RSSCustomers 'NotForSure' About Stand-Alone Zune
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published November 6, 2006, 6:20 PM
Although it's been public knowledge ever since Microsoft first reversed its stance on whether it was producing an MP3 player of its own, retailers and consumers are just now learning that Microsoft's upcoming Zune player will not be utilizing the PlaysForSure DRM format the company had previously been promoting with independent partners.
It's not news. But with the official launch of the device just weeks away, and with Microsoft having announced its intention to shut down its major PlaysForSure music source, MSN Music, just prior to Zune's launch, the stage is now being set for a potential customer backlash. Even sites launched in advance to make way for praise of the device are starting to show signs of skepticism.
"Man, I hope these guys are onto something here," writes the author of the ZuneLuv.com blog, whose logo now seems recently adorned with a question mark beside the name.
Today, coverage from the BBC on both television and its Web site are being highly cited by blogs and potential customers, many of whom are learning of the incompatibility for the first time.
Back in May, Microsoft rallied support from critical media partners in Japan, including JVC, NTT DoCoMo, and Toshiba -- which is building the Zune hardware for Microsoft -- with the intention of promoting the success of PlaysForSure overseas. At the time, many in the press speculated that the real reason for their coming together was to jointly build and distribute an "iPod killer" device.
But Microsoft denied the meetings were for the purpose of preparing PlaysForSure for use with any device that would carry the Microsoft brand. It didn't occur to us, admittedly, to even think the companies would be considering an alternate DRM approach.
Then in July, Microsoft held meetings with prospective content partners for the rights to redistribute music and videos. At that time, the executives for those content firms -- including movie studios -- confirmed the existence of the meetings, though Microsoft denied them. It seemed reasonable that Microsoft was creating a potentially expanded avenue for its existing Windows-oriented DRM scheme, around which parts of Windows Media Player evolve.
But Microsoft spokespersons went so far this time as to flatly deny the company was planning to ever release an MP3 player under its own brand. In fairness, this could very well have been these spokespersons' understanding of the truth as they saw it.
When PlaysForSure partners expressed public confusion as to the existence of such meetings -- which, one would think at first, would benefit them -- it seemed something was afoot, but we weren't certain what. Still, BetaNews was able to collect enough verified evidence of the existence of Project Argo, and broke the story of the Zune prototype project last July.
In August, when specifications of the device were learned through Microsoft's FCC approval petition -- which, by law, is made public -- even then, it only appeared that Microsoft would be using a more stringent version of PlaysForSure, although the company would not say how, or if, PlaysForSure would be amended to enable such restrictions.
Last July, in a Q&A session with financial analysts, Microsoft's president for entertainment and services, Robbie Bach, characterized the problem of supporting two approaches to DRM as a matter of scaling Windows in such a way that customers would see less of a difference. Such customers, presumably, would own both a Zune and a Creative Zen.
Comments like this prompted responses such as this one from the author of the Medialoper blog: "If nothing else Microsoft is doing a tremendous service for the anti-DRM movement...Consumers who buy DRM'd music are at the mercy of the companies who manufacture and support the underlying DRM system. There's no guarantee that any given DRM system will be supported forever. Microsoft's seeming abandonment of PlaysForSure is a fine example of just how bad things can get."
Even some of Microsoft's employees weren't impressed with the decision. As Partner Technology Specialist Matt McSpirit (who works more with Vista and virtualization) commented last month, abandoning PlaysForSure "on the surface...seems like a pretty bad move. To beat Apple and the iPod, we need as many different ways to sing from the same song sheet as possible, yet this move, to me, indicates the Zune isn't quite striking the right tones, yet Bryan Lee, a Microsoft corporate vice president involved in the Zune initiative, said he believes Zune will maintain a 'peaceful co-existence' with the PlaysForSure partners."
Today, with the second wave of customer sentiments having hit, ZDNet blogger David Berlind commented, "The problem is that the future of the PlaysForSure ecosystem is unknown. Now that Microsoft is launching Zune, it's conceivable that PlaysForSure (incompatible with Zune) will share a grave next to Bob in the Microsoft graveyard at some point in the future...thereby stranding not just MSN Music Store buyers, but also people who acquired or subscribed to content from one of the other PlaysForSure-compliant merchants."
