LAPOE ReAct Digital Download

[Brad]

A new digital-only addition:

The live version of Love And Peace Or Else from ReAct Now is available for download exclusively from Sony Connect.

Burn. Rip. Mix.  

[Carl]

Oooh. Cool.

Now I need to register on Sony Connect.

update: LAME.

"We appreciate your interest in the Connect music store, but our store currently only works with Internet Explorer 5.5 and above. You don't seem to be using that particular browser at the moment, so, unfortunately, we'll have to part ways until we support the browser you're currently using or you upgrade to the latest version of Internet Explorer."

So... I need to install an application to actually buy anything, but their site is IE only with a bunch of ActiveX - and the application just opens up that site within itself. Clunky.

Furthermore it seems to be an ATRAC file (their MD audio format) that will only work in their little application.  I can apparently make an mp3 CD (not audio cd??) from it - we'll see how that affects DRM they seem to be trying to copy the iTunes model.

Mine is in .oma format (i suppose you need a new "Net"MD or PSP to use it portably). I wish it I had it in their .omg format.

OMG I wish I could just get it from iTunes.

[Edited on 2005-9-14 by Carl]

[Brad]

Normally I would share, but since the proceeds from the tracks are going to hurricane relief, it seems like bad kharma to do so.  I actually shelled out $21.99 for the whole album.

Carl, the Sony SonicStage media player is the epitome of clunky, but that's actually to your advantage.  When you burn an audio CD, the tracks in the playlist are converted to WAV files (the extension is .tmp, but you just change it to .wav) and stored in a temporary folder (of which you can actually specify the location).

All you have to do it copy and paste the .tmp files to a new location and change the extension to .wav.  You don't even have to complete the CD burn.  You can then convert to MP3 or AAC or whatever.

I converted to AAC and now have the track on my iPod.  A bit of a work-around, but it gets the job done.

[Edited on 2005-9-14 by Brad]

[Carl]

Very cool.  I went through the fun of buying the track (yay for VPNs and US IP addressess) and converted to a 160kbps .m4a file.

That .tmp dir thing is hilarious.  "Please enter where you want your de-authorized music to be saved to."

But hey, if it's a feature it's a feature.

update: Here's some artwork for the release.  A screengrab quickly photoshopped to make it square... I also ran a despeckle to get rid of jpg compression artifacting and leveled out the dark greys.

[Edited on 2005-9-14 by Carl]

[Brad]

LAPOE is now available from Real/Rhapsody also.  It still has all of those DRM/doesn't-work-natively-with-my-iPod issues, but it is encoded in 192kbps AAC as opposed to Sony's 132kbps (?) ATRAC.

To my ears, though, it sounds about the same...

[Carl]

I assumed the Sony one was VBR - the only reason a 132kbps would make sense to me at least.  That's interesting that real uses AAC - for some reason I thought they were using WMA (which is regardless of your OS/company bias arguably the most secure DRM out there).

Are there any "features" or similar solutions for making the Real files play nice with iPods/etc?

edit: I was thinking of splitting the LAPOE stuff into it's own thread for browsability....

[Edited on 2005-9-16 by Carl]

[Brad]

Downloads from the Real Music Store are .RAX files, but my understanding is that they are just AAC with a different extension.

Supposedly you can transfer .RAX files to an iPod with RealPlayer 10.5, but it doesn't play nice with iTunes or iTMS files.

Yeah, this probably deserves it's own thread...

Edit:  I was able to transfer the track to my iPod Shuffle using RealPlayer, and indeed the file is stored as an AAC with the .m4p file extension on the iPod.  Unfortunately, the DRM will not allow the track to be played back in iTunes.

[Edited on 2005-9-16 by Brad]

[Carl]

Thread has been split. It's always kind of fun to have an excuse to play with the admin functions.

Is it just me or are there two backing track "clap" sounds from 1:15-1:17??

Interesting about the Realplayer stuff.  Apparently they've found a way to recrack their way into having their music supported on the iPod but not to let people play it in the iTunes browser.  Sounds like an ideal marketing move by them - make your music more portable/appealing while keeping people tied to your own player/store.

Note ideal marketing move, not really ideal for end users (us).

[Brad]

Slightly off topic, but it does concern U2 and Hurricane Katrina...

Here's a link to Mos Def's new single "Katrina Klap," with some not-so-kind words for Bono:

http://www.streetknowledge.net/audio/Katrina_Klap.mp3

Back on topic, mucking around with Real Player ended up corrupting the database file on my Shuffle, and I had to restore it, which wipes everything from memory.

I think I'll stick to burning and re-ripping for now.

[Edited on 2005-9-16 by Brad]

[Carl]

That sucks about the memory thing... definately doesn't seem worth it.  Silly Real... I was extremely happy when this alternative came out.

I googled up a transcription of the lyrics and copied over (highlight to read for this with aversions to four letter words):

>>>>>
It's enough to make you holler out,
Like where the fuck is Sir Bono and his famous friends now,
Don't get it twisted man I dig U2,
But if you aint about the ghetto, Then Fuck You Too,
Who care bout Rock N' Roll when babies can't eat food,
Listen homie that shit ain't cool
<<<<<

While it's pretty easy to turn the critique (how much time and money has Mos Def dedicated to fighting poverty and inequality - I honestly don't know but I'd venture not as much as Bono), it does kind of highlight something.  The band didn't really publicly do anything for Katrina... no comment on the website (unitil the performance at least that I noticed - and then it was more look what U2 is doing), etc, sure they played two songs live (via satellite) for benefit, but that was two weeks after the fact.  I'm sure they privately donated, and that's their thing, but I suppose a lot of people did expect more from then just because they're U2.

Then again we didn't run a please donate feature ourselves... Aaron and I both believe in charity being private.  We've done it before but I just feel rather odd about using the front-page for stuff like that... will people reading U2W really donate if they didn't after watching the images on TV?  Nothing against those that do but at times it seems like over-saturation.

update: Plugged the Warchild while I was at posting the lyrics, Coldplay also have a iTunes exclusive EP that goes to charity.

To change gears yet again, I find it amusing that a google search for "sony connect" brings up the main site and then the non_IE error page.... perhaps they should look into that...

[Edited on 2005-9-17 by Carl]