iTunes for PC... WOOHOOO!!!

[straubs]

Originally posted by: Pretty Cool
No chance in hell am I installing anything else that requires Quicktime. That crap software constantly nags me to upgrade before starting, dumps itself in startup every damn time a website requires it, and has the most annoying gui I have ever experienced. I use Real player almost everyday and to me it is just a simple player. Not like the almighty Quicktime which should be an inaugural member in the Software Hall of Shame.

I can't believe you can say that about Quicktime while simultaneously praising Real player. At least with a straight face. That's just absurd. QT for windows installs some unecessary icons, but real is TWICE as bad, at minimum!

 

[straubs]

Originally posted by: wicktron
iTunes is not my cup of tea. Resource usage is high, and it doesn't match my XP visual style.

Resource usage might be high if you have the "sound check" option enabled. that goes through your whole collection gathering info about the volume levels, so it can compensate for high/low volumes while playing. I wish it would warn people when this is enabled.

 

[straubs]

Originally posted by: Keen314
Is it just me, or does iTunes start up an awful lot of extra processes? AFTER closing iTunes, I had to kill 3-4 processes that it had started and not stopped, one of which was a gearsec.exe (it's the least obvious of them; the others follow an i* naming convention). Then I powered up msconfig and it wanted to start up quicktime on startup, which I keep telling the damn thing to NOT do, and that was in addition to having 'iTunesHelper' run upon startup. Blah, I think I'll be reconsidering having this thing installed.

gearsec.exe is from Powerquest Drive Image Pro 7.0. You can go into your services and set it to "manual" so it doesnt run all the time.

 

[mackaikai]

I personally love this feature....especially in college dorm or lecture halls

"Tunes 4 has a Music Sharing feature that uses Rendezvous to give you remote streaming access to your personal music library from any room in your house. Let¡¦s say, for instance, that you have thousands of AAC and MP3 music files stored on a mac or Windows computer in your home office. The iTunes software works so smoothly on both platforms that you can share music with any combination of Macs and Windows PCs on a local area network ¡X regardless of whether you¡¦re running iTunes off a Mac or PC. And you won¡¦t have to manually configure anything, either."

 

[Lucky]

Originally posted by: MontyBurns

Originally posted by: lookin4dlz
The songs cost WAY too much!

The NY Times just ran an article the other day stating that at $0.99 per track, when adjusted for inflation, this music costs 10 times as much as music did in the 50's (generally regarded as the heyday of popular music sales). I think the problem is that too many young people are accustomed to paying these outrageous prices for music and so they don't think anything of paying $0.99 per track. I'll never pay that much, but would pay $0.20 per track.

And they'll never cost $0.20 per track. No credit card company is ever going to process a charge for 20 cents.

Apple is making a killing on their service. You may think it's overpriced, but thousands of people can't get enough of it. Don't expect a big price drop anytime soon.

Apple is NOT making a killing selling songs. I don't know where you got your information thinking that they were, but they aren't. It's a widely known fact that the profit margin on these are extremely slim.

 

[yomady]

Originally posted by: straubs

Originally posted by: Pretty Cool
No chance in hell am I installing anything else that requires Quicktime. That crap software constantly nags me to upgrade before starting, dumps itself in startup every damn time a website requires it, and has the most annoying gui I have ever experienced. I use Real player almost everyday and to me it is just a simple player. Not like the almighty Quicktime which should be an inaugural member in the Software Hall of Shame.

I can't believe you can say that about Quicktime while simultaneously praising Real player. At least with a straight face. That's just absurd. QT for windows installs some unecessary icons, but real is TWICE as bad, at minimum!

Real Player has been improved a lot. in my opinion the realone is a good handy player.
Bad ??? noway!!!
I extremely like its rmvb file format. The quality is quite good with its tiny file size and it is 100%+ better than the rm format.

 

[kindest]

now all i need is an ipod.
too bad they are so expensive for a new one.

 

[Keen314]

Originally posted by: straubs

Originally posted by: Keen314 Is it just me, or does iTunes start up an awful lot of extra processes? AFTER closing iTunes, I had to kill 3-4 processes that it had started and not stopped, one of which was a gearsec.exe (it's the least obvious of them; the others follow an i* naming convention). Then I powered up msconfig and it wanted to start up quicktime on startup, which I keep telling the damn thing to NOT do, and that was in addition to having 'iTunesHelper' run upon startup. Blah, I think I'll be reconsidering having this thing installed.

gearsec.exe is from Powerquest Drive Image Pro 7.0..

