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Topic: does anyone really care? (Read 5192 times) previous topic - next topic
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does anyone really care?

is there really a lot on interest in an MPC distro group?

i am wondering because i dont really see that much interest or participation besides a few individuals.

same thing with a website like mpegplus.outerspase.net

is there a need or want for a website like that?

the other reason i ask is because such things reallyl do take up a bit of time...

if i think there really isnt a need i am going to hang up my hat in this "community" and go back to being a mp3 user.

does anyone really care?

Reply #1 –
I'd have to say the reason you don't see much discussion about such a thing like that is because this site is dedicated to discussion and research of the audio compression itself, not actually trading music.  On a different note, I'm sure there are probably people interested out there.  It is probably unreleastic to ever expect MPC to become as popular as MP3 though so if that's what you are wanting then you might be disappointed..

does anyone really care?

Reply #2 –
indeed i understand that no format will in the forseeable future become as popular or more popular than mp3...

im just curious.. it doesnt seem that the current userbase is growing any.

does anyone really care?

Reply #3 –
Also (and please understand that I am not intending to speak w/ belittlement), I think the primary, and possibly only, motivation for the kind of ppl who use MPC, is to encode audio at the highest possible quality for personal archival and enjoyment, using the best format that they can find to that end - not necessarily for finding something to evangelise, or for "community building".

Now, OTOH, one might find a more evangelical, zealous, "spread the gospel" type of sentiment among the Ogg Vorbis crowd, probably due to the whole "Open Source", "post scarcity gift culture", "GNU/Linux World Domination" thing.

I'm not saying whether that's a good or a bad thing.

Just my $0.02

does anyone really care?

Reply #4 –
I agree with Dibrom.  This site's about audio compression.  I hope its focus stays that way.  There's enough sites out there for what you're looking for. Myself, I find these days to be buying a lot more music (cds), than trading with other folks. The reason is because they have different standards and method of procedures for compressing their music.  I prefer to use the "insane" MPC encoding setting, whereas a lot of others prefer the other options. Some don't "normalize" their waves.  I do.  If it's something I know for a fact I'll never buy, I just might d/l it off the web, decode it back to wav, normalize, then reencode it to mpc again.  But as I said, I find myself actually buying more cd's these days than ever before.  Kinda ironic that Napster and the whole music compression/MP3 craze brought me to this point, eh?  ;-|

does anyone really care?

Reply #5 –
its not that i am looking for places with mpc files..

i know places...

i run these places pretty much...

i am wondering if its worth the effort...

oh and by the way i have bought a lot of cds lately too!

does anyone really care?

Reply #6 –
Quote
Originally posted by spase
im just curious.. it doesnt seem that the current userbase is growing any.


I think I'd have to disagree with that sentiment.

Since I first joined r3mix.net, I have seen the MPC user base grow quite dramatically.  When I first joined up at that forum and became more active in the audio compression community, most people didn't even know what MPC (MP+ at the time) was.. it was mostly a "fringe" format.  To an extent it is still a little bit esoteric by mainstream standards, but the thing is that now almost anyone actually looking to learn more about high quality audio will be exposed to this format somewhere along the line.

People are asking more questions about it, they are looking for more programs that support it and are slowly finding them.. (look at Helium2 for example).

I think the issue is that most of the people moving towards this format are not the same people who do a lot of online trading kind of like what Dacs_IV said.

In the past I have been fairly active in the music trading scene which actually led to me buying far more music and becoming much more interested in music and also quality.  Since then I have moved on and rarely download stuff except for a short preview if I am uncertain whether I want to buy something.  The main reasons are again what Dacs_IV said.  People have different standards, different levels of quality that are acceptable to them.

As for myself, I am more interested in achieving archival quality with lossy compression which is not necessarily the same thing as "adequate" quality which is usually a proper compromise for online trading.

So I think what it basically comes down to is a bit of conflict of interest.  It seems to me that a lot of the MPC crowd is made up of more "independent" types.. those who are willing to encode their own music for their own purposes, and will go out of their way (compatibility wise, or else they'd choose MP3) to achieve that.  It's almost a given when you go with a format like MPC that a wealth of readily traded files is not it's strong point.

Liken it to anything where the standards are higher really... whether it be audio equipment or tastes in other things such as music or beer, or whatever.  When you want the extra quality and the extra "essence" which many people may consider unnecessary (in this case quality), you usually pay for it in some form or another which is usually related to availability.  You don't see these types of things really penetrate the mainstream, but that doesn't mean they don't exist or that they aren't even around you at the very moment even though you may not be aware.  You'd be surprised at how people will literally come out of the woodworks who have interests in these things, MPC included.

At any rate, in the case of MPC it seems to me that the price you pay is a lack of a really large and involved mainstream trading scene.  I'm not sure I really see it changing much in the immediate future either (at least in the sentiment that it could reach the scale that something like napster did with mp3), but who knows for sure.  At the very least I think it'd be a misjudgment to feel as if the community is going nowhere solely from the viewpoint of music trading, and I certainly know I won't be switching formats anytime soon just because that's what people trade in the most.  But maybe that's just me..

does anyone really care?

