Bits & Bytes

We are continuing our talk about entertainment for your computer.   Last week we talked about Home Theater systems.  This week we are going to talk about content for those systems.  What’s the best way to get your music and movies?

There is an abundant supply of music to be found online.  Before I get into the particulars, let’s talk about a few things you should look for when looking for music downloads.  I’m not talking about illegal downloads here.  There are a bunch of programs you can download to do peer-to-peer sharing of audio and video files, but it is illegal to share copyrighted material in this way.  Not only is it illegal, but it’s morally wrong.  The person who created the content deserves to be paid for their work.

One of the first things you need to pay attention to is how is the music being delivered to me?  What format is it in?  What can I do with it once I’ve downloaded it?  What you want to look for is DRM-free music.  DRM stands for Digital Rights Management.  If you download an audio track with DRM, you will probably be limited in how you can use that file.  It may be that you can only play it on the computer it was downloaded, or maybe you can only burn it to a CD once or twice.  It may or may not play on your mp3 player.  DRM-free music does not have these limitations.  Once you download it, you are free to burn it, copy it to another computer, and put it on your mp3 player.

One of the other things you need to pay attention to is what format is the music in?  The most popular and easiest to manage is the mp3 format.  These files end with .mp3.  They can be played in almost any audio program and they are easily put on your mp3 player.  (Makes sense, eh?)  Some places, usually the DRM places, will give you the music in Windows Media Audio format which ends in .wma.  These will usually only play in Windows Media Player or the download company’s player.

There are also some other proprietary formats, but those are becoming less and less prevalent and we will not go into them here.

Some good places to download music are:

Amazon.com (Bits and Bytes Featured Choice!)

Amazon.com has DRM-free music and a HUGE selection at that.  They have a simple to use download program.  Songs are usually $.89. You can actually purchase our World Famous Best-Bump-Music-In-Talk-Radio songs (and other songs too!) using the widget on the far right of this page!!

Walmart.com

Walmart.com has recently switched to a DRM-free, mp3 format.  They also have a large selection of songs.  One downfall is that Walmart’s download software only works on Windows.  No Macs or Linux.

ITunes.com

ITunes is Apple’s music store.  It originally only worked with the ITunes player or an IPod.  However Apple recently added a DRM-free mp3 version that will work outside of ITunes and on just about any mp3 player.

Today we will continue our discussion of entertainment for computer by talking about various ways to get movies and music to your computer!  Tune in Wednesday at 6pm!