digital watermarking

[drummerman]

No idea. I can't hear it or perhaps my 'earing is just not up to scratch.

However, I don't sit there and compare tracks side by side with exact timings.

I find that stress generally has a much bigger influence on how I perceive music. I actually at the mo dont enjoy my hifi that much (not really because of stress, dunno what it is) thus do a bit of headphone listening instead through phone and laptop. Just the job for the Senns which make everything sound rose tinted.

 

[audiventory]

No idea. I can't hear it or perhaps my 'earing is just not up to scratch.

I suppose, the watermarks was developed for minimal audibility.

 

[lpv]

Just the job for the Senns which make everything sound rose tinted.

 

[lpv]

response from https://bandcamp.com

We don't weave any DRM/watermarks into our files - they are clean and beautiful, as they should be. Our streaming files are 128k MP3s, which seem to be the best compromise of quality vs. streamability across a wide range of connections. The downloads come in all manner of formats though, including a handful that are fully lossless.

 

[drummerman]

response from https://bandcamp.com

We don't weave any DRM/watermarks into our files - they are clean and beautiful, as they should be. Our streaming files are 128k MP3s, which seem to be the best compromise of quality vs. streamability across a wide range of connections. The downloads come in all manner of formats though, including a handful that are fully lossless.

So, who actually adds any of these watermarking? The streaming operator or the recording companies?

If the last comment is true it's the streaming services right?

If so, how can one provider watermark and another doesn't?

Don't make any sense.

 

[lpv]

I thought record labels add this but I've asked Bandcamp a question since majority of my downloads comes from them.. I've checked some of the downloads and all clear and beautiful as they say..

listening more apple music and as I've said earlier, apple music is clear too.. maybe the watermarks are hidden in matadata rather than in audio file?

 

[MajorFubar]

So, who actually adds any of these watermarking? The streaming operator or the recording companies?

You may have missed it, but I explained that on the first page. It's added by the record companies / distributors, not the streaming service or download service. Though definitely not all. The streaming service / download service don't usually change the files they're givien in any way, other than convert them to the format they use for distribution, e.g.: Spotify changes everything to Ogg Vorbis.

Trying to find out which companies/distributors use audible water marking and which do not is harder than I thought when I first started to investigate it a few years ago. I thought the major culprit was Sony BMG, but then I read elsewhere that it was Time Warner.

 

[drummerman]

Missed that Fubi.

So EVERY streaming provider will have watermarked music.

So the possibility Apple's is apparently not showing/audible could perhaps be because the streaming quality itself is sub par?

 

[lpv]

in this case it's got nothing to do with aac, ogg vorbis, mqa, lossless or mp3

 

[MajorFubar]

Missed that Fubi.

So EVERY streaming provider will have watermarked music.

So the possibility Apple's is apparently not showing/audible could perhaps be because the streaming quality itself is sub par?

I'm wondering if things are changing? Re. the test page I linked to, I saw some people say they couldn't get the links to work, maybe it's browser specfic for some reason; it's working for working for me in firefox but not in Safari. My results (tested just now) are below.

The ones I can tell: Moonlight Sonata (A: piano is very warbly), Drake (piano gives it away again), Builders (drawn out guitar notes gave it away), Shakey Graves, Ravel, Debussy (piano again: dead givaway), Pink Floyd (piano at start again was the giveaway), Debussy (piano again)

The ones I don't find so easy: Santana, XXYYXX, Nirvana, Kettle, Lady Gaga, Bored with Four, Shirley Bassey, ELO.

Last time I tried this test (2013 I think), I checked Spotify for the tracks I could tell easily, and sure enough they were obviously WM'd on Spotify. I've just tried the same in iTunes using the Debussy (François-Joël Thiollier: 3 Preludes, Book 1: III. La Cathédrale Engloutie) and Moonlight Sonata (Jenő Jandó: Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-Sharp Minor) and it was nowhere near as easy to tell as on the watermarking website. In fact I can't even tell if they were watermarked at all. It would be a guess.

One of my 'damned obvious' go-to tracks to demonstrate watermarking was 'Life On Mars', specifically from the 'Best Of Bowie' album. The watermarking on both Spotify and iTunes Apple Music was really, really obvious on Rick Wakeman's piano. I haven't listened to the streamed version on Apple Music for over a year, but listening to it now (via Tunes on the macbook, headphones obviously), there's no sign of the watermarking at all...

 

[Vladimir]

Higher quality production makes it easy to notice. Music with loudness to the max is too hot to discern it.

 

[lpv]

Higher quality production makes it easy to notice. Music with loudness to the max is too hot to discern it.

classical music is generaly well recorded and I did not notice any sings of watermarking while listening carefully to violin or piano solo last couple of days on apple music.

 

[Vladimir]

Higher quality production makes it easy to notice. Music with loudness to the max is too hot to discern it.

classical music is generaly well recorded and I did not notice any sings of watermarking while listening carefully to violin or piano solo last couple of days on apple music.

Lucky you. Keep it that way, its sort of annoying if you can notice it.

 

[Andrewjvt]

Missed that Fubi.

So EVERY streaming provider will have watermarked music.

So the possibility Apple's is apparently not showing/audible could perhaps be because the streaming quality itself is sub par?

I'm wondering if things are changing? Re. the test page I linked to, I saw some people say they couldn't get the links to work, maybe it's browser specfic for some reason; it's working for working for me in firefox but not in Safari. My results (tested just now) are below.

The ones I can tell: Moonlight Sonata (A: piano is very warbly), Drake (piano gives it away again), Builders (drawn out guitar notes gave it away), Shakey Graves, Ravel, Debussy (piano again: dead givaway), Pink Floyd (piano at start again was the giveaway), Debussy (piano again)

The ones I don't find so easy: Santana, XXYYXX, Nirvana, Kettle, Lady Gaga, Bored with Four, Shirley Bassey, ELO.

Last time I tried this test (2013 I think), I checked Spotify for the tracks I could tell easily, and sure enough they were obviously WM'd on Spotify. I've just tried the same in iTunes using the Debussy (François-Joël Thiollier: 3 Preludes, Book 1: III. La Cathédrale Engloutie) and Moonlight Sonata (Jenő Jandó: Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-Sharp Minor) and it was nowhere near as easy to tell as on the watermarking website. In fact I can't even tell if they were watermarked at all. It would be a guess.

One of my 'damned obvious' go-to tracks to demonstrate watermarking was 'Life On Mars', specifically from the 'Best Of Bowie' album. The watermarking on both Spotify and iTunes Apple Music was really, really obvious on Rick Wakeman's piano. I haven't listened to the streamed version on Apple Music for over a year, but listening to it now (via Tunes on the macbook, headphones obviously), there's no sign of the watermarking at all...

 

Do you have any particular time frames in the songs