Not on my computer. I install iTunes, gearsec.exe shows up. You connect the dots.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: straubs

Originally posted by: Pretty Cool
No chance in hell am I installing anything else that requires Quicktime. That crap software constantly nags me to upgrade before starting, dumps itself in startup every damn time a website requires it, and has the most annoying gui I have ever experienced. I use Real player almost everyday and to me it is just a simple player. Not like the almighty Quicktime which should be an inaugural member in the Software Hall of Shame.

I can't believe you can say that about Quicktime while simultaneously praising Real player. At least with a straight face. That's just absurd. QT for windows installs some unecessary icons, but real is TWICE as bad, at minimum!

Hear, hear. Quicktime and Realplayer (Realpain*) are near the top of my list of bad software memories and I've removed them many times. I only install them if I need access to some file(s) or streams (for Realpain*) and I can't find another way, and I've always regretted it. Yes, I ranted a couple days ago about the experience of downloading and installing Quicktime and I still feel justified. Maybe if I had an iPod I'd feel otherwise, but I had my perspective and I made that clear. I haven't removed Quicktime/iTunes yet, but I did install with minimal options chosen (associate NO filetypes) and I immediately disabled Quicktime Task and iTunesHelper in my startup. If Q & iT behave, they can remain on my box. If not, well, Add/Remove.

 

[thatsright]

Do ANY of the pay-for-play Music services out their offer a 320Kbps MP3 bitrate? I mean I would gladly use iTunes if I could get better quality than just 128Kbps. Even though some above say that the 128K ACC file is like a 180K MP3 file, this still isn't the clarity I'm looking for. I will probably just 'get' the MP3 I'm looking for on Kazaa or WinMX and still be able to get 320Kbps or better as sometimes I can find a complete WAV file.

And why do all of the major pay services restrict the bit rate quality?

Also, many think that Apple is making a killing with iTunes, and they are not. The only killing they are making is on the publicity and 'coolness' factor. They are actually barely turning a profit; with a profit margin of maybe 2-5% Its just like Sony and their PS2, which they actually sell at a slight loss, but they make their HUGE profits on the games. So loosing a bit on the Hardware end is no big deal to Sony, when your raking it in by the Billions from the games. And the same is true for Apple, but in reverse. Whereby they may be making a minuscule profit on iTunes, but they are making a Killing selling a $500 iPod that only cost them $65 to make.

And that's my $0.03

 

[TheFamilyMan]

What no one wants to talk about is the proprietary nature of not only the hardware but the software.

Until the music companies (of which I have consulted for in the past) stop attempting to infringe on the rightful use of the consumer, no "pay for play" music service will survive.

Napster (in it's earliest incarnation) could have survived and everyone using it (all 20 million) would have gladly ponied up $9.99 a month for downloads...even with the crappy 128kbps that most mp3's on Napster averaged. That would be approximately $200M dollars a month...over $2B a year alone off internet music sales. Now that is assuming that all 20 million people subscribed.

The labels don't want to give up the control they have over the content. Plain and simple. If ITunes offered regular mp3's at $.99 a piece, then maybe it would be worth it...but you're still talking over $10 a CD. I buy all my CD's used from a local shop that specializes in secondary marketing of Cd's.

Until ITunes, or any other music service for that matter, stops trying to bow down to the RIAA and the wishes of major conglomerates, then the consumer will suffer...no matter how good the service seems to be; a' la ITunes.

It is a great movement in the right direction, but it's not the magic music servicing model everyone is clamoring for.

Just my .02.

 

[Bob/NYC]

Using a lossey compression method vs. lossless pure CD quality, such as .ape, .shn, .flac is a ripoff. The buck sux, premium usenet servers live for mp3s, lossless and CD images-your choice. I'll rip my own, thankyou.

 

[TheFamilyMan]

Yeah, great advice about the newsgroups...premium rips on the newsgroups.

Since discovering them a year or so ago, I haven't even blinked twice at Kazaa, Napster, or any of the other ad-ware/spybot-laced programs.

Downloaded what I wanted to listen to, if I liked it, I went out and bought it (used of course). If I didn't like it, then it was deleted.

 

[thatsright]

Originally posted by: TheFamilyMan
What no one wants to talk about is the proprietary nature of not only the hardware but the software.

Until the music companies (of which I have consulted for in the past) stop attempting to infringe on the rightful use of the consumer, no "pay for play" music service will survive.

Napster (in it's earliest incarnation) could have survived and everyone using it (all 20 million) would have gladly ponied up $9.99 a month for downloads...even with the crappy 128kbps that most mp3's on Napster averaged. That would be approximately $200M dollars a month...over $2B a year alone off internet music sales. Now that is assuming that all 20 million people subscribed.

