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BlackBerry Music Store from Puretracks Coming April 1st

by James Falconer on 11 Mar 2008 12:35 PM
6
 

Puretracks DRM Coming April 1stPuretracks is a large music provider... They have contracts with many of the big labels including Sony, EMI and Universal to name a few. They have the 'ammunition' to launch a killer store... and now it looks like the dream is becoming a reality.

This new store will be dubbed 'Puretracks Mobile Edition' and will be available for use to all of us BlackBerry 8100, 8300 and 8800 series users. WiFi capabilities will be added at a later date.

The store is going to be DRM free. Files will be in a 64k AAC/AAC+ compressed format... Leaving downloads half the size of traditional MP3 files. It's a bit of a tradeoff. The files will be smaller but it will come at the expense of audio quality.

A 'sneek peek' of the service is being unveiled March 12th at the SXSW event in Austin. Look for the full launch at CITA Wireless on April 1st. Kevin will be heading to CTIA in Las Vegas, so hopefully he can report back and tell us first hand about the service when it launches.

[ BerryReview via BusinessWire ]

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6 Comments

Posted by JonV Tuesday, Mar 11, 2008 1535 days ago

Another service that my 8700 can't use. Understandable without a memory card slot. But I don't think i would use this even with a new BB. 64k AAC is good only if you're listening through your BB speaker, headphones would be worse. If the songs cost less than 99cents to match quality, it might be popular.

 
 
Posted by Anonymous Tuesday, Mar 11, 2008 1535 days ago

I wouldn't download 64k bitrate tracks if they were free.

 
 
Posted by AnonyMouse Tuesday, Mar 11, 2008 1535 days ago

I've listened to 64kbps for audiobooks and the quality is acceptable for that. Increasing the bitrate doean"t help much. If Puretracks offers audiobooks then I might be tempted to look.

As for music I consider 128kbps to be unacceptable quality and won't ever get it so why would I consider something less than unacceptable.

Apparently Puretracks business model is "the beatings will continue until morale improves."

 
 
Posted by Lexster Wednesday, Mar 12, 2008 1534 days ago

Puretracks looks good but I just go to www.martianmusic.com and they have loads of drm free mp3s LEGALLY! that I buy and put on my Curve. With a 4 gb card it is a no-brainer really. Good thing about Martian is I don't have to use my credit card, I just use Paypal. Huge selection of classical stuff, alternative music and some good jazz and ambient. IT will be good though to see if the 64bit strategy works with Puretracks, though I am not an AAC fan as I use sonos throughout my house.

 
 
Posted by Bla1ze Thursday, Mar 13, 2008 1533 days ago

Puretracks also will not provide service to Canada.

 
 
Posted by Anonymous Thursday, Mar 13, 2008 1533 days ago

Canada will be supported in April. For Canada, the store has tobe done in both French & English, hence the small delay.

Potentially eAAC+ could be used for the BlackBerry. at 64k, eAAC+ would be the same as 192MP3