Friday, January 16, 2004
Napster Is Back - And I Think I Like It
Posted by Ed Hansberry in "OFF-TOPIC" @ 04:00 PM
http://www.napster.com
Many of us use our PDAs for music and what better place to get music than the internet? Back in the go-go days of 2001, you could download anything you wanted from anywhere for free! Since then though, the granddaddy of them all, Napster, has been shut down and the RIAA is going after people that share large amounts of data. One of the wisest members of this site has been waiting for this day for long time - the chance to download songs for a buck a piece, hassle free. :wink:
Like the Phoenix, Napster has been revived from the ashes, 100% legal and legitimate. Earlier this week, I decided to give Napster a try. Within minutes of installing it, I was overwhelmed at the artists available. All of my favorites aren't there. No Lisa Germano for example, but many are. Everything is $.99 per song or $9.99 per CD downloaded when they have the full CD on the site. Somehow, they manage to leave one song off of "Greatest Hits" CDs meaning you have to buy 15-20 songs at $.99 each to get all they have. :?
Still, they have tons of stuff from the Dexy's Midnight Riders, Depeche Mode, Psychedelic Furs and other staples from what is unquestionably the greatest decade of music the world has ever seen - the 80's!
The timing of this is quite fortuitous for me. I have just bulked up my digital collection with a MiniDV cam, a hoss of a Windows XP Media Center Edition from Gateway and a big screen TV. Now I can go get that perfect track for background music for my home videos or photo stories. :rock on dude!:
My trial was buying the new Sarah McLachlan CD, Afterglow. All 10 tracks downloaded in a DRM protected 128kb WMA format. I think I got ripped off by 9 cents though. I paid $9.99 for the CD and could have paid $9.90 for the songs individually. :oops: Oh well. I immediately burned them to a CD then re-ripped them back in an unprotected format so I could easily transfer them around my home WLAN and Pocket PCs without having to worry about license files. Don't worry Napster. I won't be sharing them. I uninstalled my last file sharing software sometime in late 2001 and have never looked back. I just am not going to fool with trying to get DRM protected music into Windows Movie Maker for home movies. The only problem was when ripping, Windows Media Player 9 only saw 10 untitled tracks. I had to manually tell it this was Afterglow and it promptly named all of the songs and downloaded the album art. :way to go: Everything is now in a VBR WMA format ranging from 49kbps to 65kbps and sounds quite nice in a cranked up 5.1 surround sound equipped system. I can hear it perfectly, and my neighbors can feel it just fine. :lol:
For now, I'm not going to fool with Napster Radio, a $10 per month service to listen to whatever you want, even though Windows XP Media Center Edition (is Microsoft not the most verbose company you've dealt with?) has Napster Radio integrated into the Media Center interface. Maybe later. For now, I've "got the beat" and see a special VH-1 collection of the Go-Go's greatest hits that is beckoning me.
Many of us use our PDAs for music and what better place to get music than the internet? Back in the go-go days of 2001, you could download anything you wanted from anywhere for free! Since then though, the granddaddy of them all, Napster, has been shut down and the RIAA is going after people that share large amounts of data. One of the wisest members of this site has been waiting for this day for long time - the chance to download songs for a buck a piece, hassle free. :wink:
Like the Phoenix, Napster has been revived from the ashes, 100% legal and legitimate. Earlier this week, I decided to give Napster a try. Within minutes of installing it, I was overwhelmed at the artists available. All of my favorites aren't there. No Lisa Germano for example, but many are. Everything is $.99 per song or $9.99 per CD downloaded when they have the full CD on the site. Somehow, they manage to leave one song off of "Greatest Hits" CDs meaning you have to buy 15-20 songs at $.99 each to get all they have. :?
Still, they have tons of stuff from the Dexy's Midnight Riders, Depeche Mode, Psychedelic Furs and other staples from what is unquestionably the greatest decade of music the world has ever seen - the 80's!
The timing of this is quite fortuitous for me. I have just bulked up my digital collection with a MiniDV cam, a hoss of a Windows XP Media Center Edition from Gateway and a big screen TV. Now I can go get that perfect track for background music for my home videos or photo stories. :rock on dude!:
My trial was buying the new Sarah McLachlan CD, Afterglow. All 10 tracks downloaded in a DRM protected 128kb WMA format. I think I got ripped off by 9 cents though. I paid $9.99 for the CD and could have paid $9.90 for the songs individually. :oops: Oh well. I immediately burned them to a CD then re-ripped them back in an unprotected format so I could easily transfer them around my home WLAN and Pocket PCs without having to worry about license files. Don't worry Napster. I won't be sharing them. I uninstalled my last file sharing software sometime in late 2001 and have never looked back. I just am not going to fool with trying to get DRM protected music into Windows Movie Maker for home movies. The only problem was when ripping, Windows Media Player 9 only saw 10 untitled tracks. I had to manually tell it this was Afterglow and it promptly named all of the songs and downloaded the album art. :way to go: Everything is now in a VBR WMA format ranging from 49kbps to 65kbps and sounds quite nice in a cranked up 5.1 surround sound equipped system. I can hear it perfectly, and my neighbors can feel it just fine. :lol:
For now, I'm not going to fool with Napster Radio, a $10 per month service to listen to whatever you want, even though Windows XP Media Center Edition (is Microsoft not the most verbose company you've dealt with?) has Napster Radio integrated into the Media Center interface. Maybe later. For now, I've "got the beat" and see a special VH-1 collection of the Go-Go's greatest hits that is beckoning me.
