New Napster Off To A Solid Start 593
Anonymous Superhero writes "From Wired magazine Napster 2.0 has a sleek design and makes exploring new music a pleasure. The most nagging problem? The confusing licensing issues. A review by Katie Dean." I haven't tried it yet - still using the iTunes store.
Rock solid start... (Score:4, Informative)
We're sorry, Napster is not currently compatible with your operating system.
Napster is currently compatible with Windows XP/2000.
Windows 95, Windows NT and the Mac OS are not supported at this time.
If you are planning on using Napster on this computer, the service will not be compatible and you should discontinue registration. If you will use Napster on a different computer, with a compatible operating system, please continue.
No thanks, buddy...
one answer (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Portability (Score:5, Informative)
Re:monthyl liscence? (Score:5, Informative)
If you are on their monthly service you keep the music only so long as you subscribe to their service and cannot burn it (or I think transfer it to a music player) without paying the additional charge.
It also reports how many times you've played each track to headquarters.
iTMS has already worked out the kinks... (Score:5, Informative)
And that's the beauty of the Apple solution: all of the licensing hitches have already been worked out. Consumers want predictability, and iTunes is the only one that provides it now.
Ease of use (Score:5, Informative)
"Despite its flexibility, the service can also be confusing. Some songs in the Napster library can only be streamed, while others are only available for a 99-cent download, even if you're paying for the streaming service. Which songs fall into each category isn't clearly spelled out. Some users are liable to think they are signing up for unlimited access to the Napster library, only to find out that some tracks must be purchased separately."
" I was listening to Lucinda Williams' album Car Wheels on a Gravel Road when I ran into a glitch. I could hear all of "Lake Charles," but only 30 seconds of "I Lost It," a song from the same album. It turns out "I Lost It" was only available if I opted for the a la carte feature. I either had to buy the track for 99 cents or be content hearing just 30 seconds of it. What a pain."
Different classes of songs hidden until you join (Score:5, Informative)
Also, just some more info on the tracks you can download on the $9.99 unlimited plan. If you view the file info in Windows Media Player, they are tagged in the DRM as "no transfer to portable", "no burn to CD", and with 6 week play expirations. Presumably that is renewed automatically if you keep up the subscription.
Re:iTunes (Score:1, Informative)
*ahem* *cough* *HOTLINE* *CARRACHO* *KDX* *cough* *VARIOUS DEDICATED SERVERS*
Excuse me there. Please ignore that outburst. I am glad to see, citizen, that you are choosing to take the high road and pay for your audio-book purchases in a legal, moral way. Anyhow, even were such things available by the "cheaper means" of which you speak, surely it would be a great hassle and inconvenience to actually obtain anything. Carry on.
"Samsung Napster Player" (Score:3, Informative)
Here are a few:
click [typepad.com]
click [image-acquire.com]
click [twincities.com]
Head to head comparison (Score:5, Informative)
Napster 2 vs. iTunes vs. Rhapsody (Score:4, Informative)
Below is a short review I have done of the three legit online music services I have tried - Rhapsody, iTunes, and Napster 2.
Rhapsody [listen.com]
As a s/w developer who sits in front of his computer all day, I'm a big fan of the online streaming services and a huge Rhapsody advocate. I consider it the best $10 that I spend a month and use it for at least 6 hrs a day M-F. I've also ripped my entire CD collection to a FireWire drive connected to a fileserver I have setup in my home network. In total, I have about 7000 mp3s
ripped at 192kbps VBR which take up about 37GB of storage.
But Rhapsody has it's shortcomings.....
- no portable support
- no way to play local media files
- purchased music can be burned to a CD once and then it's gone
- no one click album purchase
I live with most of these by simply ripping the CDs I burn from Rhapsody which allows me to mix them with my local tracks and upload them to my Samsung YP-30SH MP3 player. I have also purchased the licensed version of RealOne (w/o all the subscription crap) to manage my local files. I'm not a big fan of Real the company but RealOne has great ID3 and file management capabilities. I've tried all of the others (e.g. MusicMatch) and I simply can't find another media player which does what RealOne does for me. I should mention that most of these capabilities came from RealJukebox which has then merged with RealPlayer to form RealOne. Unfortunately, it is now bordering on considerable bloatware and I fear that since Real has purchased listen.com (i.e. Rhapsody) they are planning on merging the Rhapsopdy client into it which will likely result in both clients becoming less usable.
iTunes [apple.com]
When iTunes for Windows launched, I checked it out from a curiosity perspective. The U/I is very well done as one would expect from Apple and the purchase process is seamless. Apple has made it very easy for people to spend money
But iTunes has it's shortcomings......
- iPod-only support
- no streaming service
- AAC format which has very limited industry support
I have seen so many messages blasting M$oft and WMA and DRM, and the same people giving accolades to Apple and iTunes. But from my perspective, iTunes/AAC is 10x more proprietary than WMA and Apple has not been anywhere near as forthcoming with developers as M$oft has been over WMA. There are at least a dozen MP3 players on the market supporting WMA and only one supporting AAC. It seems that since Apple is "cool", it's OK for them to be signicantly more proprietary than the "uncool" Microsoft.
As far as DRM is concerned - yes, it's a pain, but get over it - it's not going away.
Napster 2 [napster.com]
So given my views on Rhapsody and iTunes, I was eagerly awaiting the launch of Napster 2. The advance information available seemed to indicate that it had everything I like about Rhapsody and more (e.g. portable support). I had decided that if it actually was what it's PR made it out to be, I'd bite the bullet and get a WMA-capable MP3 player.
But boy was I wrong......
