Hydrogenaudio Forums > Spotify uses Ogg Vorbis (q5)

lameboy

Jan 9 2009, 14:48

Hi

Maybe this is old news, but I just read that the new "iTunes-killer" Spotify (http://www.spotify.com/en/ )
uses Ogg Vorbis (q5, ~160 kb/s) for their streaming service.

(reference: http://getsatisfaction.com/spotify/topics/soundquality )

Nice to see that they're using an open source encoder!

regards
Magnus

HotshotGG

Jan 9 2009, 15:09

QUOTE

Hi

Maybe this is old news, but I just read that the new "iTunes-killer" Spotify (http://www.spotify.com/en/ )
uses Ogg Vorbis (q5, ~160 kb/s) for their streaming service.

(reference: http://getsatisfaction.com/spotify/topics/soundquality )

Nice to see that they're using an open source encoder! smile.gif

regards
Magnus

That's good to hear. It's not old news!. I just hope we made a good enough recommendation in the wiki when we were writing the page. I think -q 5 should be transparent on most samples for the most part.

Edit: It appears as though it's a music application and it's only in the BETA stages so it DOES NOT work in the United States. That's going to be a real setback if they want to start a music service. I like the fact that it's legal, instant, and free though. I see great promise in this new application.

Synthetic Soul

Jan 9 2009, 20:35

I got an invite through today. Is anyone using this service? I understand the music collection is impressive...

I was a little reticent to install yet another application though.

HotshotGG

Jan 9 2009, 20:54

QUOTE

I got an invite through today. Is anyone using this service? I understand the music collection is impressive...

I was a little reticent to install yet another application though.

How exactly are they liscensing this music? are the paying the record companies royalties? they must be? I am interested in learning more about it's not avaliable in the U.S right now though (Which means it must be a European thing).

kerminen

Apr 19 2009, 13:20

Why haven't I seen more fuzz of this superb service at HA?

1:
It's free (for people living in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the UK, France and Spain )

Invites from here:
http://spotify.fleo.se/ (just put that web page to a firefox tab, refresh every 30min. "Det finns inga invites kvar just nu." translated from Swedish: "There are no invites available at the moment." But don't worry, when they put some more invites, they put plenty, over 900.... I got mine in under 3 hours, when I took mine there was over 970 left. I started my waiting period with "No invites" screen, too)

2: If your country is not yet in that 6 countries list, you can test the service 9,99euros per month in over 100 countries. Country list here:
https://www.spotify.com/en/products/premium/order/account/
For example in Argentina, Australia, Austria and so on...

It's like having unlimited iTunes for 9,99euros

3: Sound quality and technical layout is excellent,
they are using "Ogg Vorbis q5 codec which streams at approximately 160kb/s."
https://www.spotify.com/en/help/faq/

It is always good to see good use of open source code. And the next step seems to be open source FLAC, like we have always wanted at HA

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....c=70852&hl=

It is almost surreal to listen music from artists like MGMT, Laurie Anderson (O Superman), small Finnish underground artist Risto, M.I.A (Paperplanes) and The Smashing Pumpkins for free, totally legally and using Ogg Vorbis q5.

It's so easy and convient to use, it is even faster than utorrent, which can't usually be said of many online things. So no 14-year-old needs to use torrents anymore. So far torrents have always been the most convenient way to get things, they work in every pc/mac/linux with no drm or any other bothering difficulties.

Universal Music Group, SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT, EMI Music, Warner Music International, Merlin and The Orchard have licensed their music to Spotify, so artists get compensation, like on radio play.

The music selection is HUGE!

http://erihyva.kuvat.fi/kuvat/Public/spotify.png/full

Makes iTunes look little bit like the old aunt

There is so much iTunes talk everyday on HA, where is Spotify????

Go, Spotify, go, this kind of small money buffet models are the future, because the consumers always have the zero euro buffet table option.

[edit: typo, link]

soundberg

Apr 20 2009, 22:47

QUOTE (kerminen @ Apr 19 2009, 13:20)

Invites from here:
http://spotify.fleo.se/

I got an invite per your instructions and I'm very impressed with the amount of music and the sound quality.

QUOTE (kerminen @ Apr 19 2009, 13:20)

It is almost surreal to listen music from artists like MGMT, Laurie Anderson (O Superman), small Finnish underground artist Risto, M.I.A (Paperplanes) and The Smashing Pumpkins for free, totally legally and using Ogg Vorbis q5.

Not to speak of Tasavallan Presidentti! Or Swedish groups like Mecki Mark Men, Fläsket Brinner and Träd, gräs och stenar! :-)

PHOYO

Apr 20 2009, 22:57

Spotify is really nice! I use it daily.

Grooveshark is nice too, lots of electronic music: http://listen.grooveshark.com/

HotshotGG

Apr 21 2009, 06:41

QUOTE

It's so easy and convient to use, it is even faster than utorrent, which can't usually be said of many online things. So no 14-year-old needs to use torrents anymore. So far torrents have always been the most convenient way to get things, they work in every pc/mac/linux with no drm or any other bothering difficulties.

