DRM free music - where?

[anon(7900571)]

Ok, I visited a few Nokia Priority dealers and Nokia Care centres today. They all said they have Nokia MixRadio unlimited subscriptions - Rs.50 for 7 days, Rs.99 for 30 days, Rs.250 for 90 days, however, Nokia MixRadio Plus (Premium) is not available in India. I called the Kohat Enclave one, but no one answered the phone there.

Are you sure that the one you have is for Plus and not for unlimited? I am fine with unlimited, too, as long as it's not 64kbps.

Laura - Where in the US do you buy the vouchers? Is there an online website?

I do t have mix radio plus on my lumia 920. But I can use any free/open source audio converter to I create the bit rate to 128/256.

 

[RTGent]

A comparison of Mixradio -plus or not- to an Xbox Music Pass is a forced one, and it's unfortunate that India and other important nations are limited to such offerings on their devices. Mixradio is a lower-cost service like Pandora or Spotify which doesn't allow you to download "your" music; that is, a collection that you specifically search for, download, and build and organize, limited nearly only by the storage capacity on your devices. Mixradio + eliminates the most annoying features of the free system, but you still are downloading only Nokia-determined playlists or "mixes"; plus there are still limits on how much music you download, and for how long. It is a nice service if you are satisfied with others-defined choices, especially if you are interested in discovering new or old music. You can quite indirectly, and only, influence the music you get to stream and download, but that's it: these services charge you less because they get revenue from the labels that pay for you streaming and downloading their offerings. For a sense of how Nokia, Spotify, and others work out their "expert" selections, go to echonest dot com; you learn about the sophisticated software/service they use to run this quite advanced music-marketing business. Pretty neat stuff.

 

[slyronit]

I do t have mix radio plus on my lumia 920. But I can use any free/open source audio converter to I create the bit rate to 128/256.

Thanks, but manually upscaling the bitrate is not what I need.

 

[slyronit]

Thanks all. I changed my Nokia account country to US, used a US credit card to purchase a Nokia MixRadio+ subscription. let me explore!

 

[RTGent]

Good for you, Slyronit, and enjoy the music! I've learned a lot at WPC's Nokia Applications forum and especially here: MixRadio - Nokia Support Discussions. There's a lot of India-related content in several threads on the latter site.

 

[slyronit]

Well,this is what I learnt today

1. Nokia MixRadio Unlimited- You can stream unlimited songs and download them in 64kbps MP4 format. Available in India

2. Nokia MixRadio+- You can stream unlimited songs and can save offline mixes, but still have to pay for album downloads. Albums I wanted cost around 7-10 USD each. Files are DRM-Free
3. Xbox Music- Can only listen to samples in the free version. With a music pass, can stream unlimited music but still need to pay to download songs/albums. Albums I wanted cost 5-6 USD each. Files are DRM protected.

Finally, I settled with an unlikely service- ITunes.

This is the only major service which allows you to purchase music officially in India in INR ₹. Albums cost less than 2 USD (120₹), but are high quality M4A format and are DRM-free.

Its sad that I had to choose apple over Nokia and Microsoft and it made me uneasy going outside the ecosystem, but iTunes in India beats the others hands down.

Thanks everyone for all your help.

 

[Ebuka Allison]

Well,this is what I learnt today

1. Nokia MixRadio Unlimited- You can stream unlimited songs and download them in 64kbps MP4 format. Available in India

2. Nokia MixRadio+- You can stream unlimited songs and can save offline mixes, but still have to pay for album downloads. Albums I wanted cost around 7-10 USD each. Files are DRM-Free
3. Xbox Music- Can only listen to samples in the free version. With a music pass, can stream unlimited music but still need to pay to download songs/albums. Albums I wanted cost 5-6 USD each. Files are DRM protected.

Finally, I settled with an unlikely service- ITunes.

This is the only major service which allows you to purchase music officially in India in INR ₹. Albums cost less than 2 USD (120₹), but are high quality M4A format and are DRM-free.

Its sad that I had to choose apple over Nokia and Microsoft and it made me uneasy going outside the ecosystem, but iTunes in India beats the others hands down.

Thanks everyone for all your help.

Xbox music with the free version you can listen to 10 hours of music per month I think. With a music pass you can stream and download as much as you want DRM music of course. If you buy any music, its yours to keep and you can do with it what you will I.e DRM free

 

[slyronit]

Xbox music with the free version you can listen to 10 hours of music per month I think. With a music pass you can stream and download as much as you want DRM music of course. If you buy any music, its yours to keep and you can do with it what you will I.e DRM free

Thanks. In India, you can't use Xbox Music at all, without changing your Xbox region to US or another supported country.

Thanks for the correction. I didn't know that purchased music files were DRM free

 

[RTGent]

Xbox music with the free version you can listen to 10 hours of music per month I think. With a music pass you can stream and download as much as you want DRM music of course. If you buy any music, its yours to keep and you can do with it what you will I.e DRM free

Yes; also -in the US and a growing list of countries- the free Xbox Music plays/streams full songs and albums; and the 10 hours/month limit is after 6 months.

 

[HTC13]

Yes; also -in the US and a growing list of countries- the free Xbox Music plays/streams full songs and albums; and the 10 hours/month limit is after 6 months.

This is only for the Xbox music app for Windows 8.1, not windows phone 8 or windows phone 8.1 developers preview. On the phone apps you need a music pass to stream songs and download. I never understood why the phone app is treated differently.

 

[RTGent]

Well,this is what I learnt today

1. Nokia MixRadio Unlimited- You can stream unlimited songs and download them in 64kbps MP4 format. Available in India

2. Nokia MixRadio+- You can stream unlimited songs and can save offline mixes, but still have to pay for album downloads. Albums I wanted cost around 7-10 USD each. Files are DRM-Free
3. Xbox Music- Can only listen to samples in the free version. With a music pass, can stream unlimited music but still need to pay to download songs/albums. Albums I wanted cost 5-6 USD each. Files are DRM protected.

Finally, I settled with an unlikely service- ITunes.

This is the only major service which allows you to purchase music officially in India in INR ₹. Albums cost less than 2 USD (120₹), but are high quality M4A format and are DRM-free.

Its sad that I had to choose apple over Nokia and Microsoft and it made me uneasy going outside the ecosystem, but iTunes in India beats the others hands down.

Thanks everyone for all your help.

Too bad, but at least you'll have MUSIC. But, iTunes is not a service, as such. It is only a platform for buying and organizing music and other media. iTunes radio is Apple's free streaming service here that -like Nokia, Spotify, etc., features "expert"-selected mixes/playlists only.

BTW, Xbox Music Pass download files are 192 kbps, and when you buy a track, it converts it to 320 kbps.

 

[RTGent]

This is only for the Xbox music app for Windows 8.1, not windows phone 8 or windows phone 8.1 developers preview. On the phone apps you need a music pass to stream songs and download. I never understood why the phone app is treated differently.

True: I've been seeing this as a device limitation, rather than an app limitation. I can only stream XBM Pass music on my Xbox 360, unless I purchase an Xbox Live Gold subscription too.