Music Store Offers Hi-Def Downloads

Hoping to cash in among audiophiles and those who want better quality in their music downloads, Nevada-based MusicGiants launched its digital music service on Wednesday. The music store will offer its tracks in Windows Media Lossless format, the first service to do so.

MusicGiants says these tracks would have up to seven times the quality of those available from competing services like iTunes and Napster, which offer songs at a bitrate of 128 kbps. In comparison, songs on MusicGiants will range from 470 kbps to as much as 1100 kpbs, producing a much more accurate reproduction of the music.

"The MusicGiants Network will give music lovers a reason to fall in love with their music all over again," MusicGiants CEO Scott Bahneman says.

So far, the service has been able to procure agreements from EMI Music, Sony BMG, Universal Music Group and Warner Music. All tracks will carry Windows Media digital rights management. The company also says it is actively pursuing agreements with smaller and independent labels to further extend its catalog.

The MusicGiant client that customers will need to access the service runs on Windows XP, and users must first open an account and pay a $50 USD annual fee. The service is only open to United States customers at the current time.

Each track costs $1.29 USD to download. As an incentive to register, MusicGiants will give each new account $50 in music download credits, or the equivalent of 38 tracks - meaning the first year of service would essentially be free.

Since digital music costs very little to reproduce, services like MusicGiants could open a path for music labels to squeeze more revenue out of digital downloads. Labels have expressed a interest in breaking out of the 99-cent revenue model in recent months.

MusicGiants' Bahneman also announced the company will sell a "professional-grade" digital music player running on Windows XP and preloaded with the MusicGiants software. The device would be sold at high-end electronics retailers as well as online.

Such a device only makes sense according to Bahneman. "We sell premium music for high performance audio systems," he said.

Microsoft appears to have thrown its full support behind the service. "When it comes to listening to music, quality is everything," said Dave Fester, general manager of the Windows Digital Media Division at Microsoft. "MusicGiants Network is taking a giant leap forward to now give consumers the best digital music listening experience possible."