Crave

The Sony S-series Walkman wants to be your AAC-friendly iPod rebound.

(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CBS Interactive)

Apple's iTunes store is offering more and more of its music catalog in the DRM-free iTunes Plus music format (256Kbps AAC). There's no question that DRM-free music purchases are better for consumers than the aggravations of FairPlay and computer authorizations. Still, it also doesn't hurt Apple that its unique allegiance to the AAC music format leaves people with few non-iPod choices when it comes to compatible MP3 players for their iTunes Plus music collections.

You do have options, though. In fact, most of Apple's iPod competition has at least one AAC-compatible model for sale (I think someone forgot to give SanDisk the memo). To see our favorites, check out our list of AAC-compatible iPod alternatives.

Apple isn't the only game in town when it comes to AAC-compatible MP3 players. Advanced Audio Coding files may be the default iTunes option for ripping CDs into your music collection, but Apple holds no exclusive claim to the format the way they do with Apple Lossless or the iTunes store's FairPlay DRM.

So what portable devices are out there for folks who appreciate the benefits of AAC audio, but want to steer clear of the iPod? I've put together a product roundup of my top six non-iPod AAC players, along with an Insider Secret video that shows off five of them.

I had a problem. Years ago, I bought Microsoft's now-discontinued Digital Media Plus Pack for converting my LP records into digital files. Because it's a Microsoft product from back in the day when Microsoft was gung-ho about Windows Media, it only rips to Windows Media Audio. And of course, it's Windows only. (Other than that, it's a great tool--very easy to use, never messes up line leveling, and has a good algorithm for removing pops and scratches.)

Back when I used iTunes and my iPod exclusively, I'd simply rip the album into WMA, then import the folder from MyMusic into iTunes. It would ask me if I wanted to convert to AAC (the default--it can also convert to MP3), I'd accept, then delete the WMAs so as not to clutter my hard drive with duplicates.

dBpoweramp lets you convert just about any audio file format to any other.

(Credit: Screenshot)

But since 2006, I've been using a Zune (review unit) as my primary music player. Zune plays both AAC and WMA files, and it automatically reads your iTunes library. I got lazy and stopped converting my vinyl from WMA to AAC.

Now I've got a Shuffle. And a library full of WMA files that it can't play. Of course, I could do what I used to do--import the folders from My Music into iTunes, convert to AAC, then delete the originals. But what if I want to convert those WMAs into MP3s to make sure they can play on any device with any software app? OK, I guess I could change the default on iTunes. But what happens when you add a bunch of downloaded FLAC files into the mix? Or Ogg files? What about converting AAC back to WMA--I can't see any reason why I'd want to do that today, but who knows where Microsoft and Apple are heading with their file format support?

I needed to future-proof my music collection, while still maintaining the best quality-to-size ratio possible. (MP3 is one of the lossiest formats.)

dBpoweramp Music Converter is the solution. $18 for the regular edition. (The $28 reference edition has features for professionals and more serious amateurs.) You can download just about any imaginable codec from the associated Web site. By default it performs file conversion within the same folder as the original files, so you can easily keep track of what's where. (Not like iTunes, which moves every converted file into the iTunes library by default.) Or, if you want to export directly to an iTunes folder, it can do that. It even adds a feature to the Windows Explorer so when you hover over a file, it'll display full ID3 tag information for that file--useful for changing mysterious file names to match song titles.

Highly recommended.

dBpoweramp shows ID3 tags within Windows Explorer. So you can find out the real title of that Track 4.WMA file you've been carrying around..

(Credit: Screenshot)

San Francisco Chronicle music critic Joel Selvin mourns the loss of audio quality in our iPod-obsessed culture.

He's right: MP3 files and other forms of data-compressed audio, such as AAC (used by Apple's iTunes) and Windows Media Audio, don't contain as much audio data as an uncompressed song on a CD. For long-time music listeners such as Selvin, the difference is striking. (Note that he's talking about data compression, not the audio compression that's misused to "punch up" many modern recordings.)

The first time I heard a CD full of burned MP3 files back in 1999, I was struck at how flat and lifeless the music sounded. It was almost like listening to a Xerox copy of the music rather than the music itself.

The feeling is even worse if it's music you've recorded. After spending weeks getting tones (which includes the painstakingly dull process of hearing the drummer hit the same drum over and over and over again for several hours), fine-tuning the sound of each part with the perfect combination of instruments and amplifiers and offboard effects, playing several times to get the perfect take, overdubbing extra parts and haggling over the perfect mix, you end up with a streaming MP3 that sounds like a radio broadcast from Mars played on a cheap transistor radio.

But I also recall the first time I heard a CD back in the early 1980s, and how sterile it sounded compared with the vinyl records I was accustomed to (and still prefer). And no recording will sound as vibrant as live music.

