Copy protection scheme on Portable Napster already broken

[KEV1N]

Originally posted by: Pepsi90919

Originally posted by: fs5

Originally posted by: Viper GTS
Anybody actually stop & read what it does?

It basically allows two output plugins to be active at the same time, such as writing a WAV and playing the file at the same time. This is NOT an analog recording.

Viper GTS

BUT, re-encoding an encoded file is BAD. Sound quality in the crapper.
This is true for MP3->MP3. I am not sure how WMA -> MP3/other turns out.

But I guess you could go WMA -> uncompressed -> audio cd and it would sound the same as the original WMA. This just isn't a way to store the music in a forever playble compressed format

that's why you keep it as a wave file.

Dude, once the original song is compressed, extra information is lost. When you convert to WAV, it's not like you get that information back.

 

[fs5]

Originally posted by: kermalou
i've been doing this for two days now, it's a real tedious process though

you got to:

1. download the song
2. play the song in winamp (converts your wma to wav)
3. take your wav and convert it to mp3

it's tough

do a side by side comparo w/ the .wma and the .mp3. do they sound the same? I bet they don't.

 

[mwtgg]

Originally posted by: fs5

Originally posted by: kermalou
i've been doing this for two days now, it's a real tedious process though

you got to:

1. download the song
2. play the song in winamp (converts your wma to wav)
3. take your wav and convert it to mp3

it's tough

do a side by side comparo w/ the .wma and the .mp3. do they sound the same? I bet they don't.

I doubt that the difference between the two files is that large.

 

[fs5]

Originally posted by: mwtgg
I doubt that the difference between the two files is that large.

is redbook audio loseless? I'm asking because I know mp3 -> audio cd -> re-rip back to mp3 sounds like crap, try it sometime.

I'm just assuming the same for wma -> wav -> mp3 and I'm willing to bet it's true.

 

[intogamer]

the same thing will happen for teh new macrovision dvds.

 

[Spencer278]

Originally posted by: fs5

Originally posted by: kermalou
i've been doing this for two days now, it's a real tedious process though

you got to:

1. download the song
2. play the song in winamp (converts your wma to wav)
3. take your wav and convert it to mp3

it's tough

do a side by side comparo w/ the .wma and the .mp3. do they sound the same? I bet they don't.

As long as you have to the MP3 encoding set much higher then the original you will not lose much if any data.

 

[mwtgg]

Originally posted by: fs5

Originally posted by: mwtgg
I doubt that the difference between the two files is that large.

is redbook audio loseless? I'm asking because I know mp3 -> audio cd -> re-rip back to mp3 sounds like crap, try it sometime.

I'm just assuming the same for wma -> wav -> mp3 and I'm willing to bet it's true.

Maybe my ears just suck that much that I can't tell the difference.

 

[SethK28]

Originally posted by: kermalou
i've been doing this for two days now, it's a real tedious process though

you got to:

1. download the song
2. play the song in winamp (converts your wma to wav)
3. take your wav and convert it to mp3

it's tough

Not really, you can skip #3 by downloading Lame Codec

nstead of loading the out_disk.dll into the stacker, download the "lame out" pluggin for winamp and install - this will put a file "out_lame.dll" in the pluggin folder. Load this in place of the out_disk.dll file in the stacker!! Configure it as you please!!

 

[aswedc]

Originally posted by: mwtgg

Originally posted by: aplefka
Bah, 128 quality doesn't cut it for me.

I can't tell the difference, then again my hearing kinda sucks.

Don't say that before you've heard Napster's WMA's. Not being able to tell a 128 MP3 I could understand, but to not be able to hear all the problems in Microsoft's crappy codec you'd have to be near deaf. I have no idea how they expect people to buy into this.

 

[Twista]

Originally posted by: mwtgg

Originally posted by: aplefka
Bah, 128 quality doesn't cut it for me.

I can't tell the difference.

 

[damonpip]

Originally posted by: fs5

Originally posted by: mwtgg
I doubt that the difference between the two files is that large.

is redbook audio loseless? I'm asking because I know mp3 -> audio cd -> re-rip back to mp3 sounds like crap, try it sometime.

I'm just assuming the same for wma -> wav -> mp3 and I'm willing to bet it's true.

redbook is considered lossless. It's not lossless compared to say, 24/96 WAVs, but it is the same quality as a lossless codec such as FLAC. mp3 -> CD -> mp3 sounds bad because converting the mp3 to a WAV (CD), does not restore the lost information. When that WAV is reencoded into an mp3, even more information is loss, ruining the sound quality. This is called transcoding, and the result of transcoding lossy formats is usually crap.

 

[SethK28]

If you download LAME and do it this way instead of going from WMA ->WAV->MP3 you are basically transcoding a WMA ->MP3, which should not be a big loss of quality

 

[shilala]

If I download 128kpbs chops, I'm clearly going to make them worse through a second compression scheme.
A 1/8 minijack will make the problem even worse.
The best way to beat the copyright protection is to burn the songs to cd then rip them to mp3's.
Want quality music?
Buy the cd and rip with lossless.
End of argument.

 

[intogamer]

omg...this is what you get for getting free songs

 

[damonpip]

No matter how you transcode the files, they will be converted to WAV before they are converted into MP3s, and you will lose quality. The only way to not lose quality to convert the WMAs into a lossless format, such as WAV or FLAC.

 

[fs5]

Originally posted by: damonpip
No matter how you transcode the files, they will be converted to WAV before they are converted into MP3s, and you will lose quality. The only way to not lose quality to convert the WMAs into a lossless format, such as WAV or FLAC.

thank you, I did not know it was called transcoding. I knew something was going on when re-encoding something (ie the second time around is worse than the original encoding)

 

[mwtgg]

Originally posted by: aswedc

Originally posted by: mwtgg

Originally posted by: aplefka
Bah, 128 quality doesn't cut it for me.

I can't tell the difference, then again my hearing kinda sucks.

Don't say that before you've heard Napster's WMA's. Not being able to tell a 128 MP3 I could understand, but to not be able to hear all the problems in Microsoft's crappy codec you'd have to be near deaf. I have no idea how they expect people to buy into this.

Is there a sample anywhere? I'm pretty sure that it wouldn't sound like crap to me.