iTunes Match is now live in the UK

[Steve]

iTunes Match is now live in the UK  £21.99 / annum

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-12/16/itunes-match-in-uk


This subscription service lets you store your entire music collection on Apple's servers. Any tracks that are available amongst the 20 million song iTunes catalogue will be instantly matched up, while songs not in Apple's library will be uploaded.

Once your collection is matched and uploaded you will be able to access your music from any computer running iTunes, an Apple TV, your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad. There's a 10 device limit, and you'll need to be running iOS 5 on the mobile gadgets.

I'm expecting a heavy upload today I fear.

[.Griff.]

Sounds a lot like Google Music albeit more expensive. I wondered if Apple would follow suit at some point.

[Steve]

Obviously iTunes Match is IOS device based and is available in the UK from now although apparently it did 'crash' earlier. I'm just matching 6,300 
items we'll see how it gets on (thank goodness I've got FTTC now)

http://forums.appleinsider.com/showpost.php?p=1987455&postcount=2

"I posted this in a few places so it might help with the inevitable questions that will show up here.

Been working with Match for a few weeks and thought I would post a FAQ type response here to what I see people asking over and over again.

1. When you enable Match it goes through a three step process. Analyzing your library, matching songs, uploading non-matched content. It does this for your whole library. You can't choose to exclude songs other than taking them out of your library.

2. If a song is matched, it becomes available to download in 256K AAC. If a song is not matched it is copied in its current format and bit rate up to 320K. If the file is Lossless however, it is converted (presumably by your computer) to a 256k AAC file and then uploaded.

3. Nothing happens to your local music when you run match. If you have a lower quality song that was matched you can remove it from your local library and then replace it with the 256k version. What happens is you delete the song, but the entry in iTunes stays, but a little cloud now shows up in a newly added column that shows you that you have a song that is in the cloud but not in your library. You can click on the cloud and it will download it to your local library, where again it is now permanently yours at the higher bit rate.

4. Match uses your meta-data. If you in an anal-retentive fashion have made lots of custom edits to your files, that is what gets copied to the cloud. Even if you replace your songs with the upgraded versions you keep your previous metal-data. This includes lyrics.

5. Your limit is 25,000 songs and purchased from iTunes don't count, but matched does. Again if you have personal recordings etc. they won't match (obviously) but will be copied to the cloud in their current format (see above for Lossless exception)

6. Songs below 100k (I couldn't tell if it was below 128K since I don't have any at 100k) are listed as ineligible and nothing happens with them.

7. iTunes runs match on any new material that is added. I.e. when you rip a new album it is matched or copied to the cloud depending on how the match worked. Also, when you change meta-data, it immediately moves that meta-data to the cloud. So, if you correct a name on your iMac, it fixes the name in match. However, if you already had it downloaded on your phone, it would not be changed. But if you delete if from your phone and download it again you would see the new information.

8. iTunes match is not an amnesty program. Because there is no way to prove that matched songs came from a legitimate source, you can't claim you "own" the songs simply because you have a matched version. The RIAA might still prove that your IP address downloaded a file and sue you. Also, since meta-data is preserved if there is a comment like "ripped by mega-thief" it's still going to be there, unless you clean it manually. This does reduce the likelihood that they could prove it was illegally obtained because it had say a specific bit-sum, but it was never a crime to be in possession of files if it couldn't be proven that you up or downloaded it. So, be aware, this does little to protect you from the RIAA.

9. You have reasonable control to get songs off the cloud that you don't want there, but if you keep it in any iTunes library that has match enabled, it will re-upload it when you update the library.

10. I still have a good number of non-obscure albums that end up with 9 out of 10 songs matching. So, when I download to my phone I end up with 9 256K AAC songs and 1 128k MP3. I don't like that.

11. You can't stream to an iPhone. It begins downloading and you can listen to it while downloading, but it is on your device now. But, you can stream to a Mac. Instead of clicking on the cloud icon, you just hit play and it plays the song. What it appears to happen is that is still downloads the entire file, but it goes to some cache rather than your library.

There are probably more things that people are asking, but hopefully this helps relive some of the FUD about match".
     

[Steve]

Perhaps a better explanation here

http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-57325437-285/how-to-use-itunes-match/


Warning it will replace the library on an IOS device but all the 'matched' tracks downloaded will be at 256kps and arm free,you can also delete the songs from the IOS device and of course the original stays in the cloud.

[Rik]

I noticed that had appeared when I was in iTunes earlier. My first thought was 'Would this be an easy way to move the library to a new machine?'

[Glenn]

All your bandwidth gone in 1 day

[Steve]

If your happy with your music format as AAC 256kps as that's the cloud storage standard. My music server stores ALAC files and I'm interested to find out what happens to music it can't match, in theory it's supposed to upload them, my guess and hope is that it converts them to AAC 256kps as I've no wish to be downloading ALAC for the iPhone as I'll soon run out of storage space. I think the conversion will occur on the client machine prior to iCloud upload.

Chris Connaker - Computer audiophile is not impressed

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/iTunes-Match-Review-Article-Formerly-Known-iTunes-Mismatch-Review

However personally I don't want audiophile quality on the iPhone or am I too fussy about a particular albums content. What I do want is my ALAC  music files left unadulterated.

[Rik]

Not so good.

[Rik]

All your bandwidth gone in 1 day

Only once every new machine though.

[Steve]

I think moving the library to a new machine just needs a portable HDD i.e. copy media and then import to new library with the copy files option enabled

[Rik]

I like to do things the hard way, Steve.