Updated Rhapsody from RealNetworks

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.jakeludington.com/digital_lifestyle_report/20050430_rhapsody_beyond_fear.html' target='_blank'>http://www.jakeludington.com/digital_lifestyle_report/20050430_rhapsody_beyond_fear.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"RealNetworks released the latest version of their Rhapsody service last week and I'm hearing lots of great things about it. They've done several things mostly right with the service. Support for a subscription model competing with Napster To Go is definitely a positive. I recognize not everyone is sold on the idea of renting music, but I'm perfectly content with this kind of model as a try-before-you-buy approach. It's cheaper than buying CDs that I only listen to a few times and it doesn't have the same back alley smarmy feel that's associated with traditional file sharing. A new share 25 songs with your friends option seems okay on the surface, but it only works if your friend downloads Real Player, which is a turn off because would be easy for them to use Windows Media DRM to share the files through every player that supports it. Real needs to give up on trying to sell us a player and start looking at how they can bring something else of value."</i><br /><br />Jake Ludington has some thoughts about the new Rhapsody release - myself, I'm still gunshy of installing anything with the world "Real" in it from back in the late '90s when RealNetworks turned RealPlayer into a bloated, nagging application. Does anyone here use Rhapsody? If so, how does it compare to other solutions such as Napster?

[RenesisX]

Having created and worked on some of the largest music download services in the world, when I had to choose a service for my personal use I chose Rhapsody.

I'm not overly fond of their client - it's layout is a bit awkward, but the design of the site is fantastic with the genre hierarchy, the meta-data is top-notch and everything is streamed, so no messing around with annoying DRM (it's invisible).

Rhapsody is by far my favourite, and I've tried them all!

[Timothy Huber]

I had a few hiccups getting my Creative Zen Micro to work with the new Rhapsody, but I've settled on it as my service of choice. Personally, I like the interface relative to Napster, etc. It's pretty easy to find what I'm looking for.

But the real kicker is Rhapsody To Go. I gave Napster To Go a trial, but I regularly encountered tracks that weren't eligible for subscription transfer. I used FYE Download Zone, which also has a MusicNet-based "To Go"-type subscription. It had better track availability, but a poor interface. And both use 128 kbps encoding.

Rhapsody To Go offers 160 kpbs encoding on To Go files and 192 kbps on its purchased RealAudio tracks, which it transcodes to WMA or AAC files for use on a WMA player or an iPod. Plus they give their subscribers a $.10 discount on purchasing tracks.

I'm listening to music that I never would have purchased and discovering new artists and bands. And I can fill up three different portable players with subscription content for my wife and kids. All for the price of 1 CD per month.

I've been a Rhapsody subscriber for a few years and was nervous when they were purchased by Real. However, so far they haven't bloated the Rhapsody client like they did the RealPlayer. We'll see what they do in future releases.

Timothy

[Felix Torres]

One thing Rhapsody has done well is they've worked with the manufacturers of network music receivers to ensure (basic) Rhapsody can be streamed to their boxes.
I believe the latest version of the Roku, Buffalo, and Linksys receivers and connected-dvd players, among others, all support Rhapsody.
(Napster-to-go has a bit of work to do there.)
So when you add 3 separate portable players to the base PC (or PCs) plus whatever media players reside on the home network, that's a lot of access points to the catalog for $15. A large family (or college dorm) could have five or six people listening simultaneously.

Thats a *lot* of value.

[Jason Dunn]

Rhapsody is still USA only, right? That kind of nixes it for me. ;-)