Tidal Digital Music Service

[Datch]

That one exclusive WS video is not on the vault (yet) to lure people, to at least try the free version, to check that video out.
After maybe they start to like the streaming service to keep using it. Business tactics people.

If this service is going to work in the long run or not is not a reason to be negative about it from the get go.
If it really costs more than the revenue people can also stop using the complaint that its 10 people trying to get even richer...

[cwja]

http://thequietus.com/articles/17547-ti ... -agreeable

Chris, ii laughed.
Thanks.

+1 Not only did it make me laugh, it pretty much summed up my thoughts on this crap.

[Bikedo]

Streaming music is overrated
I don't stream music and I never download music.
I buy CD's, records and cassettes and I support my local record stores.
They smile and say hi whenever I pop by, they serve good coffee and have free in store shows.
I have about 10 albums on my phone and every now and then I swap them.
Don't need access to a zillion tracks 24/7 cause I like to interact with people around me in the street and listen to the soundtrack of my city while I'm on my bike or taking a walk.

[arewhyehen]

http://thequietus.com/articles/17547-ti ... -agreeable

Chris, ii laughed.
Thanks.

+1 Not only did it make me laugh, it pretty much summed up my thoughts on this crap.

That. Was. Awesome.

[Datch]

So you don't like streaming, then don't bother with streaming.
Let Jack do his thing (whether this will work or not) and keep playing your vinyl instead

[Bikedo]

Good idea, let's all just only comment on things we like and agree on.

[Stl_ben]

Good idea, let's all just comment on things we like and agree on.

No you are also allowed to comment if you don't like what other people say and then tell them not to say anything at all....
The circular logic to it is perfect.

[Datch]

I'm not saying that you can't say that you don't like something.
I just don't see the point of smacking something down one won't use anyways even if its given free to them.
By all means go on discussing this thing.

[Kaber]

Should have called it

V
A
N
I
T
Y

[jamesmonzon1]

Been waiting for Tidal to expand its Tmr catalog since I joined when it first appeared around Sep-Oct last year. It's nice to have a massive lossless library on your phone without it taking up any space. For those saying it would kill your data plans- there's an offline option like every other streaming service where you download on WiFi to listen listen later.

To me I could care less about the intentions of JW or whether he took a shit after lunch. Just because you pay for one service from one company, it doesn't make you entitled to have all access to their content. I bought a hotdog from IKEA once, does that mean I should get a free table? And yes, TMR is a business and exploits your impulsive tendencies to buy their product by making you care more about if the product is rare or special. They want your money. Your friendship and faithfulness does not pay their bills or bar tabs ( that would be nice though).

So TMR is allied with Tidal. Which happens to be owned by Jay-Z. Ok. Cool.
"And motherfuckers act like they forgot about Dre."

[grumblestiltskin]

Surprised by how contentious this is. Its just spotify, but with the noble goal of fair pay for artists. If you don't want to pay for a streaming service, you don't need to. It isn't going to undermine the vault (which, I might add, has just been getting better and better...I wince to think of the old modlife days...). Fine, it has one white stripes video you can't see anywhere else. But its nothing special, and yesterday morning, you didn't even care about it.

Just FYI, I've been making use of the free trial all afternoon, and it does what its supposed to do. No idea about the whole hi fidelity thing because I don't have nice enough speakers, and if I carry on I'll be cheap, no HiFi tier...which costs the same as other streaming services.

Long story short: I see no reason to make any complaints.

[Alabama Woody]

I look forward to the day when I stop receiving tweets about Tidal ..... It's a tidal wave of tweets

[scoliosispony]

I look forward to the day when I stop receiving tweets about Tidal ..... It's a tidal wave of tweets

I lolled

[alteridiom]

I see why this makes sense for the artists but as a consumer what is it offering me that would make me jump in to streaming and/or switch services? Not seeing anything presently. Seems like a botched launch to me.

[rsimms3]

I think this service needs some better explanation about how it works. I understand that folks don't think it is viable because of costs and a perceived lack of advantage over other streaming services, but what are the potential alternatives?

First, you can only stream lossless in certain situations. You can only stream lossless using Chrome on your desktop. No other browser web players support lossless playback. You can stream lossless in the Android app as well if you use the correct settings. HIFI needs to be displayed in white to be listening to the lossless stream.

Second, files are compressed (lossless) in FLAC Level 8. Some folks don't realize FLAC is an acronym for Free Lossless Audio Codec. The file shows as a .BIN file during playback to prevent folks simply downloading the source file. The player is coded to know how to reassemble the file chunks and play it back.

Third, lossless playback takes up significant bandwidth, but the execution works really well over WiFi. The file is sent in chunks like most other streaming services, but uses larger chunks. YouTube generally uses 1-2mb chunks constantly during live webcast streams. Tidal uses a graduated system where the first few chunks are smaller to get them to load faster to reduce need for buffering and so your song starts immediately. They start with 1mb, then 2mb, then 4mb, and then 5mb. By the time you get 1mb played it has 2mb loaded, and has started on the rest. See the graph below (application/octet-stream), this represents playback of Icky Thump (the song) in lossless quality (as indicated by HIFI in white in the player section). This is on par with the same song that I ripped from my CD and encoded to FLAC Level 8. Tidal is about 27.4mb and my encode was around 28mb. The whole album works out to approximately 320mb for a single stream start to finish.


Fourth, at the current rate CDs will be the new cassettes in less than 5 years. With more people getting broadband access high quality streaming will be the future IF people care about quality. Otherwise we'll be stuck with shitty MP3 streaming services like Spotify and Rdio because we've forgotten what quality sounds like. Yes, there will always be a segment of the culture that hangs on to the nostalgia formats (currently records and cassettes) but you have to look at mainstream. At this rate, we'll be stuck with streaming and records with very little in between. I've seen about 10 people in the past year listening to Reel to Reel tape, 0 using 8-track, 0 using Betamax, 2 using Laserdisc, and probably 12 listening to cassettes. No car maker includes a cassette deck in their new car production and CDs are next.

Fifth, with great power comes great....no, wrong quote. With better quality comes higher prices. Storing extra exabytes of data at the ready to be streamed takes some serious space. Not to mention the muscles to stream that to anyone in the world reliably and quickly. Net Neutrality is our friend and allows us to adequately stream higher quality services such as Tidal because Apple and Amazon and Comcast aren't dictating who gets the fastest speeds on the net; it's a level playing field.