The point is, music can serve many purposes. When I listen to an MP3 file over my car stereo, it might not sound as good as a clean vinyl record on a high-end stereo system, but the setting's different: maybe it's a sunny day, and there's no traffic, and I haven't heard this particular song in so long that I almost forgot why I liked it in the first place. It's not exactly background music, but it's more of a soundtrack to my day than an activity in itself.

Or, when I hook my iPod up to my small Bose system for a dinner party, it's meant to be a backdrop for food and conversation, the real stars of the show. If it's the right crowd on the right night, we'll end up downstairs, listening to the real thing on vinyl.

I'd feel sorry if I imagined that there were kids who'd never heard anything but compressed music, but I'm not sure that these kids exist or will ever exist.

Like John Cage knew, music exists all around us every day. Natural-born audiophiles will seek out live music, buy CDs and maybe a turntable--and perhaps even learn to play an instrument.

For the rest of the world, music never would have been much more than background material anyway. With compressed audio files, they have access to more of it than ever before. Perhaps one of the countless tracks they've burned from their little-used CD collection will hit them just right one day and spark them to investigate further.

Apple's iTunes store began selling DRM-free songs from EMI on Wednesday.

DRM (digital rights management) software prevents owners from copying or freely using a digital file across multiple devices.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

As expected, all the songs from music label EMI that are sold on iTunes are now available in DRM-free versions. Shoppers have the option to purchase either a 256kbps AAC-encoded DRM-free song for $1.29 via iTunes Plus, or the usual 128kbps AAC-encoded DRM-version for 99 cents.

"We expect more than half of the songs on iTunes will be offered in iTunes Plus versions by the end of this year," Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in a statement. No one at Apple was available for live comment on Wednesday morning.

Previously purchased EMI songs can be upgraded to the DRM-free version for 30 cents per song, or $3 per album.

EMI artists in the deal include Coldplay, The Rolling Stones and Frank Sinatra. The deal excludes Beatles songs.

In February, Jobs released an open letter asking that record companies consider going DRM-free. Apple and EMI announced in April that a DRM-free deal was in the works and that it would exclude Beatles songs.

In order to use iTunes Plus, people must download iTunes 7.2, the latest version of the software.

eMusic already offers DRM-free songs, but its catalog has been limited to mostly independent labels.

With all the iTunes/EMI DRM-free ballyhoo going on, it's easy to forget that sites like eMusic have already been offering inexpensive, DRM-free downloads for years. While Apple and Microsoft casually backpedal out of the DRM mess they've made, eMusic is announcing a very attractive new monthly subscription model that offers 25-cent downloads of DRM-free MP3s. It may not be Apple's reported 256kbps AAC quality, but for the average user a 192kbps MP3 sounds just fine--especially at 25 cents a song.

eMusic's new plans (called Connoisseur) come in three types 100, 200, and 300 downloads per month, priced respectively at $25, $50 and $75. While these are more expensive than rental subscription models like Rhapsody or Urge, at the end of the day you actually keep the music you've downloaded. That's keep--as in forever.

Be warned, eMusic's Achilles heel has always been selection. With major labels historically wary of DRM-free downloads, few have joined in with eMusic's mostly independent catalog. The recent iTunes/EMI deal may signal a sea change in this way of thinking and hopefully reward eMusic for its consistent endorsement of DRM-free music.

If you're an existing eMusic member, here's a link on how to upgrade your plan.

Unbreakable encryption--broken

(Credit: CNET Networks)

The underlying encryption on both the Blu-ray and HD DVD high-def disc formats has been cracked. That's the word from user arnezami on the Doom9 forums, where anti-DRM denizens have been hacking and slashing their way through the AACS (Advanced Access Content System) encryption algorithm found on all Blu-ray and HD DVD discs. Previously, Doom9 user muslix64 had cracked the encryption keys to individual titles, but the newly uncovered "processing key" is said to be the Rosetta Stone for all current titles on both HD disc formats.

We haven't independently verified this crack, but given that even the AACS Licensing Authority has admitted the previous muslix64 hack, it's entirely plausible. With the processing key in hand, software could be created that could rip HD DVD and Blu-ray titles to a PC's hard drive. There, the movies could be viewed with playback software or--more nefariously--uploaded to file trading sites where they can be copied and pirated ad infinitum (albeit slowly--HD movies can range in size from 15 to 50GB). That's exactly the scenario that Hollywood studios were hoping to avoid. Exactly how the content providers and the hardware manufacturers will respond to this latest potential piracy challenge has yet to be seen.

For the technical details on how the key was obtained, check out arnezami's post on the Doom9 forums.

Source: Engadget