Thanks for that Doofy. I'll take what your article says as basically correct - which contradicts some of what I heard on the radio here a couple of days ago. The most noticeable difference is that it will, at least initially, be available only in the USA. It shows these pundits here are not always right!
Well, Apple might have made my mind up for me as the service is limited to 25k tracks and my collection stands at 50377 this morning. So this lucky bastard will need to look elsewhere.
I wondered about the 25k limit too - I'm not sure if I'm over that but if not I'm probably close. But as long as there's some way to manage what's in the imatch account, it still should be fine, because I know there's not more than 25k that I regularly listen to within a year. Even at 3 minutes average, that's something like 52 24 hour days - or 156 8-hour listening days.
Aw, I was kinda excited but hadn't read any details. The 25K is bummer news for me, with about 34K tracks. So I'd have to go through my library and tell it which ones to upload? No, wait, I'm sure itunes will genius it all for me.
That's exactly what I'm hoping is that I can tell it which ones to store/convert. One thing that isn't being talked about is that this would convert all mp3's to AAC's...I'm good with having my old AAC's converted, don't really want to convert my mp3's (incl eMu mp3's). (I do understand that you don't have to replace the files on your hard drive with the AACs in the cloud, if you don't want to.)
Another issue is that, when I first started ripping CDs, I joined classical tracks for symphonies. IE, one long track joining all movements. Obviously the iCloud isn't going to "match" these, as the timings are all off. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Of course matching classical albums is always iffy at best.
Meanwhile, waiting for some other suckers, I mean early-adopters, to take the plunge...
Just downloaded the latest itunes update. It includes a beta version of the Cloud package - interesting because we are not supposed to be able to use it over here. I can't see me trying it yet though until I hear it is working OK as a beta version
I noticed today that Amazon offers me "unlimited" cloud storage since I have bought an mp3 album this year, I suppose to compete with Google. This is not just Amazon purchases, that feature is mentioned in a separate line of the announcement. It was just under the "upload your music" button in the cloudplayer. The uploader now looks for Amazon dloads to move to the cloud (it has been at it a while, not sure what it is going to find). [edit: 22,680 songs found, now uploading. So far it is 100% better than google music, and I can pause/restart at any point. None of these songs count toward my quota, but that is a moot point since I have unlimited storage!]
Another benefit for cloudplayer in Chrome is scrobbling to last.fm. Go to the Chrome store and dload the free Amazon Cloud Scrobble app. Easy install, connect with Last.FM, and scrobble away. Nothing for the iPad yet, though.
Has anyone managed to upload their entire music collection to Amazon's Cloud Player? I just noticed that my account says I can upload as much music as I want for free. I've had much better luck playing must from their cloud than Googles, but the Amazon Upload App (At least the Mac version) is kind of slow and seems to get stuck after a few hours, making leaving it on all night or all the time a poor option.
I have a Mac at home and the one time I tried turning the Upload App on, whatever the shockingly long projected length of time involved was it was so long I hit Cancel and said screw it I don't need this.
I am creeping up on 24,000 songs. Other than what I have purchased from Amazon, and 7-Digital, I have started moving my rather massive eMusic hard-drive to Amazon. The current upload has about 1500 left to go, and I am up through the "S" directories. T is the biggest, since all the "the" bands are there. I plan on moving my AmieStreet directory next, but I have been working on this upload for several weeks.
I am currently at 32,333 songs, which includes everything I have ever purchased from eMu, 7-Difital and of course Amazon, except for maybe 18 songs that are over the 100MB limit (77 minutes of rainstick or thunder storms, I think!) I am going to start moving my AmieStree directory soon.
I found that re-starting the download works better if the target directory is smaller, so I would copy groups into a temporary folder for uploading (all of the "a" artists, then "b", etc.) With google and can set directories to automatically post changes, but I do not want it starting without my knowledge. For Amazon, I just started the upload when I went to bed and stopped it in the morning when I needed my bandwidth back.
I have been using Amazon Cloud player quite a bit lately, but this morning I noticed that Amazon has added a running "recommendations" bar. I can't see an obvious way to turn it off. Since I was listening to Johnny Cash (Unearthed), Amazon recommended I purchase Brad Paisley, Vince Gill, and other such artists.
I suppose this is the price I have to pay now for a free could service.
How long will it be free though? I noticed under the Cloud Drive settings that my cloud drive will not be free as of March, 29th. It will then be $20 a year or it will downgrade to 5 GB, minus my Amazon MP3 Purchases.
