[Branxx]

Accourding to The Register iTunes are about to open music download shop in UK/Europe in mid June.

The price is set to £0.99 per song (it is $0.99 in the US which is about £0.55).

Considering that the donwloaded music will have the restricted license, it is compressed to 128kbps, I think this is very overpriced.

So who will be using it?

[miniman]

Not me! Thats for sure

[Whiting]

Nor me. If I download anything and I like it, I go and buy the CD.

[Branxx]

iTunes expects huge demand from the British consumers. there must be high proportion of members that will be shopping there.

There maybe a high number of people who download from itune, but I would think that if your a member on here you will realise that 128kbs will not give you the quality your used too.

I agree 99p is overpriced. 99p / track with say 12 tracks a album = £11.88 but you can buy the real cd with booklet for under £9 inc postage. Last albums I got were £8.50 each from canada to the uk inc postage and only took 3 working days to get here.

[cwick]

It's open now, £0.79 per song, £7.99 per album. Better than expected I guess, but I'll still not be buying ... prefer the real thing thanks

[Branxx]

This is certainly price in the right direction.

I still think for something that is not resellable, transferrable only to limited number of players, in reduced quality, and easly to get lost with any PC failure, the price is way to high.

Downloaded music should be price as telephone calls, 1p or 2p a minute.

I got an Ipod 6 weeks ago and it is excellent. I have been looking forward to iTunes being available in the UK.

Double whammy when I saw that tracks $1.34 here rather than $0.99. Typical

Then its only at a completely useless 128Kbps. All of my CDs have been ripped to iPod at 320Kbps.

So music biz types. I will continue to borrow mates CD's and rip them down at a sensible bit rate and you can stuff your 99p a track.

However iTunes is quite good for getting a quick listen to most tracks for free.

Rog

p.s the Sennheiser noise cancelling headphones improve iPod at least 100%.

[MunichMag]

Cheaper than Napster , but still to expensive.

I'll be sticking to allofmp3.com for dirt cheap downloads, and play.com and the like when I want the original CD.

[Whiting]

Originally Posted by whiteflyer

...you can buy the real cd with booklet for under £9 inc postage.

and

Originally Posted by Branxx

I still think for something that is not resealable, transferrable only to limited number of players, in reduced quality, and easly to get lost with any PC failure, the price is way to high.

Both of you bang on the money there. The price isn't sufficiently far removed from the cost of a CD and the thought of keeping my music collection in digital format only is frightening. I worry about the delicate nature of my vinyl and at least I can touch that.

I could be tempted for out-of-print/deleted albums though. Quality would have to be at least 192kbps for my own ears, though.

The companies selling music online are so handcuffed by the music labels, online music downloads are just not going to be able to compete with purchased CDs, let alone competing with free downloads.

It's almost as if the labels want legal online downloads to fail so that they can use it as another excuse to sue those evil filesharers.

[Toasty]

I agree with the points on here, the user has to provide a grands worth of PC Hardware, a broadband connection and the media the songs end up on, and then pay the price of a normal CD or more for albums, bargain!

Some of these download sites are offering free or cheap file sampling, however this doesn't offer much more than the plethora of net radio stations out there. With the addition of official band sites becoming really useful sources of info and sample songs, most net users can listen to songs legally and make an informed choice on there musical purchases.

I'd like to see cheaper individual download prices, a 50-55p price point would mean you can mix and match 20+ songs from different artists for the price of a CD. This would offer a real advantage over retail outlet shopping and encourage net users to purchase more music online.

I've browsed a number of these sites and individual downloads can be as much as £1.49, possibly fine if its a popular single, but for obscure album tracks?

[Stuart Wright]

If the tracks were MP3s with no limit on transfer times or locations, stored at at least 192Kb/s and cost in the region of 50p each I'd buy them.

Until then I'll buy the CD.

[jimcarney]

Still staying with vinyl .......Jim

[Fordy]

THEY ARE MP4 FILES ON ITUNES NOT MP3.
At 128kb they are the same quality as a CD burn in fact some sound better than cd versions IMHO

[Branxx]

Fordy,

What is your experience with using iTunes so far? How does it compare with other download services?

Fordy I bought the Darkness EP off iTunes. It is my first purchase. It sounds OK on the iPod. But I created a Playlist of Permission to Land (imported from my CD at 320K) and the EP tracks and burnt them onto a CD.

Without a doubt the 128K EP tracks sound distinctly inferior.

I will only use iTunes to get rare/unusual tracks not main stream releases.

I reckon iTunes should provide the tracks at both 128K and higher rates.
Higher rates at 79p per track and bring the 128k versions in line with US or Euro pricing. That is 54p or 64p per track.

Rog

[Duncan Craig]

rnjones,

Did you import as AAC or MP3 at 128k?
The AAC codec does sound amazing at 128k distinctly clearer then MP3.

Everything I get from sharingthegroove.org gets converted to AAC 128k, then ditch the originals.

[Miyazaki]

I don't download tunes unless they are lossless or a minimum of 192kbps.

Bit torrent is the best way to find and download high quality music so far, and it's free (but grey).