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Topic: How to tell if Google Play Music song is transcoded or matched? (Read 7513 times) previous topic - next topic
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How to tell if Google Play Music song is transcoded or matched?

Google has a similar service as iTunes Match where you can let the client scan your music library and it uploads your tracks to the Google Cloud. Titles that are available in Google's library are not uploaded from your local computer, but matched online. The music that is then available in the cloud is 256 kbps MP3 with constant bitrate. What I would like to find out is how do I tell apart songs that were matched (converted by Google to MP3 from a lossless source) and songs that Google transcoded to MP3 from my computer (MP3 generated out of my iTunes M4A files). https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/1100462?hl=en seems to be outdated since it mentions 320 kbps MP3, but none of the tracks I redownloaded from Google has 320 kbps - all are 256 kbps. What I did notice though is that some tracks are stereo and others which I think are transcoded are joint stereo. Can anyone confirm that the stereo mode is the way to go?

How to tell if Google Play Music song is transcoded or matched?

Reply #1 –
I have Google Music monitoring my music folders and when it does a conversion, it's 320kbps online.

Here's some data points:

Code: [Select]
Artist/Album                            Source                  Format  Bitrate         Google Music Bitrate
================================================================================================
Dire Straits/On every Street            CD                      FLAC    -               320kbps
Staind/Break the Cycle                  CD                      AAC     256kbps         256kbps
Nine Inch Nails/Downward Spiral         Amazon MP3              MP3     256kbps         256kbps
Daft Punk/Get Lucky                     Amazon MP3              MP3     246kbps VBR     246kbps VBR
The Offspring/Smash                     iTunes(pre-plus)        AAC     128kbps         128kbps
Eminem/Recovery                         iTunes Plus             AAC     256kbps         256kbps
The Chemical Brothers/Brotherhood       Artist website          MP3     48kbps (MONO)   320kbps
The Chemical Brothers/Hanna Soundtrack  Artist website          MP3     48kbps (MONO)   48kbps VBR


Notice the last two, one is 320kbps online, the other is 48kbps. The originals are 32000Hz 48kbps mono MP3.

How to tell if Google Play Music song is transcoded or matched?

Reply #2 –
I think the files it matches are just whatever the artist is selling on Goolge Music.  So if you upload a file it hasn't seen in Vorbis, you get transcoded to 320kbps MP3.  If you upload something it has, you get whatever the artist uploaded.