While there are no signs of peaceful co-existence just yet, there also isn't much sign of open warfare. Last month, a Creative Labs customer posted a question on the company's public forum: "Why would Microsoft NOT add Plays For Sure to its own player? Just curious what you guys made of it." There has been no official response.
I recently bought a player that supports mp3 and open standards like ogg, flac, DivX, XviD, UMS without requiiring a loder app and may or may not support DRM depending on what stock firmware I download to it (I of course was smart enough to choose the non_DRM firmware - I'm not stupid enough to waste money on lossy download services when I can get the lossless version int he store for less).
It also demonstably and recognizably blows away all comers except iRiver in the audio quality department.
It has a full complement of audio tweaks for those who like that sort of thing.
It has a terrific FM tuner and allows recording from same in high quality mp3 format - not a cut-down 22Khz sampling rate.
It records voice.
It's built like a battle tank.
It cost less than the iPod and the projected price of the Zune.
It's made in Korea which means that I got a buck and a half worth of player for every buck I spent.
And that also means it's fortunate enough to NOT have either an Apple or Microsoft logo on it with all the inherent proprietary and DRM infested bulls*** that bosth companies hold near and dear to their respective lack-of-hearts.
Consumers need to be more aware of intelligent products like that and stop the stupidity of name brand feeding frenzy.
If they're not and jump on the aforementioned bandwagin, they're just, well, er...
...S - T - U - P - I - D.
Gee, was that my out-loud voice again?
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|This is the problem with DRM / Proprietary formats. I'd toss my hat in with Bob; if I want something I'll buy a CD. Aside being free of the limitations of DRM'd formats - the quality is better (I'm pretty sure no music sites offer lossless digital tracks).
Insert CD -> Convert to FLAC (Lossless) -> Put CD in storage -> Convert FLAC to AAC/MP3/Ogg... for portable use as required. Can't go wrong with an Open Source Loseless rip.
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|From what I have seen of FLAC, you might as well just rip the CD as an ISO. Some of the extreme audiophiles will tell you even CDs are subpar...but those are the kind of people that will spend $100's to $1000's on marble turntables and gold speaker wire.
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|No, not necessarily. Even with a modest audio setup, one can still tell the difference between a well-mastered CD and a poorly-mastered one. Unfortunately I haven't had the pleasure of comparing DVD-Audio or SACD with standard CDs, but I would like to.
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|Have space concerns ;) Yeah, CDs are technically lossy I suppose if you want to think about it, but if you think like that then such people would probably only ever be happy with a live performance ;)
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|Some of you are funny. The problem isn't the purchase of DRM music or DRM in particular, because you can burn them to CD and make them into MP3s as you wish - so stop b****ing and kicking down people who buy DRM music; if you don't understand the system, shut up. Noone thinks any drm system will be around for eternity, and the reason most people PURCHASE drm music, is to be able to burn it to CD (and thus rip it to a drm-free format).
Itunes only beats playforsure because of longevity and stunts like what MS is pulling right now. They totally stomp on peoples faith in drm because it's so fragile. I feel bad for all the peoeple who prepaid a year or 2 for yahoo, rhapsody, urge, virgin digital and the likes because the only real problem with killing playforsure, is that the subscription model for online services is now unpredictable - many of the services out there offer a model where you pay $12-$15 for an unlimited number of playforsure downloads. You could technically fill your 40gb playforsure device with music that's about the cost of a CD. But initially, once you buy a song you can burn it to CD, and noone out there is dumb enough to NOT burn a purchased song to CD, at the very least for backup. And then these songs on CD can be ripped back to your hard drive in a non-drm format.
I suspect MS will create an Itunes like store, and outfit it with a subscription model similar to all the playforsure ones now available (the death of msn music and playforsure are signs of this) technically outstepping Apple's Itunes, and rendering other mp3 players as useful as an ipod, which has most people stuck on itunes. It's a clever model, but it's too late. I don't know how they expect to garner any kind of loyalty or good faith by killing off a format that's been around for only so long. It's like being with someone who's cheating on someone else with you - how do you know they won't do it to you eventually? At least, that's my perspective.
