3 ms·
Even if FLAC was required for "high-fidelity" -- it's not -- a 20mb track and assuming the track is at a super short length of 60 seconds is going at ~341kbps.
by thezilch 12y ago
Even if FLAC was required for "high-fidelity" -- it's not -- a 20mb track and assuming the track is at a super short length of 60 seconds is going at ~341kbps. YouTube is already pumping bits faster than that at 360p [0], so that really doesn't seem like a hard part of the equation, and surely the market for this is not looking to capture an audience smaller than YouTube's.
[0] https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1722171 https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1722171
- DigitalSea 12y agoI was just using FLAC as a comparison for lossless considering when someone thinks of lossless audio they will mostly think of FLAC. Of course it goes deeper than that. I think the hard part of the equation is still definitely dealing with bandwidth and speed limitations though. I have issues streaming Youtube video even more so than I do HQ Spotify tracks (and it is a problem more common in Australia particularly than most think). Optimisations can only go so far before you encounter hard limitations software cannot work around without a reduction in quality. Considering the platform will offer 320 and lossless, I guess they're not limiting themselves to some small niche of the market. Most people will happily pay the same price for Spotify like quality and a possibly larger catalogue on Tidal, but I don't think the lossless aspect is going to be as big as Jay Z thinks. It's a marketing gimick more than it is a selling point for the general audio consumer.
- 0x0 12y ago1k/2k/4k video streaming seem to be coming along alright in many markets so I don't think lossless audio streaming is over the top. Totally understand the sucky situation in Australia though. Maybe an aussie cdn cache could help in that particular market?