The labels don't want to give up the control they have over the content. Plain and simple. If ITunes offered regular mp3's at $.99 a piece, then maybe it would be worth it...but you're still talking over $10 a CD. I buy all my CD's used from a local shop that specializes in secondary marketing of Cd's.

Until ITunes, or any other music service for that matter, stops trying to bow down to the RIAA and the wishes of major conglomerates, then the consumer will suffer...no matter how good the service seems to be; a' la ITunes.

It is a great movement in the right direction, but it's not the magic music servicing model everyone is clamoring for.

Just my .02.

In a TOTAL Contradiction of what I said above, those that use Kazaa and WinMX or any other 'free' download site, are STEALING music. Sure everyone will try and cop out and say 'well the record companies have been ripping us off for years'. But this BS statement doesn't absolve any of us from the fact we are stealing music.

And of course, BOTOH, since it doesn't 'feel' like we are walking into a store and physically stealing a CD, or that their is a COP over our shoulders when on Kazaa, it feels like its OK; or something that isn't a big deal. So sure, I'm a hypocrite when I say it's stealing, and yet I do it anyway. But its sooo easy, and quick, and painless it just doesn't feel totally wrong.

And if using Kazaa standard, of course you will get all the Spyware/Adware crap that takes over your PC. Just use Kazaa Lite or K++ and you will avoid all of that, and you will get the RIAA IP Blocking features. Thats what I do when I'm braking the law...........

 

[straubs]

Originally posted by: Keen314

Originally posted by: straubs

Originally posted by: Keen314 Is it just me, or does iTunes start up an awful lot of extra processes? AFTER closing iTunes, I had to kill 3-4 processes that it had started and not stopped, one of which was a gearsec.exe (it's the least obvious of them; the others follow an i* naming convention). Then I powered up msconfig and it wanted to start up quicktime on startup, which I keep telling the damn thing to NOT do, and that was in addition to having 'iTunesHelper' run upon startup. Blah, I think I'll be reconsidering having this thing installed.

gearsec.exe is from Powerquest Drive Image Pro 7.0..

Not on my computer. I install iTunes, gearsec.exe shows up. You connect the dots.

You're right. I checked it out further and it is installed by both programs. It adds CD burner support to both programs. What's unfortunate about it in both cases, is that it's set to run all the time by default. That's bad practice for the developer, because what happens is you install 10 apps, and suddenly you have 10 things running all the time, even though the main program that installed them isn't running.

 

[straubs]

Originally posted by: yomady

Originally posted by: straubs

Originally posted by: Pretty Cool
No chance in hell am I installing anything else that requires Quicktime. That crap software constantly nags me to upgrade before starting, dumps itself in startup every damn time a website requires it, and has the most annoying gui I have ever experienced. I use Real player almost everyday and to me it is just a simple player. Not like the almighty Quicktime which should be an inaugural member in the Software Hall of Shame.

I can't believe you can say that about Quicktime while simultaneously praising Real player. At least with a straight face. That's just absurd. QT for windows installs some unecessary icons, but real is TWICE as bad, at minimum!

Real Player has been improved a lot. in my opinion the realone is a good handy player.
Bad ??? noway!!!
I extremely like its rmvb file format. The quality is quite good with its tiny file size and it is 100%+ better than the rm format.

It doesn't take much to be better than rm. I've seen realone, and it's still got Real's devious (and annoying) little tricks built-in. It still tries to take over all file associations, still puts icons and links all over the place. Any program that does that without FIRST offering a choice, is saying very loudly that value their marketing first, quality second. They've already been caught red-handed with previous versions phoning-home, w/o letting the user know. That is a very shady company indeed.

 

[Pretty Cool]

I can't believe you can say that about Quicktime while simultaneously praising Real player. At least with a straight face. That's just absurd. QT for windows installs some unecessary icons, but real is TWICE as bad, at minimum!

Am I making things up?


-That crap software constantly nags me to upgrade before starting - TRUE

-Dumps itself in startup every damn time a website requires it - TRUE

-Has the most annoying gui I have ever experienced - TRUE

-I use Real player almost everyday and to me it is just a simple player. - TRUE


I never "praised" Real player. It just plays the content without bugging the sh** out of me. Who cares about a few icons as they can easily be deleted? You know, even spyware can be deactivated by disabling it from startup ONCE. Can't say the same about Quicktime.

 

[udonoogen]

Originally posted by: Muse

Originally posted by: straubs

Originally posted by: Pretty Cool
No chance in hell am I installing anything else that requires Quicktime. That crap software constantly nags me to upgrade before starting, dumps itself in startup every damn time a website requires it, and has the most annoying gui I have ever experienced. I use Real player almost everyday and to me it is just a simple player. Not like the almighty Quicktime which should be an inaugural member in the Software Hall of Shame.

