Just a quick update.
Matt Griffin has updated the Ubuntu One Music Store FAQ with this gem which is probably one of the single most often asked question.
Q: Ubuntu can’t play MP3s out of the box so how will we play purchased songs?
Canonical has put effort into making the customer experience as effortless as possible. When you visit the Ubuntu One Music Store, it will detect if you have MP3 support installed. If you don’t, the store will install the Fluendo MP3 plugin for GStreamer. The MP3 plugin is distributed worldwide at no charge under a license from Fluendo. An Internet connection is required.
So, we have a free legal mp3 decoder in the repository which semi-automatically installs and makes it easy to play back mp3 files. Whilst this will likely still not please those who ‘need’ their music in Vorbis or FLAC format, it certainly makes it easy to get up and running with the store, and play existing music.
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A small note to add, I was playing with the daily Lucid release today and I noticed that you no longer need to restart Totem to use newly installed gstreamer plugins. I assume the same is true for Rhythmbox?
If so, usability win!
I’m curious, why is the fluendo plugin not installed by default?
I was wondering the same thing myself. It should be installed by default and later replaced if restricted extras are installed (imo).
Wow, that’s easy, and legal too.
So, for those of us who prefer OGG or FLAC, are these Free options even available in the shiny new music store? Buried, perhaps, as Jamendo does it’s OGG downloads?
Or has Canonical thrown Free Formats overboard for now?
Right now the only supported format in the store is MP3. Perhaps in the future that may change, but that’s the state of play now. Free formats are of course still supported and the Jamendo and Magnatune stores are stilll available. Unfortunately 7digital (the store partner) doesn’t provide their music in those formats at this time.
OGG downloads will come back on Jamendo – hopefully soon
I hope so too, else it’ll make Bibud Player all slow and difficult.
“Whilst this will likely still not please those who ‘need’ their music in Vorbis or FLAC format…”
Why is “need” in quotes? It comes off as condescending and you don’t want to be peeving you customers before you’re even in business…
I quoted ‘need’ for emphasis, maybe bold or italics would have been better. There’s a difference between ‘prefer’ and ‘need’. I prefer to use open source software, I don’t ‘need’ 3d accelerated graphics on my desktop but I ‘prefer’ it. Similarly many people ‘prefer’ Ogg and FLAC over MP3 for philosophical, technical or practical reasons, but I’d suspect the majority don’t ‘need’ them in that format. Luckily I’m not one of those people. I clearly have the hearing of a rock because I can’t tell the difference most of the time given the hardware I have and the tracks I listen to, and given I have the codec installed, personally I flat out don’t really care what format it’s in.
As an aside, they’re not my customers.
I am still amazed by the amount of people who care about free formats more then they care about the fact that most of the store is not going to be available for most of the people of the world. What good is ogg if I can’t have it to begin with?
And yes, I know that this is not Canonical’s decision. But we all know how smart the music lables’ decisions have been in recent years. This is a direct continuation of their past mistakes, and it is too bad that Canonical will be seen as part of it. Our age is marked by removal of borders, and the main driving tool is the internet. Going against this trend is clinging to the past rather than embracing the future.
What do you mean by “not going to be available for most of the people in the world”? As I understand it you’re in Israel and Israel is part of the “Rest of World” store.
Quoting from the UbuntuOne MusicStore FAQ “Customers who use the World store will have access to purchase songs from independent labels.” Hence most of the store is not going to be available for most of the people of the world.
Ah I didn’t appreciate the impact of that wording. It seems ‘Rest of World’ is shorthand for ‘territories that 7digital doesn’t have licensing agreements with’.
I’m incredibly sad to say this, but I’ve given up on the Ogg Vorbis format. Oh, it’s a great codec, by all means, the main problem is the lack of Vorbis support in gadgets. Around 2001 I encoded all my CDs and LPs into Vorbis, a hell of a project, but I was quite optimistic that this was something I’d do only once, and that the codec would be embraced by the hardware industry. After all, it’s free and without those software patents (which I couldn’t care less about, but that’s another story), so I reckoned that everyone went Vorbis in a couple of years and Fraunhofer would get the finger.
As we all know, it didn’t turn out that way. I searched for a decent music player with Vorbis support for a couple of years or so, but it was plain impossible to find any in Norway’s second biggest city. I finally gave in, re-encoded my music to MP3 and bought an MP3 player. Then the iRiver came, but I didn’t bother.
Sad story, but at least I’m able to play my music everywhere now. That’s also some kind of freedom.
– sunny256
That’s weird. All my digital devices play Ogg Vorbis. A quick search on Rockbox even lets you choose hardware that can get firmware that supports it. All Android devices also support Ogg Vorbis (and FLAC for those using Cyanogen).
I suggest next time you shop around you check this list and vote with your money:
http://wiki.xiph.org/Vorbis_Hardware
I personally prefer FLAC and convert on-the-fly when transferring to media (except on my Android phone where it’s supported in Cyanogen).
I find audio playback on my (HTC Hero) Android phone to be abysmal. It skips when mail/sms/tweets come in which makes it unusable for me.
My main media player is an iPod, and for me I find the UI of Rockbox to be somewhat less-nice than the stock Apple firmware. When I next buy a device it may well have Ogg audio and video playback capability, but right now I don’t have devices that can playback audio and video Ogg.
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