Classic Disney Titles Available in iTunes Plus!

[Randy Thornton]

As mentioned by kdavis in another thread, the vintage Disney iTunes catalog is now available as iTunes Plus! Twice the bit rate as the standard AAC. This is a great step forward!!!!

I knew that this was happening, but didn?t exactly know when, but as of today ? January 6th, 2009 it is a reality!

Now that the ?Walt Disney and the 1964 World?s Fair? set is done, I?ll be going back into the vault to get more of these timeless classics on line.

I think it's kinda cool that my first post on The Forum's new layout carries such good news!

"There's a great big beautiful tomorrow, shining at the end of every day..."

Randy Thornton

 

[superbu]

That's great news, Randy! I have to wonder, though, since they're now DRM-free, why only iTunes? Why not Amazon and MusicGiants (which sells in Windows Media Lossless format) and the other sites? Many portable media players won't play iTunes MP4 files, even if they are DRM-free. If you convert them to MP3, they lose quality -- you're recompressing them.

It seems a handful of the classic title are made available to all the download sites, but that the top-tier, most-wanted stuff is iTunes exclusive.

 

[Magic Music]

Many portable media players won't play iTunes MP4 files

Yes, let's not forget about the three people who bought something other than an iPod!

I agree with you about lossless. I see no reason why we should have to settle for something that is less than CD quality. The idea is to keep moving forward, not to take a step backward.

 

[Kurt]

Many portable media players won't play iTunes MP4 files, even if they are DRM-free.

DRM Free songs on iTunes are MP3s.

 

[Magic Music]

DRM Free songs on iTunes are MP3s.

No, they are 256 kbps AAC files with an .m4a extension. They show up as "Purchased AAC audio file" rather than "Protected AAC audio file" (.m4p) in iTunes.

 

[eyore]

But I'll bet they still won't be available to download outside the US

Oh, by the way, who were the other two who bought something other than an iPod

 

[superbu]

But I'll bet they still won't be available to download outside the US

Oh, by the way, who were the other two who bought something other than an iPod

Well, I was one, my friend Matt was the other. I guess that accounts for all three of us! (Not counting the thousands of posters on Anything But IPod Forums.)

 

[Magic Music]

Well, I was one, my friend Matt was the other. I guess that accounts for all three of us! (Not counting the thousands of posters on Anything But IPod Forums.)

Yes, I know that some kids got shafted by their parents/grandparents who were trying to save a few bucks on gifts. Oh, and then there is that one guy who actually bought a Zune on purpose.

Guys, I was making a joke related to the iPod's 72% market share.

 

[Club 33]

Glad to hear it! I'm not as much of a purist when it comes to loss less as some, but higher is always better with bitrate, and no DRM is always a good thing!

 

[superbu]

Guys, I was making a joke related to the iPod's 72% market share.

I know, I know. Would I get defensive? Me?

 

[almandot]

As of right now it looks like Apple has disabled upgrading your old songs and albums individually and your only option is to upgrade your entire purchased library. That's a bit of a disappointment because I don't really want to cough up the money to do that I'd rather just pick a few songs or albums that I want to upgrade.


And really, apple should only be charging us the bandwidth it costs to download a new copy of the song. While the record companies might disagree (You know, people like Randy and their evil record company ways), we did already purchase the songs and I doubt it costs them $75.53 to let me download the 398 songs over again. And what's sad is I had a chance to do them individually still for a bit yesterday but I hesitated and they removed it right in front of me

 

[Magic Music]

we did already purchase the songs

Yes, and some of us already bought the songs multiple times on vinyl records, reel-to-reel tapes, 8-track tapes, cassette tapes, CDs, MDs, and SACDs. And then there are the movies that we bought multiple times on Beta/VHS, LaserDisc, CED, DVD, and Blu-ray. Unfortunately, I have never been able to convince anyone that I already own it and therefore shouldn't have to pay for it again.