I downloaded the Napster 2 client first thing yesterday morning and immediately felt a sense of deja-iTunes-vu. They seemed to have attempted to replicate the iTunes interface in almost every way but in a way that seems much more "scattered-brained". At this time, I'd like to say a word about these services' U/Is. Perhaps it's my old way of thinking, but I really like Rhapsody's album and artist-orientated U/I. Everything is laid out very logically and navigation among artists, albums, genres, related artists,
etc. is v
PCMag review of Napster (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Portability (Score:2, Informative)
>> them to disks, but you "cannot" transfer them
>> between computers...
Incorrect. You can sync songs between a maximum of 3 computers using the Sync/Restore option on the pulldown 'My Account' menu
>> What i want to know is can the songs
>> downloaded by the monthy service be burned to
>> disks.
Only if you use a stream ripper type program to rip them while playing to a standard mp3 (or other format) file. The Napster client itself does not allow you to burn songs downloaded as a part of the subscription.
Re:iTunes (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Yummy (Score:5, Informative)
Upon installation you are asked to supply your connection speed for streaming purposes.
The maximum available is 96 so stream capturing isn't really an option.
Re:Yummy (Score:4, Informative)
http://streamripper.sourceforge.net/sr32/
Audible (Score:3, Informative)
--if you get a subscription, reference "bizzarobot" and I'll get a free book.
Re:Doomed project (Score:1, Informative)
Re:I haven't tried it yet, either (Score:5, Informative)
Watch out for Napster scam (Score:5, Informative)
And noticed a nice credit card charge for the songs appeared in my statement.
Thanks, Napster. Goodbye, Napster.
Re:Anyone know of a CD-R emulator? That'd work... (Score:5, Informative)
Use a CD-RW. That is what I do when I buy a music on iTuens and burn it to a CD. iTunes will burn track information on the CD so when I rip the CD back to MP3's none of the track info (Artist, Song Title, CD Title, etc.) is lost. When I'm finised I erase the CD-RW so it can be used again.
Re:I haven't tried it yet, either (Score:5, Informative)
Subscription ... (Score:5, Informative)
a few links ... (Score:3, Informative)
- MPEG-4 AAC licensing [vialicensing.com]
Reading the FAQ, you realise that you still have to pay something, due to Dolby's patents.
AAC implementations:
- FAAC [sourceforge.net]
- XMMS AAC plugin [sourceforge.net]
Re:Napster 2 vs. iTunes vs. Rhapsody (Score:2, Informative)
Wrong and wrong. Check your facts before you post.
iTunes supports, at the very least, one non-iPod player: the Nomad. I've used one just to test this, because I'd heard rumors, and it indeed works.
If you don't like AAC, don't use it. Nobody holds a gun to your head and forces you to only listen to/rip to AAC. iTunes handles MP3 quite well.
iTMS != iTunes. Get that straight from the start. One's a music player/library cataloger/cd burner. The other is an online store. The store only allows AAC downloads. However, at the cost of possible quality loss, you can re-rip those AACs to MP3, or OGG, or whatever.
Re:Anyone know of a CD-R emulator? That'd work... (Score:2, Informative)
IANAL(YYY), but I don't think the legality (or lack thereof) of file conversion technology is as blatantly illegal as you think. Fair Use of copyrighted materials is still a pretty shady [utsystem.edu] area of the law, but it's not completly gone [eff.org] yet [eff.org]. I use the AEDT to convert DRM-ized WMA files from Napster in to MP3s so I can play them in iTunes (my preferred media player). I'm not sharing the files or reselling them or anything. Just trying to use the software that fits me the best. Does this automatically make me a criminal, or a good consumer because I didn't use a free P2P system to get the files?
Nothing hampers a programmer's creativity as much as a compiler.
Subscription sounds too good to be true... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Subscription ... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I haven't tried it yet, either (Score:3, Informative)
Not true (Score:3, Informative)
I have tried it personally on a 2-3 year old Nike PSA Play 60 (which is really a Rio 600) and it worked perfectly. I did have to use Windows Media Player to do the transfer, but I have to use that to transfer MP3's anyway, since the Nike software sucks.
Re:Napster 2 vs. iTunes vs. Rhapsody (Score:3, Informative)
- no streaming service"
Not quite. iTunes will support just about any device you can plug into the USB or firewire port. Did you notice the "Radio" link that brings you to streams? or the "open stream" command under the "advanced menu"?
HEY, 5$ gets you 500 megs with www.allofmp3.com (Score:1, Informative)
http://www.allofmp3.com, check it out, i'm not representing them btw
Re: Napster and successes (Score:4, Informative)
Meanwhile, Napster's founder is on to other projects (most notably, Ryze - the business contact network).
Apple has clout and respect with the masses, because when they offer a music store, people simply think "Cool, online music purchasing brought to us by the guys that gave us the way cool iPod portable music player!" There's no negative "baggage" like a Napster has.
BTW - has anyone used www.ryze.com and found it useful/worthwhile? I gave it a shot, and personally, I found it mostly annoying. The concept was great.... but it seems to draw "wanna-bes", "psychics/mystics/religious zealots" and loads of hucksters trying to sell you their self-help or getting-started type books/videos. I was hoping to do some serious business networking with people, like myself, doing computer consulting/upgrading/etc. Instead, I got invites to join message forums run by people doing motivational seminars and selling insurance.
Re:Watch out for Napster scam (Score:3, Informative)
Go near the bottom. You had to cancel in 30 days.
Re:I haven't tried it yet, either (Score:1, Informative)
I know I've started using them here in Australia, which comes to about $21.50 per disc. Yes, much better than HMV's import prices.