[sclug] Odd TOCs on CDs

[Bob Franklin]

I haven't tried Fairplay, but I use JHymn (http://hymn-project.org/) to 
decrypt my music in iTunes.  It's fairly automated - you just run it and 
it finds your protected music, moves it out to another folder, decrypts it 
and then adds it to the library again, preserving it in playlists, etc.

It turns .m4p files into .m4a files which also play fine as-is on my 
mobile (Sony-Ericsson K750i).  This probably the way things are going 
(MPEG-4 audio) because of support in various sections of the industry.

With .m4as, iTunes will happily let you burn a variety of different CDs 
(and presumably doesn't have the '5 burns and that's your lot' limitation.


One note about decrypting music is Apple don't approve of it and 
occasionally take steps to break the decryption programs.  They do this by 
looking for stuff still in the file, to know that, even though it's been 
decrypted, it was originally bought from the store.  However, this seems 
to be a war of attrition; the people who write Hymn (don't know about 
Fairplay) claim they're just doing this to allow you write MP3 CDs, re-use 
the music on other devices (e.g. my phone) and not get hit by the 
limitations (which are reasonably fair, within what they have to work 
with - i.e. the music industry) - they leave a lot of the information 
still in the file, deliberately.

If Apple release a version of iTunes, the Hymn people will shortly release 
something which works round the problem.  I've had this happen a couple of 
times, but not for a year or so - certainly iTunes 5 (released this week) 
didn't break refuse to play any of my decrypted files.


Another way to play music at a party might be to use an Airport Express; I 
believe someone has worked out how to stream data to it, outside of 
iTunes.  Certainly, for me, it closes the loop of listening to music on my 
computer via my hi-fi (without having to muck about burning CDs or 
connecting cables).

   - Bob


-- 
  Bob Franklin <r.c.franklin at reading.ac.uk>          +44 (0)118 378 7147
  Systems and Communications, IT Services, The University of Reading, UK