Hi all, I decided today, since I got a free gift voucher from a friend who has = an Oxfam magazine, to try out their www.bignoisemusic.com legal download = service. On the whole, the website is accessible, with the odd pop up menu at the = top of the screen, but nothing that can't be got round without using the = JFW cursor or whatever. You start by creating an account, and loading the account up with = credits. Of course, you can only buy these in packets, and as the free = gift was only for the =A32 offer, I had to buy some more in order to = download full albums, which was what I wanted to do. In the end, I = decided to buy =A320 worth of credits, because I wanted to see if I = could download two albums from it, as my sister wanted a live Coldplay = exclusive. This gave me just over 2000 credits, the object of this = probably is to make you go out and buy more credits, because you have = credits left over from buying a few albums/tracks. The more credits you = buy in a package like this, the more you get. For example, if you buy a = =A32 credit pack, you get 200 credits, (i.e, 100 credits being =A31). = If you buy =A310 worth of credits, you get slightly more than 1000 = credits. Of course you can only buy the credits in these packs. I = really hate the idea of these credits, as you don't really know where = you stand, which is what I feel is the intent of this system. You can either download a track, download an album, or stream a track. = You can also stream a 30 second demo of any track on the system. To = stream a full track it costs 1 credit, and to download a track it costs = I think around 100 credits. You can search either by artist, genre or by a specific track. You can = also pick from the exclusives that are listed on the front page. This = is all very easy. Once you get to an album/track listing, you can as I = said either download the full album, an individual track or stream it. = On my 64k ISDN connection, I streamed a 30 second demo of a track, but = it got streamed at broadband rates (not sure what the quality was), and = thus it was awful this end. The streamer isn't grate either, being done = within IE itself. I didn't therefor bother any more with the streaming = capabilities. I then went to download a full album. I choose ``Earth Moving'', by = Mike Oldfield. I didn't expect much from this album, after all, I had = been sherking buying it for a long while, because I have some of the = singles from that period, and they are truly awful. Lets just say I = wasn't disapointed with the results. Anyway, this album cost just over 700 credits, (i.e, =A37), which isn't = really any cheaper than buying it from Amazon in my view. I choose to = download the album in its entirity, and it went away and gave me a = standard download box. The surprise here was that it gave me one file to download, with all the = tracks put into one file, approx 38 mb. While this doesn't seem to be = compressed, it was very convenient having it all in the one file like = this, especially as I am on effectively dialup. I could go and leave it = for a while, whilst doing something else, without having to check on = which tracks have downloaded etc. On running this file, I got Windows Media Player, which had to be set = up, as I hadn't used it on this system before, which then extracted the = .wma files from the archive. I could then go and play the album in the = playlist of Windows Media player, but I came out of this and attempted = to play using Winamp. The process went ok, except for at the point when I had to enter my user = details, it threw me out giving me a ``media player not supported'' = message. Anyway, back in Media player, I got the same prompts for = username/password, and it got the license for me fine. I can now play = the files, and I get the artwork etc for the CD. Of course, the usual = accessability issues with WMP still stand, and I was really annoyed that = I could not use Winamp. In order to get these files to MP3, I had to burn them onto CD as WMA = files converted to an audio CD, then use my MP3 ripper to get them back = to MP3. I am really not sure whether I lost any quality in doing this. I was able to get the files onto my Creative jukebox player, but the = players have to support DRM (i.e, be ``secure players'', my phone or the = Bookport not being one of these. Of course, also, the files are in WMA = format, so the player must support these. Looking further at the site, it appears that you also have to be careful = with the rights that a specific publisher gives you (i.e, I looked at = another album that I was interested in), but it only said I could keep = the music tracks for a ``limited period''. Another album I saw wouldn't = give me rights to burn onto CD or transfer to an audio player. The FAQ = also mentions you may have trouble if you don't back up the Windows = licenses you are given, some publishers allow the licenses to be = re-granted if the system goes belly up, some don't. All in all, it was an interesting experience, but I think I will stick = to regular CDs after this, even though I am donating to Oxfam while = feeding my music habbit!! Andrew.