Let's think about this, shall we? How did Sony's
ATRAC format do? How did all those
DRM-laced formats fare? Call us zany, but we've got a feeling an all new format developed by the astoundingly brilliant (ahem) minds at the world's largest record labels is apt to follow the aforementioned formats right on down to Irrelevant Boulevard. According to
Times Online, Sony, Warner, Universal and EMI are currently looking to go head-to-head with Apple's own "
Cocktail" by introducing a CMX format (codenamed) that will "give music fans a computerized version of the sleeve notes that come as standard with a CD, including lyrics and artwork, and videos." Reportedly, the format is expected to launch in November in an effort to boost whole album downloads (as opposed to singles), and while the labels approached Apple in order to gain its support, the Cupertino-based company purportedly decided to concoct its own mixture. Oh, and you can pretty much consider this
extra DOA should
iTunes not support it; fair or not, that's just the way it is.
[Via
Guardian]
posted August 11th 2009 8:39AM
@ Nick
No.. Apple are the number one American seller of digital downloads. And how big is the gap between number one and number two?
Remember that iTunes only works with iPods and a few select players from Sony I think. So they are hardly looking to make as much money as possible from it. You like iTunes. great. But please don't be so daft as to think that Apple are able to tell the record labels what to do.
Reality is.. All music sales world wide are way way bigger than the iTunes sales. Bigger than all download sales actually.. And if Apple couldn't sell any of the major labels, do you really think that the iProduct users would not buy them elsewhere? So no. As Apple do not run the only music store, they can't dictate terms to the people they buy the music from.
1) Software other than iTunes can sync iPods.
2) iPods can play files from sources other iTunes.
3) Why would apple sabotage their own media player software?
Wow, just wow. Either this is going to be an open source project ... or these media guys are the biggest idiots in the business world. How do they expect to make this work unless it is open source and backwards compatible with old players?
The idea is great, a universal format that includes artwork and is supported by all media companies. They should have been forcing his on its distributors from the beginning, and they wouldn't be in the situation they are in now. The only problem is that it is 10 years too late. There are way too many mp3/aac tracks sold to go back now. Nothing like changing formats on the public to confuse them more about digital downloads.
more formats = confusion = aggravation = piracy = lost sales
Yes, I would like more crap to fill up my HDD, please! Seriously, if I wanted the art work, I'd buy the physical CD. If I wanted to watch the video, I'd go watch it on YouTube, or MTV 84 (whichever number they relegated all the videos to). Now, if you want to include the lyrics to the songs as part of the meta data, THEN you have my attention.
This is already possible with mp3's
Oh pullleeeze. The amount of extra "clutter" we're talking about here is miniscule.
Even iphones have 16G or more. Most devices are even beefier than that.
Some of us have multiple complete TV series on their PMPs.
"yet another format" is the real problem.
where else should one pee but on the side of the road?
The perfect .CMX format would be able to be opened like a .ZIP file, containing all the MP3s of the audio and JPEGs of the artwork.
Possible alternatives: RAR, TAR, GZIP, ZIP, 7z and of course a simple URL to the youtube, but that might not be useful with non-wired devices.
Incidentally, MP3's already support including a picture of the sleeve, although I think that's limited in the size supported? and of course the ID tags can hold all the data, oh and there's even room for lyrics.
Not that I think mp3 is something to be used, if you pay you should get lossless in my view, so FLAC or APE or TTA or something.
I hope you don't see the album art using Adobe Reader. That really sucks all the fun out of the whole experience.
Wow, they just keep beating this dead horse. Forget it, it's over. Go find another job.
then whats the solution?
The solution is artists self publishing.
I represent the OPAA (oil producing association of america) and I propose that all electric cars get a tank that has to be filled with gas twice a week, regardless if you need/use gas, we call that the CMX tank, short for consumer motor xperience.
Please tell your congressman to take our brides, thanks for your support.
I meant 'bribes', please make sure you delete your computer and buy a new one to correct my typo, thanks again, at no time has there been any evidence we arrange marriage and hookers, please keep that in mind, there is no proof.
Which is why I never use any Apple formats. First thing I do whenever I install iTunes is to switch the importing back to the universal standard MP3.
AAC is not proprietary. Even more so the non-DRM formats they have been using for the last couple of years.
Gee whiz, this sounds a helluva lot like what we developed at IBM back in the late '90s with EMMS. The labels had their collective heads up their collective asses then, too--but then again, so did our IBM's draconian legal department, who put up as many roadblocks as the labels did.
at the request of the shareholders.
Just what we need, another DRM format with all kinds of crap in it. Probably will include a feature to check with a central server and delete your music after Sony drops support for it.
This doesn't need to be so complicated. It wouldn't be hard for companies to do something like what the Zune HD does and load all this information into their marketplaces, then sync the info to the device so that it can be accessed by the player while listening to music. Of course, Zune only does this with the artist bio and pictures, but I imagine it would not be difficult to incorporate liner notes as well.
Ah, fewer pastimes are more worthwhile than reinventing the wheel. And making it square or something.
What car is that in that picture?
So, they've invented... ID3 tags?
