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Poll

What is the primary source you listen music from on your portable device?

Music bought on physical media, grabbed and copied to my device
Online streaming services, paid subscription - Spotify, Youtube Music, Deezer, iTunes, etc
Online streaming services, without suscription
Online streaming services in offline mode (pre-loading to cache) - poor or too expensive internet connection
Tracks/albums (files) bought in online stores
Music downloaded from torrent trackers or other sites for free (pirate copies)
Own media server
Online radio
FM radio
I use portable CD-player!
I don't listen music on portable device
Your option in comments
Topic: What is the primary source you listen music from on your portable device? (Read 15513 times) previous topic - next topic
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Re: What is the primary source you listen music from on your portable device?

Reply #25 –
I try to download my music to have it on my local storage all the time I can, and the biggest part of it is lossless. I do like to take the time to encode, to tag (or fix tags) if needed, to find the album arts if they are missing, and overall keep them as compressed as possible while keeping it lossless. Most of my stuff is flac, but a few of them are in other formats. I particularly like TAK for multichannel audio, WavPack for 32bit files and TTA for single track+cue stuff.
The same goes for my mobile device, the music I listen on my smartphone is stored on an SD card, and for my phone I convert anything beyond CD quality to hybrid wavpack, where I reduce the bitrate to around 1411kbps due to low sotrage space. But I do prefer the inconveniences of keeping a local library over using online services everyday for quite a few reasons, one of them being that a lot of things I like is pretty niche and it's not available via streaming, some aren't even on youtube!
On my PC I use foobar2000 and on my smartphone I use Poweramp, but I also like to listen to FM radio sometimes

Re: What is the primary source you listen music from on your portable device?

Reply #26 –
Quote from: U2021 on
I download from YouTube Music & losslessly extract audio from it!
May I ask how to do that.

Re: What is the primary source you listen music from on your portable device?

Reply #27 –
Quote from: johnwong on
Quote from: U2021 on
I download from YouTube Music & losslessly extract audio from it!
May I ask how to do that.
I, and I'm sure others, could tell you, but I think it would violate TOS#9:
Quote from: HA.org
TOS 9. All members must refrain from posting links to -- or information regarding how to obtain -- material that is copyrighted and being distributed without authorization or is otherwise illegal.  Discussion containing information of how to obtain such material, how to bypass protection methodologies of such material, or how to otherwise violate laws pertaining to such matters will not be tolerated.
And is also likely the reason no-one has said they chose "Music downloaded from torrent trackers or other sites for free (pirate copies)" from the poll's option.

Re: What is the primary source you listen music from on your portable device?

Reply #28 –
The tools used to download videos from YouTube aren't illegal themselves. When the content is free and without copyright, for example, there's no legal issue. Google/YouTube, of course, doesn't like the use of third-party tools to download their streams, especially if it means bypassing ads. But they don't care so much as long as you actually play the videos so people get paid.

The subject of downloading free but copyrighted streams is not the same as illegally hosted files or illegally downloading files. Your browser caches streams to the hard drive when it needs to, and sometimes they stay on the drive as long the browser or your settings see fit. If stream caching is illegal, then everyone's browser is breaking the law. Ultimately, it's when you copy or distribute copyrighted content — that is illegal. YouTube could sue you if you sell or monetize someone else's copyrighted content from their site without permission.

Free, cached stream content is legal so long as it's used as intended. If you were to play through a video, then download the same video stream for personal use only, that could be considered replaying it.

Either way, there is another reason to not post the answer on how to download YouTube on the forum: sometimes a tool is removed because a company or organization managed to strong-arm the hosting site or abuse DMCA to get it removed. You'll get a more current answer by googling how.

Re: What is the primary source you listen music from on your portable device?

Reply #29 –
Quote from: ajp9 on
The tools used to download videos from YouTube aren't illegal themselves. When the content is free and without copyright, for example, there's no legal issue. Google/YouTube, of course, doesn't like the use of third-party tools to download their streams, especially if it means bypassing ads. But they don't care so much as long as you actually play the videos so people get paid.

The subject of downloading free but copyrighted streams is not the same as illegally hosted files or illegally downloading files. Your browser caches streams to the hard drive when it needs to, and sometimes they stay on the drive as long the browser or your settings see fit. If stream caching is illegal, then everyone's browser is breaking the law. Ultimately, it's when you copy or distribute copyrighted content — that is illegal. YouTube could sue you if you sell or monetize someone else's copyrighted content from their site without permission.

Free, cached stream content is legal so long as it's used as intended. If you were to play through a video, then download the same video stream for personal use only, that could be considered replaying it.

Either way, there is another reason to not post the answer on how to download YouTube on the forum: sometimes a tool is removed because a company or organization managed to strong-arm the hosting site or abuse DMCA to get it removed. You'll get a more current answer by googling how.

Yes, as you said, all downloading tools (for Google) are legal, otherwise, Google would have encrypted the files like Spotify.
Grabbing files from YouTube is like ripping your DVD/BD: you don't pay for watching videos on YouTube.
You can download streams from web version of Spotify, but the downloaded files are encrypted & after 10 secs, stops playing!
Is it illegal to grab a file from Spotify?

