Hard to believe at times that we've been ripping CDs for seven years. Wow.
At the start we made a decision to focus on the Apple iPod, indeed that's mainly why the first CD ripping offering was podserve. As we grew our market became defined as iPod owners in or around London.
But we got people ringing us from all over the UK asking if we could collect / return to Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol etc as well as places I'd never heard of. Almost as many clients as we had in London. So I had a bright idea. Another CD ripping service was born - MP3 by mail. I wanted to avoid confusion between the two services, which was one of the reasons we opted for an MP3 focused second identity.
OK, that was a bit petty. Sure we can rip MP3s faster (hence cheaper) but that was the main reason. There then followed two years of ear bashing from folk who simply want AAC files, or maybe Apple Lossless. Now we've relented and from today MP3 by mail offers AAC and Apple Lossless alongside MP3 music ripping.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Thursday, February 17, 2011
iPod Killer? Android?
Over the last seven years running a CD ripping service I have mainly been working with Apple iPods. When we started it was something of a gamble, there were so many vanilla flavoured MP3 players around, so many people preferred Windows Media Player to iTunes. Quickly it became apparent that Apple had secured pole position in the race, the rest is history. Today pretty much any portable music player will, like hoover and xerox before, will be described as an iPod.
Over the last seven years I've lost count of the number of times I've read of the coming of an "iPod killer". Remember the various cute players from Sony? Sansa? Archos? These devices have popped up, received critical acclaim, and largely sunk without trace. Who today even knows what ATRAC is let alone has software to play it. According to Nokia its all down to ecosystems. Certainly that's why they have done so badly in the smartphone market and why Apple and Android have done so well. Ecosystem, not the cute device, however cute.
So my mind said "iPod killer?" when I saw that a small manufacturer (Cowon of Korea) has launched an Android based portable music player. As I've read so many times before this unit has some great features (brilliant screen, wi-fi, plays any music file type, tremendous sound, apps) alongside as many negatives (price, battery life and more) but it did make me think "ecosystem". If there were an end to end music support package to compete with iPod / iTunes / iTunes Music Store the Android umbrella is a great place to be. Plus, you get the support of Google who seem to be just about the only company able to lay a finger on Apple.
Watch the Android space, an iPod killer might just be lurking in the shadows.
Jeff Underwood
www.podserve.co.uk
Over the last seven years I've lost count of the number of times I've read of the coming of an "iPod killer". Remember the various cute players from Sony? Sansa? Archos? These devices have popped up, received critical acclaim, and largely sunk without trace. Who today even knows what ATRAC is let alone has software to play it. According to Nokia its all down to ecosystems. Certainly that's why they have done so badly in the smartphone market and why Apple and Android have done so well. Ecosystem, not the cute device, however cute.
So my mind said "iPod killer?" when I saw that a small manufacturer (Cowon of Korea) has launched an Android based portable music player. As I've read so many times before this unit has some great features (brilliant screen, wi-fi, plays any music file type, tremendous sound, apps) alongside as many negatives (price, battery life and more) but it did make me think "ecosystem". If there were an end to end music support package to compete with iPod / iTunes / iTunes Music Store the Android umbrella is a great place to be. Plus, you get the support of Google who seem to be just about the only company able to lay a finger on Apple.
Watch the Android space, an iPod killer might just be lurking in the shadows.
Jeff Underwood
www.podserve.co.uk
Thursday, February 10, 2011
iPlayer on the iPad. Where's Apple TV?
Just placed an entry on my podServe blog about iPlayer on the iPad - coming out, free, on Friday. I love iPlayer, mainly for radio programmes, and this is a brilliant step in the right direction. The same facility is being made available for Android users too.
But - and this is a quibble, but a big one - where does this leave Apple TV? If I have Google TV on Friday I will be able to use iPlayer on my lounge TV. Yes I will be able to watch catch-up TV on my TV. Sure doing that on an iPad is good too, but isn't this second best to watching TV on a TV set?
Clearly this cannot be allowed to continue as it puts Apple TV at massive disadvantage to Google TV (which runs on Android). Apple TV is already lagging here in the UK by the absence of a great movie streaming service compared to the US offering. This morning, if I were head of Apple in the UK, I would be on the phone to Head Office demanding that this functionality should be Apple TV bound in a few days.
But - and this is a quibble, but a big one - where does this leave Apple TV? If I have Google TV on Friday I will be able to use iPlayer on my lounge TV. Yes I will be able to watch catch-up TV on my TV. Sure doing that on an iPad is good too, but isn't this second best to watching TV on a TV set?
