An .mp3 file is simply a compressed audio file. I mentioned another type of audio file, the uncompressed .wav file, in Brain Candy #14 and #15. A .wav file is much larger for a given amount of audio. Even with compression, a four minute .mp3 file of FM-broadcast quality would more than fill a floppy disk and a CD quality file would be even larger. But consider this: it isn't uncommon to see recent PCs ship with hard drives of 8 gigabytes or more, most of which stays empty for most users. A few megabytes per song isn't too difficult to come by these days. If you're the kind of music nut that I am, you might just spend $100 or so for a dedicated 10 gigabyte drive that could hold 5000 songs. If you have a CD-ROM recorder, you could make your own CDs, which would hold a massive amount of compressed music.
I'm not going to become a Live365 DJ, at least not right away. But after reading the tutorials on their site, I got another idea. I became interested in taking my favorite cuts from my CD collection and creating my own PC jukebox, using all the idle hard drive space I have on my machine.
The big gorilla of web audio is RealNetworks at www.real.com. Their RealPlayer and RealJukebox programs may already be on your machine. RealPlayer is an invaluable plug-in for web audio, but I've had serious difficulties with their RealJukebox program on my PC. It crashes a lot, and doesn't record very reliably. I don't fault the program; I'm the only one I know who is afflicted. After several attempts I gave up on it, but your mileage may (and probably will) vary.
Another jukebox program, recommended by Live365, is MusicMatch, available from www.musicmatch.com. Their basic Jukebox program is free, but to record at CD quality levels, you have to buy the upgraded version at $29.99. On my machine, the MusicMatch Jukebox has been quite stable. The program has many nice features; it has a well thought-out database scheme to allow you to catalogue your songs and automate the selection process for the cuts you want to hear from your music library. The process of "ripping" the songs from your CDs is simple. With MusicMatch running, you insert a CD you want to process. The program goes to the Web to look up the CD information and then presents you with a list of the songs on the CD. You then pick what songs you want to record. There are a lot of other settings, but you don't have to get into that right away if you don't choose to. If you don't do anything else with your system during the process, it can generally copy songs two to four times faster than the normal play time, although some CD-players, and some CDs don't support such fast copying.
What you are doing is completely legal, as long as you don't share the .mp3 files in a way inconsistent with copyright laws. You bought the CD; you have a right to copy it. The music industry keeps claiming that this process is not legal, but it has always lost in court and, unless the law is changed (which the music industry is working on), it will always be legal. You do have to respect the copyright and keep the files to yourself. Passing them to friends is illegal.
So what is the result of my efforts? I spent a few hours ripping about 200 songs (so far) from two dozen CDs. Based on the internal database, I can tell MusicMatch that I want to create a random playlist of all of the New Wave cuts I've defined as "Excellent" or "Very Good". That will get me about eight hours of music. If I like the list, I can save it. If not, I can rearrange it, try another random list or manually build one. Eventually, I can see having thousands of songs if I have the storage for it. No running to the family room for CDs every hour or so and I can play songs from different sources, back to back. If all of this sounds interesting to you, give it a try!
Now, to the games. Many local Mensans have played NTN trivia in bars and restaurants for the past seven or eight years. At one time, you could play on the old Genie network and on AOL. I checked their web site at www.ntn.com recently, and found that you can now play from the Web. You'll need a Java-capable browser to play, but it's pretty straightforward if you have one. You can also chat with other players, but when there's upward of 100 people playing, it's unwieldy. It plays well; network lag is rare in the time we've played, and it seems to extend to all players when it occurs. If you're a committed NTN player, I've given you all the encouragement you'll need. If not, and if you like trivia games, it's definitely worth checking out.
CATBAR - Brain Candy #30 - Music and Games / Brian Rock / March 19 2000