Download issues: File Format/Compression, etc.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Paul Engel
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Paul Engel

Boy, this music download business had a LONG learning curve. I started
downloading MP3s from a fee site. TROUBLE! Got more adware and crud on my
machine than I could handle. BUT...loved the fact that I could put tons of
music on my digital player.

Turned to pay per buy, using Music Match. Come to find out that the file
format is WMA with some type of pirate control capability. Had to buy a new
digital player to use these.

Seems that the WMA format uses much less compression, so I can only keep
about 27 songs on my 256MB digital player. Tried converting ot MP3, but the
software errors out due to the pirate protection.

Is there a happy medium? Is there a place where you can legally pay for your
music and get MP3s so you can drag hundreds of songs around?

Sorry for the newbie-like question. I'm a pretty heavy power-user who had
been figuring these things out for 25 years...so it's a little daunting to
have something w/ so many mazes built in.

Thanks for any help.

--


Regards,
Paul

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Source Imaging, LLC.
Paul Engel, President
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Right, this is what sucks about music services. The content owners want to
limit what you can do with the media, and they don't give you a format that
is as universal as MP3.

If you are looking for bands on major labels, then no, you have little
chance. The happy medium is to purchase the CD's and then rip the audio off
in MP3 format. Then you can do whatever you want with it.
 
Thanks. That may be the best approach.
Chris Lanier said:
Right, this is what sucks about music services. The content owners want
to limit what you can do with the media, and they don't give you a format
that is as universal as MP3.

If you are looking for bands on major labels, then no, you have little
chance. The happy medium is to purchase the CD's and then rip the audio
off in MP3 format. Then you can do whatever you want with it.
Click to expand...
 
WMA compresses much better than a MP3 will. The problem you have isnt that
WMA has worse compression its that the bitrate is probably set around 192.
Typical "CD" quality from a MP3 takes around 128kbs while WMA only needs
about half that. Try converting it to a lower bit rate and you can easily
fit more than 27 songs into 256mb. I have around 30 or so on a 128 card, I
used a variable bit rate while riping them from my CDs so they are around
50-80 kbs.
 
Sounds like a good solution. What tool should I use to lower the bitrate on
these. They have the special copy protection that blocked my from converting
to MP3. Is there a tool that will lower the bitrate even though they have
this protection? Or do I have to resort to the other recommendation I got
about ripping from CD instead of downloading?

Paul
 
You can not transcode protected media. That would defeat the purpose of the
protection to transcode to MP3, a format that can't keep the protection.
You can't even transcode to lower bitrate WMA with the current
implementation of WMRM.
 
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