3, AAC, OGG, and FLAC.  Should be interesting to see a new competitor in this market...

Also check out Why You Should (or Should Not) Use the Yahoo! Music Engine by ian c. rogers.

It has also been Slashdotted

I wonder about the quality of the encoders....  I guess I wonder a lot of things about it.  I will have to check it out for myself, I guess.

Yahoo Launches Its iTunes/Napster Alternative

Reply #1 –
It says you can get FLAC, so the rest is moot.
Encode to your flavor without transcode quality loss.

Yahoo Launches Its iTunes/Napster Alternative

Reply #2 –
i dont get it ... the unlimited service allows you to download in flac? or only the 0.99 per song is flac? cause flac aint DRMed right?

Yahoo Launches Its iTunes/Napster Alternative

Reply #3 –
Their downloads are wma only. Some site said that their supplier uses 192 kbps but Yahoo's page doesn't confirm it.

Yahoo Launches Its iTunes/Napster Alternative

Reply #5 –
1) downloads are in full 192kbps DRM-WMA

2) you can rip your own stuff to FLAC, or to OGG, or MP3 or AAC.  THen you can upload it, and play anywhere u can stream to

3) YMP "requires" Yahoo Messenger for completely non-technical reasons..

YMP wouldn't suck so much if they ditched the YMessenger part of it..  it'll actually download that piece of sh!t if you don't already have it installed.  Otherwise I'd actually bother using the YMP, as it appears functional without being overly intrusive (a la iTunes).

Yahoo Launches Its iTunes/Napster Alternative

Reply #6 –
Good to see a major audio app supporting FLAC encoding and decoding. I hope Josh adds a link to this app on the FLAC site. Does anyone know if it uses FLAC version 1.1.2 and also know what default FLAC encoding compression level it uses (or can you set it)?

I am using a Mac currently so I can't test this Yahoo music player which works on Windows only.

<Maybe iTunes will add FLAC now>? 

Yahoo Launches Its iTunes/Napster Alternative

Reply #7 –
Quote
<Maybe iTunes will add FLAC now>? 
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=296904"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


Yeeeah. And Microsoft will add Flac to WMP. Count Real Networks in too.

Yahoo Launches Its iTunes/Napster Alternative

Reply #8 –
Quote
Good to see a major audio app supporting FLAC encoding and decoding. I hope Josh adds a link to this app on the FLAC site.

already done

Quote
Does anyone know if it uses FLAC version 1.1.2 and also know what default FLAC encoding compression level it uses (or can you set it)?

encoding is currently with libFLAC-1.1.1 (you can see it in the vendor string), no settings, equivalent of 'flac -5'.  playback is through illiminable's excellent dshow filters which are based I think on libFLAC-1.1.1

Quote
3) YMP "requires" Yahoo Messenger for completely non-technical reasons..

YMP wouldn't suck so much if they ditched the YMessenger part of it..  it'll actually download that piece of sh!t if you don't already have it installed.  Otherwise I'd actually bother using the YMP, as it appears functional without being overly intrusive (a la iTunes).

messenger is the conduit for sharing music with buddies, i.e. if you allow it, they can see your library and play from it (http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/music/yme/yme-25.html).  it's a cool feature but I guess you could argue that it should be an install option if you really don't like messenger.

Josh

Yahoo Launches Its iTunes/Napster Alternative

Reply #9 –
Quote
...I'm asking you to ditch Windows Media Player (aka WiMP, sorry John, Mark), Winamp (pour out a little liquor), iTunes (sorry Chris and Steve G), MusicMatch (apologies to my new brothers and sisters), Rhapsody (you were my first for-pay love, ya tramp), and Napster (THROW ANOTHER STACK OF BENJAMINS ON THE FIRE!), and use Yahoo! Music Engine instead. (If you're using Foobar2000, keep on, brother man, I ain't going to war with y'all purists.)

  I love it.

Yahoo Launches Its iTunes/Napster Alternative

Reply #10 –
And so we have yet another music service that's not available in Belgium... sigh...
Over thinking, over analyzing separates the body from the mind.

Yahoo Launches Its iTunes/Napster Alternative

Reply #11 –
Quote
2) you can rip your own stuff to FLAC, or to OGG, or MP3 or AAC.  THen you can upload it, and play anywhere u can stream to
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=296902"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


Mp3.com was sued over this, or what was essentially this, ie their beam-it service?
I remember seeing michael robertson on cnn.

Yahoo Launches Its iTunes/Napster Alternative

Reply #12 –
Against my better judgment, I installed YME. As expected, it went and retagged all the files I had waiting in a "bait" mp3 directory. Attempts at resizing columns were futile. After the second Visual C++ runtime error, it was time for the anticipated uninstall. Fifty self-imposed push-ups later, it was back to fb2k...