Right...which is why if I ever decide I don't want an iPod I can just use all my music on my new..oh wait I can't if it's in AAC, but if it's in MP3 I can. I can also stream MP3 to my TiVo and many other devices. AAC cannot because it's not universally accepted like MP3 is.
the confusing came when apple needed to come up with 4 file extensions for the exact same file. Going from .Mp3(Mpeg1 part 3) to .Mp4, .m4v, .m4a .m4p which are ALL THE EXACT SAME TYPE OF FILE (Mpeg4 container format) that holds the AAC file....
I love when people say Mp4s sound better then AAC or vice versa, they are the same damn file!!! hahahaha
I've got this retrospectively for all my music collection - all 90GB of it - thanks very much.
ooTunes on my iPhone, streaming from my home collection gives me sleeve art and lyrics, as well as last.fm-style recommendations.
XBMC on my Xbox gives me this in the living room.
My frigging iPhone does it using the native iPod app after I used GimmeSomeTune to download and embed album art and lyrics in my MP3s.
All aboard the fail whale!
@ Jordan
@ Larry
You are both wrong: AAC and MP3 are BOTH proprietary formats.
Proprietary means that its owner has control of the it. That is absolutely the case with Apple and AAC.
And, contrary to public misconception, MP3 is very much patented and requires licensing fees.
If you want non-proprietary, non-patented, truly open, truly free codes, use OGG and FLAC.
Ok well then I guess my concern with the mp3/aac isn't the proprietaryness of it then. My concern is that, and I will state this again, almost anything will play an mp3, not everything will play AAC. Why would I use AAC when I can guarantee myself that pretty much any device I use will play my files if they are in MP3?
I've just downloaded the last Saturday Lo-fi album from bandcamp site and I could choose any format I wanted, 320k mp3, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC and Apple Lossless.
Itunes still in 128k mp3.
Sad but im happy... The album is excellent! recommanded for fans of Boards of Canada, Beck, Pepe Deluxe!!
"in an effort to boost whole album downloads (as opposed to singles)"
Hmm.. sounds like time to buy stock in turd polish!
Matter of fact is it so hard to come up with a loss-less format that does not take up so much space it probably can be done if people were really willing to do it.
we need a format that has the following.
1 loss-less format
2 small size
3 supports lyrics, liner notes, all tag data
4 support from all devices from computers to music players
5 no drm
6 all online stores carry same format (labels could do this if they wanted by threatening them to drop all music from the stores; they have the power to do so but instead do stupid shit.)
Can I ask why people keep referring to AAC as an "Apple" format? It's not. It wasn't created by them and while the iTunes Store DRM'ed AAC files were a proprietary Apple format, the store converted to standard unprotected AAC files a while ago, so any player that wants to support it can... and it seems that a lot do... Creative, Microsofts, Sonys, Sandisks, Palm, etc:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding#Other_Portable_Players
Now stop making me speak positively of Apple. I swear apple-haters are becoming as illogical and as zealous as the apple fanboys. :p
Because bashing Apple for anything is the trendy thing sheep do.
TAKING BACK SUNDAY!!!!
NEW AGAIN!!!!!
I'M SEEING THEM IN SEPTEMBER!!!!!
Yeah! Awesome! Saw them a few weeks back, it was killer!
"one song" is actually nothing new. It's how the industry started. The labels tried
to artificially kill off the single format in the 90s right at the same time that the
internet was starting to get popular. At the same time high speed downloads
became widely available they decided to abuse their customers even further
and to try and make the minimum music buy in even more expensive.
iTunes isn't a move forward, it's a move backwards.
It's success is just another indication that the music industry was trying to contradict the will of it's paying customers.
Apple's DRM made sure that Microsoft's RM didn't become standard in the music world.
So yes, it was a good thing and the only reason it was created.
Apples DRM made the music free again!!!
So before you guys start seeing this as a negative step from Apple take a minute to think why Apple wants his own RM for stuff sold in the iTunes store.
The answer is more than obvious.
Focus on the bigger picture. This is a chess game not checkers!
People seems to be missing the point of the article. There are 2 formats coming out. CMX backed by the recording industry, and Cocktail backed by Apple, and also ironically by Sony, EMI, Warner, and Universal, the same 4 that are backing CMX. Here's the thing though, which one would get hardware support? I don't see any manufactures announcing support for CMX. On the other hand, if Apple go ahead with cocktail, it's a given that iPods will support them. Although I think neither will go very far in terms of consumer adoption (unless the recording industry actually start releasing albums with all good songs in it to justify the purchase), I can see Apple's Cocktail getting the lead on the get go simply with the hardware support (iPods).
Can we just start with something simple, like lyrics? Why are the recording labels so lazy in cut-n-pasting lyrics into the digital music that people purchase?
All we need is an open source app to rip out the music and remove the DRM, after that the player can just support FLAC and MP3 and OGG.
A long time ago, when people bought 45s, they didn't come with album art, note liners, etc. People bought 45s because they wanted a single song - maybe a one-and-done - instead of an entire album. Same as it was back then, the cost difference between a 45 and a 33 were big enough that you wouldn't want to get a 33 if you were only interested in 2 or 3 songs.
I can't believe the studios are that blind not to be able to see how the 45s from 20 years ago are similar to the single mp3s of today. When I download a song, I don't really care about album art or liner notes. I just want the song that I'm interested in, not all the other fluff. My music player (winamp) can grab the cover art, and that's enough for me.
I think this goes right alongside the slotmusic idiocy.
I want my Marilyn Manson album artwork and enhanced CD extras, not just the album cover.