Finally! Canadian pay per song music download site launched
Just read at cbc.ca that there is finally a Canadian pay per song site. Looks like us Canadians are getting songs at a discount! 99 cents Canadian per song and $9.99 per album.
Here's the news story:
http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2003/10/14/puretrax141004
The site is called Puretracks.com. Tried connecting but it looks like their servers are overwhelmed right now.
Apple when are you going to make your service availbale to Canada?
[465 byte] By [
dlabrosse] at [2007-11-9 14:40:11]
# 1 Re: Finally! Canadian pay per song music download site launched
Just out of curiosity, what format are they using? WMA, mp3, .wav, etc?
dmt1 at 2007-11-15 17:31:14 >
# 2 Re: Finally! Canadian pay per song music download site launched
Not sure. Tried to go to the website for more info but looks like they were not quite ready for the rush. As I keep on getting a static page with this message:
"Thank you for visiting Puretracks.com.
Due to overwhelming publicity, our store is currently at full capacity.
Please return shortly.
Thanks again for visiting.
Puretracks.com"
# 3 Re: Finally! Canadian pay per song music download site launched
Looks like it's .wma files!
Aaaaaaaarrrrrrrrggggggg!!!!!!!
How frustrating! Don't they know it's bad business to ignore iPod users that way?
# 4 Re: Finally! Canadian pay per song music download site launched
Yeah, that's what I was afraid of...Rhapsody uses .wav files, and soon (suposedly anyway) will have a pay per download, nonsubscription service. I like the .wav file idea--AAC is a great filetype, but I have a car mp3 player, so AAC is not as useful to me as mp3...Still, I'll be interested to peruse iTunes for windows and the music store provided it's available tomorrow.
dmt1 at 2007-11-15 17:34:17 >
# 5 Re: Finally! Canadian pay per song music download site launched
Don't hold your breath on a pay-per-download service using wav. It's not secure from copying, and that's the name of the game as far as what formats are used.
# 6 Re: Finally! Canadian pay per song music download site launched
Rhapsody is already doing it.
dmt1 at 2007-11-15 17:36:23 >
# 7 Re: Finally! Canadian pay per song music download site launched
So Rhapsody downloads full-size WAV files to your hard drive where you can access them and copy them at will? I would be *extremely* surprised if this were the case, considering the average wave file of a 4 minute song would be in the neighborhood of 50MB and WAV has no copy protection whatsoever. Maybe they do that, but as I said I would be extremely surprised if this were actually the case.
# 8 Re: Finally! Canadian pay per song music download site launched
No--you have to burn them directly to CD (then you can put them on your hard drive if you'd like, but if you've got them on CD, there's no reason to put them on your HD except to convert formats). So you queue up slighlty under 700mb, burn the CD, then you can do anything you want with it--play it in your car, rip it to mp3, whatever. I LOVE this setup. Granted, it may not be for everyone (some like the convienance of having their stuff already ripped/encoded), but I have the original file on CD, and can do what I want with this with regard to ripping/encoding.
The downside is currently Rhapsody is a subscription service, AND you have to pay per download (79 cents--and they have a good catalogue). You get 7 days free though--so all you do is pay for the downloads, no subscription fee for seven days. I did this; filled in a bunch of wholes in my library and then cancelled.
The good news is Rhapsody supposedly is going to offer a pay per download only service, with no monthly fee (The monthly fee ties in with their radio service--which is also pretty sweet, but I don't need it with an ipod), by the end of the year. I hope they do it; they have a wonderful setup over there--heck, check it out for free, see what you think...
dmt1 at 2007-11-15 17:38:30 >
# 9 Re: Finally! Canadian pay per song music download site launched
As I suspected - I would bet dollars to donuts (who made up that saying?!?) that they are not actually WAV files, but rather some other type of protected file that is converted internally & then burned to CD.
How long does it take to download a typical file?
# 10 Re: Finally! Canadian pay per song music download site launched
Well, your ripping an entire CD, it a few minutes--same as if you were ripping one of your own CDs. The file size is appropriate for .wav (I think they came up .cda, which is what my CD files come up as on my 'puter when I rip).
Like I said, check it out--heck, a downloaded tune will only set you back 79 cents, and you don't have to pay the subscription fee--just cancel before the end of seven days.
dmt1 at 2007-11-15 17:40:28 >
# 11 Re: Finally! Canadian pay per song music download site launched
I may check it out.
One thing about your post (and I'm not trying to be mean) I think you may be confusing pre-burning with ripping it back to your PC. When inserting a burned CD into your PC, the files *will* show up as CDA, since you burned a standard CD for audio players with the Rhapsody app. However, pre-burning, when you download the files, I would highly doubt they are WAV files. If not from a protection standpoint, a simple logistics standpoint - 50MB wav files are way too big for most users to handle, especially when you then start talking about enough to fill a 650MB CD.
The files you download from iTMS are AAC files wrapped in Fairplay, but once burned, they too would appear as standard CDA files if that burned CD is put back into your computer.
One thing to keep in mind here - these files will *not* be the same quality as a standard CD would provide, since they were compressed into some format to make them smaller for download and then reconverted into WAV for burning to CD.
# 12 Re: Finally! Canadian pay per song music download site launched
OK I tried it.
Sound quality is decent, same track streaming via Rhapsody vs. the downloaded AAC from iTMS, the iTMS version sounds better to me. I like the unlimited streaming and the interface is decent, though if you resize the window & make it bigger the "search" box (the blue background, anyway) gets broken up, which considering the default window size is not big enough for the content is absolutely ludicrous, not to mention it would be trivial to make the blue background repeat so it wouldn't appear broken up.
What I would love to see is Apple offering a $5/month option to stream tracks before buying, so you can listen to the whole thing first. This would be the best of both worlds to me, cause I think I like this streaming idea, but I want downloads too.