 

[almandot]

Yes, and some of us already bought the songs multiple times on vinyl records, reel-to-reel tapes, 8-track tapes, cassette tapes, CDs, MDs, and SACDs. And then there are the movies that we bought multiple times on Beta/VHS, LaserDisc, CED, DVD, and Blu-ray. Unfortunately, I have never been able to convince anyone that I already own it and therefore shouldn't have to pay for it again.

Well I just find it different now that these songs were already mastered in a certain way and this involves a studio hitting export, changing the settings from 128kbps to 256kbps, and uploading apple their new files and then us downloading a new digital copy of that file.

 

[Magic Music]

Well I just find it different now that these songs were already mastered in a certain way and this involves a studio hitting export, changing the settings from 128kbps to 256kbps, and uploading apple their new files and then us downloading a new digital copy of that file.

The record companies use a program called iTunes Producer to upload their music to Apple as lossless-quality audio. It is actually Apple who encodes the songs for download.

I look at the 30% iTunes Plus upgrade fee like this:

1. I am getting a new product?it's now DRM-free?and 256 kbps is much better than 128 kbps.
2. Someone has to pay for the personnel, equipment, and bandwidth necessary to support the encoding and downloading of 10 billion plus files.

I totally agree that there needs to be a way to pick the songs that you want to upgrade. All or nothing is ridiculous.

 

[almandot]

I totally agree that there needs to be a way to pick the songs that you want to upgrade. All or nothing is ridiculous.

Well seeing as how there used to be that ability, I bet someone blurted out the idea that with the whole catalog changing over, friends might upgrade a portion of their libraries and then share the files so they don't all have to upgrade their entire libraries and so they made it this way. The same kind of thinking that made them disable the ability to copy songs from an ipod onto the computer because friends will use it as a song transport device to give to each other, and the disabling of the built-in microphone support on ipods because people might use it as a recording device to record songs from people.

 

[Magic Music]

Well seeing as how there used to be that ability, I bet someone blurted out the idea that with the whole catalog changing over, friends might upgrade a portion of their libraries and then share the files so they don't all have to upgrade their entire libraries and so they made it this way.

I'm wondering...what if you temporarily remove all of the songs that you don't want to upgrade from your iTunes Music folder...will iTunes then give you the option to upgrade only the files that are left?

 

[BookPodder]

I'm wondering...what if you temporarily remove all of the songs that you don't want to upgrade from your iTunes Music folder...will iTunes then give you the option to upgrade only the files that are left?

The upgrades are based on Apple's records of your past purchases. I lost many of my early iTunes purchases a couple of years ago in a hard drive crash (it only takes one of those to make you a diehard backups convert!) and those tracks are now reappearing in DRM free Kbps versions, even though the originally purchased files haven't ever existed on the computer I'm currently using.

So, no, if you upgrade, it will upgrade everything you ever bought, if it is available in an upgraded version, whether it is in your library or on your computer at all. The good news is that I got songs back that I really missed, but that doesn't offset how sleazy this is as a business practice.

 

[Horizons]

Same here. I'm currently downloading 168 songs, none of which are currently on my hard drive.

Out of curiosity, what kind of backup method do you use? I have everything on one external HD, which is then cloned to three separate external HDs. I keep one of them offsite.

Hearing other methods would be interesting and could yield valuable tips.

 

[Club 33]

Geez Louise- if I were to upgrade my entire library, it would cost a whopping $120.59. I don't think I'll go for it though, when worse comes to worse DRM-wise I just burn a CD and then rip it (doesn't help the bit rate but there you go). I suppose if there's a particular track I really feel I need in Plus I'll just buy it individually; I highly doubt I'll end up spending nearly as much.

 

[musicrazy]

I read and heard twice yesterday on the telesion news and local newspaper that itunes is removing copy protection on all their music, and also found this article [link] after researching the information. This is happy news to me since I began recieving error messages that my Itunes burning drivers were missing, and though could sill burn from Windows Media Player and I couldn't convert these files because of the copy protection. Although I got my drivers back after a reformat and hadn't tried converting files yet, I say this is better news.

Itunes removes copy protection