Post by homegrown898 on Jun 24, 2005 19:19:27 GMT -8
Anybody pay to download music using Rhapsody?
I'm not interested in it but the reason I ask is because my friend does that. And I was just reading this review:
Edit: Scroll down and you'll find the Rhapsody article...
Scroll down to Rhapsody and you'll see a paragraph starting with "Added bonus"
It's interesting that it will let you stream songs on another computer. Does that mean if he can install the program on my computer that I could be essentially using this program off them?
--------------------------------
Real/Listen.com Rhapsody
Grade: C-
Rhapsody has actually been around for quite some time. Starting out as a comprehensive outlet for independent content, the service started to include major label content as other services were landing deals. Their model takes a different tack to iTunes - instead of paying per download, there's a monthly subscription charge, but the differences don't stop there.
Rhapsody is quite simple to use. A search box makes it easy to find artists you're looking for. The results that comes back will show the exact match, if the name is spelled right, or suggested matches if you made an error or the artist is currently unavailable.
For the most part, Rhapsody displays the results of what's available in their database only, at least by default. However, they have the foresight to also allow you to dig deeper and see what's not available in their database. This is largely in part thanks to a smart partnership with Muze, one of the more prominent music information services available -- their database is extremely comprehensive, and it shows inside Rhapsody.
Playing music within its interface is quite easy, but there's one major caveat - any music you already own cannot be imported - you're simply streaming from their service. As such, people who have a lot of music, either purchased or downloaded pre-RIAA lawsuits, will find that part of it a little unfortunate as you wait for the stream to kick in.
You can save songs to your "library" of songs you enjoy, and create playlists off of this database. This gives you a lot of control over what songs you want to listen to, and having more control over what you want to listen to and when. Since you have access to all the music at once, it's a good feature.
Streaming music is Rhapsody's specialty - for the $9.99 subscription fee, you can stream music as much as you want. With over 500,000 tracks available, that's an amazing amount of music to have available to you. As such, if you're not much of a CD person, but like control of what you're listening to, this is it. There's no limits to how much you can stream either, so control is firmly in the hand of the users. This is the selling point, and it's beautifully executed.
Added bonus - if you're not home, and you can install their software at another house, you can stream music from someone else's computer as well. This is great as it allows you the freedom to listen to the music you're paying for anywhere you are.
Selection-wise, Rhapsody held its own when it came to Billboard favorites, a good sign. Overall, the ability to stream, even if burning is not available, gives Rhapsody a slight edge, since at least you have some access to the music.
Streaming was surprisingly solid considering the school's network. While there were hiccups, the software saves the data to a cache on the computer, so if you want to play a song again later, you can play it without having to re-establish a connection to Rhapsody's server to stream it again.
Along with the subscription price, you have the option of paying 79 cents for each song you want to burn. While the lower price might seem attractive at first, two caveats exist. First, for it to be cheaper than iTunes, you'd need to buy 50 songs a month or more. That isn't too unusual. But the bigger issue is you have to pay every time you want to burn a song. When I asked the customer service team about this, their response was that royalties playing the role they do, you have to keep paying. But iTunes doesn't have that restriction.
Burning is easy enough - there's little flame icons that tell you if it's burnable. Assuming it is, you can build a playlist of tracks you want to burn, pay the 79 cents per track, and burn it - easy enough.
Bigger problem: since you're not downloading files (at most, you have one massive cache file with all the music you've played), you also can't put it on a portable device without going through the steps of ripping it to MP3, bringing down the quality of the music with it. This, is a knock against Rhapsody for those who want as much access to their music as possible.
Rhapsody has its merits, but they fall squarely in the realm of streaming. Consider this a personalized satellite radio for your computer - same pricing ($9.99 a month), and lots of music options. Just don't buy music from a service like this unless all you want are one copy, and want it on CD. If you need more flexibility, you can do much better with other options, such as iTunes.
I'm not interested in it but the reason I ask is because my friend does that. And I was just reading this review:
Edit: Scroll down and you'll find the Rhapsody article...
Scroll down to Rhapsody and you'll see a paragraph starting with "Added bonus"
It's interesting that it will let you stream songs on another computer. Does that mean if he can install the program on my computer that I could be essentially using this program off them?
--------------------------------
Real/Listen.com Rhapsody
Grade: C-
Rhapsody has actually been around for quite some time. Starting out as a comprehensive outlet for independent content, the service started to include major label content as other services were landing deals. Their model takes a different tack to iTunes - instead of paying per download, there's a monthly subscription charge, but the differences don't stop there.
Rhapsody is quite simple to use. A search box makes it easy to find artists you're looking for. The results that comes back will show the exact match, if the name is spelled right, or suggested matches if you made an error or the artist is currently unavailable.
For the most part, Rhapsody displays the results of what's available in their database only, at least by default. However, they have the foresight to also allow you to dig deeper and see what's not available in their database. This is largely in part thanks to a smart partnership with Muze, one of the more prominent music information services available -- their database is extremely comprehensive, and it shows inside Rhapsody.
Playing music within its interface is quite easy, but there's one major caveat - any music you already own cannot be imported - you're simply streaming from their service. As such, people who have a lot of music, either purchased or downloaded pre-RIAA lawsuits, will find that part of it a little unfortunate as you wait for the stream to kick in.
You can save songs to your "library" of songs you enjoy, and create playlists off of this database. This gives you a lot of control over what songs you want to listen to, and having more control over what you want to listen to and when. Since you have access to all the music at once, it's a good feature.
Streaming music is Rhapsody's specialty - for the $9.99 subscription fee, you can stream music as much as you want. With over 500,000 tracks available, that's an amazing amount of music to have available to you. As such, if you're not much of a CD person, but like control of what you're listening to, this is it. There's no limits to how much you can stream either, so control is firmly in the hand of the users. This is the selling point, and it's beautifully executed.
Added bonus - if you're not home, and you can install their software at another house, you can stream music from someone else's computer as well. This is great as it allows you the freedom to listen to the music you're paying for anywhere you are.
Selection-wise, Rhapsody held its own when it came to Billboard favorites, a good sign. Overall, the ability to stream, even if burning is not available, gives Rhapsody a slight edge, since at least you have some access to the music.
Streaming was surprisingly solid considering the school's network. While there were hiccups, the software saves the data to a cache on the computer, so if you want to play a song again later, you can play it without having to re-establish a connection to Rhapsody's server to stream it again.
Along with the subscription price, you have the option of paying 79 cents for each song you want to burn. While the lower price might seem attractive at first, two caveats exist. First, for it to be cheaper than iTunes, you'd need to buy 50 songs a month or more. That isn't too unusual. But the bigger issue is you have to pay every time you want to burn a song. When I asked the customer service team about this, their response was that royalties playing the role they do, you have to keep paying. But iTunes doesn't have that restriction.
Burning is easy enough - there's little flame icons that tell you if it's burnable. Assuming it is, you can build a playlist of tracks you want to burn, pay the 79 cents per track, and burn it - easy enough.
Bigger problem: since you're not downloading files (at most, you have one massive cache file with all the music you've played), you also can't put it on a portable device without going through the steps of ripping it to MP3, bringing down the quality of the music with it. This, is a knock against Rhapsody for those who want as much access to their music as possible.
Rhapsody has its merits, but they fall squarely in the realm of streaming. Consider this a personalized satellite radio for your computer - same pricing ($9.99 a month), and lots of music options. Just don't buy music from a service like this unless all you want are one copy, and want it on CD. If you need more flexibility, you can do much better with other options, such as iTunes.
