Rhino Records Downloads

... but yet another site that pretty much all of us outside North America cannot enjoy!<br />

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What I don't understand is how sites like Linn in the UK can and do allow downloads to everyone. There has got to be a solution for sites like Rhino and HDTracks...<br />

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Mani.

is the digital release a remaster? and why should you pay more for download then psysical cd? this is just ridiculous

We have a winner.......Prince's Sexy M.F. available in hi-def download.

that induces people to steal music, is to restrict selling it. OR is it the financial system in the USA, that shuns foreign credit cards. Most likely distributorships in other countries are restricting downloads to occur. <br />

The Chinese will figure out a way, and best of all it won't cost anything, hence encouraging to steal.

Further to the 'Only in the USA' comments, this is from the Rhino site :<br />

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<em>At this time digital downloads are only available to customers using a credit or debit card issued by a U.S bank with a U.S. billing address, or those making the purchase and downloading the file while in the U.S. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.</em><br />

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I wonder why they feel an apology is necessary? It makes it appear as though the decision is out of their control, as though some sort of trade restriction is in place. I've never had any sort of problem at all, purchasing goods from US companies, until it comes to digital downloads of 'most' music. I say 'most' because this restriction certainly doesn't apply to <em>all</em> music download sites.<br />

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It feels to me like the sort of business stupidity we have come to expect of the major record labels. I'd love to know the real reason!

Fixed feelings about this one. <br />

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Rhino are being proactive in offering lossless downloads which is very welcome but:<br />

- why are the lossless files more expansive than MP3’s?<br />

- 16/44.1k tracks should not be called Hi-Def, very misleading. Rhino have a few DVD-A disks so no reason not to release 24/96 or above, maybe they will, I hope so.<br />

- A shame there's no AIFF option<br />

- as already mentioned why not available to customers worldwide.<br />

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One day!

We know what HiRez is; these aren't hirez. Just because they also sell Mp3's doesn't give them the right to confuse an already confused public. Their website does do a certain level of educating, but to lower the bar to say FLAC is HiDef is BS. if you show someone VHS quality, then DVD you still can't now call DVD "BlURay".<br />

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Wow, the glass is more than half empty today! You guys are a tough crowd (more than usual). <br />

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I am very excited about this and hope others are as well :~)

24/96 to call it Very-High-Def, and 24/192, Super-Very-Hi-Def. <br />

Seriously, your name goes a long way with the industry's move to downloadable content. They should know better than to call redbook HD. Give them two pats on the head for doing this lossless stuff, then a kick in the rear for their misinformation.

Hi Ted - I hear you about calling Redbook high def. I do have a message into Rhino already to chat about some things :~)

Good move in the right direction!<br />

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On the subject of why only US, it might be because in the olden days (and maybe still now) companies sometimes used to license rights to music geographically. It obviously a big job to clear up all those copyright issues. Not sure or not if that has something to do with why they are only selling in US.

Hi Guys - I posted this in a previous discussion about international availability of downloads. I'll repost here as well.<br />

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Here is part of an email discussion I had with someone very familiar with this topic. I removed the identifying information where appropriate but the main points of the message are really what matters in this discussion. This person wrote the following to me late in 2008:<br />

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<i>"The problem with international sales of downloadable music is this:</i><br />

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<i>Recordings are generally speaking a work of art and thus protected under copyright laws. The artitst who originally composed the muisc do have the legal rights to it for 70 years (in the US) or 50 years (in the EU). When these works are sold as a recording there is something called "mechanicals" involed. A part of the product price goes to the author or to the organization representing him. Legally these mechanicals have to be paid in the country of the purchaser as the different countries do have very different calculation approaches and rates. If these mechanical rates are not paid it technically is an illegal download as the author of the music will not participate from the sale<br />

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<i>Furthermore there is also the problem of value addet tax (VAT). In the U.S. this does not yet exist on internet purchases but in the EU you do have to pay the VAT for downloads in the country in which the purchaser resides. With different VAT rates in different countries this means different prices for identical products. Again technically speaking a downloader would have to notifiy the local tax office to pay VAT. Obviously that is close to impossible to check and a U.S. company would find it burdensome to pay VAT abroad, especially as this would drive up their prices.</i><br />

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<i>Finally many works are protected by distribution agreements only giving local rights of sale as other companies my have legally acquired the rights to these recordings elsewhere.</i><br />

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<i>With all of this you will find that [many companies] don't sell outside the US as the legal implications would be extremely difficult to tackle. Just to give you an idea: i-Tunes in Europe is having different prices for identical downloads depending on the location of the downloader. They have to report to 27 different tax offices and 27 different copyright organizations monthly and use 23 different languages in that and pay accordingly. That is something you will not see many US companies willing to do for a market that has not embraced commercial downloads. To put it in a nutshell: It seems even i-Tunes in the EU (who is the biggest fish in the pool by far) is loosing money to date."</i>

I was stoked to read the post re Rhino but 3 seconds later I was equally as bummed..... <br />

US only. Gosh darn it.<br />

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BTW, I can see why Rhino are saying 16bit/44.1 is Hi-Res IF the releases are fully 16bit/44.1. <br />

Many modern CD releases don't get near 16bit....<br />

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Thanks Chris - that was much more than I could contribute on the topic of geographical issues!

