Google Music going to YouTube Music

[Donald]

Google is pushing people from Google Music to YouTube Music over the next 6 months.

Two questions:
1) does YouTube Music still use MP3 files or maybe something better like Apple does with WAV files?
2) if I have a CD I want to upload will I still need to rip it to MP3 or can YouTube Music accept music directly from CD?

 

[uc50ic4more]

1) I am extremely, extremely skeptical that Apple streams music - especially that uploaded by users - in WAV format. It is a horrendous waste of space and contributes no quality when essentially expanding already-compressed music. There are some very good codecs out there and I would think Apple of all companies would be the ones to use some proprietary one to lock users into it. But WAV is uncompressed, non-proprietary and would not really offer anything of value to anyone. There are lossless codecs that shave about 50% off of files sizes that would be used instead. Normally these services will encode a high quality file to several different bitrates/ quality levels so the user can choose and so the service can adapt to network conditions (and also charge a premium for 320kbps+/ lossless streaming). There are some services beginning to offer lossless streaming (ie. Amazon) but they're still data-compressed.

Users can, of course, upload AIFF and WAV files all they want; and I'd expect they'd be there for re-download as part of your account.

YouTube Music is just migrating the Google Play Music catalogues so whatever was "there" at Google Play Music is now (in the exact same "spot") just under the new service.

2) I have never seen an online service offer direct CD ripping: that would be a legal nightmare, I would think.

Ripping the music from a CD would still require that it be stored in some given format (16 bit/ 44.1KHz WAV being the default) but I believe you're not going to stream it from any service at any greater quality/ bitrate than 320kbps.

I've always ripped CD's using the FLAC codec but I am not sure any services accept those. Apple's AAC has a lossless level but then you're limited to devices that can use that codec. You can rip your CD as a WAV and upload it to YouTube Music. EDIT: YouTube Music also accepts FLAC! Awesome. https://support.google.com/youtubemusic/answer/9716522