Spotify uses Ogg Vorbis (q5) Options

[Miramis]

Bumping up the bitrate
June 25, 2009

Providing great sound quality has always been an important goal for us. When we launched last year we implemented what we think is a very nice sounding stream at 160 kbit/s. A little later on, after a lot of user feedback, we decided to make sound normalisation an optional setting for those who prefer their music unaltered. Now, we’re taking the next step in offering an unparalleled listening experience.

Today we’re really excited to announce that Spotify Premium users will be able to listen to music at double the current quality, this is the first of many new premium features we plan to launch. In the latest release of Spotify, premium users have the option to enable streaming at up to 320 kbit/s using the Ogg Vorbis q9 codec – the highest streaming rate for any online service.

If you are a premium subscriber you can enable higher quality streaming by going to the preferences menu and clicking “Enable high bitrate”.



Initially, not all tracks will be available at the higher bit rate. We’ve begun converting the most popular tracks first and over the next few of weeks and months we’ll be adding more and more high quality tracks until the entire catalogue is available in hi-fi.
By Andres Sehr
Published 2009-06-25 07:34

http://www.spotify.com/blog/archives/2009/...up-the-bitrate/

[HotshotGG]

That's the way a service should be. That's pretty cool that they give you that option of using a higher quality level for streaming music if you are a premium user. I would say it's a good service if the users are generally happy and they are listening to the customers. I personally use a -q 8 on most of my music factoring HD space.

[kerminen]

Spotify has been approved to iPhone:

https://www.spotify.com/blog/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8225731.stm

So about 6 million songs to carry with you, and you can play your playlist, when you are offline, too.
Android version is coming soon, too.

And Spotify has said that they will open the flood gates and make the service available in the US before the end of 2009.

[Nuthen]

Is there any Classical available for streaming?

[filR]

Is there any Classical available for streaming?

Quite a lot, I was pleasantly surprised. I guess labels hand out classical albums a lot faster than mainstream music.

[PaJaRo]

First say thanks for showing me spotify, really nice music collection.
Now comes my question. I found a web page http://www.spotifyripping.com/?page_id=11 which states that ripping music from spotify is legal but if you do it you are breaking the end user agreement. I would like to know if it is true that is legal rip from spotify.

This post has been edited by PaJaRo: Aug 31 2009, 14:30

[odyssey]

First say thanks for showing me spotify, really nice music collection.
Now comes my question. I found a web page http://www.spotifyripping.com/?page_id=11 which states that ripping music from spotify is legal but if you do it you are breaking the end user agreement. I would like to know if it is true that is legal rip from spotify.

One of the lovely gray-zones that noone really knows anything about. I little digging with google turned up "SpotSave" which seems even nicer, as it rips the original stream.

However I will only recommend this for making the music portable, which is not possible with Spotify yet. Artists still need the royalties from your playcount

A spotify-plugin for ones favorite mediaplayer would be really nice though.

[PaJaRo]

One of the lovely gray-zones that noone really knows anything about. I little digging with google turned up "SpotSave" which seems even nicer, as it rips the original stream.

However I will only recommend this for making the music portable, which is not possible with Spotify yet. Artists still need the royalties from your playcount

A spotify-plugin for ones favorite mediaplayer would be really nice though.

Thanks, spotsave seems really nice. However I wasn't able to find a spotsave working version on the net (or maybe it works but it's my fault).
Have you successfully tested it? if so please tell me where can i find a working version.
Thanks in advance.

[kerminen]

Is there any Classical available for streaming?

A lot. For example everything from Naxos.

[PaJaRo]

I just find an open source client for spotify it is multiplataform so you can run it on linux without wine, it's called despotify.
http://despotify.se/
The only problem is that it will only work with premium accounts, but it avoids ads an it is supposed to be able download the music and some other interesting features.

[odyssey]

Have you successfully tested it? if so please tell me where can i find a working version.

No I haven't because of a stupid small association that handles copyright in Denmark (read: charges money from CD-R-sales, machine-copys of book-sides in schools etc. and keeps it all for themselves) called KODA hasn't accepted Spotify's business-case.

I tried it for a while registering with a UK proxy, but couldn't find another one working when my account needed updating.

[PaJaRo]

I tried it for a while registering with a UK proxy, but couldn't find another one working when my account needed updating.

Maybe you can try a free vpn to get rid of that problem

[Rokkaz]

Thanks, spotsave seems really nice. However I wasn't able to find a spotsave working version on the net (or maybe it works but it's my fault).
Have you successfully tested it? if so please tell me where can i find a working version.

SpotSave is now unusable as Spotify has effectively blocked it. You can use something like Replay Music or even Audacity to record your Spotify streams. Replay Music will separately record individual tracks automatically.

[PaJaRo]

Thanks, spotsave seems really nice. However I wasn't able to find a spotsave working version on the net (or maybe it works but it's my fault).
Have you successfully tested it? if so please tell me where can i find a working version.

SpotSave is now unusable as Spotify has effectively blocked it. You can use something like Replay Music or even Audacity to record your Spotify streams. Replay Music will separately record individual tracks automatically.

Thanks for the info, but I would like something that records before decoding the ogg file.
I was overviewing despotify code and i think it's possible to dump the stream before decoding, adding a few lines to /src/clients/gateway/gw-stream.c to write plaintext to a file.
Since I'm not a good coder and I can't test it without a premium account, I'm not sure if it is possible or if I'm wrong. I would appreciate if anyone can confirm it or give a proper solution.
Thanks in advance

[Miramis]

Music Labels Pressure Spotify into Dropping the Free Version in the US
The labels are unconvinced that the ad-supported model can work in the US
By Lucian Parfeni, Web News Editor
19th of November 2009, 16:54 GMT

The online music business has proven a tough nut to crack again and again. Pioneering free service iMeem is more or less dead in its current form and in the process of being acquired by MySpace. Countless others have failed to provide a free music streaming service that actually generates revenue and it looks like Europe's music streaming darling Spotify won't be able to deliver on the promise in the US either.