Well I will be very excited with you Chris. This has been a long time coming. I think this will be a very successful venture for the folks who created Rhino. While a quick scan of the website yielded about a 50% return on my searches, I am sure they will be adding more artists as demand warrants.<br />

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It's nice to know that if I can't find that CD I'm looking for at one of the used music stores or online, I can download and enjoy without delay, without worrying about scratches.<br />

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I must note that it appears you will only be allowed to download a track or album once after payment, so backup is necessary.

I'll have to register a grievance under NAFTA. So much for the free trade agreement with the U.S. <br />

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On a brighter note the Rhino site has great offering of music for U.S. residents. The future is here.<br />

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Cheer up, the digital appears to be half price - 75 cents a track at the moment. Good deal.

Hey bottlerocket - I didn't even notice the half price sale going on for digital downloads! I decided to take advantage of it and purchased a ton of material. This is really cool.<br />

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Then I found out the Rhino Download Manager doesn't work on a single computer of mine, Windows or OS X. Check the screenshot below. This is what happens when one has to download $123 worth of files manually :~(<br />

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Click to enlarge <br />

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<a href="http://images.computeraudiophile.com/graphics/2009/1205/rhino-100.png" title="Rhino Downloads" class="thickbox" rel="Rhino"><img src="http://images.computeraudiophile.com/graphics/2009/1205/rhino-15.png" style="padding: 5pt 10pt 7pt 5pt;" alt="Rhino Downloads"></a>

Well I certainly don't think the "HiDef" moniker is warranted but let's face it, Rhino is marketing to the uneducated masses that see nothing wrong with MP3. For this market segment, Redbook is HiDef.<br />

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I for one appreciate Rhino's wide download offering, price notwithstanding. HDTracks is my primary source, but they can't seem to get their catalog expanded very quickly.

I had trouble with the 1st order. I highly recommend downloading the download manager first before the first order (not sure how to do that thought) or make your first order very small. (Talking MAC OSX here) The download works off a download stack that looks like this "RhinoOrder-RH9322xxxxxx.rhdlm". This file went to my download folder. It then automatically opens this file via the Rhino Download Manager and does its thing. On the first order, it did not automatically open so that was very confusing. So if this happens, go find the .rhdlm file and click it and it will invoke the Rhino download manager. Also you need to set your preferences in the download manager to say where to put the files. It did import ALAC automatically into ITunes very well. I then converted to AIFF. <br />

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So I finished downloading over 250 tracks last night. The 50% off digital sale is wonderful. However, none of the FLAC files are properly tagged! Take a look at this screenshot. It appears Rhino made an error when tagging all the tracks. None of the information is readable by applications.<br />

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<img src="http://images.computeraudiophile.com.s3.amazonaws.com/graphics/2009/1205/rhino-tags.png"><br />

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Chris<br />

Do you know if downloads restricted to people using a USA physical address or to a USA ISP?<br />

Frank

Just a note to everyone who's having problems, so far it does look like I got the Rhino download manager to work for my first order. The one thing I did was go into the download manager preferences and added my Rhino Username/pass. After that I went back to the page that showed up after placing the order and clicked "Download Your Order Now". Then the .rhdlm file popped up and I told firefox to use Rhino Download Manager to open the file. It seems to be downloading track by track, which is a bit of a pain IMHO, but at least it appears to be working.<br />

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This was with OS X.

I had no trouble with the download manager on Windows XP. <br />

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The improperly tagged tracks are really a pain though. I downloaded FLAC and used MAX to convert them to AIFF. ITunes picked up the album art, but I had to manually enter title, album, track etc. Until they get this fixed, I'm not going to download from Rhino. . .

I read Chris' article about Rhino with interest. So much interest that I went and downloaded Wrecking Ball. All went smoothly and it was a pleasant surprise to find that all digital downloads are 50% off. Somewhat disturbed by the HI DEF moniker that is actually CD quality but it sounds OK.<br />

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Today I went back and found 2 Allen Toussaint albums that I wanted. So I purchased them and the download manager kicked in. Out of 59 songs it could only get 20 songs. All of the rest came up with "ERROR: FILE NOT FOUND". AFter trying several methods of downloading 01) from the confirmation email, 02) manually, and 03) automaticaly from the download manger I caled the help line at 1-877-744-6651. I got a human on the first ring and, yes, he sounded like he was in a call center in India. He agreed that Rhino is having a lot of start up problems and could do no more than to forward my problem to management. I asked for a refund and he said he could not do that but I will hear back in 24 to 48 hours as to whether I get a refund or not. This has been my experience with Rhino. I think I will wait a while before ordering any more from Rhino. Give them some time to work the bugs out.<br />

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Chuck