I can't believe you can say that about Quicktime while simultaneously praising Real player. At least with a straight face. That's just absurd. QT for windows installs some unecessary icons, but real is TWICE as bad, at minimum!

Hear, hear. Quicktime and Realplayer (Realpain*) are near the top of my list of bad software memories and I've removed them many times. I only install them if I need access to some file(s) or streams (for Realpain*) and I can't find another way, and I've always regretted it. Yes, I ranted a couple days ago about the experience of downloading and installing Quicktime and I still feel justified. Maybe if I had an iPod I'd feel otherwise, but I had my perspective and I made that clear. I haven't removed Quicktime/iTunes yet, but I did install with minimal options chosen (associate NO filetypes) and I immediately disabled Quicktime Task and iTunesHelper in my startup. If Q & iT behave, they can remain on my box. If not, well, Add/Remove.

look into getting quicktime codecs and media player classic. i hate quicktime and realplayer also. i just dl'd the codecs (search on google) and use media player classic. works like a charm and i dont get those registry/startup entries anymore.

 

[thatsright]

I actually love QT for viewing movies. BUT the only time I ever use it is to watch movie trailers n stuff. Still not as feature rich as WMP9, but better visual quality.

 

[IgoByte]

So, I figured what the heck, let's give this iTunes music store a try and I buy three albums at $9.99 each. I create a playlist out of one of them and burn it to a CDR but the songs come out not from 1 to 12 but from 12 down to 1. OK. I try to convert the purchased songs to MP3s; it doesn't want to do it because they're protected. I clear the iTunes library and the damn thing deletes all of the songs that were in the iTunes folder altogether. This includes the songs I purchased. So, I call Apple's general phone number to see if they'll help me out with this stuff, and the guy tells me they don't support iTunes unless you have an iPod and purchased it in the last 90 days. He tells me to go to the iTunes support website, which doesn't state a telephone number or anything helpful really.

I've recovered the songs from the recycle bin and backed them up now, but I still can't make a proper playlist, in order of songs. They all come out reversed.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm sticking to buying CDs and ripping them and downloading MP3s. Screw Apple!

 

[meehawl]

Originally posted by: mackaikai[/iremote streaming access to your personal music library from any room in your house.

I've been enjoying this for years on Windows with Media Jukebox / Center. Client-Server streaming over LAN or WAN (understand Apple disabled WAN in iTunes). Auto config, discovery. etc etc yada yada. Check it out, it's really something.

More Here

 

[Bojangles139]

meh, untill they offer lossless formats, i aite biting.

brandon

 

[lispsux]

agreed

If I am going to spend money on music - then I want it to have NO watermark, no compression, nothing cept the raw beautiful .wav file as I could rip on a CD (ya cds have watermarks...fine...some watermarks..whatever).

Also - why not...

If you buy a CD...it should have a unique code on it - and people could DOWNLOAD the .wav file for...MUCH less - since you've proven that you own the cd (even if it broke or whatever).

Anyway personally I am going to start voting in the upcoming elections - why? because I only want people who think the RIAA suck in there.

 

[0roo0roo]

Originally posted by: TheFamilyMan
What no one wants to talk about is the proprietary nature of not only the hardware but the software.

Until the music companies (of which I have consulted for in the past) stop attempting to infringe on the rightful use of the consumer, no "pay for play" music service will survive.

Napster (in it's earliest incarnation) could have survived and everyone using it (all 20 million) would have gladly ponied up $9.99 a month for downloads...even with the crappy 128kbps that most mp3's on Napster averaged. That would be approximately $200M dollars a month...over $2B a year alone off internet music sales. Now that is assuming that all 20 million people subscribed.

The labels don't want to give up the control they have over the content. Plain and simple. If ITunes offered regular mp3's at $.99 a piece, then maybe it would be worth it...but you're still talking over $10 a CD. I buy all my CD's used from a local shop that specializes in secondary marketing of Cd's.

Until ITunes, or any other music service for that matter, stops trying to bow down to the RIAA and the wishes of major conglomerates, then the consumer will suffer...no matter how good the service seems to be; a' la ITunes.

It is a great movement in the right direction, but it's not the magic music servicing model everyone is clamoring for.

Just my .02.

isn't apples format mpeg 4?

 

[Keen314]

Originally posted by: thatsright
Its just like Sony and their PS2, which they actually sell at a slight loss, but they make their HUGE profits on the games. So loosing a bit on the Hardware end is no big deal to Sony, when your raking it in by the Billions from the games.

Bad analogy, Sony makes money on their hardware, unlike most console makers now and in the past.