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Music downloads on modem, plus...

post #1 of 18
12/13/04 at 1:50pm
Thread Starter 
[1]I want to join [?] a music download site, but am not sure what to expect.
My main concern is my 56k dialup connection: is it more likely than not that I will experience failed downloads, or at the minimum, errors in downloading?

[2]My searching for sites has give way to numerous offers. Seems the main stream [ie Napstar] have a monthly fee of $10, while others offer $1 monthly fee, plus per song fee. Any suggestion for reliable/legitimate sites?

[3] Players themselves. I suspect its preferred to stay with MP3 players, & avoid proprietary ones like Sony [though they do convert files via software].
Any suggestions for middle of the road quality player? [aprox 128mb storage].

Thanks for help guys!
DialUp
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post #2 of 18
12/13/04 at 2:20pm
1) Use a download manager and if a d/l does fail, it can be resumed. Dial-up wouldn't necessarily be a cause of corruption any more so than any other connection type.

2) Sorry, I can be of no help there. I have never used any of them.

3)Rio's are supposed to be pretty good. A friend of mine at work just bought a nice one. I am not sure what he payed, but I remember it wasn't much. It is 256MB internal and has the added feature of adding an SD card for more storage. It includes a voice recorder and FM radio also. I will try to remember to ask him what model/price it was tonight at work.
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post #3 of 18
12/13/04 at 2:59pm
1) I don't forsee a problem with it. You'll just be downloading for a while though.

2) I use Sony Connect music store, no monthly fees and 1$ per song. And also McDonalds works with them and they do promotions for free songs every so often so that's handy (picked up like 30 with the last Monopoly game, never did get the 200 free songs prize I wanted though )

3) Never actually worked with any special players, if I'm going to travel I'll usually convert my music to WMAs for use on my PDA (much better quality than MP3 at 64Kbps), or throw them onto an MP3 CD for my MP3 CD player.
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post #4 of 18
12/13/04 at 3:26pm
I use iTunes from Apple. Free program, $1 a song including tax, usually $9.99 per album. Get it with an iPod mini for like $250 that can hold 1,000 songs or a bigger model (iPods will play the protected AAC file format that Apple sells their music in).
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post #5 of 18
12/13/04 at 5:43pm
Thread Starter 
As usual, much great advice offered here.

Quote:
Thunder: "Rio's are supposed to be pretty good. A friend of mine at work just bought a nice one.It is 256MB internal and has the added feature of adding an SD card for more storage. I will try to remember to ask him what model/price it was tonight at work.
Thanks for pointing out the option of external [SD card] on player. I'd appreciate any further feedback you may discover from your co-worker on this model.


Quote:
The Anaconda: I use Sony Connect music store, no monthly fees and 1$ per song
Just what Im looking for. I feel $1 a song is fair for sure, I just didnt want to add a monthly fee to do so.

Quote:
The Anaconda: Never actually worked with any special players, if I'm going to travel I'll usually convert my music to WMAs for use on my PDA
Now thats one approach I didnt consder, using a PDA!


Quote:
Kaido: " I use iTunes from Apple. Free program, $1 a song including tax. Get it with an iPod mini for like $250 that can hold 1000 songs.....
Thanks for that. I cant imagine comming up with a 1K songs though, lol.
I looked @ the iPod [isnt that a HP product??], a bit pricey, but very popular.
Is the iPod sound considerably superior to anything else?
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post #6 of 18
12/13/04 at 11:02pm
Quote:
I looked @ the iPod [isnt that a HP product??], a bit pricey, but very popular.
Apple
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post #7 of 18
12/13/04 at 11:13pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by DialUp
Now thats one approach I didnt consder, using a PDA!
Yeah it's pretty nice. Plenty expandable too. I've got a 128MB SD card in there right now, not completely full and also has things besides music as well. Mostly 64Kbps WMA's (not all though a couple 128Kb MP3s and WMAs), got 51 songs on there at the moment. And you can't tell any loss of quality with WMAs at 64Kbps, even pumped through a large stereo system (plug it into car though tape deck with CD adapter and good to go!). And all that in just the 128MB I have right now.

One of the benefits of doing it that way is also you first of all have a PDA to do other stuff with ( ), but also it can run different programs to support other filetypes such as OGG, and even MOD and MIDI (had a MIDI player on my old one, was pretty nifty)
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post #8 of 18
12/14/04 at 1:42pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Thunder_PC
Apple
This is what confused me on iPod being HP:
Apple 20 GB iPod from HP (MP102)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/se...029529-4514541

HP & Apple must have cooked up a deal in the [recent?] past.
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post #9 of 18
12/14/04 at 2:03pm
Yeah, I am also confuse about the iPod being HP. What do they mean by iPod being HP? What is the different between the Apple iPod and HP iPod? Don't they both work with imac and pc? Why is iPod being made by HP?
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post #10 of 18
12/14/04 at 2:08pm
It's not being made by HP, it is being sold by HP.
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post #11 of 18
12/14/04 at 3:17pm
oh, ic
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post #12 of 18
12/15/04 at 1:06pm
Thread Starter 

about recording audio..

Quick question from the brain dead dept.:

Why is it that I can burn but one cd [usually 12 songs] on a 700mb CD-r,
while compact audio players boast "...aprox one song per mb...."?
At that rate, I could put 700 songs on a CD-r[instead of 12].

It must be the compression of file type, ofcourse, but why dont the apps I use to burn audio CD's include that type of recording? [I use Roxio for one]. Does XP's Media Player have options for recording audio format?
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post #13 of 18
12/15/04 at 1:37pm
The portable audio players you are speaking of use mp3, wma, etc files. These are still compressed and played from their compressed form. Your audio CDs convert to CDDA (Compact Disc Digital Audio) format (essentially .wav). That is a completely uncompressed, raw format. Many newer CD players, and even some in new cars, are capable of playing mp3 formated CDs. Compressed to a low enough bitrate, you will acheive one song per MB, but for the most part you will be looking at 3-5MB per song for near CD quality out of mp3 format. The story is different for WMA format. It can store higher quality sound at a lower bitrate. When burning CDs for use in players capable of playing these compressed formats, you simply select "Data CD" format instead of "Audio CD". You can then fit many times the number of songs on one CD. You are not actually recording audio then. You are recording data. The player is then responsible for "computing" the data to audio.
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post #14 of 18
12/15/04 at 4:57pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks for explanation Thunder.

I guess some experimentation is in order [curious to see if Media Player or Roxio gives me options on recording formats].

Apperciate the help!
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post #15 of 18
12/22/04 at 1:44am
On the subject of HP ipods..

The HP version supposedly has a more "windows friendly", or "windows user friendly" software package. The apple one still works with windows but is supposedly more apple-like.

Also, just saw an ad for a U2 ipod. I wonder if it comes with all of U2's music.
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post #16 of 18
12/22/04 at 2:53am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ahumado
On the subject of HP ipods..

The HP ... apple-like.

Also, just saw an ad for a U2 ipod. I wonder if it comes with all of U2's music.
If it does come preloaded with u2's "music", you can always re-format it to fix that...
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post #17 of 18
12/22/04 at 4:12am
Quote:
Originally Posted by olyteddy
If it does come preloaded with u2's "music", you can always re-format it to fix that...
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post #18 of 18
12/22/04 at 10:38am
*chuckle* Aye, but they probably charge a premium price.

Back to the topic... Has anyone tried using a free wireless AP to d/l music? DialUp, you could head out to the local coffee shop to download music from whatever service you get a lot faster. That is, if they don't block such things.
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