Is Sony planning to add music downloads to PSN?

Posted May 21, 2009 at 9:08AM by Karl B. Listed in: PS3, PSP Tags: CNET, Howard Stringer, PlayStation Network, Sony

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CNET is reporting that according to their music industry sources, Sony has been having preliminary talks with some major recording companies about the possibility of providing downloadable music for the PSP through the PlayStation Network.

As usual, Sony is staying tight-lipped about the whole thing. If you consider the company's recent forays into digital downloads for PSP games as well as CEO Howard Stringer's words about expanding the PSN's reach, though, it starts to sound quite plausible.

I just hope that if they do roll out a music download service they listen to Stringer and make it more open. I think people are really getting a mite tired of all this proprietary business. ATRAC3s are perfectly fine with me but not everybody has a compatible player. Heck, if they really plan to further extend the PSP's multimedia capabilities, why not add .avi support as well?

Via CNET

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Comments

# yes avi — triplehisking 2009-05-21 04:54

I really want them to add support for AVI!! That would mean less work and better quality..i wont need i video converter anymore

# this is kool — HDRasta 2009-05-21 05:28

now can we get the rest of the PSN to go to Canada... we cant even download or buy movies.

# DivX... — papajag 2009-05-21 06:25

Works for for some AVI types of video. They have that already. They need Xvid to completely play all AVI video format.

# ... — ptspyder 2009-05-21 07:38

I will be called a bastard for this, but just region hop onto the american network. All you need to do is make a PSN account with an address inside the US.

# Kinda was hinted when — phiyuku 2009-05-21 08:02

there was like 20 pieces of game music such as Mirrors Edge and I think i saw some Shadow of the Collousus stuff. Was a long time ago I don't remember when but they were there as mp3 downloads. They were free too, only one i picked up was Mirrors Edge Still Alive.

# DRM — xCraftx 2009-05-21 08:25

DRM free plz? otherwise i'll just download it from amazon/itunes...

# Would be REALL AWSOME!! — Hekynn 2009-05-21 13:43

It would be really AWSOME if they do that! Since then I can buy a $50 PSN card and use that to download some Albums from the PSN. PSN ROCKS!

# No that is not good. — GUNBEHINDTHESUN 2009-05-21 17:27

Everyone wants to download half assed versions of the original with quality issues. I prefer to ALWAYS BUY THE CD. That is the closest way to the original without a direct analog copy, and it is always good to have a quality hard copy.

# well here's an idea.. — Azrael_666 2009-05-23 00:17

what if sony added the ability, when buying albums, to allow the cd to be shipped to your house? i mean when you sign up for PSN they do ask for your address as is, so they could add shipping services to it. basically they could, after you choose "Purchase" ask whether you want the digital copy for download, or have the CD shipped to your address. heck I think thats a great idea personally. they could do this with Video too. and some games (PSP games). so if the customer WANTS a physical version of the game/album/video, they can have a UMD/CD/DVD/Blu-Ray shipped to their house so they get it.

and btw its not half assed. you should buy something off the itunes store. i've done tests myself. AAC at 256kbps is perfect CD quality, no loss.

# Azrael_666 — GUNBEHINDTHESUN 2009-05-23 01:26

I would rather go to a local store for a cd or buy one off the internet.

Also YES a highly compressed verson of a music track is not as good as cd quality as it's bitrate is way lower. There are differences in codecs for audio using lossy or lossless codecs. Although AAC is claimed to be better than MP3, AAC is not as good as CD quality which has a bitrate of above 1400kbps. A lot of people enjoy buying the watered down versions of music without the fancy cover art but I do not. I enjoy having cds that I can can covert to whatever format I wish with the best possible optimizations from what you can get from a cd. Also did you know that converting music from one high compressed format to another high compressed format will make the ending result quality even worse?

Heres a pretty good link to check out http://www.stereophile.com/features/308mp3cd/

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