Tag: mp3
Turns out kids don't want Spotify – they want to own MP3s
The research undertaken by the University Of Hertfordshire for UK Music asked nearly 2000 14-24 year olds how they wanted their music, and a staggering 78% said they don't want to pay to stream it.
Archos launches three portable media players
Not content with unleashing their latest mini-PC range, Archos also used today’s launch event to announce the arrival of three PMPs to add to their line-up.
The vision range’s flagship PMP is the touch-screen Archos 3 vision. It’s just 9mm thick and it only weighs 56g. The touchscreen is 3-inches with a resolution of 400×240.
It has 8GB of storage and supports multiple media formats including…deep breath…MP3, WMA (non protected files), WAV, OGG, FLAC, MPEG 1/2/4, WMV (non protected files), FLV, AVI, RM, RMVB, JPEG, BMP and GIF. It ships with a cable for TV playback and it also plays FM radio.
Playback time is 14 hours for audio and four for video. A cool feature is the FM transmitter which allows you play back your audio via any radio you can sync with it – iTrip stylee.
The real good news with regards to the Archos 3 vision is the price. £89.99 is very reasonable for a touch-screen PMP.
One step down from the 3 vision is the 2 vision. It has a 2-inch screen – not touch screen though. It uses a surface slider control for navigation.
It supports MP3, WMA and WAV as well as photo viewing. It has 8GB of storage although this can be upgraded using the micro-SD slot. It’s only £49.99 – another very fair price from Archos.
Finally, the Archos Clipper is a gym/jog friendly, shuffle-style mp3 player. It’s nearly twice as heavy as the latest iPod shuffle at 20g – but it’s hardly going to weigh you down. It’s 2GB and will only set you back £19.99.
Archos also mentioned the 4 and 7 visions which should be released by the end of the year although they didn’t supply and specific details. I’m not Mystic Meg but I’m guessing a 4-inch screen and a 7-inch screen – I think that’s a given.
The three PMPs mentioned all go on sale next month. Go direct to Archos if you fancy getting yourself one.
Virgin and Universal team up to offer unlimited music package
Virgin Media has announced that they have signed a deal with Universal Music to offer their customers an unlimited digital music service.
The move, which sounds a darned sized better than previous digital music services such asNokias Comes With Music, would mean users get unlimited access to DRM-free mp3s of Universal artists for a monthly fee, rumoured to be around £10-15. Users would be free to store these mp3s on any players of their choice.
Universal Music owns a huge number of record labels and artists available in the service will include the likes of Kanye West, Jack Johnson, U2 and Elton John. Virgin are also said to be in talks with other record companies.
The only snag is that you have to be a Virgin broadband customer in order to use the service. If successful though, hopefully other ISPs will get involved or similar services will be set up.
This news comes a day before Lord Carter’s digital review is due to be published. In it, he is expected to call for ISPs to offer more attractive options to music fans than illegal downloads. Virgin’s package will seemingly do just do that.
Virgin has also announced that it would be doing more to prevent illegal downloads via its network. They’re talking about educating users and may suspend Internet access for persistent offenders.
It will be interesting to see how other ISPs respond to this news and how they respond to Lord Carter’s report in general. It’s obvious that illegal downloading is a big issue at the moment.
Hats off to Virgin for being the first out of the blocks in response.
(via Reuters)
Leaked: Archos 2 and Archos 4 portable media players
If you’re a fan of Archos’ brand of MP3 and video players – and lots of people are – then you might be at least moderately excited by the news that some pictures of new models have just leaked. Well, if you call ‘being put up on Amazon‘ leaked.
The specs aren’t anything to run through the streets, naked and screaming, about. There’s 8GB capacity for the “2”, MicroSD slot and 1.8″ display. It’s only .35 inches thick, though, and costs a similarly miniscule $60. I’d imagine that’ll probably translate directly over to £50 to £60, especially as a 16GB version has hit Amazon DE for €68.
