Codecs and formats

From Nielsen Soundscan by way of the LA Weekly and Rolling Stone, here are the top 10 vinyl sellers in 2008. I've added the years they were originally released, and what I imagine was going through the mind of vinylphiles when they bought it.

10. Radiohead, OK Computer, 1997. Great production, trippy artwork looks great under the lava lamp. 9. Metallica, Death Magnetic, 2008. Maybe the vinyl version won't be overcompressed to death. 8. Fleet Foxes, Fleet Foxes, 2008. Pitchfork likes it, it must be good. 7. Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon, 1973. Remember those posters? … Read more

CNET News' Greg Sandoval is already covering the story, so I won't belabor it, but kudos to Apple and the three holdout record labels--Sony, Universal, and Warner--for reaching an agreement that will result in more than 8 million songs being available on iTunes with no digital rights management (DRM) restrictions. (EMI has made DRM-free songs available on iTunes since last spring, but only 10 percent of the music sold in the U.S. comes from EMI.) As Greg reports, Apple will also let users with existing DRM-encrusted downloads upgrade to a DRM-free version at a higher bitrate--256kbps--for an extra … Read more

If you're a gearhead and have a bunch of MP3 players from different companies, the Amazon MP3 Store is your best source for buying music downloads. It's the only store in which all tracks are unprotected MP3s, meaning they can be played on any player and in any software. (Microsoft's Zune Marketplace is getting close, but you need to download and install the Zune software to access that store, while Amazon is accessible from any browser.)

Yesterday, Amazon took a step toward making its store a place you might actually want to spend some time, rather than … Read more

The great draw of portable MP3 players is quantity.

I remember when my wife and I took a six-month backpacking trip back in 1999. We never even considered bringing an MP3 player, which might have had a whopping 64MB of flash memory, enough for about a hour of audio compressed at 256kbps. Instead, we brought a Discman and about two dozen CDs in a soft case. We grew extremely bored with those CDs and ended up jettisoning or trading most of them.

Today, you'd laugh if somebody told you they were considering bringing CDs on a trip--why would you, … Read more

Update at 5:10 p.m. PDT: Changes were made based on a draft version of the Windows 7 Reviewers' Guide.

Microsoft took the wraps off the next version of Windows Tuesday at its Professional Developers Conference, and the Web's abuzz with first impressions and previews--most of which are positive.

It looks like Microsoft is making the right moves to counter some of the problems with Vista: application and hardware compatibility are top priorities, and most of the UI tweaks I've seen so far seem helpful rather than arbitrary, as many of the changes in Vista seemed … Read more

Correction: AC/DC's 1981 album For Those About to Rock We Salute You peaked at #1 on the U.S. charts, which means Wal-Mart's press release is wrong.

American retail giant Wal-Mart relaunched its online MP3 store Tuesday, and it's a worthy competitor to Amazon in the DRM-free MP3 sweepstakes. (To remind you: unlike many songs from Apple's iTunes, or Microsoft's Zune Marketplace, or Nokia's music store, every song sold on Amazon and Wal-Mart can be played an unlimited number of times on just about any portable device and in any software application out … Read more

CNET has written several times over the years about Audacity, a free, general-purpose sound-editing tool. I've known people who have used it to manipulate sound for podcasts and the like. But I'd completely forgotten about it until today.

One of my colleagues been looking for a tool to split recorded audio presentations into portions to go with the corresponding individual PowerPoint slides. I thought Apple's GarageBand might work, but he found it too opaque, and our office (like most) is PC-heavy, which would have complicated efforts to train other folks on how to do this job.

Then … Read more

I've written about Nokia's Comes With Music service several times, but the service officially kicked off Wednesday in the U.K. And the first hands-on reviews--from Music Ally and IDG News--are mostly positive.

In particular, reviewers are praising the PC software's intuitive interface and the relatively painless registration process. Access to the free music comes courtesy of a code printed on the inside of the phone's box. Downloads are almost unlimited, although Nokia has a clause that warns it might temper downloads if a certain undisclosed average number of downloads per user is reached.

The … Read more

The run-up to the holiday season always begins in September, and while I was overseas with no Internet access, the music and technology industries kept on churning. Fortunately for me, nothing's really changed. To wit:

SanDisk, in collaboration with the four major labels, announced a new physical format for albums called SlotMusic. You'll be able to pay between $7 and $10 and get a full album on a MicroSD card, which you'll then be able to plug into compatible cellphones or MP3 players to begin playing the MP3 files encoded at 320kbps. This one boggles me. If … Read more