axxxr
Joined: Mar 21, 2003
Posts: > 500
From: Londinium
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AU may not have the hottest handsets o要 the face of the planet, but some of their services are cool. I like EZ Navi Walker, and this new EZ Chaku Uta Full is also pretty cool. Think of it like "iTunes Mobile" - you can download (near) CD quality audio right from your phone, and play it back o要 your phone.
KDDI and Okinawa Cellular will begin a new service in November intended for their CDMA 1X WIN network called "EZ Chaku Uta Full," which offers full length song downloads.
EZ Chaku Uta full can take advantage of not o要ly the stereo speakers o要 the cell phone itself, but also headphones or external speakers connected to the phone - this allows for high quality audio playback. The codec used is "HE AAC (High Efficiency AAC)," which starts out as MP3, but is converted to AAC in the process. This HE AAC is said to retain an audio quality comparable with that of AAC while retaining a high level of compression efficiency.
Apart from the songs themselves, contents providers also have the option of offering CD jackets, lyrics, etc. with each download. The contents providers have the option of offering some or none of these options.
The four supported models are the 1X WIN Winter models announced earlier this week. With the beginning of the service, 4 companies will launch around 10,000 songs across 6 sites. The price of a single song is said to be "in the hundreds of yen." The service can be accessed from "Chaku Uta Full" o要 the public menu.
The bitrate of the song is decided by the contents provider. Though the demonstration at the announcement event was conducted at a 48kbps bitrate, it seemed as though most contents providers would also be offering songs around this same level.
Along with the launch of this service, KDDI will also be establishing the "EZ Music!" portal site. This site is also connected to the "au Records" o要line CD purchasing site. "EZ Music!" is supported by EZ Chaku Uta Full and EZ Chaku Uta, which allows for searching for particular songs available o要 "au Records." Also, thanks to the "NOW o要 AIR Information" provided by the "EZ FM" appli, songs currently playing o要 FM radio can also be sought through the EZ Music! service.
EZ Music is supported by the four new winter models, as well as the "W21S" and "W21K" which do not support EZ Chaku Uta Full.
At the presentation, Mr. Makoto Takabashi, director of KDDI's Contents Media department, explained about this new service. "This new ringer service is for distributing full songs." He put it a step before audio sources such as CD.
Furthermore, if you could o要ly play back the songs through the phone's speakers, this would be much too similar to existing ringers. Therefore, KDDI has added the capability to playback songs through headphones or external speakers, which provides for a much higher quality listening experience. Playback in this sense will give about a 5 hour battery life for speakers, and 9 hour battery life for 9 hours. Obviously, this function will give the four new winter models the capability to become portable music players.
Also, KDDI plans o要 allowing the music data to be saved to the memory card. It's not that you can copy them - more like "cut" in PC sense, in that when data is moved to the memory card, the music data stored in the data folder will be deleted.
The specifications for this system include binding the writability of music data to a user's phone number. For example, when the phone is changed, and the phone number remains the same, all of the same audio data can be used o要 the new handset. According to Mr. Takabashi, writeability to a memory card also depends o要 whether or not the contents provider wants to offer that option.
KDDI will present the specifications of both Chaku Uta and Chaku Uta Full to contents providers, hopefully creating a simple content offering environment.
_________________
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+Leave it to Bush+
[ This Message was edited by: axxxr on 2004-10-16 16:14 ] |
Posted: 2004-10-16 17:13
