Question about downloading music

[skygazer]

Something I've never done. Is it even possible to download music with a dial-up connection? It's so unbelievably slow to do anything, I've never tried.

[Spider Jerusalem]

1. Sure, it's possible.

It's a lot slower than broadband, but you can still do it. I downloaded a lot of music back in the early days of Napster on dialup. You can expect a single mp3 to take anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour, depending on file size.

[skygazer]

3. Yikes

I don't think I have that kind of patience.

Thanks for the reply, though. :hi:

[TheBaldyMan]

2. i think it depends on the length and quality of the download

for CD quality it's 16 bit stereo sampled at 41.4 kHz.

That means the file size (with no compression) would mean a file size of ...
16*2bits per sample = 32 bits = 4 bytes
41,400 samples per second = 165,600 bytes = 160kBytes approx

that means roughly 9&1/2 megabytes for one minute of CD quality music.

compression can reduce the file to roughly half the original size, say just over four megabytes.

different formats can compress more but lose sound quality, some formats keep 100% sound quality and increase the file size even more to include error correction data.

The person that records the file can choose a lower sound quality in the first place and that can dramatically reduce file size but this means truly awful sound. 8-bit 2kHz sound is like a very old carbon mike telephone and speech is just discernable using it but you can pack a minute of crappy sound into a file of less than half a megabyte.

[skygazer]

5. You know, that looks like English

But reads like something completely different. :rofl:

[TheBaldyMan]

9. OK in short, high quality sound = longer downloads

If you know how long it takes your connection to download 1 megabyte you can get a rough idea of how long it will take to download 60 seconds of music.

[skygazer]

10. Ah! That makes sense.

Thanks - I'm a technological dummy - I can use it but I don't understand it at all.

[underpants]

4. Eh that sounds like it would take a long time

But I really don't know I use iTunes cards and am currently ripping my CD collection to my iPod.


We just recently got highspeed at home and it is not even the same internet as it was. You can't afford not to have it.

[skygazer]

6. Money is not the issue

Not that I have lots of money. But high speed is not available where I live. Which is so funny to me - I have friends all over the world, some in what one would consider third world countries, some in tiny rural areas - they ALL have high speed internet.

I live in the Silicon Valley and have dial-up. :wtf:

But I'm in the mountains and there's no cable, no DSL, I don't have the exposure for satellite so right now I'm stuck. :shrug:

It's worth it - I live in a gorgeous place.

[catmandu57]

7. What I used to do

Was leave my downloads running all noght while I slept, this tied up the phone line, but phone calls in the night are hardly ever good news.

[skygazer]

8. That's a possibility

Thanks. :hi: