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Could ALAC be the next big thing?

post #1 of 21
8/29/09 at 8:08am
Thread Starter 
After searching for legal lossless downloads of those hard to find classics I can conclude that it is a pain in the ass to find lossless music the legal way! Especially if you are not living in America, due to stupid country rights.

It is easier to find illegal downloads in FLAC... The music industry in mourning but I think it is there own fault! I would not spend money on lossy files, but am willing to pay for a lossless file...

I think that if iTunes would start offering DRM free ALAC files of everything they have in AAC at this moment, things would change rapidly!

What's your opinion? For example if I want to download the single "USA For Africa - We Are The World", where to find?
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post #2 of 21
8/29/09 at 1:23pm
If apple would get off their high horse along with all the other big name media players and make FLAC supported on their players, we'd have a movement. Too bad all those players have their own bizarre lossless formats that they license to make money. The reason why no one supports FLAC is because it's free. There's no money to be made. Which is stupid, the only people that should be making money are the artists themselves.

tl;dr, ALAC is not the only potentially commercialized lossless format out there, rant rant rant
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post #3 of 21
8/29/09 at 2:15pm
It can be cheaper to buy used CDs and rip them yourself into ALAC. I stopped buying from iTunes years ago. No DRM headaches, either.
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post #4 of 21
8/29/09 at 2:20pm
i have never purchased music in non-CD format. i want to own items i pay for.
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post #5 of 21
8/30/09 at 2:57am
Quote:
Originally Posted by vcoheda View Post
i have never purchased music in non-CD format. i want to own items i pay for.
x2
As far as why ITunes music is not lossless, I think it is likely more profitable to have it in lossy format. The average listener does not have the knowledge, experience, equipment to notice or know the difference between lossy and lossless, but they are very good at noticing the time it takes for them to be able to download their music. As someone stated on another recent thread, they use ITunes because it is faster, and you can get single songs. Furthermore, IPod (as well as all other manufacturers of MP3 players) advertise their product as being able to hold (for example) 450 songs, but this is usually based on music at 128kbps, so your device's storage would be SIGNIFICANTLY reduced making users buy their music elsewhere, their players from different manufacturers, or just complain about the limited space. If users have to wait 3-4 times longer for a download that will take up a large portion of your MP3 player's memory for no apparent reason, I'm sure you too would be unhappy with the situation and less likely to use the service. Unfortunately, I'm sure that there are a lot more people who would behave in this manner than who would notice and appreciate the improvement.
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post #6 of 21
8/30/09 at 3:30am
I like the way my Sirius radio promotes their "cd quality" high fidelity upgrade to stream audio at (no not even vbr which is close to 200kbps) ......128 kbps........cd quality???

I am lucky, all my music downloads you can buy flac lossless or download free flac lossless, but only because of my musical tastes, otherwise it's cds for the old stuff.
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post #7 of 21
8/30/09 at 3:41am
I still can't believe I was listening to a 48k XM stream... It was convenient not having to find a new station every couple hours though being a truck driver.

As for the major labels licensing the rights to lossless digital downloads. That ain't gonna happen. Even apple doesn't have that much clout. Even though I'm no fan of apple at all, I do respect the fact that they fought for the right to sell individual tracks instead of entire albums.
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post #8 of 21
8/30/09 at 4:51am
Thread Starter 
Thanks for all the replies!

Yeah, one of the main problems at this moment is the CD singles are becoming less available in the shops due to downloads, now I am forced to buy or rent CD albums (which I hate for most artists) or buy CD singles on Discogs, which is expensive or download in 256 AAC or 192/320 MP3. That sucks! A CD single costs around 2-4 euro, while a download in lower quality costs around 1 euro per track!

I do believe the lack of legal lossless availability is the reason for illegal downloads, no problem in finding FLAC over there, especially for old albums. But Dance and Dutch music is difficult either way...
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post #9 of 21
8/30/09 at 10:11am
It will happen eventually, but it was just this year that they started offering DRM-free 256kbps as the standard, so there will be a wait before they get to losssless.

Offering legal lossless wouldn't slow illegal downloading much though, I don't think anything would, short of a very invasive government takeover of the internet.
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post #10 of 21
8/30/09 at 8:20pm
It's a consumer's market, and most prefer lossy. The reasons are many: Faster downloads, more storage space on their device (especially in the world of 8/16/32GB flash-based players), or equipment that isn't good enough to distinguish between lossy and lossless.

It's the same reason why SACD / DVD-A never replaced CD's. The latter was, and is, good enough for most people.
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post #11 of 21
8/31/09 at 1:22am
If itunes started offering ALAC I'd be all over it.
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post #12 of 21
8/31/09 at 1:59am
you and about 24 other people, most likely

Apple are going to quadruple their server space just for 25 people... like that's going to happen

and how much are they going to charge? lossy files are $0.99 - thats a little over the price of a CD (with artwork, jewel box etc etc, mind you)
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post #13 of 21
8/31/09 at 3:18am
I don't think the general public cares one bit about lossless... a majority of music consumption today appears to take place with the earbuds included with iPods and those people can't hear much difference, especially since most of them are going deaf.
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post #14 of 21
8/31/09 at 3:47am
In Finland it's legal to borrow a CD from library and take a "backup copy" of it to your hard drive. Easy and free way to have your music in lossless format.
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post #15 of 21
8/31/09 at 11:28am
Lucky. I believe there are laws against that here, it's just nobody can enforce something like that.
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