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| Why do most people download music? Is it to avoid paying a few dollars to purchase a CD, new or used? Is it because they want to copy and sell it? Of course not. It’s because they want to hear new music, new artists they are not sure about, or stuff they can’t find anywhere else. They may want to hear a couple of tracks of a CD before buying it. Why do you think listening booths are so popular. People can hear a sample of the music without having to pay $19.99 to find out they don’t like it. I don’t know anyone who downloads music from the internet for profit. I know lots of people who download music from new artists they have heard about but have never ‘heard’ if you know what I mean. They download a track or two, listen to it and if they like it go out and buy the CD or buy the video. What radio program these days plays anything other than what’s currently in the charts? Very few. And how about exposure? If I were a recording artist I would love it if people were downloading my stuff. It would mean that more were buying my stuff! My work would be heard by more and more people which could only help my popularity and my income. So let’s hear less of the bleating from the big recording companies, or the RIAA, or the artists themselves. Can’t they see that the more people download their music, the more will attend their live shows where they earn a very large part of their income. Instead of bleating on about ‘internet thievery’, the recording companies should get acquainted with the new technology and use it to their advantage. It’s not our fault that they got left behind when the internet became the ideal medium for distributing music. Anyone with a modicum of common sense would have seen what the possibilities were. After all, we have all been recording music from the radio since tape recorders were invented. It was obvious that the internet was going to be an ideal distribution network and the recording houses should have had it tied up to their advantage long before you and I caught on to it. But no. They have been left behind, and instead of trying to get ahead, they are sitting in the corner sulking with their thumbs in their collective mouths muttering about lawsuits and threatening 12 year old kids. It’s they who are the kids, not us! Grow up please! FILE FORMATS There are several audio file formats in common use. There are fewer video file formats, but audio video file extensions can be confusing. This is just a brief description of what the more commonly used audio and video file formats and systems are. AAC:Advanced Audio Coding This is the audio file format used by Apple for the iTunes Music Store, and it may appear with the M4A filename extension. It is better than MP3 for sound quality. It was developed as part of the MPEG4 group owned by Dolby (see below). AU: This audio file format is the standard used by Java, Sun and Unix. MPEG: Moving Pictures Expert Group There are a number of MPEG types now, described below. MPEG-1: This is used in digital cameras and camcorders for small video clips. VHS quality playback can be expected from MPEG-1. MPEG-2: Used for digital satellite TV, professional movie recording and recording of home DVD recordings. Provides provision for multi-channel surround sound recordings. MPEG-3: MPEG-3 was propose as an entity, but eventually merged into MPEG-2. MPEG-4: This is the newest MPEG system and is used for streaming internet content. It is also used in portable video recorders and for internet downloads. Required for DivX. It improves digital broadcasting and interactive graphics and multimedia. MP3: Digital audio files, most commonly used to store and playback music. It compresses the files to about 10% of a normal audio file, and a normal music track will be about 5 -6 MB in size. MP3 stands for MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, not MPEG-3 as many people think. A typical MP3 audio file is near CD quality. OGG: An audio file format supporting a variety of codecs, the most popular of which is the audio codec Vorbis. However, MP3 files are much more broadly supported than Vorbis. RA: Real Audio This format is designed for streaming audio over the Internet. It is a self-contained file format with all the audio information stored within the file itself. WAV: The simplest of the audio file formats, developed by Microsoft and IBM, and built into Windows 95. It is an uncompressed audio file format with large file sizes (10 x MP3), and does not need further processing to play. The WAV file consists of three blocks of information: The RIFF block which identifies the file as a WAV file, The FORMAT block which identifies parameters such as sample rate and the DATA block which contains the actual data, or music sample. WMA: Windows Media Audio A digital system invented by Microsoft, and is used in portable digital audio players. Using WMA, a file can be programmed so that it cannot be copied, and can be used to protect copyright. WMF: Windows Media Format These are audio-video files comprising WMA and video codecs. They provide high quality and media security for streaming and download and play applications on computers. WMV: Windows Media Video Used in the Windows media Player, this is used to stream and download and play audio and video content. When dealing with audio and video file formats, you will sometimes notice the term 'codec'. A codec is simply short for encoder-decoder (or compressor - decompressor). A main function of a codec is to compress audio or video data streams so that transmission of digital audio samples and video frames can be speeded up and storage space reduced. The objective of all codecs is to reduce the file size to a minimum while maintaining audio and video quality. A quick indication of the codec's place in the path of transmission and reception is: Video device (e.g. camcorder) - video capture card - video digitized - codec (compresses digital info) - result (MPEG2, AVI, WMV etc) - codec (decompress) - video frames - display device. Between the two codecs the compressed result is transferred to the display device transmitted, stored on file, etc). So to condense the flow even further, we could basically describe it as: raw data - codec - transmit - codec - play This is simplistic, but it shows where the codecs are used. Therefore, in order to play a movie, video or piece of music of a certain format, you need a codec in your computer to allow you to decompress the file and play it. Here is some free software which checks what codec a video system uses, and what codec your system needs to play it: The different video file formats are required to meet the requirements of various video devices. Similarly, audio file formats are designed to meet the needs of the specific delivery methods and storage and playback devices introduced by large corporations such as Microsoft, Sony and Apple. Thus, Sony invented the UMD (Universal Media Disk) for the PPS (Playstation Portable), and Apple introduced AAC (M4A) for its iPod. The above information was transcripted from my website online-free-movies.com which is more extended version of legalandfree.com. You are welcome to visit it if you wish. If you want to edit an MP3 file using, for example, Microsoft Sound Recorder which is supplied with Windows, you have to change it to a wav file. Db PowerAmp Converter is the Swiss Army Knife of music converters – it converts file formats from one to the other, so using it you can convert your MP3 file to wav, edit it, then convert it back to MP3 if necessary. It also converts between many other file types. Download it free here along with other members of the PowerAmp family. This next piece is not free, but if you want to Download, Copy and Transfer Full DVD Quality movies, video clips and music videos from your PC to a PSP (Playstation Portable) you need a UMD converter. Using it you can transfer films from your PC to your PSP with ease! Copy your own DVD collection or Download from the millions of movies already available online! One of the best on the market, if not the best is the PSP X Studio converter. Check it out. Well, that’s all for this issue. I hope you enjoyed it and if you have any comments or there is anything you would like me to include, please let me know at pete@legalandfree.com |
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