itunes music store bit rate increase

[mi5moav]

I'm sure it's on here somewhere but our wonderful forums search feature couldn't help me out since I like to search using common Finnish phrases.

Anyway, what are the chances of Itunes music store offering 2 or 3 additional bit rates to download songs at? Like 160, 192 and lossless.

It looks like it would be fairly simple to implement on the fron end since we can auto choose how we want to have our CD's burned from the drop down menu. I always choose 192, and never have to deal with it.

Are all itunes tracks already compressed at 128 or is everything done on the fly? Does Apple already have them stored in lossless compression and then as we choose to download everything it is encoded on the fly to us.

[Pengu]

Apple probably does have an uncompressed copy of everything, (or could get one) but i think you'll find the files are pre-compressed with DRM before anyone downloads them.

[pds]

Am I the only one who thinks that 99 cents for lossy music - even as good as AAC is - is not a great deal? The original cd, with art and the whole nine yards is priced out at around 1.50 a song - except for marquee acts - without DRM. So why should a system that eliminates production, shipping and storage costs not offer the same quality of product at a discount?

I think there should be a tiered price structure with 99 cents being the top for lossless compressed music with DRM. Go ahead, flame away, but I know it's not Apple's pricing policy, it is the Labels.

Now, as to the possibilities of reason being acted on in the music industry? I'd say its somewhere between 0 and -5.

[g/re/p]

Originally Posted by pds

Am I the only one who thinks that 99 cents for lossy music - even as good as AAC is - is not a great deal? The original cd, with art and the whole nine yards is priced out at around 1.50 a song - except for marquee acts - without DRM. So why should a system that eliminates production, shipping and storage costs not offer the same quality of product at a discount?

I think there should be a tiered price structure with 99 cents being the top for lossless compressed music with DRM. Go ahead, flame away, but I know it's not Apple's pricing policy, it is the Labels.

Now, as to the possibilities of reason being acted on in the music industry? I'd say its somewhere between 0 and -5.

I agree - i have not d/l any songs from the apple store, and do not plan
to any time soon.

[kilowatt]

I totally agree. I have purchased music from it - it is convenient. But for serious listening, I go and buy the CD.

Consider though, there is now a lossless codec built in to iTunes. I'm guessing Apple must have some plans for it. And I agree, its likely they would have to completely re-rip their library.

[mi5moav]

I've download about 30 songs from the library and would do more but I listen to a lot of music in my car since I have to commute a lot. The problem is that at 128 you can really tell a difference. At 192 its really not to bad. Of course on my ipod with almost any small earphone 128 is fine when mowing the lawn or running but I really wish they had a minimum of 160, 192, 320. I don't believe the pricing should be changed... should be 99 cents across the board. With new ipods coming around at 20, 40, 60 gigs I think Apple will probably bump up the bit rates since they could still say the ipods have 10,000 songs plus. The only reason why I may doubt this is when the original ipod was released the song capacity was based on mp3s at 160 i believe so when they launched the itunes store at 128 the 5 gig actually held more songs from the original ads.

[steven_lufc]

128 AAC is equivalent to 192 MP3 isn't it? And a smaller file size too. I haven't d/l anything from the music store, do they come as AAC?