Clearly this cannot be allowed to continue as it puts Apple TV at massive disadvantage to Google TV (which runs on Android). Apple TV is already lagging here in the UK by the absence of a great movie streaming service compared to the US offering. This morning, if I were head of Apple in the UK, I would be on the phone to Head Office demanding that this functionality should be Apple TV bound in a few days.
Saturday, February 05, 2011
Defeated
Asked to carry out a simple task, failed. Why? What? How?
Just wanted to add some tracks to an iPod, without going through iTunes. The "normal" route would have lost all the existing data. Typically we do this using Xplay, a brilliant bit of software from mediafour. Except the iPod in question happened to be one of the new Nanos; worse, only had a short window in which to complete the task.
Fired up Xplay, connected iPod, tried for usual Explorer style interface but nothing. Error message saying transfer from PC to iPod wasn't going to happen. Looking deeper into the contants of the iPod there was purchased music, a few voice memos, and a collection of videos. Given time I think it would have been possible to copy all the non-DRM music etc off the nano, put it into iTunes and re-synced. But, I wasn't sure if we'd have lost all the personal voice / video content.
So .... I had to admit defeat. Eat humble pie. In the aftermath I have my fingers crossed that at some point in the future mediafour will come up with an upgrade to Xplay to fix this.
podServe.co.uk
CD ripping
CD to iPod
Just wanted to add some tracks to an iPod, without going through iTunes. The "normal" route would have lost all the existing data. Typically we do this using Xplay, a brilliant bit of software from mediafour. Except the iPod in question happened to be one of the new Nanos; worse, only had a short window in which to complete the task.
Fired up Xplay, connected iPod, tried for usual Explorer style interface but nothing. Error message saying transfer from PC to iPod wasn't going to happen. Looking deeper into the contants of the iPod there was purchased music, a few voice memos, and a collection of videos. Given time I think it would have been possible to copy all the non-DRM music etc off the nano, put it into iTunes and re-synced. But, I wasn't sure if we'd have lost all the personal voice / video content.
So .... I had to admit defeat. Eat humble pie. In the aftermath I have my fingers crossed that at some point in the future mediafour will come up with an upgrade to Xplay to fix this.
podServe.co.uk
CD ripping
CD to iPod
Tuesday, February 01, 2011
Album Art All of a Sudden?
When you're going from CD to iPod there are some vital things to take across. Music, of course, there's all that stuff about the album / artist / track name, and that little thing - the picture. Album art.
I worry a lot about album art, you don't have to. Here's why. If you buy music online the art comes with it, if you have a ripped CD collection and you use iTunes you can get cover art from iTunes Music Store. At no cost by the way. The images stay on your PC and are downloaded to your iPod when you sync. No problem.
When we rip your CDs we have to ensure those little images come over with the DVD or hard drive containing your tracks. The safest way to do that is to store a copy of each image inside the data file that is the "track". iTunes doesn't do this as standard and for that reason we use other software which carries out the art embedding for us. I have a great bit of software that does it.
All of a sudden - two people want to talk to me about album art. One just pitching a product, the other at least had the decency to ask about what we need from an album art product. Both wanted to know, is there a massive market for this sort of product? My view, sorry, is no. If you're an end user, as opposed to a CD ripping business, just hook up with iTunes and they'll take care of the pictures. As for CD ripping services - if there are more than 50 in the world I'd be amazed.
I worry a lot about album art, you don't have to. Here's why. If you buy music online the art comes with it, if you have a ripped CD collection and you use iTunes you can get cover art from iTunes Music Store. At no cost by the way. The images stay on your PC and are downloaded to your iPod when you sync. No problem.
When we rip your CDs we have to ensure those little images come over with the DVD or hard drive containing your tracks. The safest way to do that is to store a copy of each image inside the data file that is the "track". iTunes doesn't do this as standard and for that reason we use other software which carries out the art embedding for us. I have a great bit of software that does it.
All of a sudden - two people want to talk to me about album art. One just pitching a product, the other at least had the decency to ask about what we need from an album art product. Both wanted to know, is there a massive market for this sort of product? My view, sorry, is no. If you're an end user, as opposed to a CD ripping business, just hook up with iTunes and they'll take care of the pictures. As for CD ripping services - if there are more than 50 in the world I'd be amazed.
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