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|The thing about buying a lossy format then burning it is that, yeah you can later on re-rip it to non-drm file, but your also losing more quality from the original lossy file. For example if I burn an iTunes AAC file (that's at 128kbit/s) I'm going to loose even more quality when I re-rip it to an MP3 at 128kbit/s. When iTunes encode's it to AAC it takes sounds that you normally wouldn't hear out; then when you re-rip it to MP3 it takes even more sounds out even though there both at 128kbit/s (let alone MP3 doesn't sound as good as AAC).
I'd still rather have an actual CD at full CD quality than buy a lossy format bunt to a CD. I don't have to worry about quality, and CD's also are still cheaper... if you know where to look.
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|iPod
iPod
iPod
...nuff said, period!
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|lol...
Whatever you say, fanboy.
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|iAudio
iAuido
iAudio
...better than iPod, period! At lest my X5 60gb is. :)
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|Exposing the fatal flaw of DRM for all to see.
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|That's why I buy CD's. Then that way I have a hard backup and I can encode it to what ever I want, MP3, Ogg, Flac or anything.
I can also get CD's for cheaper than lossy DRM'ed downloads anyway. For example all CD's from Yourmusic.com are new and cost only $5.99 with free shipping. At Lala.com I can trade CD's for only $1 per trade (when I recieve a CD). I just list CD's I want and CD's I have. When someone wants a CD that I have, I just ship it then my wanted list becomes available and someone else ship's me a CD. Amazon.com also sometimes has good prices on there used CD's if I can't find it at Yourmusic.com.
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|Excellent points!
And all those who want to claim that CDs or DVDs are dead miss the point.
Plus you don't have to deal with volatile low-fi highly compressed files! (More convenient? Yeah ...wrong!)
Check out www.deepdiscountcd.com and www.deepdiscountdvd.com as well for the 'lowest guaranteed total' price. But beware that their search engine stinks - so call them for availability if you can't find a title.
Look folks, whine about DRM all you want. But expecting the owners to make their source material essentially public domain in the digital age is a totally absurd expectation. If you don't like it, you don't need to use it. Go elsewhere or learn to play an instrument and play with yourself.
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|There's a problem in that system as well. See, I don't like every song from say, Mariah Carey's new album - so why would I buy the CD when I can purchase the tracks that I want for use at any time? Furthermore - once you trade away a CD, legally you're supposed to remove all traces of it from your hard drive. You can make digital music backups of stuff you own, not stuff you owned. So, with a system where you're buying CDs for 5.99 and trading them for 1 dollar or whatever....you'd be losing so much money if you're doing it the legal way - which is to remove all of the mp3s youve made from the CDs you trade/sell etc.
With a drm system, you buy the song. The song is yours. Whether you remove the drm or not, the song is still yours. And as long as you're not building a zillion CDs for friends and family, there's no bad spin to it.
I don't think CDs are dead or anything, but for me it's a format of the past like cassettes and videotapes. Why use up precious materials when I can store everything I need/want in data? I don't even own a cd player anymore, I have an mp3 device for music. My PC and DVD player in my entertainment center are what I'd have to use to play CDs. All the CDs I've ever purchased are now digitally backed up and they're all stored away. And all my music lives on my 'live' drive and a backup hard drive.
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|"so why would I buy the CD when I can purchase the tracks that I want for use at any time"
Myself, I like having cd quality sound, not that compressed crap they sell online.
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|I don't have the luxury of owning a $2000 speaker system where you can actually hear the difference between 192kbps and lossless on CD. On my $200 DVD player and my $400 system, a CD and a 192kbps file sound the exact same to me. People who come to my home and hear music don't ask me "Gosh, that sounds bad, are they mp3s?" In fact, many are surprised that my system is made up on only mp3s. They're crystal clear and sound crisp and clean - no scratches :)
As a matter of fact, on my $200 mp3 player and $120 earphones, 320kbps and 192kbps also sound the exact same. The difference is anything under 192...at 160 you CAN hear a difference, and then at 128, I have to mess with the equalizer to get things sounding how I want them to.
