Christian Pernegger Wrote: > > Since you asked for any thoughts - it makes me really sad when > someone > actually uses (wants to use) these restrictive formats instead of > boycotting them. I really do not look forward to a world of low > quality lossy music that I have to lease instead of own. > C. You know, most people are totally OK with paying Netflix $20/month to watch lots of DVDs they don't own. Many also pay their local cable company lots of money to watch HBO, Showtime, pay-per-view, and other premium content that's also protected and they don't own. Why are you against paying $5/month for unlimited listening of high quality tracks from someone like Yahoo Music? The business model is no different than millions of people are used to for video, and it's significantly cheaper.
As for lossy music, I'll challenge anyone in a blind comparison to listen to Yahoo's 192k/bit dual pass encoded WMA tracks against the original CDs. I've done it on using the digital output of my Roku on a very high-end (>$5K) audio system and the results are surprising. When the testing isn't blind, people claim to hear a difference. When it IS blind, suddenly they cannot tell which is which. I have both a Roku and a Squeezebox. I prefer the Squeezebox in many ways, but frankly the Roku gets more use now because it will play protected content like that from Yahoo. I don't understand the CEO of SlimDevices at least partly dismissing the Yahoo/Rhapsody/Napster business model for music? Microsoft, for all their evils, at least has managed to promote a somewhat universal standard for protecting the downloadable/streamable property of artists yet allow it to be played on a much wider variety of hardware. That's certainly more than Apple has done with their tightly controlled protected AAC format that ONLY plays on Apple hardware. If you still think services like Yahoo Unlimited are evil, try reading this: http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-FDuiCSg4eqinB8z.GGJ7TmAz?p=89 I honestly believe that unless Apple gets their head out of the sand and opens up their protected AAC format, protected WMA (via PlaysForSure) will have similar market share to Windows (i.e. > 90%) in the not too distant future. If SlimDevices chooses not to support PlaysForSure, they will very likely end up like TurtleBeach did with the Audiotron--an early leader that didn't adapt their offerings to what most customers want. For those of you who believe all music should be free, I can only say you must not know any musicians trying to make a living at it. Paying $5/month--the price of one used CD--for access anytime I want to a personal library built from over a million tracks is a pretty sweet deal IMHO. -- AV_Guy _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
