About a week and a half ago, I decided to replace my current music management tool - Microsoft Windows Media Player. Media Player is fine for simply playing music, but I found it very cumbersome for managing portable devices like our Dell DJ and Creative Muvo Micro N200.
The leading software in the non-iPod/iTunes market is Musicmatch Jukebox. I used this a few times a couple of years ago, and at that time, I thought it sucked. But, being open minded, I decided to give it a try. After a few days of using Musicmatch I decided it was significantly better than Media Player, and that it would now become my music manager of choice. It has quite a nice user interface, and it is extremely simple to synchronize my portable devices.
My only complaint about Musicmatch is that it does not have the ability to resample my media files to a lower bit-rate. Most of my music is encoded in WMA format at a relatively high bit-rate. I'd like to reduce the bit-rate to increase the number of tracks I can copy to my devices. The Musicmatch documentation states that WMA files can no longer be resampled (I guess this was possible in previous versions) because of license arrangements with Microsoft. Hmmm...
A few days after becoming satisfied with Musicmatch, I learned of Yahoo's Music Unlimited service and its accompanying Yahoo Music Engine software. I decided to give it a try. I originally decided to try only the Music Engine software. I didn't think I'd care for the music "rental" business model...
The Music Engine software is mediocre. It does not have as many useful features as Musicmatch, but it does have a few useless features that Musicmatch does not offer (like integration with Yahoo Instant Manager - big deal).
I then decided to give the Music Unlimited service a try. With a 1 week free trial, I figured it couldn't hurt. What I found is that the service is extremely addictive. Heidi and I just sat there for an hour and typed in artists and songs, found them and played them. It was pretty fun. At just $5 a month ($60 per year, billed monthly), it's hard to complain about the price. You can download and listen to any song in their library provided you pay the monthly fee.
I ran in to one serious issue with the Unlimited service though. The tracks downloaded are NOT compatible with either of my portable devices. That is a serious drawback. The list of supported devices is still pretty small but is sure to grow as the service catches on. The newer Dell DJs support the format, but my model is not supported. And from what I've read, a firmware update will not be offered that would make mine compatible. I can probably sell my DJ for about $190 on eBay and get a new one (with 30GB vs my 20GB) for about $230, but I haven't determined if it's worth it yet. I haven't learned if the Muvo will eventually support the format, but I doubt it. Besides, since our Muvo is only the 256MB model, it would quickly get filled since the downloaded tracks from the Unlimited service cannot be resampled to smaller bit-rates.
So, the jury is still out. For ease of use, features, and performance, Musicmatch is the clear winner. However, the Music Unlimited service is quite attractive. It is possible to use the Music Unlimited service for music download, and Musicmatch for music management (Musicmatch honours the DRM built into the downloaded tracks), but I'm looking for a single solution.
Guess I will just have to get an iPod and use iTunes... right Matt?
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4 comments:
You may or may not be interested to know that Musicmatch features the same streaming subscription service built into its player it's called Musicmatch On Demand and has the same pricing as Yahoo's music service. Get a subscription and listen to as much music you want right in MMJB -- and that includes adding the subscription tracks to your Musicmatch library.
I was aware of this service but have not tried it. It doesn't look like you can save the tracks to any portable devices. Even though my MP3 players aren't compatible, I plan to get a compatible device in the near future. I'm sure Musicmatch will eventually offer this, and once they do, I'll try it out.
Yes, if you had an iPod and used iTunes, you could use your PC, choose from a really nice range of devices, and your stuff would "just work." I particularly liked your comment about being "open minded." Nice! If you want a discount, DEN I GET YOO GOOD DEAL!
well you can subscribe for ondemand to go from musicmatch that let you download subscription music tracks to your computer/portable device. Beware, however, that the amount of music available in the "to go" version is smaller than the ones available in the "ondemand"-only service. I found it to be very frustrated (after having used their ondemand service and switching to their togo service). Also the amount of music available seems to be generally smaller that Yahoo music unlimited.
But I totally agree that musicmatch jukebox is way better than the crappy Yahoo Music Engine (Note that the TO GO version requires at least Musicmatch 10.1 version and higher).
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