"Adrian C" wrote in message
...
Michael Chare wrote:

Thanks I found the music that I was looking for on another web site.

I was in fact able to save a track about 700kb long. The file is .ra and
I can play it with Real Player and winamp (with an additional codec) but
as yet I have been unable to convert the file to a more useful format.

However unfortunately the music has clearly been taken from a some what
scratchy record.


Yuk, that don't sound good. Er, Real audio, that really WON'T sound good.

Michael, please have a look at installing Spotify and trying it out for
yourself. If you need an invite to try the free* version just ask, I've
got a few to give.

*The free version is limited to 160 kbit/s Ogg Vorbis, but will easily
surpass what you have there.



Thanks for your offer, I will think about it. I have since found
songs.sky.com and they do have the CD that I was looking for.

I can play a short clip and it clearly sounds much better. They say that
all music is either in 192 or 320 kbps MP3 format. What they don't say is
what they use for a a particular album or song.

My impression is that Sky have a large catalogue.


--
Michael Chare

"Michael Chare" wrote in
message
"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...
In article , Adrian C
wrote:
Michael Chare wrote:
There are many web sites that will let you download
music in mp3 format, though not all show what bit rate
the files are stored in. Can anyone recommend any sites that have a
large
selection of music in a CD quality format, such as WMA
Lossless or FLAC 16/44.1

http://www.linnrecords.com/

IIRC Chandos also do this. Although personally I prefer
to just buy a CD. :-)

Thanks, the lossless downloads don't cost much less than
the CDs so I take your point.

Immediate gratification has a lot to do with the popularity of downloads.

"Michael Chare" wrote in message
...
"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...
In article , Adrian C
wrote:
Michael Chare wrote:
There are many web sites that will let you download music in mp3
format, though not all show what bit rate the files are stored in.

Can anyone recommend any sites that have a large selection of music in
a CD quality format, such as WMA Lossless or FLAC 16/44.1


http://www.linnrecords.com/

IIRC Chandos also do this. Although personally I prefer to just buy a CD.
:-)



Thanks, the lossless downloads don't cost much less than the CDs



Which is a ludicrous proposition of course, but that doesn't surprise me in
the least given the sort of person who will be downloading them. What I want
to know is if these are available online presumably anywhere in the world,
how do they apply the usual ***** Britain* surcharges for 'digital music' -
which have been typically US x 2 and Europe x 1.5 for about the last quarter
of a century....??

Michael Chare wrote:

Thanks for your offer, I will think about it. I have since found
songs.sky.com and they do have the CD that I was looking for.

I can play a short clip and it clearly sounds much better. They say
that all music is either in 192 or 320 kbps MP3 format. What they don't
say is what they use for a a particular album or song.

My impression is that Sky have a large catalogue.


Fair enough. Good you found your tracks!

BTW Today's stats for Spotify for the UK

Albums: 502,025
Artists: 412,012
Tracks: 5,704,792

(Tip: Enter 'year:0-3000' in the search for the above totals)

Which at the moment is round about similar to Sky Songs. However there
will be differences in all these streaming and download services on what
is available.

However IMO Spotify's interface is better worked out, can be taken
portable, (and no funds go towards that nasty man...)


--
Adrian C

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...
"Michael Chare" wrote in
message
"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...
In article , Adrian C
wrote:
Michael Chare wrote:
There are many web sites that will let you download
music in mp3 format, though not all show what bit rate
the files are stored in. Can anyone recommend any sites that have a
large
selection of music in a CD quality format, such as WMA
Lossless or FLAC 16/44.1

http://www.linnrecords.com/

IIRC Chandos also do this. Although personally I prefer
to just buy a CD. :-)

Thanks, the lossless downloads don't cost much less than
the CDs so I take your point.

Immediate gratification has a lot to do with the popularity of downloads.

Yes, I was looking at it a different way!

I can understand it if the record companies don't want to hold atocks of old
CDs in their back catalogues. Sales are no doubt falling.

The CD technolgy will go the way of 78s, Vinyl LPs and cassette tapes. You
can now store more than 1000 CDs on a single disc drive.

So I would like to see record companies making their complete catalogues
available online so that people can download what they want.


--
Michael Chare

"Michael Chare" wrote in message

I can understand it if the record companies don't want to hold atocks of
old CDs in their back catalogues. Sales are no doubt falling.

The CD technolgy will go the way of 78s, Vinyl LPs and cassette tapes.
You can now store more than 1000 CDs on a single disc drive.

I agree, I see the commercial CD vanishing within a relatively short time.
As sales continue to decline the economics of manufacture and distribution
will make CDs too expensive for the record companies to bother with.
Ironically I see the LP as possibly outliving the CD as it will continue to
appeal to the "fetish" market (i.e. those to whom owning a physical object
is really important). But that market won't be enough to save more than a
handful of record shops, the vast majority of which will disappear off our
high streets within the next decade.

So I would like to see record companies making their complete catalogues
available online so that people can download what they want.

I'm sure it will happen, download distribution makes it economic to continue
to make slow-moving lines available. Deletion from the catalogue will no
longer make economic or marketing sense. There may be a few recordings which
can't be made available for download, due to rights issues etc. But I'm sure
the vast majority of once deleted commercial recordings will eventually
become available again for purchase by download.

David.

"David Looser" wrote in message
...
"Michael Chare" wrote in
message

I can understand it if the record companies don't want to hold
atocks of old CDs in their back catalogues. Sales are no doubt
falling.

The CD technolgy will go the way of 78s, Vinyl LPs and
cassette tapes. You can now store more than 1000 CDs on a
single disc drive.