Re: What is the primary source you listen music from on your portable device?

Reply #30 –
Quote from: jaybeee on
Quote from: johnwong on
Quote from: U2021 on
I download from YouTube Music & losslessly extract audio from it!
May I ask how to do that.
I, and I'm sure others, could tell you, but I think it would violate TOS#9:
Quote from: HA.org
TOS 9. All members must refrain from posting links to -- or information regarding how to obtain -- material that is copyrighted and being distributed without authorization or is otherwise illegal.  Discussion containing information of how to obtain such material, how to bypass protection methodologies of such material, or how to otherwise violate laws pertaining to such matters will not be tolerated.
And is also likely the reason no-one has said they chose "Music downloaded from torrent trackers or other sites for free (pirate copies)" from the poll's option.

Most of users are pirates :D

Re: What is the primary source you listen music from on your portable device?

Reply #31 –
The only reason I made my comment referencing the TOS 9 for this site are to make users aware that posting links to programs that allow one to capture the audio may violate such TOS.
I use some myself.
I personally think discussing such tools/apps/progs isn't a problem, but I think it's something this site doesn't like.
Direct linking to warez/mp3download etc etc sites is far enough to not be posted (who uses them in 2021 anyway?).

Re: What is the primary source you listen music from on your portable device?

Reply #32 –
Quote from: jaybeee on
The only reason I made my comment referencing the TOS 9 for this site are to make users aware that posting links to programs that allow one to capture the audio may violate such TOS.
I use some myself.
I personally think discussing such tools/apps/progs isn't a problem, but I think it's something this site doesn't like.
Direct linking to warez/mp3download etc etc sites is far enough to not be posted (who uses them in 2021 anyway?).

I only do this because mobile data plans are so high & I can't afford buying subscription for lossy format! Tidal prices is too high!

Re: What is the primary source you listen music from on your portable device?

Reply #33 –
Quote from: jaybeee on
Quote from: johnwong on
Quote from: U2021 on
I download from YouTube Music & losslessly extract audio from it!
May I ask how to do that.
I, and I'm sure others, could tell you, but I think it would violate TOS#9:
Quote from: HA.org
TOS 9. All members must refrain from posting links to -- or information regarding how to obtain -- material that is copyrighted and being distributed without authorization or is otherwise illegal.  Discussion containing information of how to obtain such material, how to bypass protection methodologies of such material, or how to otherwise violate laws pertaining to such matters will not be tolerated.

There is actually a very good blog post by GitHub on this very subject:
Quote
after we received new information that showed the youtube-dl project does not in fact violate the DMCA‘s anticircumvention prohibitions, we concluded that the allegations did not establish a violation of the law.
This "new information" itself being an excellent response written by the Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Quote
First, youtube-dl does not infringe or encourage the infringement of any copyrighted works, and its references to copyrighted songs in its unit tests are a fair use. Nevertheless, youtube-dl’s maintainers are replacing these references. Second, youtube-dl does not violate Section 1201 of the DMCA because it does not “circumvent” any technical protection measures on YouTube videos. Similarly, the “signature” or “rolling cipher” mechanism employed by YouTube does not prevent copying of videos. Below we explain each of these points in more detail.

Obviously, read both of those in full for more details.

Re: What is the primary source you listen music from on your portable device?

Reply #34 –
I listen to mainly vgm (video game music), especially RPG music...
extracted from the games files over the years by diehard fans...

Re: What is the primary source you listen music from on your portable device?

Reply #35 –
Quote from: Markuza97 on
Here's a quick comparison of "2Pac - Brenda's Got A Baby".
First picture is the original release, second picture is the new release.
Look at that dynamic range of the new version.
Ohhh that's right. It doesn't have any dynamic range.
Hello!
What dynamic range meter is used here?
Is there one for integrating in foobar?
Thanks...
Best regards
What is the opposite of music? ~ Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

Re: What is the primary source you listen music from on your portable device?

Reply #36 –
That's just a screen shot of Audacity with both tracks loaded into it.

Re: What is the primary source you listen music from on your portable device?

Reply #37 –
Thanks!
What is the opposite of music? ~ Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
 

Re: What is the primary source you listen music from on your portable device?

Reply #38 –
Primarily FLAC downloads from bandcamp, hdtracks, hiresaudio, qobuz. I always convert to 16/44.1 libFLAC level 8, if the files served are higher resolution (bandcamp serves 16/44.1 optionally) -- as hi-res is pointless for listening. Noise floor of 16-bit inaudible, frequency range capability of >44.1kHz also inaudible.

Keep all the FLACs on my PC (3 backups) and encode down to 256kbps Opus for mobile listening. Simple as.

I see a lot of people on here using very low bitrates (64-128kbps). New codecs such as Opus and xHE-AAC can achieve good quality at these bitrates, sure, but I don't see the point of pinching for space like that when a 512GB microSD card is so cheap. I would rather have guaranteed transparency.