I noticed that new date today as well. If you order the $20 for unlimited before the current contract ends, they credit you what ever is left, even though it was a free account. If I had known that earlier I might have upgraded sooner.
According to Amazon's CloudPlayer, because I listened to Miles Davis Complete Columbia Studio Recordings, I would also like 99 Luftballons by Nena. Now, as it happens, I did enjoy the Nena video back in the day, but I cannot see the connection to Miles Davis.
I rather suspect that the main connection is that AMZ has noticed they can get a hell of a lot of people in a certain demographic to pay a buck-twenny-nine for this particular 80s oldie.
Nena was in Der Unsichtbare (1987) with Benny Buettner was in Bicentennial Man (1999) with Oliver Platt, who was in Loverboy (2005) with Kevin Bacon. Kevin Bacon was in Beauty Shop (2005) with Alfre Woodard, who was in Scrooged (1988), a movie with a Miles Davis song in the soundtrack.
Nena voiced the character Saphira for the German dub of the movie Eragon. The soundtrack to Eragon includes a song by Avril Lavigne. Avril Lavigne and Miles Davis are both clients of Skyline Studios and also share a Facebook page.
I also just noticed that my Amazon Cloud Drive was going to expire at the end of this month, but now it's good until July. I wonder if that's because I bought X number of albums from amazon or?
choice, Thanks for posting. I uploaded a couple dozen albums a couple weeks ago to Amazon's cloud because I was thinking "with unlimited space for storing music paying $20/year to have an offsite backup of most of my music files might be well worth the expenditure; plus I could use this to listen to music at work". Unfortunately, I the main harddrive in my PC bit the dust shortly after that and I am only just this week starting to get my PC back up to speed with regards to installing all the programs and stuff need/want and as a result I haven't uploaded anything more to the cloud to get a better idea of how it'll function once I get many, many GB's worth of music files uploaded. I was gonna just plunk down $20 this week to see how it works out for a year and determine when my year is up if I should continue paying annually. Now I have until July 10th to better evaluate the situation.
I also bought a number of albums from Amazon a couple weeks ago when they were competing w/Google Music. Didn't really buy all that much though - 3 or 4 albums for $20 or so. Not sure if the date change is across the board for everyone or on a more individualized based on monies one is putting into Amazon's pocket.
BTW: All, it's been a very long while since I had a HD go bad on me with little to no warning. Guess I grew a little complacent. Backup your stuff kids! It was my OS drive that went on me... if it had been a my data drive I would've been screwed. I'm still playing with fire as I haven't yet backed my data up. I will be addressing the situation over the next couple days though. You should too if you don't already have a regular backup process in place.
Comments
!!! too funny
But now who's going to test it out for me?
Another issue is that, when I first started ripping CDs, I joined classical tracks for symphonies. IE, one long track joining all movements. Obviously the iCloud isn't going to "match" these, as the timings are all off. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Of course matching classical albums is always iffy at best.
Meanwhile, waiting for some other suckers, I mean early-adopters, to take the plunge...
Another benefit for cloudplayer in Chrome is scrobbling to last.fm. Go to the Chrome store and dload the free Amazon Cloud Scrobble app. Easy install, connect with Last.FM, and scrobble away. Nothing for the iPad yet, though.
I found that re-starting the download works better if the target directory is smaller, so I would copy groups into a temporary folder for uploading (all of the "a" artists, then "b", etc.) With google and can set directories to automatically post changes, but I do not want it starting without my knowledge. For Amazon, I just started the upload when I went to bed and stopped it in the morning when I needed my bandwidth back.
I suppose this is the price I have to pay now for a free could service.
According to Amazon's CloudPlayer, because I listened to Miles Davis Complete Columbia Studio Recordings, I would also like 99 Luftballons by Nena. Now, as it happens, I did enjoy the Nena video back in the day, but I cannot see the connection to Miles Davis.
Degree one found in?
TaDa. (with the help of The Oracle of Bacon).
Larger pictures of Nena would be a better plan.
I also bought a number of albums from Amazon a couple weeks ago when they were competing w/Google Music. Didn't really buy all that much though - 3 or 4 albums for $20 or so. Not sure if the date change is across the board for everyone or on a more individualized based on monies one is putting into Amazon's pocket.
BTW: All, it's been a very long while since I had a HD go bad on me with little to no warning. Guess I grew a little complacent. Backup your stuff kids! It was my OS drive that went on me... if it had been a my data drive I would've been screwed. I'm still playing with fire as I haven't yet backed my data up. I will be addressing the situation over the next couple days though. You should too if you don't already have a regular backup process in place.