I am surprised so many people still use physical media and don't use music streaming services. I used to spend so much time ripping cds, and now I have cheap access to almost anything I ever want to listen to. People like to bitch about new technology, but the stuff we have available today (and cheaply!) was a pipe dream when I was growing up.

My only real complaint with current distribution is the wait for digital movie rentals after the movie is available to buy. I would pay $5 to rent, but their window is at launch, or very close to it.

First try:

https://appletoolbox.com/2011/12/ipod-touch-ipadiphone-album-artwork-is-missing-after-updating-to-ios-5-fix/

Manually:

https://www.lifewire.com/add-album-art-in-itunes-1999271

That's all I could find. I switched to RockBox on my iPod, so I never have to mess with iTunes again.

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He admits he's not seen any portable music players in 5 years, and clearly did not listen to either of the 2 he mentioned.

This is happening more and more and more. Critics reviewing things they have not even heard or seen. I stop right there. Thier opinion is complete crap to me. Useless. Less than useless.

It's not an either/or situation, you can just use both.

You can stream if you want crappy sounding background music, OR you can listen to FLACs if you want hi-rez music.

You can stream a movie with fake HD resolution in the bedroom, OR you can watch 4K Ultra with 7 channel surround from disc on the projector in the greatroom.

-

Like at this year's Christmas party at my house:

The kids streamed Pandora's "Drum & Bass" channel in the basement crash room. They played Xbox, jumped up and down on the beanbags and air mattresses until the subwoofer pounded them to sleep. No need for any quality music resolution there....

In the kitchen, the women kept changing the Pandora stream from "Christmas Classics" and "Country Christmas". No quality needed.

In the greatroom, the Hi-Rez jukebox played whatever tracks people were punching in. The tunes were played over a $20K system where any streamed music or mp3s would sound like tinfoil.

In the dope room, people smoked Nova OG and listened to headphones to chill - Hi-rez for sure here.

In the pole barn we played pinball and it was too noisy to have any music playing, although the barn is wired for sound.

I still use my Zune HD for working out. Great little device. It was much better than the iPod back in in the day but it was late to market, didn't have the name "Apple" on it and Microsoft restricted apps on it too greatly so it went the way of the dodo.

Uh, the difference might be in your head. My understanding is that these are generally the exact same products, but the name is changed because of new regulations simply preventing them from being called ice cream because there's too high a volume of other stuff (cookies, etc)

Apple bought Omnifone, and of course, immediately closed it down.

That left the Pono without it's high-rez downloads.

The Pono still plays all your FLACs and mp3s, but with it's measly 8 hour battery life, it's far outclassed by all the new hi-rez players introduced in 2017.

I was hoping they would blow them out for $99 or something, but they are still fetching $250 for some reason.

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They have most definitely changed...just google search it. The new recipes suck and it is far from ice cream. Trader Joe’s and Costco for me...that stuff still melts lol. One example:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/17/dining/remembering-when-breyers-ice-cream-was-you-know-ice-cream.html

You shouldn't be surprised at all. If you have a reference system, nothing less than the full audio/video files will do. Yes, there are options, such as Kaledescape, but I won't watch anything less than 4K UHD or BD in my theater room. You can hear and see the difference... and disc is still the cheapest and easiest way to have access to it.

Old Age...the last music player I bought......

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I ordered a cheddar cheese burger, and when I got home it had American cheese on it instead.

What a rip off!

That's what happens when you listen to Tom Waits

You’re right! I’m going to march down to my local Outback and demand to see the salad bowls! I, for one, will not stand for this Tomfoolery!

I would have personally called the OP of this thread a complete retard for his idiotic thoughts but your post did it much better and indirectly. Thanks.

Guess I'm a dinosaur with my turntable, beta player and Commodore 64 and was scammed once by not getting a prize in my box of cracker jacks

If it's extras you want, check the disc out at the local library. Even cheaper than Redbox.

Devo, the Plasmatics, Squeeze, Jim Carroll, Sex Pistols.....

I read the book for a class in high school Around 1978.

I'm just amazed somebody is actually surprised when they get ripped off eating at Outback steak house.

My most recent experience with the ripoff: I really love Mr. Hero sub sandwiches. One of my favorite parts of the sandwich has always been the nice fluffy fresh bread they use. The last time I bought a sub, the bread was different. Not only was it not as puffed up and flavorful, it was also definitely smaller, along with the rest of the sandwich fillings inside. Definitely a shrunken sammich. Now see they advertise a "BTE" option for a dollar more. (best taste ever is the marketing buzzword for supposedly 50% more product) Nice....give you less for the same money and have you pay extra to get the original size sammich.

I’m still failing to see where you were ripped off. You rented the HD version of a movie for $1.99. You watched the movie.

Did you ever see an instance where Redbox advertised extras?

Doesn’t matter anyway, this is not Redbox’s doing, it’s the movie industry. It’s not like Redbox calls up Lionsgate (for example) and requests 100,000 copies of single layer low bit rate HD discs devoid of lossless audio and extras. Nope... it’s the opposite. Lionsgate is the the one shipping Redbox the stripped down version. Same as it does for Netflix or any other rental scenario.

