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Topic: Napster starts in UK, WMA loses in listening test (Read 6105 times) previous topic - next topic
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Napster starts in UK, WMA loses in listening test

Roxio, the owner of Napster, launched its service in the United Kingdom on Thursday.
Songs for the UK consumers are priced at £1.09 ($1.95) each or £9.95 ($17.82) per album. For a monthly subscription fee of £9.95 users can listen to an unlimited number of songs at up to three different PCs.

For encoded audio, Napster uses WMA standard @ 128 (non-pro). In the latest R. Amorim's multiformat 128 kbps public blind group listening test testing 18 samples following closely the ITU-R BS.1116-1 specification and using encrypted result files for result delivery from testers, WMA9@128 standard VBR was rated 5th, being the 2nd worst codec of the test, just above Atrac3 and with over 95% significance worse than its main competitor iTunes AAC 4.2.
Juha Laaksonheimo

Napster starts in UK, WMA loses in listening test

Reply #1 –
Better buy CDs.

Napster starts in UK, WMA loses in listening test

Reply #2 –
Quote
Better buy CDs.

I could not agree more ... lossless music with booklet and case (and, in most cases, non-protected) ... you'll simply get a better bang for buck
The name was Plex The Ripper, not Jack The Ripper

Napster starts in UK, WMA loses in listening test

Reply #3 –
Quote
Roxio, the owner of Napster, launched its service in the United Kingdom on Thursday.
Songs for the UK consumers are priced at £1.09 ($1.95) each or £9.95 ($17.82) per album.

In many cases, buying the actual CD through an on-line retailer would be cheaper!!!

Quote
For a monthly subscription fee of £9.95 users can listen to an unlimited number of songs at up to three different PCs.


If I had confidence in the service, already paid for broadband, was satisfied with the quality, and it carried every recording in existence, then this kind of model would make CDs obsolete for me.

Given that it meets none of these criteria, I'll pass thanks!

Cheers,
David.

Napster starts in UK, WMA loses in listening test

Reply #4 –
wma? isnt this this outdated format which provides worse quality than mp3? 
I know, that I know nothing (Socrates)

Napster starts in UK, WMA loses in listening test

Reply #5 –
Quote
wma? isnt this this outdated format which provides worse quality than mp3? 

That´s not true. As you can see WMA reaches CD-quality at 64 kbit/s (at least here in Germany):

http://www.speedsurf.to/maikmerten/wma.html

   

Napster starts in UK, WMA loses in listening test

Reply #6 –
"I'm afraid of the future!" - Grandpa Simpson

Napster starts in UK, WMA loses in listening test

Reply #7 –
Heh, where I work in PC World we have Napster branded blank CD's in a huge stack, maybe I should take a funny photo of them... perhaps rebrand a few to foobar media.

Ruairi
rc55.com - nothing going on

Napster starts in UK, WMA loses in listening test

Reply #8 –
According to the test's conclusions, it's a good choice. For the security siden WMA9 has a good DRM scheme. For the compatibility problem, WMA is excellent (far better than AAC, Vorbis, Flac, etc... with 500 devices decoding the format). And for the quality side WMA obtained 4 (3.98 exactly) as note. Which means, according to the EBU or ITU (I can't remember) scale, “perceptible difference but not annoying”. In other word, very good quality. According to the test's conclusions (I repeat)...


But not all people rated WMA9 "4.0"... For me, it's crap (2.3/5 on 17 samples).
Wavpack Hybrid: one encoder for all scenarios
WavPack -c4.5hx6 (44100Hz & 48000Hz) ≈ 390 kbps + correction file
WavPack -c4hx6 (96000Hz) ≈ 768 kbps + correction file
WavPack -h (SACD & DSD) ≈ 2400 kbps at 2.8224 MHz

Napster starts in UK, WMA loses in listening test

Reply #9 –
Quote
According to the test's conclusions, it's a good choice. For the security siden WMA9 has a good DRM scheme.

security because of drm? security for whom? surely not for the consumer

Quote
For the compatibility problem, WMA is excellent (far better than AAC, Vorbis, Flac, etc... with 500 devices decoding the format).

500 devices? is that the number m$ spreads? did they round off or down?  and even if they exist than only worldwide maybe...
i doubt that when you go to a bunch of big multimedia shops that you will find 500 devices to choose from to play your wmas...

btw didnt m$ also claim that wma brings mp3@128kbps quality at 64kbps?

it seems that m$' marketing staff follows the typical "claim twice as much as the truth is" rule, does this also count for the "device number"? 

Quote
But not all people rated WMA9 "4.0"... For me, it's crap (2.3/5 on 17 samples).

i also gave it 2.29 on average, and i already expressed my wonders that it got rated that high, as it was really crap quality imho
I know, that I know nothing (Socrates)

Napster starts in UK, WMA loses in listening test

Reply #10 –
So what the hell is the excuse for charging us Brits twice as much for a single song than the Americans?...
< w o g o n e . c o m / l o l >

Napster starts in UK, WMA loses in listening test

Reply #11 –
Quote
security because of drm? security for whom? surely not for the consumer

Broken record 

Napster starts in UK, WMA loses in listening test

Reply #12 –
Quote
Quote
Better buy CDs.

I could not agree more ... lossless music with booklet and case (and, in most cases, non-protected) ... you'll simply get a better bang for buck

Exactly that is it, what the music-industry wants. Going on since ever. The online music-shops have just an alibi-function for them. But nothing would be easier (and much cheaper) to distribute over the internet than digitally available things like music.
My used codecs and settings:
FLAC V1.1.2 -4 / APE V3.99 Update 4 -high / MPC V1.15v --q 5 / LAME V3.97b2 -V2 --vbr-new / OGG aoTuV V4.51 Lancer -q5

Napster starts in UK, WMA loses in listening test

Reply #13 –
Presumably Apple wasn't or at least wouldn't have been interested in letting them use AAC (i.e. they brushed off Real's requests rather arrogantly), so what other choice for a DRM codec that plays on portables did Napster really have?

Napster starts in UK, WMA loses in listening test

Reply #14 –
Quote
wma? isnt this this outdated format which provides worse quality than mp3? 

It's no more outdated than mp3, if you search KaZaA you see it's very popular, has wide hardware support & is decent in the 64-96kbps range. I think it was a smart choice.