On Friday, June 13, 2003, at 07:54 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
It is kinda annoying but each new point release of QuickTime (6.1, 6.2,
6.3) has introduced significant enhancements and improvements. (At
least, the Mac version has.)
Well, I don't use anything but the player -- no musical instruments and none of the other junk that goes along with it. I just want it to play QT movies standalone or in the browser.
Yes, but that's what I'm telling you -- QuickTime's ability to "play QT movies standalone or in the browser" has gotten significantly better with each point release -- in terms of types of media files supported, in terms of performance, etc etc. There is no "junk" that goes with it except the musical instruments (which some Mac users do depend on, but yes, you're right, they're junk), and those haven't been updated in a long time. But the guts of it -- the decoding and encoding of video, the stuff you use -- has.
All I'm saying is, the upgrades tend to provide significant improvements. Apple doesn't normally upgrade QT for no good reason. But whatever, if it's too much trouble, don't bother.
Surely there must be some sort of bare-bones freeware MP3 player for PC
that doesn't have all the spyware garbage? . . .
I have THREE programs on my PC that can play MP3s. Why should I do the research to find a free MP3 player without spyware? Granted, one doesn't seem to work reliably, and the other two are evil, but it just seems like such a lot of work.
Well, because you preferred player (QT) seems to have unfortunately let you down here, and I just figured it would probably be easier to find a spyware-free MP3 player than it is to fix whatever problem you're having with QT.
Did you *really* think the files sounded that bad? Maybe you're expecting the source recording quality to have been better than it was. It was recorded with a small though decent mini-disc player/recorder and minimal mixing through a cheap little mixing board.
As I said in another thread, I know what MP3's sound like. I know how they affect the sound of the source material, and I can generally distinguish artifacts introduced by the MP3 encryption process from artifacts that were already present in the source files. I know MiniDisc uses compressed audio, too, and I'm familiar with how *that* medium affects the sound, and also how audio recorded on a MiniDisc behaves when it gets transferred to MP3. So the short answer is, no, I don't think my expectations regarding the source material were unrealistic, and yes, I would expect that even given the limitations of the source recording, a 128 kbps MP3 would sound much, much better than a 64 kbps MP3. So much better that I feel it's definitely worth twice the download time and twice the disk storage. And if it were up to me (which of course it isn't), I'd much prefer my work to be represented by the 128 kbps files. Of course, that's just IMHO, and YMMV (as they say on the Information Superhighway).
Well, if some day there's ever any music available for download from these legitimate music stores, I may bite, but I don't see that as being at all likely to happen any time soon.
Well, the iTunes Music Store is obviously geared much more towards the popular market right now -- which is as it should be, seeing as they're just starting out. Obviously, there are still unacceptable glitches -- like, for instance, artists sort by first name only. There are separate entries for Bela Bartok and Béla Bartók. And they only have the five major labels right now, BUT many independents are coming, including the super-indies like CDBaby (which isn't even really a "label" at all). But despite these drawbacks, it's still a pretty good service, especially considering there's no monthly subscription fee or any of that. You just pay for what you use -- $0.99 per song, or (generally) $9.99 per album. Many albums cost less... some a little more. It's an excellent (and extremely successful) start, especially considering the quality of the competition right now. I'm certainly heartened by the idea that millions of people are apparently willing to actually pay for music online. I wasn't sure that would actually be the case.
- Darcy
----- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Boston MA
No one likes us I don't know why We may not be perfect But heaven knows we try But all around, even our old friends put us down Let's drop the Big One and see what happens
- Randy Newman, "Political Science"
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