The good news is that now you know something that has been widely known since about 2011. And if you really want the full features, you’ll have to pony-up $14.99 to own a disc or find the content on the net.

I think people feel ripped off because if they rent the movie at Video Stop, you get the whole experience. Sometimes your rental even includes a 2nd disc of extras.

I've never had the experience of putting in the 2nd disc and have it say "Extras are only available for customers who have purchased this movie - this disc is blank"

.......now that Net Neutrality is gutted by you know who, get ready for the real fun......

What is a dvd? Is that the thing that people used before streaming?

note - when you rent/stream a movie on Vudu (great online streaming service) you pay one price for SD and a higher price for HD. For the couple of bucks extra, HD is worth it.

People with good A/V systems don't use streaming, because you can see all the artifacts from the compression used to stream it.

Even just regular HDTV. Comcrap charges you $15 extra for HD, and then when you compare it to the free HD you get off your rooftop antenna, you see that the quality is terrible from cable. The installers joke that it's "HD Lite"

Streamed movies are even worse.

A Bluray disc is 50 gigs for the average movie.

A streamed Vudu HD movie is 2.5 gigs.

So 95% of the movie data is disposed of to make it stream.

If Vudu sent the movie full quality, you would hit Comcrap's 200gig data cap in only 4 movies......

Malarky. VERY underrated word.

Seems like the physical media market (Blu-Ray) has shrunk back to Laserdisc size, basically for the 5% with super high end AV systems. Most people are watching on their phones/tablets/medium sized TVs and can't see or hear any difference enough to spend way more for it.

I feel ripped off that I wasted time reading about anyone feeling ripped off for 50 cents due to their own faulty understanding of "rental only" discs.

The retail, feature-loaded versions of discs are not licensed for rental, and any rental outfit that rents them out anyway is asking for a boatload of lawyers to be dropped on top of them.

Exactly.

Redbox added 1,500 new location stations in 2017, so their business is growing.

They claim that the surge of 4K TV sales has increased the demand for high quality video that streaming can't deliver.

I know exactly what I am talking about. I take my ice cream very seriously!

Take a look at this video.

Nothing worse than getting the Breyers home and finding it was previously melted and refrozen.

Homey don't play that anymore. I open the ice cream at the check stand and inspect it before I hand over the cash.

Free Redbox rental this week:

Redbox.com is offering 1-Night Blu-ray, Video Game or DVD Rental for Free when you text VALPAK to 727272.

Don't expect any extras on the disc.....

Gasoline was around 40 cents a gallon when I started driving and now it's over 3 dollars. What a ripoff!

And the boss says " I remember when minimum wage was 2 dollars an hour and now I have to pay you guys 10. What a ripoff!"

I cheap out on stuff wherever the quality difference is negligible compared to the price reduction, and ice cream is one thing I don't cheap out on anymore! I bought some Target brand ice cream once and the texture was like air. Never again. Even Blue Bunny which is not a real premium brand is miles above that crap.

Can we please get back on track with this iPod debate?

There is a separate thread if you like:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/audiophile-ipod-299-sale-pioneer-xdp100r

Just got a cheeseburger from Wendy's and they put 2 rings from a slice of onion on it instead of the whole slice

I suppose they gave you an end cut of tomato too.

Bastards, how dare they rip you off!

Rehydrated tomato pieces.

I hate it how Trojan is making their product an inch shorter and charging the same!

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Hey guys!! I got one! I bought a NIB pinball machine and it decreased $1,200 in value in the first 2 months!!! This country sucks!!! Waaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh.

Dear God, No!!

You purchased a pinball which dropped in value? Oh, the humanity!

Truth is there are still plenty of good deals out there if you look for them.

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That might be why I was surprised. A $20k sound system is about the same price as every vehicle I have ever owned.
The 320 encodes on google play music sound great on everything I own.

Like anything else in life, don't pay more unless you can appreciate the difference.

Don't buy a $3500 Taylor, if you can't tell the difference between it and a $99 Walmart guitar.

Don't put a $10,000 stereo in your truck if you only listen to talk radio on your morning drive.

Don't buy an $8,000 Durmar print, if the old Nagel posters from your dorm still adorns your walls.

Don't buy a $5,000 set of Shun knives if your Slap-Chop can do it all.

I used to get 100 balls for a dollar. Overnight (1967) it became 50 balls for a dollar. (or 60 balls at 3 games for a quarter) Then 12 balls for a dollar.
Then I started buying my own games.

Yup... this is why I pay extra for the blue ray every time... if a movie isn’t on blue ray I don’t even bother renting it.

Yeah paying more for less has been happening for a long time and it is annoying. Although I don’t mind smaller portions at restaurants, it’s not good having most the items on the menu be enough calories for an entire day let alone a single meal.

Sony is the one you should be crying to... they supply the rental disc. They’re the one that limits rental disc material. This isn’t Redbox’s fault. You’re barking up the wrong tree.