I agree, I see the commercial CD vanishing within a relatively
short time. As sales continue to decline the economics of
manufacture and distribution will make CDs too expensive for
the record companies to bother with. Ironically I see the LP as
possibly outliving the CD as it will continue to appeal to the
"fetish" market (i.e. those to whom owning a physical object is
really important). But that market won't be enough to save more
than a handful of record shops, the vast majority of which will
disappear off our high streets within the next decade.

So I would like to see record companies making their complete
catalogues available online so that people can download what
they want.

I'm sure it will happen, download distribution makes it
economic to continue to make slow-moving lines available.
Deletion from the catalogue will no longer make economic or
marketing sense. There may be a few recordings which can't be
made available for download, due to rights issues etc. But I'm
sure the vast majority of once deleted commercial recordings
will eventually become available again for purchase by
download.

David.





If that does happen then it will immediately disadvantage a large
proportion of the population - those that don't have (or can't
have) Internet access.

What is more the load on the Internet infrastructure that it will
impose - especially for those who want the best quality downloads
(e.g. classical and jazz) - will drag it down to a crawl.

It may happen in time, but a LOT of money will have to be spent
first, and whilst everything is driven by bean-counters and
short-termism I don't see it coming about.



--
Woody

harrogate three at ntlworld dot com

On Sun, 29 Nov 2009 08:58:59 -0000, "Woody"
wrote:

"David Looser" wrote in message
...
"Michael Chare" wrote in
message

I can understand it if the record companies don't want to hold
atocks of old CDs in their back catalogues. Sales are no doubt
falling.

The CD technolgy will go the way of 78s, Vinyl LPs and
cassette tapes. You can now store more than 1000 CDs on a
single disc drive.

I agree, I see the commercial CD vanishing within a relatively
short time. As sales continue to decline the economics of
manufacture and distribution will make CDs too expensive for
the record companies to bother with. Ironically I see the LP as
possibly outliving the CD as it will continue to appeal to the
"fetish" market (i.e. those to whom owning a physical object is
really important). But that market won't be enough to save more
than a handful of record shops, the vast majority of which will
disappear off our high streets within the next decade.

So I would like to see record companies making their complete
catalogues available online so that people can download what
they want.

I'm sure it will happen, download distribution makes it
economic to continue to make slow-moving lines available.
Deletion from the catalogue will no longer make economic or
marketing sense. There may be a few recordings which can't be
made available for download, due to rights issues etc. But I'm
sure the vast majority of once deleted commercial recordings
will eventually become available again for purchase by
download.

David.





If that does happen then it will immediately disadvantage a large
proportion of the population - those that don't have (or can't
have) Internet access.


I think the law of supply and demand will deal with that. Back in the
day, large groups of people were disadvantaged by lack of a record
player or CD player. People catch up. As far as I know the only people
who actually can't have Internet access are convicted terrorists and
paedophiles.

What is more the load on the Internet infrastructure that it will
impose - especially for those who want the best quality downloads
(e.g. classical and jazz) - will drag it down to a crawl.


In the early days of broadband, many ISPs went in for local cacheing
of data, to help out their struggling backbone infrastructure. It
didn't work because they underestimated the dynamic nature of web
pages. But whole sites dedicated to serving music and films are a
different ball games, and local caches at the POPs would fix that
issue.

It may happen in time, but a LOT of money will have to be spent
first, and whilst everything is driven by bean-counters and
short-termism I don't see it coming about.

At some point there will be a short (or at least medium) term
advantage and it will happen. That will be a one-way street, I think.

d

In article , David Looser
wrote:
"Michael Chare" wrote in message

I can understand it if the record companies don't want to hold atocks
of old CDs in their back catalogues. Sales are no doubt falling.

The CD technolgy will go the way of 78s, Vinyl LPs and cassette
tapes. You can now store more than 1000 CDs on a single disc drive.

I agree, I see the commercial CD vanishing within a relatively short
time.

That may well be so for 'mass market' audio CDs. But I suspect the future
will be more diverse and so CDDA in some form may persist.

IIRC some small 'serious music' companies are already experimenting with
selling 'CDs' by generating 'on demand' CDRs when a disc is ordered. That
method could easily accompany downloading since writing CDs in that way is
a low-cost option.

I also suspect people will become wary of 'put all your CDs onto a HD' when
they experience HD failures and/or proprietary software interfering with
what they are 'allowed' to play or copy.

An advantage of the CDDA format is that is has become a sort of 'lingua
franca'. You can use CDDA to store musical recordings to plater play or
load into a range of devices. You can snail-mail them to people who have no
broadband connection, etc.

So I won't be suprised if the traditional commerical CD vanishes for mass
markets like pop music. But I have my doubts that it will totally vanish.
Although it may be replaced in time by some other 'lingua franca', as yet I
haven't seen one establish itself. Computer-based formats tend to suffer
from the 'Windows effect' where microsoft try to break/change/control
things and so having a stable format can be disrupted. And devices like DVD
players tend to treat formats other than their primary standard in ways
that vary from one player/brand to another.

BTW I ordered 8 CDs this morning. None of them 'pop' music. :-)

Slainte,

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

"Woody" wrote

If that does happen then it will immediately disadvantage a large
proportion of the population - those that don't have (or can't have)
Internet access.

Large? How large is that proportion of the population? IMO is small and
getting smaller all the time. How many people are too far from a record shop
to readily get to one?

What is more the load on the Internet infrastructure that it will impose -
especially for those who want the best quality downloads (e.g. classical
and jazz) - will drag it down to a crawl.


Trivial compared to the load imposed by video streaming, eg. BBC iPlayer.

It may happen in time, but a LOT of money will have to be spent first, and
whilst everything is driven by bean-counters and short-termism I don't see
it coming about.

It's precisely *because* everything is driven by bean-counters that I see
this happening. Put simply sales by download are much cheaper for the record
companies.

David.




--
Woody

harrogate three at ntlworld dot com