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Old 22-12-2004, 23:36
Higgypop
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Has anyone managed to find a download service which is actually any good?
They are soon keen to get us to download legally but every service I've tried is awfull!!
I haven't been able to download a song from any of them in under an hour and I'm using a 1mb broadband connection.
I have tried HMV, GWR's download service, Mycoke Music and others.
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Old 22-12-2004, 23:43
jamesrlaming
 
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why bother if they dont provide a good service, if the records companies want people to stop, then they should provide us with decent legal services.
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Old 22-12-2004, 23:45
Higgypop
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Originally Posted by jamesrlaming
why bother if they dont provide a good service, if the records companies want people to stop, then they should provide us with decent legal services.
Exactly!!!
May be some kind of clever pay per use P2P service.
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Old 23-12-2004, 01:14
Higgypop
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I have to say the worst download service I have used is GWR's own service.
Your local GWR station will promote this service "Hear it, Buy it, Burn It"
It is awful luckily I only paid £1.40 but I haven't been able to download anything, I have been trying for the last week to download 1 song but it keeps timing out and there is no download resume.

DO NOT DOWNLOAD FROM YOUR LOCAL GWR/MUSIC RADIO STATION'S DONWLOAD SITE - "HEAR IT, BUY IT, BURN IT"
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Old 23-12-2004, 07:42
Mykonos
 
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Have you tried i-tunes?I think it is great and fast.
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Old 23-12-2004, 08:29
iain
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tried the MSN one, but found it a bit of a faff with the credits, and the licence - plus had a problem with an album and had to email them to download it again.

iTunes on the other hand has been excellent. find a track, click buy, and there it is 30 seconds later. best interface of the lot - pretty much advert free.

the playlists thing is a pretty good feature - you can look up compilations by users, and find stuff you don't know lurking in amongst stuff you do know - a great way of finding and trying out new music.

Iain
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Old 23-12-2004, 10:51
Anthony Haines
 
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You should be able to download CD-quality files, instead of MP3s and the like. I'm definitely not paying for low-quality files.
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Old 23-12-2004, 11:22
Richard_T
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Originally Posted by Anthony Haines
You should be able to download CD-quality files, instead of MP3s and the like. I'm definitely not paying for low-quality files.
I cant understand why the European and north american base downlaod sites cant offer high quality uncompressed music to downlaod, it may take longer to load, but at least your getting a like for like product with whats on sale in the shops.
the ony site i know of that offers high quality downlaods is allofmp3.com that has the option for mp3/wma/ogg, and something called MPC that i think is uncompressed.
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Old 23-12-2004, 11:36
johnthackeray
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iTunes is the best of them all, use that
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Old 23-12-2004, 12:19
iain
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Originally Posted by Anthony Haines
You should be able to download CD-quality files, instead of MP3s and the like. I'm definitely not paying for low-quality files.
that depends on your definition of low quality i guess.

Iain
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Old 23-12-2004, 12:40
Richard_T
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Ive just had a look throuhg the http://www.allofmp3.com site, and i think MPC is uncompressed audio, straight form a CDDA file.
does anyone know any different?
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Old 23-12-2004, 12:49
kev_6655
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go onto http://www.woolworths.co.uk, there service is excellent and fast.
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Old 23-12-2004, 13:19
Richard_T
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the wollworths site is expensive, and olnly seems to offer WMAs
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Old 23-12-2004, 14:33
lee18xx
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I've just started using iTunes...think its great, 79p a track and cool player!
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Old 23-12-2004, 18:27
amardell
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Originally Posted by Richard_T
Ive just had a look throuhg the http://www.allofmp3.com site, and i think MPC is uncompressed audio, straight form a CDDA file.
does anyone know any different?
From what i've read allofmp3 is only legal for russians to use...by using it from the UK you are still illegally downloading.
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Old 23-12-2004, 18:28
amardell
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Originally Posted by Anthony Haines
You should be able to download CD-quality files, instead of MP3s and the like. I'm definitely not paying for low-quality files.
Exactly, most sites are 192kps. That sounds fine on headphones, but put that on a decent system, and you'll notice the quality issues very quickly.
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Old 23-12-2004, 18:47
Eraserhead
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I subscribe to Napster. I haven't downloaded much but you can listen to complete albums, which is very useful to check out whether they're actually worth buying or not.
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Old 23-12-2004, 20:16
Richard_T
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Originally Posted by amardell
From what i've read allofmp3 is only legal for russians to use...by using it from the UK you are still illegally downloading.
the legal side of it is wher the money transaction takes place, if its in Russia, then you are importing music to the UK.
if the Transaction takes place in the UK, or the EU then its not so clear.

