My Delusional Dream

Over the last few years I've managed to rip quite a few of my CD's to OGG Vorbis format. While it's partially a political statement, it's more just a technological issue. OGG is better than MP3 and it's easier for me to get going under Linux. Anyway, a few months ago Kristina bought an iPod Mini, which sadly does not play OGG (note to self: email Apple about getting OGG support).

This leaves us in a conundrum as I don't want to rerip all of my music, and Kristina would like to not have rip everything either. I've found Davyd Madeley's OGG->MP3 script. This works just fine under linux (mad props to GStreamer folks). But that still leaves us with the fact that MP3 is teh suck.

A little hacking shows that there are AAC plugins for GStreamer (based on libfaac) and that they should be able to create AAC files. Unfortunately, with GStreamer 0.8.8 this does not seem to be the case. Which is sad, because I might actually consider converting my music to AAC, but that's not going to happen now.

So here's what I'd like to do, provide an easy way for Kristina to load OGG files, transcoded of course, onto her iPod. Ideally, it would be cool if this could be relatively transparent. Here's our setup to work with:

• music hosted on Ubuntu Hoary
• Client runs Windows XP Home edition
• Relatively new iPod Mini

Samba takes care of the file access. Is there a way I can make a virtual sort of share that automatically transcodes music as it is accessed (similar to what KDE does with KIO Slaves?). This would be the ideal situation. If that's not possible, is a way to have iTunes transcode from OGG when it gets ogg files? If that's not possible, anyone know of a simple desktop app that my wife could use to transcode between OGG and AAC or MP3?

Yeah, this is a lazyweb request. I've done my share of searching on this problem. I dislike how everything in the windows world is hidden behind a "pay me now" ideology. ::sigh:: There is an OGG QuickTime component, but I've heard mixed results on that.

ps: don't even try and suggest iPod Linux. I'm not going there with Kristina's iPod. Both her and I have something better to do.

Codi Brocious has posted a project statement for PyMusique describing in clear terms what it does and why they do it. Of key to note is that PyMusique does NOT give you free access to iTunes. You still need to have an account and pay for the songs or redeem them with bottle caps from Pepsi. However, what they don't do is apply the DRM because its an open source project and thus would be trivial for people to remove this capability.

I'm sorry Apple, but the egg is clearly on your face on this one. Having the client apply the DRM is just plain old DUMB. Never ever trust the client. Yes, it's possible to keep trying to close the holes that PyMusique uses, but eventually they'll look just like a real client and then you'll have real problems. Don't get me completely wrong, I'm not angling for Apple destruction here. iTunes is great thing, however, DRM simply does not work. I can't think of a music service that hasn't had its DRM broken, deal with it. The RIAA and the cabal of cronies need to wake up on this issue. Until then, download for the cheap at allofmp3.com. Yes, it's legal in the US to use this site (as the goods technically count as being purchased in a foreign country where they were legal, or something along those lines. Anyway, it was discussed on Dave's IP list and that pretty much convinced me).