Yahoo Launches Its iTunes/Napster Alternative

Reply #13 –
Quote
Quote
2) you can rip your own stuff to FLAC, or to OGG, or MP3 or AAC.  THen you can upload it, and play anywhere u can stream to
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=296902"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


Mp3.com was sued over this, or what was essentially this, ie their beam-it service?
I remember seeing michael robertson on cnn.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=297047"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Not actually. Mp3.com didn't let you upload but instead had preripped copies on their servers which were available for streaming after a "disc regocnition".

Yahoo Launches Its iTunes/Napster Alternative

Reply #14 –
Quote
Against my better judgment, I installed YME. As expected, it went and retagged all the files I had waiting in a "bait" mp3 directory. Attempts at resizing columns were futile. After the second Visual C++ runtime error, it was time for the anticipated uninstall. Fifty self-imposed push-ups later, it was back to fb2k...
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=297049"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]



Buggy for me, but a noble effort.  I have already uninstalled it again after it kept fighting for control of my .m4a fila associations (even after uninstall).

Call me when it is grown up and mature....

Yahoo Launches Its iTunes/Napster Alternative

Reply #15 –
Quote
Not actually. Mp3.com didn't let you upload but instead had preripped copies on their servers which were available for streaming after a "disc regocnition".
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=297050"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

And this is markedly different?

Yahoo Launches Its iTunes/Napster Alternative

Reply #16 –
Quote
Quote

Not actually. Mp3.com didn't let you upload but instead had preripped copies on their servers which were available for streaming after a "disc regocnition".
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=297050"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

And this is markedly different?
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=297310"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


COMPLETELY different.  Preripped copies would save somebody like myself almost a couple terabytes (FLAC-encoded, at least) of upload bandwidth.  That bandwidth might be cheap next year, but right now it's a big deal..  I only get 60GB total traffic monthly.

Yahoo Launches Its iTunes/Napster Alternative

Reply #17 –
I think his point was how is this legally different, if you upload the data or if they have it for you?

The bandwith costs of streaming anyones music back to them has to be incredibly high.

Yahoo Launches Its iTunes/Napster Alternative

Reply #18 –
Does anyone know if this does AAC Plus encoding and decoding?  I can't test this as I have a Mac, but would like to know, since it is using the Ahead/Nero code.

Yahoo Launches Its iTunes/Napster Alternative

Reply #19 –
Quote
Does anyone know if this does AAC Plus encoding and decoding?   I can't test this as I have a Mac, but would like to know, since it is using the Ahead/Nero code.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=297362"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


It gives you a choice of either HE or LC AAC for encoding your own cds.  I don't know enough about AAC to know if one of those equates to AAC Plus or not. 

Tracks you purchase through the store are 192 WMA only, it appears.

Yahoo Launches Its iTunes/Napster Alternative

Reply #20 –
Quote
Quote
Does anyone know if this does AAC Plus encoding and decoding?   I can't test this as I have a Mac, but would like to know, since it is using the Ahead/Nero code.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=297362"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


It gives you a choice of either HE or LC AAC for encoding your own cds.  I don't know enough about AAC to know if one of those equates to AAC Plus or not. 

Tracks you purchase through the store are 192 WMA only, it appears.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=297364"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


AACPlus (version 1) is another name for HE AAC. Thanks for the info!

Yahoo Launches Its iTunes/Napster Alternative

Reply #21 –
Although YME requires installing Yahoo Messenger, I was able to uninstall it afterwards and still use YME to play my music and convert from CD to AAC. I don't know how this would affect purchasing music from their store though.

Yahoo Launches Its iTunes/Napster Alternative

Reply #22 –
You can also go to the program folder and delete "ymetray.exe" so that the annoying tray icon does not appear (otherwise it stays running even after you close the main program).

All in all, not too bad as far as this type of player goes. Has some decent radio streams in the free mode, encodes to Nero AAC, plays and encodes OGG and FLAC. No one will mistake its tweakability for Foobar's, but Yahoo admits they are aiming for a different audience here.

Yahoo Launches Its iTunes/Napster Alternative

Reply #23 –
What is it that these paid services have against VBR files?    Even the WMA 9 encoder has a VBR mode now so I don't see why all these paid services should still be offering CBR/ABR files, even though 192k might possibly be a half-decent bitrate.

Yahoo Launches Its iTunes/Napster Alternative

Reply #24 –
Could have to do with long standing myths that CBR is of higher quality than VBR.  More people believe this way than you'd think.
Nero AAC 1.5.1.0: -q0.45