(via Engadget)
Spotify and 7Digital buddy up
Digital music upstart-of-the-moment Spotify has added yet another revenue stream to its growing collection – users are now able to right-click tracks to buy them via 7Digital.
Currently, the click just takes you to the relevant 7Digital page for the album. In the future, however, the companies hope to allow one-click downloads in Spotify itself, as well as functionality to buy entire playlists.
This move should further silence the doubters who claim that Spotify has no business model. On the contrary, this is now a third solid way of monetising their business, after ads and premium subscriptions. I do doubt a little how much people will use the functionality, though.
Thomson launches next generation mp3 format
If you’re anything like the girl on the right, you probably enjoy your mp3 music as it is. But if you’re a serious audiophile, you may already be left raging at the amount that mp3 files miss out to keep the file size in the single digits. If that sums you up, then it’s time to celebrate, because Thomson – one of the companies to come up with the original mp3 format – has developed MP3HD technology.
What does this mean to you? Well potentially nothing if it doesn’t pick up, but if it does then you can expect higher quality audio with less sound loss than conventional mp3s. Mp3s achieve their svelte file size by discarding various bits of audio that the algorithm considers expendable. It essentially means that what you’re hearing will always be of inferior quality to the original CD source, though it’s questionable as to how many can tell the difference. In the days of smaller mp3 players (32mb ones used to be the norm, remember) this loss of quality was essential, but with flash memory and hard disk sizes growing every day, we can afford to be a little more selective in what should be left out.
Denon introduces the DN-S3700 CD Deck
Although Pioneer’s CDJ-1000MK3s are the standard CD player in every nightclub across the UK, Denon produces a range of DJ-standard CD players, too. They’ve just announced a new iteration, too – the DN-S3700. It’s got a rotating 9″ platter on the top with vinyl emulation, so if you can’t mix CDs with the buttons, then you can do it using the platter.
Additional features include USB and MIDI control, internal USB sound card, five built-in effects, and loop functionality, as well as your standard pitch/speed adjust and slot-loader. It certainly competes with the CDJ-1000 on features, but it lacks a lot of the style of Pioneer’s rival player – the DN-S3700 is covered with garish buttons and flashing lights. It doesn’t compete much on price either, costing £900 new, compared to £770 for the Pioneer. I’d love to give it a spin and see how it compares when actually ‘in the mix’. You can buy it ‘soon’ from from HTFR.
Denon (via Akihabaranews)
Related posts: Denon announces top-end AH-D7000 headphones | Denon shows off super-high-end DVD-3800BD Blu-ray player with “wonder” DVD upscaling
Deafness charity finds 67% of you lot are listening to music TOO LOUDLY
A survey conducted by the Royal National Institute for Deaf People discovered that two-thirds of us are listening to MP3 players at dangerously loud volume levels that could break our earholes for good.
The RNID accosted 246 people in the streets of Edinburgh and plugged listening gadgets into the headphone sockets of their MP3 players, testing the volume output levels. The level considered safe for blasting music…
iTunes DRM-free before the year end?
There’s a lot of rumbling this morning on the intertubes about iTunes potentially going DRM-free on all labels as of today. It would be a dramatic change from Apple’s famously ‘locked-down’ way of doing things, and could damage the iPod’s sales as consumers learn they can play their media on other devices.
Download site 7Digital won a coveted Tech Digest Official Badge of Awesomeness earlier this year for being the first download site to go 100% DRM-free. Many have since followed, but iTunes remains a holdout, with the majority of its catalogue still lumbered with restrictions.
Bopaboo – selling second-hand MP3s. This has got to be a joke, right?
A site has just launched called Bopaboo. It claims to be a marketplace that allows you to resell unwanted MP3s to other people. There are only two valid conclusions to be had here – either it’s a joke, or it’s been set up by some people who haven’t got the faintest idea about how digital music works.
At the moment it’s still in private beta, but if you can track down an invite code (I found one on Google in less than 30 seconds) then you can try it out. You upload songs, and then others can download them at a price, at which point you get some cash, and the site takes 20%. No word on how much of that 20% goes back to the record labels.