Reply #7 –
Spase,
When I visted AQuA, I was quite excited by the prospect of trading mpcs. However, I discovered that I had to offer somethiong up in return which I didn't think I had the capacity to offer - either programming skill, or local server space.

I don't think a trading group is going to expand much past the 'cogniscenti' if this is what it takes to join.

Then again, I may have this all wrong!
Ruse
____________________________
Don't let the uncertainty turn you around,
Go out and make a joyful sound.

does anyone really care?

Reply #8 –
well maybe people got the wrong idea about AQuA...

we ask nothing in return for the download of files from our member's ftp sites...

and they are all leech....

the only thing we ask is that if possible you join our irc channel

#AQuAudio on DALnet

anyways we are rethinking the whole AQuA thing and perhaps soon will have a new way of doing things....

as you might notice our message boards are down and our web page has nothing on it...

basically if you want music you will have to go to our irc channelto find servers for now..... until we get our web server things squared away.

does anyone really care?

Reply #9 –
The thing about MPC trading is there is no easy way of trading files (ie: Napster, Morpheus, etc.). Pretty much all of the MPC trading is done on FTP sites, which is great in theory, but there is no easily way to find these FTP sites. There is no way to find out the contents of each site or do a search among all of the sites.

However, more advertising is a double-edge sword...get big enough, the RIAA will be right on you with a lawsuit. Shutting down FTP sites is a hell of a lot easier than shutting down Morpheus and Napster. At least Morpehus and Napster have the money to fight (if only for a just a while). Chances are, the FTP sites will be shut down the second a letter from the RIAA's lawyers arrives.

Would I be more interested in some kind of trading community?.  Definitely. But until an easier way comes around to do the trading, I don't have the resources to provide a FTP site or something like that.

does anyone really care?

Reply #10 –
i understand that feeling....

if i was a programmer i woulda had some kinda p2p sharing for mpc a long time ago...

does anyone really care?

Reply #11 –
What are the chances of getting mpc support into one of the popular sharing programs?

I always thought it would be an advantage to have a good ripper and encoder built in to the sharing prog, because then the number of good quality files on that network would increase. However, given the small number of people who actually contribute files to these services, I guess it wouldn't make much difference.

Sorry if this has been discussed a million times before - but what about dedicated mpc support for WinMX et al?

Cheers,
David.

does anyone really care?

Reply #12 –
Well, if you want a P2P dedicated to sharing MPC, you can always setup a private network using the GNUtella protocol (it's already out there and it works).

Setting up a GNUtella servent, and having ppl connect to it, is easy enough if you have a static IP or two.

And, to ensure that ppl connecting don't also inadvertantly let searches slip out onto the main GNUtella network, you can also take another step and have everyone connect with a private connect string to ensure network integrity (in LimeWire, for example, this is changed in the 'limewire.props' text file).

On such a small private network, a search for ".mpc" would yield a simple browsable archive.

Just a thought.

does anyone really care?

Reply #13 –
Yes, I do care, and I have a friend of mine already working on that

Happy?

does anyone really care?

Reply #14 –
I haven't had the patience to read the whole thread but hey mpc trading - I'm in!! 


Jan.
 

does anyone really care?

Reply #15 –
Hey!

I am a living prrof that spase is wrong and dibrom right! I was a devoted mp3 fan and roamed the r3mix site for a long time. A new lame release was like having birthday

Then i happened to read one of dibroms posts over there regarding MPC and it caught my interest. I started looking around and soon I was testing, analyzing, testing some more...

I can only agree with dibrom when he assumes that the people crossing over to MPC are perhaps of a different kind and motives.

I encode for my personal interest and archive only. This is what drives me

I would love to see the MPC format become more available on a peer2peer net. The great thing about MPC is that even if most will choose to go for the standard quality you will always get great quality! This is in fact what keeps me from downloading MP3s off the net. It's just too much hazzle trying to sort out the few golden bits among the garbage. Too much time wasted. MPC could change this for me.

Last, I just love the format! I use -xtreme which i found the best option. -insane is overkill whatever you say and -standard is great but....I choose -xtreme

One thing that I would love to see is a small ignore switch in the winamp plugin that would allow us to override the replaygain adjustment being automatically applied during playback if the files have been processed.....???

Another thing would be a buffering option like in the mp3 plugin. I have a lot of RAM and prefer to leave the discs ready for other tasks instead of contantly going back to read a bit more from the audio file.....??? Just my 2 little wishes

As for swapping, I have a 24/7 ftp up which is trading MPC only but I am considering taking it down due to the very reasons described earlier in this thread. I do not feel the need to take such a risk. P2P would be better...

Drac:P
Kind regards,

Dracul