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ivan@stellysee.de
| From | "josh chasin" <jchasin@nyc.rr.com> |
| Subject | Re: Universal Music cuts CD prices (warning: industry rant) |
| Date | Thu, 4 Sep 2003 10:54:41 -0400 |
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Bennett" <mrhonorama@hotmail.com>
> Finally, I'm not the tech head that many others here are, but when I
> download a CD, I want it to sound like a CD, not a bunch of MP3s -- can
> standard DSL or Cable modems allow for that sort of quality in a download?
The answer to this question-- and boy, do I ever think it is the right
question-- is yes. With a but.
The but is that download time, even on broadband, is far longer than with
MP3.
There are at least two popular compression algorithms for "packing" a wav
file (and a CD track is a wav file with a specific set of specifications) to
about half size, so they download quicker. Then you unpack it on your
computer. One is called shorten, or ".shn." The other is called FLAC,
which stands for something. I don't exactly know what, but the LA in FLAC
are probably "lossless audio."
As a rule of thumb, the wav file is about 10 times as big as the MP3, so
these compressions make it around six times as big. However long it takes
to download an album as MP3, figure 6 times as long-- if all goes well--
with these formats.
I live a double life. By day I'm power pop buff; by night I shed my skinny
tie for my tie dye and I'm a jamband fan (Dead, Allmans, Gov't Mule, Hot
Tuna.) Please don't shun me; I can't be the only cross-dresser on this
list. (In fact I even wrote the liner notes for the Allman Brothers live
DVD dropping at the end of the month.)
Anyway, there are ways online to download concerts in these two formats.
Some of the available bands might even appeal here. For example, there is a
service called Furthurnet. Furthurnet is peer-to-peer; a sort of Napster
for concerts. You download the client ap, then launch it, and you can
browse shows and then select some for download. They are all in the .shn
format. I've found soundboard recordings of Radiohead, Tweedy, Wilco, Sigor
Ros, and others among all the Dead spin-off crap.
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