Day: October 3, 2006

I stumbled upon a VERY interesting article on how CDs are being mastered loudly nowadays as opposed to the CDs/LPs of yesteryear and they are in fact annoying the heck out of everyone.

Click here to read the article. If you’re not really into music, or the technicalities of music, you probably won’t find this article interesting. It’s a long read, but informative.

It did however, remind me of why I never wanted to convert my music to MP3s. It makes everything bland. I think I’m going to start using my CD player again. In fact, I have found that if I have a new album I prefer to listen to it on the CD player in my car rather than my iPod. There’s just something better to it.

iplaying: Chasing Cars – Snow Patrol

Read this article for the lead in to my rant.

Alright, so the ‘so-called’ iPod-killer is around the corner. Let’s see what they have to say about it.

Market Forces – Face it Microsoft. You’re the proverbial dodo bird. Dead before your time. Sure, you have a vast market share over the world with all your other products, but it’s going to take some time to crack the stronghold Apple has on the MP3 player market.

Sharing Fever – Hey, now this is an interesting concept. At first I didn’t think Microsoft would go the anti-piracy route and allow you to share files wirelessly. I was semi-right. Upon further investigation, they have a three day/three play rule when nabbing a file off of someone (whichever comes first). I do enjoy this feature regardless because it’s always cool if someone can say ‘Dude, check out this band I like!’. Bravo to you M.Soft. The funny thing about this is that we all know that someone will break the copy protection and this will probably be the main selling feature of the Zune. Much like how I bought an XBox because it could be ‘hacked’.

More Content, Bigger Screen – Uh, did I just read on another site that the videos they offer won’t even be filling the entire screen, they will just be the size of an iPod screen? Oh Microsoft, way to disappoint.

Surprisingly Cool – Yes, as in its not a hot item to purchase. That’s why it’s cool.

I think that if Microsoft released a competitor against the iPod, let’s say, 2 years ago, it could have been a contender. But SOOOO many other MP3 players have tried to compete and it just doesn’t work. However, I must admit that some of the features have me drooling (Wi-Fi? Sharing is cool albeit, even cooler if they get rid of the three day/three play), but we’ll have to see what happens when it comes on the market.