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HD music is different than normal music which you listen to daily, HD music is encoded in the highest quality and produced the way the artists wanted it to be heard.  The people who founded Chesky Records recently developed an online store that sells high-resolution music, HDtracks.  Every song comes with the complete album artwork and PDF liner notes.

The music they offer are available in FLAC format and 96kHz/24 bit rate, which is a lot higher than music on a CD (44kHz/16 bit rate).  HDtracks’ content comes from audiophile labels such as Chesky, 2L, and Reference Recordings.  HDtracks claims that they will be adding new artists and their music in the 96/24 format every day.  More after the break.

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Sections: Audio, Portable Audio, Web, Downloads, Online Music/Video

A New York District judge has dismissed EMI’s copyright infringement lawsuit against MP3Tunes CEO Michael Robertson.  In November, 2007 14 record labels affiliated with the EMI filed the suit, claiming MP3Tunes’s internet locker service encourages copyright infringement.  The service, which has 150,000 customers, provides personal, password protected accounts known as lockers that allow all music stored in them to be shared between PCs, game consoles, DVRs and cell phones.
The judge has allowed the suit against the company itself to proceed.  It will eventually determine if it is permissible for music to be stored in cloud services the way documents and photos are.  Interestingly enough, EMI has not sued the similar services offered by Microsoft, AOL or BT.  Robertson believes that the reason behind that is that EMI decided it would be easier to make an example out of his small company.

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Sections: Web, Downloads, Web 2.0, Websites, Online Music/Video

Immediately after USA Today published a report declaring that Amazon’s music store is now the number 2 online seller of digital music, eMusic CEO, David Pakman disputed the report and said that eMusic is the number 2 online music seller and not Amazon.

“This morning I read with some surprise in USA Today that Amazon is “No. 2 in digital [music] sales since opening nearly six months ago.” Amazon’s entry into this market last year was an important milestone in the continuing irrelevance of DRM and the overly restrictive and anti-consumer policies that the music industry has foolishly wielded in this new, digital age. But let’s get one thing straight: outside of iTunes, no one sells more music digitally than eMusic, and we don’t plan on giving up that title anytime soon.“

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Sections: Web, Online Music/Video

Panasonic Japan has released the D-Snap SV-SD870N, a new portable audio player that (at least) according to the translated version of the Panasonic Japan website, it seems that the main feature is its “noise killer” or noise canceling technology. So, you could probably expect to get a decent quality sound when listening to music via the D-Snap. Aside from the noise canceling technology, the D-Snap SV-SD870N also features the ability to record directly to an SD card, and allows up to 100 hours of music playback from a full charge.

Looking at the photos of the D-Snap, we could easily see that the digital menus, buttons and lists are conveniently located at the front of the audio player for easy playback, rewind and track selection. The D-Snap also supports various standard audio formats to include MP3, WMA, WAV and M4A.

The Panasonic D-Snap will be available in the Japanese market beginning in April 2008. No words on the U.S. release yet, or whether it will ever see the US market at all.

Via [Dvice]

• Samsung announces the new P3 PMP, successor of P2
• Panasonic makes a move for 3D Blu-ray
• MP3 becomes official king of music

Finally after one year of announcing that it will be opening its own online music store, Limewire has fulfilled its promise. Everybody’s once favorite peer-to-peer file sharing application joined the online music industry with its very own online music store. Limewire is making available its catalog of around 500,000 DRM-free music file for download at a price of $.99 per single track, similar to the price of many other online music stores today.

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Sections: Audio, Web, Downloads, Online Music/Video

Napster and O2 have reached an agreement that would make available 5 million music tracks to O2’s mobile subscribers. The deal is set to expand O2’s limited music database while bringing another milestone in Napster’s move towards transforming its services into a legitimate online song shop.

Under the Napster-O2 deal, digital tracks from Napster can be sold to UK users for 99p or a bundle of 5 tracks for £4, roughly around $2 per track. When O2 subscribers buy digital songs from the O2 portal, the digital tracks will be automatically sent to both their mobile phones and to their registered email addresses.

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Sections: Audio, Portable Audio, Communications, Cellular Providers, Mobile, Web, Online Music/Video

At the recent CES in Las Vegas, iriver presented its entry into the handheld PC market when it debuted WING. This device features web browsing, instant messaging, email, photo, music and text messaging ability along with an FM radio and camera. The Linux powered device is a black and white clamshell boasting a 4-inch TFT-LCD touch screen and full QWERTY keyboard, 4GB of memory and an SD slot for additional storage.

iriver also debuted the new UNIT 2 Multimedia Home Networking Device. This device has it all: Audio, Video and DVD player, DiVX player, CD player, FM radio, VoIP phone,
text messaging, web browsing, and email. It also boasts a 7 inch touch screen,built in stereo speakers, a 30GB hard drive and 2GB of NAND flash.

The UNIT 2 is designed to be an all-in-one solution for integrating your digital content with your TV and set top box. Both the UNIT 2 and WING are expected to be released later this year.

Read [iriver]

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Admittedly, digital music is the wave of the future. In the ongoing CES 2008, research firm Yankee Group projects that revenues generated from online and mobile downloads in the U.S. will grow from $1.98 billion in 2007 to $5.34 billion in 2012. 

Digitization and direct-to-consumer transactions are the two major growth drivers propelling this industry. Still, its impressive performance is not enough to make up for the losses triggered by the waning CD sales. Unfortunately, the rise of digital music will spell the death of the record label.

Michael Goodman, director of digital entertainment at Yankee Group, also predicts the changing relationships in this industry.

“It’s not just that the record labels are facing declining revenue; rather, the basic relationship between recording artists, record labels and consumers is in major flux. As bands retain ownership of their music, the record label’s role shrinks while the role of technology vendors and online music stores grow.“

Even though mobile music downloads get so much buzz lately, online music will still represent the biggest share (80%) in the US digital music revenue.

Read [Press Release]

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Sections: Audio, Web, Downloads, Online Music/Video, Mobile, Content