How did this work out Dave. I'm really considering buying it.
I haven't had much time to mess around with it. Here are my
impressions (no pun intended) of it so far.
First of all, I never did expect that the Real Book scans would be very high quality. The quality is reasonable enough for viewing on a computer screen but not for printing. People should buy the actual Real Books (for their instrument) anyway (I did). I look at this as more of a quick-reference tool for when I'm sitting in front of the computer. I didn't expect print quality scans so I'm not disappointed.
Similarly, the MP3's (which have no ID3 tag info or readable filenames for obvious reasons) are of reasonable quality (44kHz 128kbps) for reference purposes but any true fan will want to get the original recordings (as I would). I had no expectations of CD quality labeled MP3s anyway.
There is one significant problem I have with this software and that is that it requires an activation key to run. To get an activation key, you submit a code that is given to you after installation. My guess is that this code is tied to the installation
(edit: now confirmed by other posts in this thread). In and of itself, this isn't necessarily bad but there are a few consequences of this that I find disturbing.
First, there is no guarantee that, say, 5 years from now I will be able to get a new activation key. If I buy a piece of software, I expect to be able to use it forever. There was a problem many years ago when Passport Encore (a music notation program) required users to periodically go to a web site to obtain a code in order to continue using the product. When the company went out of business, many users were stuck with a program they could no longer run and music scores they could no longer view (thankfully, the software was resurrected by another company; GVOX). I have many software applications that I use regularly by companies that no longer exist. If those apps required new keys to unlock every time they were installed, I'd be screwed. I would never knowingly buy software that had this level of protection. For the same reason, I don't buy DRM protected music.
Additionally, due to this copy protection, I am also likely constrained to only have the software installed on one computer at once. It would be nice if I could use it on my home computer and my laptop so that I could have my charts available at rehearsals and stuff. Most software that I use allows multiple installations for a single user as long as there is no chance of it being used on multiple systems at the same time. If I buy a piece of software and I am the only user, I normally expect (unless otherwise informed) that I can use that software on different computers without having to go through the hoops of uninstalling and reinstalling whenever I go from home to my studio. Some software licenses don't allow this so I can't blame them too much for that.
If this software wasn't DRM (effectively) protected, I would be happy with it. Had I known it had this type of protection, I wouldn't have bought it. As I said, I don't buy anything that is protected by DRM methods that could make it unusable at any moment.
Because of the type of copy protection used, I wouldn't recommend this software despite the fact that there is incredible value in the content that it includes.
Sorry Blake. To be fair, this thread did mention "registration" but I didn't realize what that meant at the time. I should have read the thread better. I wasn't paying too much attention to the details of the discussion and based my decision to buy on the web site video demo.
If this software didn't require a system-specific activation key to work, I would highly recommend it. I can't in good conscience recommend something to someone that they may not be able to use in 5 years. Especially considering the fact that much of the software I own was created by companies that no longer exist and this is the kind of software that someone would conceivably want to use for more than 10 years. I still have my ratty old 20 year old Real Book.
There are other ways of discouraging piracy. Some software I have encodes my name into the activation key so that if the key is distributed, it can be traced to me but is not locked to a single system. I have no problem with that.
- Dave
