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Topic: Amazon MP3 selling files at various/unspecified settings frustrates me (Read 16853 times) previous topic - next topic
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Amazon MP3 selling files at various/unspecified settings frustrates me

Reply #25 –
So saying joint stereo is worse is like saying FLAC isn't CD quality, which certainly isn't true.  Either way doesn't matter to me since starting at 192k things usually sound transparent to me .

Amazon MP3 selling files at various/unspecified settings frustrates me

Reply #26 –
Sorry guys, I misspoke.  I meant the "intensity stereo coding", (which is a lossy form of joint stereo) of MP3 bothers me.  The Mid-Side stereo coding of FLAC (which is a lossless form of joint stereo) does not bother me. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_stereo

But with this correction, my opinion still stands and everyone ignored everything else I mentioned so you might want to consider those things too.
opinion is not fact

Amazon MP3 selling files at various/unspecified settings frustrates me

Reply #27 –
Quote from: astroidmist on
Sorry guys, I misspoke.  I meant the "intensity stereo coding", (which is a lossy form of joint stereo) of MP3 bothers me.  The Mid-Side stereo coding of FLAC (which is a lossless form of joint stereo) does not bother me.

As far as I'm aware Intensity Stereo in MP3s is very rare, most MP3 encoders use Mid-Side Stereo, just like FLAC. That said, I don't have any Amazon MP3s so don't know if they use some obscure/ancient encoder.
Every night with my star friends / We eat caviar and drink champagne
Sniffing in the VIP area / We talk about Frank Sinatra
Do you know Frank Sinatra? / He's dead

Amazon MP3 selling files at various/unspecified settings frustrates me

Reply #28 –
Quote from: Maurits on
As far as I'm aware Intensity Stereo in MP3s is very rare, most MP3 encoders use Mid-Side Stereo, just like FLAC.
This is correct. And M/S stereo is a mathematically lossless transformation. Thus, using joint stereo where appropriate saves bits that can be used to increase quality elsewhere.

Quote
That said, I don't have any Amazon MP3s so don't know if they use some obscure/ancient encoder.
Users have provided several lists of encoders found in their Amazon-sourced downloads, so you can easily check this for yourself. Relatively recent LAME versions are used most of the time. Besides, intensity stereo, which is lossy but is only used (and at all useful) at very low bitrates (where good quality is unlikely anyway), certainly wasn’t the default mode in outdated encoders or anything like that.

Overall, the implication that the mode of joint stereo actually used by LAME (an optimal balance between M/S and L/R frames) is somehow undesirable is a false one (as has been said countless times). astroidmist can acknowledge this and withdraw the claim, or disagree with supporting evidence, whenever is convenient.

Amazon MP3 selling files at various/unspecified settings frustrates me

Reply #29 –
The album I just downloaded was yet again CBR.  But this time fully equipped with Fraunhofer  .  Seems to me Amazon uses CBR most of the time.

Amazon MP3 selling files at various/unspecified settings frustrates me

Reply #30 –
I've bought a handful of tracks and only 3 complete albums from amazon.co.uk.  All are identically encoded:

Code: [Select]
Writing library                  : LAME3.97 
Encoding settings                : -m j -V 0 -q 3 -lowpass 19.5 --vbr-old -b 32


2 of the albums are on the same label, worldcircuit, and the other is on a different label, Tinder.

It's likely that Amazon has a set of criteria for their mp3s that allows for a range of high quality encoding standards, and accepts from record labels files which meet those criteria, and otherwise Amazon obtain PCM or AIFF or even a pressed CD and do the rest themselves.  I know this is the case with at least one other online retailer, Magnatune, because I corresponded with them after running into some quality issues and it became apparent that the catalogue was a mix of files supplied by the artists and CDDA extraction performed by the label (the correspondence was useful, the quality issues addressed, and new files made available where possible).

It's also possible that in different markets Amazon has different files for some artists.  Distribution rights and agents often differ from market to market, as do consumer demands and perceptions of those demands: the people supplying the file for the same track in the USA, Germany and Japan might all be different, and doing it a little differently, or even specifying that it must be done in a particular way by the retailer.

Amazon MP3 selling files at various/unspecified settings frustrates me

Reply #31 –
If I remember correctly I heard from somewhere that all the MP3s at Amazon were originally encoded that way.  I still have a couple of albums with that setting I got a while back.

Then they ran into some issues I think and had no choice but to get some MP3s from the record companies or other sources.

Could be wrong, though.  lol.

Amazon MP3 selling files at various/unspecified settings frustrates me

Reply #32 –
Quote from: astroidmist on
Sorry guys, I misspoke.  I meant the "intensity stereo coding", (which is a lossy form of joint stereo) of MP3 bothers me.


I seriously doubt you got a 256kbps intensity stereo mp3 off of Amazon (or anywhere for that matter).

Amazon MP3 selling files at various/unspecified settings frustrates me

Reply #33 –
The only standard Amazon has is that they will, "where possible", offer MP3s with an average of 256 kbps, and they explicitly say they can use CBR or VBR to achieve it. I remembered seeing this somewhere, and although it's buried in their help section, I finally found their "Media Formats" page again:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/dis...odeId=200389400

Beyond attempting to provide 256 kbps, Amazon has no standards, so you get what you pay for.

Amazon MP3 selling files at various/unspecified settings frustrates me

Reply #34 –
Yeah I did see that page a while back.  It still confuses me tho why Amazon can't have a standard CBR setting if they can't always use VBR.  iTunes, Zune marketplace, and the new Google Music all have one setting.

Amazon MP3 selling files at various/unspecified settings frustrates me

Reply #35 –
Not exactly a bit rate problem but another reason that may make me stop buying from Amazon MP3.

I recently purchased a song, and I tried to download it from Cloud Drive.  After clicking the download button, I get the following error message:



I did some research on the problem and found out that multiple browsers, and computers are considered "devices".  It has also been said that if you clear your cookies you will fill up your device limit very quickly.  Now I run CCleaner on my computer regularly to keep peak performance which clears my cookies, and I haven't had this problem until now.

I haven't even been able to download the song I just purchased.

This system is clearly flawed and needs to be fixed.  Hell, even iTunes' device limit isn't this bad, and they let you clear it.  I will be contacting Amazon to resolve this issue and I may decide to stop buying from their MP3 store altogether.  Just wanted to warn people about this problem.

Amazon MP3 selling files at various/unspecified settings frustrates me

Reply #36 –
I came across that on my Mac.  Apparently it thinks my Droid X, nettop through FireFox, same nettop through Chrome, and Mac (Safari and Chrome) constitutes too many devices.  I got the problem solved rather quickly but I had to re-activate my Droid X over again.  I wish there was an option in my Amazon account that would let me clear all registered devices.

Amazon MP3 selling files at various/unspecified settings frustrates me

Reply #37 –
I e-mailed Amazon support explaining the problem.  Hopefully they will be able to reset it and I'll be able to download the song. 

I guess I could uncheck the cookies option in CCleaner for a while, hopefully it won't slow down my PC.

Amazon MP3 selling files at various/unspecified settings frustrates me

Reply #38 –
in ccleaner, look under options>cookies and you can tell it what cookies to keep. anything you don't whitelist will be deleted as normal.

Amazon MP3 selling files at various/unspecified settings frustrates me

Reply #39 –
Thanks for the tip marc2003, I wasn't aware of that option.  I just unchecked cookies in my browser under the "Applications" menu.
 

Amazon MP3 selling files at various/unspecified settings frustrates me

Reply #40 –
Thankfully I got my problem resolved pretty quickly, Amazon has reset my devices .