Sunday, April 09, 2006

Music Subscriptions Take 2

So I'm playing with the Rhapsody service. On initially opening the window, it was *very* cluttered and confusing compared to the Napster view. I've played with it more and now it seems okay, though the window still seems busier than the Napster view.

The Rhapsody player allows me to rip any new CDs at 192kbps (my preference) whereas Napster is limited to 128kbps. Also, the downloaded music from Rhapsody is 160kbps whereas Napster is only 128kbps, so it will have more detail in the sound (yippee!). But that fills up my portable player faster (aw shucks).

I can't figure out how to get rid of the Rhapsody player bar on the main screen like I can with Napster. Napster's can be pulled away from the main window, giving more space to the main view. The Rhapsody mini player that I can get to pop up by touching a corner of the screen with the pointer is good to control Rhapsody when I'm in another application.

The tabbed view of Rhapsody (where I can only see Play, Burn, or Transfer one at a time, not all at the same time) makes it harder to copy something from the Play menu to the Transfer menu so that it will copy to my U10. With Napster, it's drag and drop for most everything. Maybe there's a different interface that I don't yet know about.

I wasn't able to tell Rhapsody to put its music into another folder. I want to separate the subscription music from my purchased music, but the folder for Rhapsody wouldn't hold in the preferences. Napster allowed me to do this so that the Napster music is in a "Napster" folder.

Napster links with XM Radio so I can stream stations from XM in the main view. (And it has the added advantage that it doesn't time out like the XM Radio player from the XM website.)

More as I play.....

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