Except all of the legalities surrounding certain torrent sites and the growing "elitism" for darknets in the face of piracy. In this case though I believe Spotify is the right way to go.

QUOTE

Why haven't I seen more fuzz of this superb service at HA?

It looks like a great service from what I have heard and can tell:

1. It's not avaliable in the U.S or Canada as of yet (This I strongly disagree with and think it's a huge mistake)
2. Some people don't think they should be using Vorbis to stream there music (This I absolutely disagree with). '
3. I have heard they are dependent upon 7Digital to sell their music including lossless. 7Digital is extremely stingy when it comes to selling lossless downloads. I might be wrong, but the last time I visited the site I saw one album that was encoded with FLAC it was Oasis - Dig Out Your Soul and it was for a limited time!

donnie

Apr 21 2009, 09:06

Doesn't have a native linux client, although runs fine in wine. Is it possible to download tracks? I don't want to be using their player.

kerminen

Apr 21 2009, 09:19

QUOTE (donnie @ Apr 21 2009, 11:06)

Doesn't have a native linux client, although runs fine in wine. Is it possible to download tracks? I don't want to be using their player.

Don't fall into despair:

http://www.spotify.com/blog/archives/2009/...-to-developers/

http://developer.spotify.com/en/libspotify/overview/

So native linux clients are coming, many developers already, or you can make on yourself.

BTW: over 1,5 million users.... and counting. The UK passed Sweden with most users.

Spotify is using the "invite" system to limit the growing speed, so that their hardware upgrades can manage the traffic.

It's all over the press and media here.

EDIT:
And no, no download tracks, you stream them. Once a song is fully transfered to your thingy, spotify caches it on hard drive (cache from 1GB to 10%of free HDD)

donnie

Apr 21 2009, 09:41

QUOTE (kerminen @ Apr 21 2009, 08:19)

EDIT:
And no, no download tracks, you stream them. Once a song is fully transfered to your thingy, spotify caches it on hard drive (cache from 1GB to 10%of free HDD)

Well, that makes it uninteresting to me, means I can't control my music the way I like or listen to it on my portable.

It does seem like an ok concept but the adverts are annoying (both visual and audible) and the sound isn't great; I'm getting occasional interruptions. Don't know if that's my internet connection, that I'm using it in wine, the service itself or a combination of the above.

kerminen

Apr 21 2009, 10:14

QUOTE (donnie @ Apr 21 2009, 11:41)

QUOTE (kerminen @ Apr 21 2009, 08:19)

EDIT:
And no, no download tracks, you stream them. Once a song is fully transfered to your thingy, spotify caches it on hard drive (cache from 1GB to 10%of free HDD)

Well, that makes it uninteresting to me, means I can't control my music the way I like or listen to it on my portable.

It does seem like an ok concept but the adverts are annoying (both visual and audible) and the sound isn't great; I'm getting occasional interruptions. Don't know if that's my internet connection, that I'm using it in wine, the service itself or a combination of the above.

It's working alright here with thousands of wine/linux-users in Finland

I get one ad per 3 hours, that's a 30 sec commercial.
or 9 euros per month, no ads.

My music?

That's kind of philosophical..... Whose music it is.... Is it artist's or is it the label company's?

I can listen to music from
Universal Music Group, SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT, EMI Music, Warner Music International, Merlin ,The Orchard and smaller
#House of Akira, #Monique Musique, ~scape, 03 Studio, 14th Floor Records, 1CCrecords, 2 Play Recordings, 24 Bit, 2E2L Recordings, and tens of thousands smaller labels more
check
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=psn...BWCZA&gid=1
That's only a one day add.
Spotify adds new stuff every couple of days, and publishes it on
http://www.spotify.com/blog/
So thousands of small labels are added each week in addition to those big player catalogues.

hybris

Apr 21 2009, 11:36

My impression is that the sound quality varies quite a bit, and especially on older tracks I think it sounds compressed, I guess rightly so as they normalise all their tracks. I wonder what method they use.

I'd also love to be able to get a plugin for squeezebox. If they start selling lossless/high bitrate music as well it would be a wonderful way to explore/discover new music and buy it.

kerminen

Apr 21 2009, 12:28

QUOTE (hybris @ Apr 21 2009, 13:36)

My impression is that the sound quality varies quite a bit, and especially on older tracks I think it sounds compressed, I guess rightly so as they normalise all their tracks. I wonder what method they use.

I'd also love to be able to get a plugin for squeezebox. If they start selling lossless/high bitrate music as well it would be a wonderful way to explore/discover new music and buy it.

You can turn off normalization from player preferences, if you so wish
click Edit-Preferences

hybris

Apr 21 2009, 12:35

QUOTE (kerminen @ Apr 21 2009, 12:28)

You can turn off normalization from player preferences, if you so wish
click Edit-Preferences

Cool, I didn't know that. Thanks for the tip

Miramis

Apr 24 2009, 21:06

QUOTE (HotshotGG @ Apr 21 2009, 07:41)

1. It's not avaliable in the U.S or Canada as of yet (This I strongly disagree with and think it's a huge mistake)

It will be.

odyssey

Apr 24 2009, 21:31

I have tried Spotify and must say i'm very impressed. I have been praying for a license model like this for YEARS!