It's all relative.
If you're the kind of person who has the kind of system/money to distinguish then I suppose CDs would be optimum. But for everyone else, it just no longer makes sense to buy CDs. 192kbps audio works fine for most.
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|"See, I don't like every song from say, Mariah Carey's new album ..."
But acutally, how would you know if you haven't listen to them? That's the the thing were, I guess, where we both disagree. I like listening to the full albums rather than listening to just single tracks or playlists.
"Furthermore - once you trade away a CD, legally you're supposed to remove all traces of it from your hard drive."
Actually that is what I do. I normally don't trade my CD's unless I don't like it. I can just trade it for something that I do like or if I want to try something new, for only a $1 I'm not loosing much money.
"With a drm system, you buy the song. The song is yours."
That could also be a bad thing. Once you buy it, your stuck with it. If you decide you don't like the song(s) you can't trade it or sell or anything like you can with a CD.
"I don't even own a cd player anymore, I have an mp3 device for music."
Actually I don't either. I have an iAudio X5 60gb MP3 player. Something else that nice about CD's is I can rip it to Ogg (which I do) which has better sound quality and smaller file sizes at the same bitrate than MP3; so I save space. Converting a lossy format to another lossy format is a bad idea (as I explain in my other post); which is what you'd have to do if you buy music from a download store.
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|"As a matter of fact, on my $200 mp3 player and $120 earphones, ..."
What kind of MP3 player do you have. Some MP3 players might not play a 320kbit/s MP3 at it's full potential... at least the iPod certainly doesn't. Your $120 earpones is a lot of money if you have a low quality MP3 player. I'd recommend trying iAudio's X5 MP3 player. It has 95db SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio, which is pretty good) sound quality and also has a butt-load of features (my favorite, plug and play... no software needed).
Also one other thing I just thought of is with a CD I can rip it into my Xbox 360 and play it in 360 games. You can't do that with downloads. Also since my X5 is plug in play I can also plug it into my 360 and listen to all my songs, although I can't listen to them during games).
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|ok, I thought everyone knew that Zune isn't going to support PlaysForSure.
"Why would Microsoft NOT add Plays For Sure to its own player?"
Why not? All these music services signed on with PlaysForSure. What better way to get them out of the way than to slowly let PlaysForSure die.
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|If Microsoft were to eventually discontinue PlaysForSure it would be as bad as what Apple did when they suddenly refused to sell Mac OS to hardware vendors who legally sold Mac clones.
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|Yes it could be bad. You have to admit that it's not inconceivable though.
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|So, wait. People started pimping the Zune without actually knowing if it would be a quality product, and are now disappointed with it?
Oh, the wonders of internet fanboyism.
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|Just look at it from the perspective of Zune: Microsoft makes no guarantees that your music will work on their next generation player: ZZune, or their third generation sleeper success: ZZZune.
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|I agree with mjm01010101. If people were stupid enough to buy DRM music they should stop crying. this goes for the iPod fans who have spent tousands for music from iTunes. And this anger should be directed towards the record studios. MS was never in a obligation to support PlayForSure on a new device. It will continue to support it on existing device. This model of vertically integrated stored has been proven by Apple and that the only way to compete. there is no point trying to please everyone and in the process loose out or become just another player in market. Those who are going to buy music from Zune marketplace should do so knowing what they are getting into.
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|I'd love to get insight as to why Microsoft decided to make a different DRM system exclusively for Zune. I thought PlaysForSure was pretty cool because it has so many players that support it.
In any case, it just goes out to show that DRM is only out there so that the big guys can make the money and disenfranchise us consumers of our rights. Who said CDs are dead?
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|Baic DRM knowledge:
What works today is in no way guaranteed to work tomorrow.
You can be reasonably sure that mp3's and especially ogg's will be playable forever and into the future.
It's that simple. Protecting IP rights means protecting the DRM, which means often breaking old DRM. There's no guarantee that any DRM can stay protected forever, as well.
Essentially: if you buy/use DRM files, you are asking for eventually getting burned.
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