allofmp3.com use cyberplat for payments, and all the transactions are Russian based, the prices of music on allofmp3.com is in US dolars, but you get charged to your credit card by Cyberplat in Russian Roubles.
like most things i did a lot of research inot allofmp3.com beofore entering my credit card detials, and i couldnt find anything that said it was ilegal to use, in fact i only found the oposite, that its perfectly legal, for now.

The only downside is that there putting thier prices up from US$0.01 per mb of music downloaded to US$0.02 per MB of music downloaded.
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Old 28-12-2004, 20:26
tinminer
 
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Play an Mp3 file through a decent (£1,000+) hi=fi and it sounds awful!!!

CD quality - there is no substitute (except, maybe SACD & DVD-A!)
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Old 28-12-2004, 21:07
thebebbe
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try www.emule-project.net (if you are patient to wait you can get whole albums in one go - i usually leave it on overnight or whilst im out...)

or a new thing i found today... http://www.bitcomet.com/

im sure many of you are familiar with it... ive been downloading some movies from this place but you can get mp3s too im sure...

have any of you tried .ogg files? excellent quality (far better then mp3s anyway) and im pretty sure are smaller in file size too...

i actually have worked for two record companies (royalties department) and still download mp3s illegally... so maybe im just a hypocrite as i havent bought any cds in about 2 years (only cds i have are the ones i got free every month from work.....) hehehhe
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Old 28-12-2004, 21:16
Anthony Haines
 
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Originally Posted by Richard_T
I cant understand why the European and north american base downlaod sites cant offer high quality uncompressed music to downlaod, it may take longer to load, but at least your getting a like for like product with whats on sale in the shops.
the ony site i know of that offers high quality downlaods is allofmp3.com that has the option for mp3/wma/ogg, and something called MPC that i think is uncompressed.
Nope. MPC is just another compression format along the lines of the others you mentioned, none of which are anything compared to CD-quality.
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Old 28-12-2004, 22:24
Richard_T
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Originally Posted by Anthony Haines
Nope. MPC is just another compression format along the lines of the others you mentioned, none of which are anything compared to CD-quality.
Ive seen un compressed PCM WAV files on there, marked out as "OEEX" but the size of each file is huge, and the price goes up acordingly, each MB is charged at US$0.02 for WAV files.
quote from allofmp3.com
The album is available for ordering and downloading via Online Encoding and Online Encoding Exclusive service in any format and quality, up to original quality of source CD-DA data.
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Old 29-12-2004, 22:46
Dannouk
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Itunes has changed my opinion on all of this. I use to browse P2P regulalrly but for quick easy tracks now I just go there all the time. Instant download, 79p a track and a very efficient and feature packed player (well on OSX it is anyways).
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Old 29-12-2004, 23:13
Daveoc64
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iTunes for Mac and iTunes for Windows are 99% the same. The only changes relate to differences in the Operating Systems (thinks like the file system).
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Old 29-12-2004, 23:15
Pingu
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I think iTunes downloads sound great.
If anyone's skeptical of the quality, email me (address here), and I'll send you a track I've converted into MP3.
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