Google Music Beta

good point about the playlist updating.  this leads me to another question about people's digital music workflow/consumption patterns - gonna start a new thread about that.

vansmack wrote:

sweetcell wrote:
maybe if i start using my phone as a secondary listening device it'll all make sense. 

And what's your primary listening device?

for mobile listening, ipod nano.  for sedentary, it's laptop + headphones or laptop/ipod + stereo.  for critical listening, i transfer to my offline desktop which has an external soundcard and is connected to 2 different sets of speakers.  i don't have a home media server although i might get around to setting one up at some point, as both the TV and the BR player allow me to stream music to the stereo.

One potential problem for families:

While I was listening on my desktop at work today, I grabbed my phone to help a friend with an issue with Google Music on his phone.  When I started up the playback on my phone, it paused the playback on my desktop.  Could be problematic with multiple user households….

vansmack wrote:
One potential problem for families:

While I was listening on my desktop at work today, I grabbed my phone to help a friend with an issue with Google Music on his phone.  When I started up the playback on my phone, it paused the playback on my desktop.  Could be problematic with multiple user households….

ha.  i guess the solution is for each family member to set up their own GMusic account and upload the exact same songs a second time (and third, and…).  it's a waste but i suspect G needs to do this to show the labels that this isn't a file-sharing service.

i wonder if the system is set up so that if person A uploads a mp3 and person B uploads the *exact* same file, the system stores only one copy.

sweetcell wrote:
i wonder if the system is set up so that if person A uploads a mp3 and person B uploads the *exact* same file, the system stores only one copy.

I think this is what they were trying to do and couldn't reach a deal with the record companies.

I think this is exactly what you should expect from Apple on Monday, however, at least from the big music companies…

vansmack wrote:

nkotb wrote:
it's good for 34,917

I guess we'll find out soon.

It says now I'm at 19590 songs so I'll see in a little while.

20,185 and rising….

finally got my invite, 46 of 44,954 added….

I seem to have been capped at 21,333 but I will need to verify on my server when I get home.

vansmack wrote:
I seem to have been capped at 21,333 but I will need to verify on my server when I get home.

I was definitely cut off at 23,895 songs.  I have to delete in order to upload more.

It was the chance I took, I guess.  I definitely would have done manual upload if I listened to their warning…it's a bit of a pain in the ass now.

Interesting…the message on my upload just changed to read "10,827 of about 30,000 songs added…15,475 songs skipped.  You have more than the 20,000 maximum songs allowed. Not all of your songs will be added."

Guess they're enforcing it now.  Thought I was lucking out for a bit.

vansmack wrote:

vansmack wrote:
I seem to have been capped at 21,333 but I will need to verify on my server when I get home.

I was definitely cut off at 23,895 songs.  I have to delete in order to upload more.

It was the chance I took, I guess.  I definitely would have done manual upload if I listened to their warning…it's a bit of a pain in the ass now.

enough about the google music beta, the hot beta social music website is turntable.fm…  based on the blogosphere BUZZ this site has the potential to be way kwel.  even with a "friend" and another possibly another friend on facebook in on this beta, i can't get in.  even had a even way cool boardie try to get me an email invite which has materialized  :'(  of course more than likely i'll eventually get kicked out of my own DJ room…

Yeah, sorry for keeping a thread on topic for once  ;D

kosmo wrote:
enough about the google music beta, the hot beta social music website is turntable.fm…  based on the blogosphere BUZZ this site has the potential to be way kwel.  even with a "friend" and another possibly another friend on facebook in on this beta, i can't get in.  even had a even way cool boardie try to get me an email invite which has materialized  :'(  of course more than likely i'll eventually get kicked out of my own DJ room…

wait turntable.fm beta has nothing to do with Google Music beta?

<wanders off to decide which of the seemingly bizallion CDs I've left to rip next in order to stuff in some cloud somewhere>

vansmack wrote:

sweetcell wrote:
i wonder if the system is set up so that if person A uploads a mp3 and person B uploads the *exact* same file, the system stores only one copy.

I think this is what they were trying to do and couldn&#039;t reach a deal with the record companies.

I think this is exactly what you should expect from Apple on Monday, however, at least from the big music companies…

As predicted, that's what iTunes in the cloud is.  18 millions songs from the major labels.  No mention of a way to upload stuff that doesn't match.

Finally got my invite today. Had no clue how much music I had on my work computer. Not even sure where it came from. I like that they added a bunch of free songs based on what my interests were :) Says I have a 20k limit. Will have to see how much stuff I have at home. I am liking it since I use multiple computers at work and can have all my music easily accessible now :)

vansmack wrote:

sweetcell wrote:
i wonder if the system is set up so that if person A uploads a mp3 and person B uploads the *exact* same file, the system stores only one copy.

I think this is what they were trying to do and couldn&#039;t reach a deal with the record companies.

this indeed what google tried & failed to do with song matching- if you uploaded any version of a song, in any format, they'd ID it, map it to an "original"/hi quality version, and serve that back to you upon playback.  what you upload is not what will be served back.

but my musing was on a different topic - what i was talking about was if one person uploads a specific file, and then another person uploads that exact same file (identical down to the byte) - will the cloud be smart enough to not store two copies of the exact same song?  what brought this to mind is that if 25,000 people download the same song from the same source - in other words, everyone has the same identical file - will the cloud maintain 24,999 copies?

then again, google is supposedly floating in storage capacity so they probably don't care…

If they maintain only one copy to float about, I assume that it will come down to precise labeling of files. Of course, that is only speculation on my part.

sweetcell wrote:
then again, google is supposedly floating in storage capacity so they probably don&#039;t care…

Though I don't know for sure (and nobody will tell me, trust me, I've asked), I'm going with this.

I think Google allotted each user 80GB's of storage space and is running individual databases of each collection.  When I request playback of a live bootleg or alternate mix of a song that I downloaded from some local DJ that maybe 100 people might have, I get EXACTLY that song played back to me.  That has to be my individual copy of a song. 

xneverwherex wrote:
I am liking it since I use multiple computers at work and can have all my music easily accessible now :)

This made me laugh:



I think Apple meant the "Music App for Mac or PC" as a positive too.

I assumed that sweetcell meant Apple, not Google, right?

vansmack wrote:

sweetcell wrote:
then again, google is supposedly floating in storage capacity so they probably don&#039;t care…

Though I don&#039;t know for sure (and nobody will tell me, trust me, I&#039;ve asked), I&#039;m going with this.

I think Google allotted each user 80GB&#039;s of storage space and is running individual databases of each collection.&nbsp; When I request playback of a live bootleg or alternate mix of a song that I downloaded from some local DJ that maybe 100 people might have, I get EXACTLY that song played back to me.&nbsp; That has to be my individual copy of a song.&nbsp; &nbsp;

vansmack wrote:
.&nbsp; No mention of a way to upload stuff that doesn&#039;t match.

This is interesting.  According to Engadget:  "That's done by scanning your library and matching songs to the versions Apple already has (a DRM-free 256kbps AAC file) rather than uploading everything – a process Apple notes takes "minutes," not "weeks" – although songs will be uploaded in cases where there is no match.&quot;

I guess we'll see when it comes out this fall.  Of course Google is probably already cutting the same deal with the Music companies to match Apple's deal…