Susan McKinnell and University of Minnesota guest experts discuss how digital technology has changed the music industry. They will talk about things like satellite radio, music kiosks, downloading music, and buying music online.
Guests
Mark Wheat
Mark Wheat
Mark Wheat is the former Broadcast Coach at the University's station, Radio K. Mark has just joined MPR's new Twin City Radio Station, The Current (89.3 FM). He has been described as one of the most active members of the local music community and was voted best AM radio personality in last year's "City Pages" poll.
Joel Stitzel
Joel Stitzel
Joel Stitzel is a music nut and record collector, as well as an avid online experimenter. He hosted the pop music archaeology program "Cosmic Slop" on 770 Radio K, the University of Minnesota's student-run radio station, for over eleven years.
For Your Files
Twin City broadcaster Mark Wheat said car radios were first able to receive the 150 channels available by satellite but now this has changed:
"In fact, actually this now makes it possible for you to convert any stereo system or even a boom box if you have one in your home already to be able to pick up satellite radio. So this is just the interface. It can be plugged into from the back . . . [from] any existing freestanding stereo or boom box and this little thing here is the antenna. One of the greatest features about satellite radio is it tells you [what] song and what band is playing."
DJ Joel Stitzel said in order to download music over the Internet you'll neeed at least a 56k modem:
"It really helps to have a cable modem or DSL or something in your home. If you want to go the commercial route you can use services like the iTunes Music Store or Rhapsody, which is from Real Networks . . . [The software you need] depends on what platform your working on. [You access] the iTunes music store through iTunes, which is software thatís provided by Apple. It's installed on every Apple computer they sell and itís also available for the Windows PC."
Joel said he prefers MP3 over WAV files:
"It's [a] space consideration more than anything else. WAV files or AIFF, which is audio interchange file format — that's the raw CD — and [the compression rate is] about ten megabytes per minute. MP3 can compress down to about one megabyte per minute."
MP3
A compressed file format for digital audio. MP3s are smaller than
traditional audio file formats, so they easily transfer between
different devices, like computers and portable MP3 players.
Satellite Radio
Broadcasts news, music and educational programming via satellite to home, office and in-car satellite radios.
.WAV File
This file format was developed jointly by Microsoft and IBM as the standard format for sound on PCs.
WAV sound files end with a .wav extension and can be played by nearly all Windows applications that support sound.