This has been known for a while, as the service has pushed back plans to launch in the US after concerns that it won't be able to offer a free music streaming service like it does in Europe. And now the major music labels are “concerned” that the free model just doesn't work and it would be unwise for Spotify to launch the same service in the US, as the Financial Times reports (subscription required).

They are right to be worried too, free music streaming services in the US have failed over and over again and the last bastions are closing down too. iMeem is about to be sold with its future uncertain and MySpace Music may stop offering free streaming not too far in the future.

There's just one small glitch in the labels' rhetoric though. While it's true that free services have failed, the reason they have failed has entirely to do with the ridiculous license fees these services have been forced to pay by the very same labels which are now “unconvinced” that the model works. It doesn't get much more hypocritical than that.

The real problem here is that these labels are preventing Spotify from offering US users the same service which millions of Europeans have fallen in love with. It's true that Spotify has been struggling to drive up revenue figures and that ad-revenue alone can't cover its costs, which, again, are mostly due to licensing fees not the actual costs of the service. The company is trying to please the labels, which are pushing for a subscription model in the US, meaning that, for one, people over there will have to wait a little longer for the service, and secondly, they may get a severely crippled free version if they get one at all.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Music-Label...US-127467.shtml

[HotshotGG]

This has been known for a while, as the service has pushed back plans to launch in the US after concerns that it won't be able to offer a free music streaming service like it does in Europe. And now the major music labels are “concerned” that the free model just doesn't work and it would be unwise for Spotify to launch the same service in the US, as the Financial Times reports (subscription required).

They are right to be worried too, free music streaming services in the US have failed over and over again and the last bastions are closing down too. iMeem is about to be sold with its future uncertain and MySpace Music may stop offering free streaming not too far in the future.

I don't understand the justification in making an "assumption" free music services don't work based on experience of a service like MySpace, which I read simply cannot compete with Google for other reasons. I read not to long ago in another article that they were generating a substantial amount of revenue and that streaming audio would be the future of legal online music. Take Lala for example? They have been around for x number of years now? How do they manage to stay in business?. What exactly are they "concerned" about? That they simply won't be able to compete with a European service that's better and offers it's members more features? This sounds like F.U.D to me!

This post has been edited by HotshotGG: Nov 20 2009, 14:50

[Gag Halfrunt]

Disturbingly, one of the people at AVGuide (TAS's website) pointed this one out. Even more disturbingly, the piece seems to be remarkably factual and foo-free. Even the one response is quite sane. All of which explains why it got less views than anything else on the site.

Spotify - The Freemium Future of Music

I mean, let's face it... the prospective future of audio is nowhere near as important as some photos of a guy unboxing a pair of crazy money loudspeakers.

[RonaldDumsfeld]

Well I've amazed myself by starting to pay for Spotify premium. Never thought I would but there you go.
So if there are more people like me than previously realised then maybe the doomsayers are wrong.

Cannot say I have noticed a difference between the Q5 of the free service and the Q9 of the premium but perhaps they haven't got round to upgrading my choice of tunes yet.

It has become even more mad popular since they implemented the download to phone extension and the free service has been invite only for months.

In recognition of the nice folks on this site who have helped me out for free I's like to offer my this months free invites to the first HA member to drop me a PM with their e-mail address.

Please check out if your territory is covered by a UK invite or are comfortable setting p a proxy.

Spotify

Cheers

[kerminen]

According to CEO of Spotify Europe, Spotify will be launched in USA before end of 2010.

Source: Biggest newspaper in Finland.

http://www.hs.fi/nyt/artikkeli/%C3%84%C3%A...s/1135259282564

New license types available: Unlimited (no ads, €5 per month), and Spotify Open (no invitation needed, max 20 hours per month).

Over 8 million songs available.

This post has been edited by kerminen: Aug 28 2010, 17:36

[kerminen]

I just noticed something that might be interesting to Americans:

https://www.spotify.com/fi/get-spotify/prem...GB_SE_NO_FI_ENG

In "Compare Products", I found a link to "Take your music abroad":

https://www.spotify.com/fi/about/features/use-from-anywhere/

Holiday music

With Spotify Premium and Spotify Unlimited you can connect with Spotify when you’re travelling. As long as you purchased Spotify from inside one of our launch countries, you have the perfect holiday companion.

Spotify Free and Spotify Open users - you receive a maximum of two weeks overseas use, after which you’ll need to upgrade to Spotify Premium or Spotify Unlimited.

So you can use Spotify already in the US, as long as you did the registeration and first payment (9,99€ for Premium per month or 4,99€ for Unlimited per month) in one of the following countries:
Sweden, Norway, Finland, the UK, France, Spain and the Netherlands.

So you only need a trip to Europe or proxy or tor exit node from one of the following countries:

Sweden, Norway, Finland, the UK, France, Spain and the Netherlands.

And you need to enter an address to one of those countries during registration.

But this hassle is only for the registraton and 1. payment phase.

After that you don't need proxies.

When Spotify eventually launches in the US, you can change your country and address in the program settings.

This post has been edited by kerminen: Oct 3 2010, 09:47

[Miramis]

Upcoming changes to Spotify Free/Open

[kerminen]

Spotify opens today in the US.

http://www.spotify.com/us/

Unlimited or Premium highly recommended.

http://www.spotify.com/us/get-spotify/overview/