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Streaming Flac Service

post #1 of 15
Thread Starter 

Is there any service out there or in the works for that matter that will stream music to my pc in a lossless format? This has always been a bit of a wet dream for me. 

 

To add a layer to discussion how much would you pay for it?

post #2 of 15

No, there aren't, or at least not as far as I'm aware. Also, remember that even if such a service existed, there would be many downsides. As far as quality is concerned, it would only be as good as your connection speed. Few things would be as annoying as trying to listen to a favorite song when it has to pause every 15 seconds because of buffering.

post #3 of 15
Thread Starter 

High-speed internet?

post #4 of 15
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sam-Fi View Post

High-speed internet?


Which not everyone has. Thus, at the moment, making it a poor business decision.

post #5 of 15

http://www.google.com/search?q=flac+radio

 We are currently broadcasting our services without compression
post #6 of 15
Quote:
Originally Posted by Head Injury View Post


Which not everyone has. Thus, at the moment, making it a poor business decision.


and even if everyone had broadband it would still be a fairly poor business decision

 

just because the end user has plenty of bandwidth to listen to a lossless stream does not mean the server has enough bandwidth to support a large number of listeners

 

this is why most internet radio still uses low bitrate mp3 because you can stream to more listeners that way

 

because even with FLAC or some other lossless compression you'd want to allow up to 1411Kbps (since we're assuming everything in the broadcast will be 16bit 44.1KHz stereo) for each listener when deciding on the maximum number of listeners your server will allow


Edited by necropimp - 5/21/10 at 3:49pm
post #7 of 15

im sure spotifys 320k ogg stream is good enough for most

post #8 of 15
Quote:
Originally Posted by mark2410 View Post

im sure spotifys 320k ogg stream is good enough for most


It only it would work for most. Come on and launch in the U.S. already!

post #9 of 15

yeah the thing is spotify doesn't exist outside of europe so it's not available to most therefore is incapable of being good enough for most

post #10 of 15
Thread Starter 

320 Ogg would be great but I think the grail would be some lossless tunes so I didn't have to always go and buy cds after I discover good music. 

 

Ogg is plenty for my phones but for my main system I need the real deal.

post #11 of 15

well you at least have the option of buying a cd

 

it pisses me off no end that i regularly cant buy stuff i want in the UK, i can stream it on spotify but cant buy the CD, yey for the joined up thinking in the licensing that goes on.  this is why the music industry is fcuked

post #12 of 15
Thread Starter 

One will be coming in the future though right?

post #13 of 15
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sam-Fi View Post

One will be coming in the future though right?


A FLAC streaming service? Probably. Well, maybe.

 

It would be great if record companies embraced bit torrent instead of fearing it. For popular songs, it would take a huge load off of the server if they worked it or something similar into the stream.

post #14 of 15

Just discovered Spotify; how can you tell the bitrate on the music playing? Is it worth upgrading from open/free to their "unlimited" or a "premium" service, from the sound quality standpoint?

post #15 of 15

according to wikipedia:

 

free and open ~160kbps with ads

unlimited  ~160kbps without ads

premium ~320kbps without ads

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