On one hand, I like the subscription services. I did the free trial from Real for a bit, and it was really cool and incredibly convenient to just have thousands of songs at my fingertips. Except the sound quality sucks. I happened to be listening to an album that I already had on CD (easier than getting up and finding it), and I noticed that the low end sounded terrible. I fired up iTunes to play the HQ vbr mp3 I’d ripped of it, and it sounded so much better that I called up Real and cancelled right then. (The fact that I had to make a phone call after signing up online is a mini-rant in and of itself. Real sucks.)
Plus, I have an iPod, so until they make a subscription service that works with it, no dice.
I’m amazed that these ads compelled anyone to try it. Worst advertisement I’ve ever seen.
What I thought was annoying was that I signed up for their all you can eat service but my account wouldn’t verify even though the Paypal transfer went through and showed up as active on the Paypal site. So, I said screw this and went to cancel but Napster told me that there was no need to cancel since as a Napster Light user I would not be charged as long as I did not purchase a song. I don’t care! I do not want to be registered with them at all yet there was no cancel option. You can only cancel if you have the unlimited downloads account which downgrades your account to ‘Light’.
I actually tried to use iTunes a few weeks ago. I had a few of those drink caps with free songs, so I downloaded and signed up and whatnot, but it wouldn’t let me download stuff. I couldn’t even enter the codes. I figured that their links were just down or something. I ended up just giving away the caps.
iTunes puts a ton of different programs on your computer and I think I had three of them running in the background slowing things down. It got deleted.
I can’t wait until XM or Sirius makes a reciever that you can hook up to your computer. THEN I’ll have some music
XM and Sirius both offer online services. Also, I currently have my XM receiver running into my soundcard’s line-in and playing through Winamp. I could use this setup to record, and probably will on occasion. The only problem is that you’d manually have to split the mp3 file into separate songs.
Yup, Napster installs a firmware update on your MP3 player IIRC that sets the “copyright timer” in motion. (I’m guessing that that’s why only certain mp3 players can play them so far.)
And as asterion pointed out, Napster has some problems controlling the DRM and they have been exploited and “scholarly researched” for circumvention a couple of ways and then one would able to place the tracks on to one’s iPod or burn them to a disc if one so desired.
I’m still able to play all of the Napster’s songs through Windows Media Player, WinAmp had a problem with a loophole and a plug-in that not only permitted the songs to be played through WinAmp but also that they could be “recorded” into another format. WinAmp has since sent an auto-update that has stopped this practice.
Happy Napster user checking in. I had a problem playing songs with Winamp a few weeks ago, but updating to Winamp version 5 and it works just fine now. From what I can tell about Napster, it’s in no way inferior to iTunes. You can pay the $10/month to get unlimited downloads (which you can’t transfer at all), 15/month to get unlimited downloads (which you can transfer to an MP3 player), or just pay .99 for each song (which you can burn, transfer, or do whatever you like with). As far as I know, with iTunes you’re pretty much stuck paying the $.99 for each song, with no subscription options. I usually end up downloading more than one album a month, anyway, and rarely listen to music anywhere besides my computer. And no, it’s not that my musical tastes are ‘fleeting,’ I still listen to almost everything I have on my computer.