The collection is excellent, but still a few "important" artists are missing (say Fatboy Slim and Groove Armada).

The application is small and VERY lightweight.

Although I hope they improve the interface a bit. It needs a rating system, and instead of just creating playlists, I would like a collection view of some sort i.e. choose entire albums and select albums you want to hear from a visual view.

It's not gapless

I would like to get better "similar tracks" (alá MusicIP) instead of just chosing a genre.

Genres and year need to be better defined. Choose Pop from this century and much very old (what I would call) non-pop is appearing.

kerminen

Apr 25 2009, 00:15

QUOTE (odyssey @ Apr 24 2009, 23:31)

I have tried Spotify and must say i'm very impressed. I have been praying for a license model like this for YEARS!

The collection is excellent, but still a few "important" artists are missing (say Fatboy Slim and Groove Armada).

In Finland we have access to Fatboy Slim and Groove Armada.

http://erihyva.kuvat.fi/kuvat/Public/spotify2.png/full

Blame your country's music companies

QUOTE

Although I hope they improve the interface a bit. It needs a rating system, and instead of just creating playlists, I would like a collection view of some sort i.e. choose entire albums and select albums you want to hear from a visual view.

You can choose to listen to full albums, click the artist's name to get listing of all albums, with cover art

QUOTE

I would like to get better "similar tracks" (alá MusicIP) instead of just chosing a genre.

You get that by clicking "Artist Radio"

m0rbidini

Apr 25 2009, 03:50

I'm trying the paid version and I like it although it lacks less popular/mainstream stuff that LastFM has available.

HotshotGG

Apr 25 2009, 17:14

QUOTE

It will be.

This is good news. Right now I have an account on Lala, but I would welcome Spotify with open arms once they move across the ocean. I am sure they are already working on it as we speak.

krmathis

Apr 25 2009, 20:30

QUOTE (HotshotGG @ Apr 21 2009, 07:41)

It looks like a great service from what I have heard and can tell:

1. It's not avaliable in the U.S or Canada as of yet (This I strongly disagree with and think it's a huge mistake)

Just like how many of us disagree and think its a huge mistake that Pandora is not available outside the U.S.

HotshotGG

Apr 25 2009, 23:26

QUOTE

Just like how many of us disagree and think its a huge mistake that Pandora is not available outside the U.S.

I forgot that Pandora was restricted outside of the U.S. I think these companies need to stop with "country" restrictions. I suppose a lot of it has to do with their server loads and usage statistics. I heard Spotify was getting a tremendous amount of traffic, which is why it was invite only in some countries.

m0rbidini

Apr 26 2009, 17:18

HotshotGG, it's mostly because of licensing / royalties.

I want ReplayGain in Spotify (instead of normalization).

HotshotGG

Apr 27 2009, 13:48

QUOTE

HotshotGG, it's mostly because of licensing / royalties.

I have yet to find a paper or person who can explain how this works in different countries to me. I am also very curious about this. Maybe a Google search "will" turn up something.

hybris

Apr 27 2009, 14:23

QUOTE (HotshotGG @ Apr 27 2009, 14:48)

QUOTE

HotshotGG, it's mostly because of licensing / royalties.

I have yet to find a paper or person who can explain how this works in different countries to me. I am also very curious about this. Maybe a Google search "will" turn up something.

Very simply put, it seems like both the labels and the artists can decide wether a said track/artist/album is available digitally for any given country. (at least that is the practical effect of however it works)

This is mostly to protect the outdated distribution companies that earn money pushing actual CDs. (More or less the same reason you have region coding on DVDs)

Miramis

Jun 25 2009, 22:01

QUOTE

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

Jun 26 2009, 13:18

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

Aug 31 2009, 04:37

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

Aug 31 2009, 05:46

Is there any Classical available for streaming?

filR

Aug 31 2009, 07:12

QUOTE (Nuthen @ Aug 31 2009, 06:46)

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

Aug 31 2009, 14:29

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.

odyssey

Aug 31 2009, 15:29

QUOTE (PaJaRo @ Aug 31 2009, 15:29)

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

Aug 31 2009, 15:57

QUOTE (odyssey @ Aug 31 2009, 16:29)

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

Aug 31 2009, 16:41

QUOTE (Nuthen @ Aug 31 2009, 07:46)

Is there any Classical available for streaming?

A lot. For example everything from Naxos.

PaJaRo

Aug 31 2009, 16:46

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

Aug 31 2009, 19:10

QUOTE (PaJaRo @ Aug 31 2009, 16:57)

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

Aug 31 2009, 23:00

QUOTE (odyssey @ Aug 31 2009, 20:10)

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

Sep 2 2009, 05:54

QUOTE (PaJaRo @ Sep 1 2009, 01:57)

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

Sep 2 2009, 13:57

QUOTE (Rokkaz @ Sep 2 2009, 06:54)

QUOTE (PaJaRo @ Sep 1 2009, 01:57)

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

Nov 19 2009, 20:19

QUOTE

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

Nov 20 2009, 14:37

QUOTE

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!

Gag Halfrunt

Nov 20 2009, 18:07

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.