Members can now instantly import their favorite Magnatune albums into iTunes.
It's instant, because what gets imported into your iTunes library is a link to the streaming version of the entire album. That way, you don't have to download and store gigs of music onto each computer you want to listen from. And, if you use multiple computers to listen to Magnatune, you'll have your favorite music available from either the web site, or iTunes, and always up to date.
Here's how it works. The "m3u" playlist format has always been oddly handled by iTunes. Unlike most programs, that play and then discard the mp3s pointed to by m3u playlists, iTunes always imported the streaming mp3s right into your library, and mixed the streaming (remote) mp3s with your on-disk (local) mp3s. That's a neat feature, if you could make it work right.
We're doing a few unusual things, that I want to explain:
1) instead of downloading the music to iTunes, we're giving you streams. This is so that the export is instantaneous, there is no downloading step. If you're connected to the Internet, you'll be able to listen to the albums as you normally would, it just happens that iTunes will get them off the 'net as you play them.
2) the entire album is imported as one mp3. We did this, so that you could import dozens of favorite albums, and not clog up your library with tons of songs. My favorites list is 189 albums long, and I don't really want over 2000 songs added to my system. If there is an album I want as separate songs, I can still download the album.
3) if you want local files, and to download the music, you can still do so, with the "personal podcast" feature. That will put the music on your hard disk, and your ipod. This new instant-iTunes-import is in addition to that.
4) if you add albums to your favorites, you can re-import the entire favorites from Magnatune. iTunes is smart enough (with streams) to determine the duplicates and only add the newly-marked-as-favorite albums.
When you go to play your favorite albums on Magnatune, there now an "iTunes import" link.
this is what the page looks like:
after you click on that link, this is what your iTunes Library will look like:
I put red arrows on the graphic above, to point out an interesting aspect of how iTunes works.
iTunes doesn't have any way for us to specify artist name, album name, or duration, in the m3u file. However, after you have played the mp3 for at least one second, iTunes reads that info in, and incorporates it into the library.
The first red arrow on the graphic above shows the album length of an album I've previously played. Until you play the album, iTunes simply display "continuous" where the album duration should be, and leaves artist name/album name blank. Once you've played an album, everything looks right.
We *could* have worked around this odd way that iTunes worked, by writing directly to the iTunes library. However, there are different ways to do this on Windows and Mac, this would have entailed your downloading and installing software from me, and there would be the risk that we had a bug in our software and screwed up your iTunes library. Instead, I preferred to stay simple and safe, and use a standard m3u file format.
iTunes visually differentiates local vs remote mp3 files with a little streaming graphic 
so that a playlist with local mp3s and remote Magnatune albums looks like this:
One other side-effect of using the m3u file format, is that the "iTunes import" link will play your favorite albums in both WinAmp and Windows Media Player. However, neither of those programs makes it easy to save the playlists in your permanent library (please post a comment to this blog entry if you believe otherwise).
This feature is available for both streaming and download memberships.
A lot of people complain about the DRM found on music bought at the iTunes Music Store. This is quite natural, since iTunes is by far the biggest supplier of music files, and the only legal place to buy files that play on iPods. iTunes only allows you to upload the files to a few iPods, burn them to a few CDs, and play them on a few computers. And you can only upload files to YOUR iPods; If someone else's iPod is set to play music from their account, the only way to put music from YOUR account into their iPod is to re-set that iPod to your account (which requires erasing all the music in it). And if you want to get music DOWN from an iPod, then this is basically impossible. So you need converter which help you to solve such drm-problem.
One such program is Melodycan. All you have to do is open it, adjust the settings if you want, pick a back-up folder and start the conversion (maximum summary converting speed is 50x ). Nothing could be easier. If you have the latest version of this program and the right version of iTunes, though, you`ll haven`t any problems.
What about iTunes-purchased videos? I heared that the only way to break the DRM on videos you buy at the iTunes Music Store (such as movies, music videos, and TV shows) is to use Melodycan. Essentially, it "watches" the movies you bought (if your computer is slow, it will go slower than real time, to make sure it captures every frame and synchs the sound properly), and records them into a new file that is not DRM'ed. You can change the settings so as to choose the format and properties (resolution, framerate, bitrate, compression algorithm) of the new file. I tried free trial and like conversion speed and quality.
Posted by: Juli | July 02, 2008 at 07:08 AM
Juli stated:
"A lot of people complain about the DRM found on music bought at the iTunes Music Store. This is quite natural, since iTunes is by far the biggest supplier of music files, and the only legal place to buy files that play on iPods. iTunes only allows you to upload the files to a few iPods, burn them to a few CDs, and play them on a few computers. And you can only upload files to YOUR iPods; If someone else's iPod is set to play music from their account, the only way to put music from YOUR account into their iPod is to re-set that iPod to your account (which requires erasing all the music in it)."
There are several errors in these statements. We all love to hate DRM, and iTunes for using it, but be accurate lest you lose your credibility.
Setting aside those tracks on iTunes that do not include DRM (iTunes Plus), one can upload files to as many iPods as you wish--not merely "a few". You can also have files from several different accounts (say yours and a friend's) as long as the machine iTunes is run on is authorized to play music from all the accounts. Each account can have up to 5 machines authorized at any given time. You have to copy the tracks to each other's computer, but the iPod can playback music from several accounts without erasing anything.
You can burn songs to as many CDs as you wish, again not merely "a few". You cannot burn the exact same playlist more that a few times, but simply add or subtract a song to change the playlist and keep going. There is no "burn count" or limit per song.
Would I like to have DRM out of the picture--yes. But Apple's implementation is the least invasive of the systems I have seen and it is there because the major labels demand it. They (the labels) are even trying to force iTunes to raise/change their pricing structure by providing non-DRM music through other online resellers.
I enjoy the flexibility and quality of Magnatune's offerings, but I don't hesitate to buy iTunes music either. Whatever works for you, just keep the facts straight.
Regards.
Posted by: William | August 14, 2008 at 05:06 PM
I was about to sign up to Magnatunes' paid membership tonight until I stumbled upon the how-to-download-to-Itunes pages, which are very confusing and loaded with tech jargon that I have NO idea what the author was talking about.
I decide NOT to pay for Magnatunes, simply because I don't know how to download albums directly from my Apple Ipod Touch online.
Why don't you guys speak common English, so that people who don't live in your tech ivory tower can simply click one icon on their Ipod Touch to sign up for their paid membership and download immediately?!
I don't want to pay you people money to feel like a frustrated "fool" myself!
Improve your download function for your Ipod app, make it easier and simplier for us non-techies who live in the real world to utilize your service at ease, can you, please?
Posted by: Vinh | October 21, 2010 at 08:25 PM
Vinh: to download music on Magnatune, you simply click the "download" button and choose your format.
The feature you're referring to, that you find confusing, is one used by more technical people and isn't the standard way.
-john
Posted by: John from Magnatune | October 21, 2010 at 11:56 PM