PC

iPod Vs. Zune Music and Video Download Sites

Posted on by blogger

There are many folks that hate both Apple and Microsoft portable media products. Apple makes i pod an Microsoft makes Zune.Fortunately for the consumer, there are other good portable media players out there now but do not have the same visibility as Apple and Microsoft products. Discussion about these other portable media players like SanDisks Sansa series and Creatives Zen series devices are beyond the scope of this article. This article is about basic iPod and Zune similarities and differences. In addition, sources for purchasing music online for iPod and Zune will be briefly discussed.

The iPod is a portable media players designed and marketed by Apple and released to the public in 2001. Currently, as a digital audio player, the iPod is the best-selling music player in history. Zune is Microsoft’s digital audio player, released in 2006, directly competing with Apples iPod. Each of these portable media players deliver what it was intended to do which is to play music or audio, display images, and play video. Each has their pros and cons.

There are many Zune and IPod similarities and I will list major ones. They each have the same starting price of around $249, disk storage, picture capacity, screen resolution, and aspect ratio. They play audio, pictures, and video. They have USB connection (to another device, typically a computer), battery, and similar battery life.

Both devices support MP3, MP4, M4A, M4B (for audio), and MOV (for video) file formats. The Zune favors Windows Media Audio (WMA) while iPod has its protected AAC format. When it comes to exchanging files, you will need software tools to convert your iTunes files to MP3 or convert Zune WMA files to MP3. Both systems support JPGs (for still images) and MPGs (for video).

There are advantages that Zune has over iPod. Approximately 60 hours more video can be stored in the 30GB version. Zune has a larger screen size and is capable of portrait mode display. Zune has wallpaper, FM radio, wireless connectivity, and faster battery charge. Zune Plays WMA audio formats and WMV video formats. It has one more standard case color: brown!

There are advantages that iPod has over Zune. iPod plays games, is compatible with the Audible, Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV audio formats. It plays H.264, M4V, MP4, MOV, MPEG-4 video formats. It is slightly smaller and lighter than Zune. The iPod software works on PC and Mac. Zune only works with PCs. The primary websites for music downloads are iTunes Store for iPod and Zune Marketplace for Zune. Both sites offer music downloads of 0.99 cents per song. With Zune Marketplace, you can buy a monthly subscription for $14.99 a month for unlimited downloads as long as you have a subscription.

But there are other online music stores out there so you are not limited to Apple and Microsoft. Do an online search for “online music stores” and determine what works for you.

Play And Sell Your Own Music On Website Using Website Mp3 Player Software

Posted on by blogger

With more and more web surfers switching their dial-up connection to broadband, and available software program to easily put multimedia content online, multimedia content is changing the face of many websites.

Many creative professionals and artist are embedding flash music player and flash video player on their website to broadcast multimedia content online.

Multimedia content including music, movie trailers and video clips are added to website to attract new visitors.

More and more artists and musicians are embracing the idea of demonstrating their music, songs and videos online, so visitors cam listen to their creations and even buy a single music track online, before their album is officially released.

As most visitors to these websites would have known about the musician’s previous work already, they are likely to be interested in new creation and releases from the same musician.

Buying music and songs directly from the artist’s website is relatively new, however the advantage is very obvious as evident by the popularity of iTunes. People like to listen to songs online, like to get in the mood instantly and also be able to purchase the song right away.

By adding a flash music player on the website, playing a snippet of the songs for visitors to listen to, with a Paypal button next to it, artists can significantly increase the exposure of their new music creation. In addition, interested buyers can purchase the song they like instantly online, so to bring revenue directly to the musician without any middleman in between. Online shoppers would also tell their friends that they bought the song directly from the artist, which is much more personal and carries more weight, and in return, will bring the artist more new and return visitors.

Another benefit of playing and selling music from your own website is reducing music piracy. We all know how piracy is very hard to control on the Internet. By offering your music directly from your website, you protect your music from being copied and redistributed. Also most Internet users like freebies, so allowing your visitors to listen to a full song will make them come back to your website and spread the word about it.

How to add music to a website by embedding a flash music player?

You might not have an experienced webmaster or IT person to help you with setting up a music player online. However, if you are already able to publish your website using one of the popular authoring tools, such as Dreamweaver, or Frontpage, then you can add a flash music player to your website very easily.

With the availability of website flash mp3 player and software tools, you can now showcase your music over the Internet to global audience without having to write one single line of code. No any programming knowledge is required, and you can use different flash music players skins to integrate with your existing website nicely.

When choosing the a website music player, you should make sure you select a flash music player, instead of using a Java or other type of plug-ins. Flash player from Adobe is installed by 98% Internet users, and supports PC, Mac, Linux and Smart phones. By using a flash music player, it ensures all your users can listen to your online music without having the need to download extra plug-ins or use a specify browser. You should also select a website music player which can support MP3 format directly — this way you do not have to convert your music files to different formats.