Digital Music Basics
| You're probably already aware that digital music is just music that has been converted so that it can be played back using a CD player, computer, MP3 player, and so forth. The term MP3 is commonly used to refer to digital music because MP3 is the original and probably still the most popular format for encoding digital music. However, there are other competing formats you need to know about to successfully play digital music on your Treo. Currently, there are three major digital music formats:
These formats determine the specifics of how analog sound waves are encoded digitally as 1s and 0s. The specifics matter little when understanding how to play digital music on your Treo, but the music formats matter a great deal because not all are supported equally. For example, the built-in RealPlayer application supports only the MP3 format, which is a big problem if you've spent hundreds of dollars downloading 99¢ songs from iTunes or MSN Music. If you have a large library of WMA or AAC (iTunes) songs, you'll want to look into a third-party Treo media player, such as Pocket Tunes or Kinoma Player, covered later in this chapter. Note The Treo's RealPlayer application also supports audio in the RealAudio format, which is typically used on desktop computers for playing audio streamed in real time over a network connection. Unfortunately, the Treo's RealPlayer application doesn't currently support streaming audio. It can be used only to play RealAudio files (.rm and .rmj file extensions) that you download to your device. Another reason you might consider using a third-party media player is if you'd like anything beyond the most basic control over how music is played. For example, if you'd like to stream music over a network connection or fine-tune the sound with an equalizer, you need to look beyond the built-in RealPlayer application. Regardless of what media player you use, the primary limitation to listening to digital music on a Treo device is memory. Although some formats do a better job at compressing music than others, digital music is greedy when it comes to memory. Even fairly short songs (under two minutes) can weigh in at 2MB, and longer songs can stretch up to 4MB or 5MB and beyond. The Treo designers realized this problem and decided that a memory card would be required to listen to music on the Treo 600/650. So if you want to listen to music on your device, you need to invest in a memory card. Fortunately, the price of memory cards is dropping constantly, and you can get a fairly large card (512MB+) without breaking the bank. I encourage you to get at least a 256MB card so that you can put enough songs on it to make things interesting. Also keep in mind that you'll likely be using the memory card for other Treo applications, which is more reason to go as large as you can afford. Of course, you can buy multiple memory cards and swap them out if you have lots of music and other data you want to have readily available. Note The network speed of current mobile phone networks makes streaming audio a difficult proposition, at least for now. However, you could use Bluetooth or a Wi-Fi expansion card to tap into a faster network connection and access streaming audio. When playing music on your Treo, you have the option of playing the music through the standard internal speaker or plugging headphones into the headset jack, which is on the bottom of the device just left of the Multi-connector. The internal speaker works better than you might think for listening to digital music, but you should invest in a Treo stereo audio headset if you plan to listen to much music on your device. You can also buy a stereo headphone adapter that allows you to use any set of stereo headphones with your device. Visit the Palm store to find more information about these products: http://web.palmone.com/. I need to go back to digital music formats for just a moment before moving on to transferring and playing music on your device. Earlier I mentioned the iTunes and MSN Music online services for purchasing individual digital songs. Although these services are great for downloading individual songs quickly and playing them on your computer, they present some challenges to playing music on your Treo. This is because most online digital music services rely on digital rights management (DRM), which is a locking mechanism designed to limit the playback of songs to only the person who purchased them. Unfortunately, even if you have legitimately purchased a song, you might find that you can't play it immediately on your Treo. I say "immediately" because you might need to convert the songs to remove the DRM restrictions. Note The headset jack on the Treo is a 2.5mm jack designed for use with special Treo headphones and headsets. To use it with standard-size (3.5mm) stereo music headphones, you need to purchase a Treo stereo headphone adapter. Apple, Microsoft, and others might not like the idea of you making copies of songs and removing their DRM restrictions, but you have a right to play purchased music on any device you choose. As long as you don't turn around and share a song's unlocked version with someone else, you are within the law in terms of making a copy of purchased music for yourself. One of these days, I hope, software makers and the recording industry will figure out that all people want is convenient access to digital music. Most people are willing to pay for music if they can access it conveniently and play it whenever and wherever they want. End of ranttime to move on! |
