Walmart Music Downloads

[shadowcat]

I purchased a song from their website (Dido, "White Flag") and it was a painless checkout process: you signed in or registered, enter payment method and, voila!, I downloaded my song for $0.88. It supported my Mozilla browser, so no problems there. The song is in WMA format.

Now, my problem: it does not play on mp3 players -- it only works on your computer

So, this is a mixed review: it's really cheap but you can't tote the song with you. Bummer.

 

[Fyzbo]

There are free programs that can convert from wma to mp3. I don't know of any off hand, but I would take a look around I'm sure you can find one.

 

[sleekluxury]

Whole bunch of them here:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=wma+to+mp3

 

[sleekluxury]

I would download this program:
Acoustica

http://download.com.com/3000-2170-10188373.html?tag=lst-3-5

Open the sound file in it, and then save it as a .mp3 choose the quality of the converstion and all, and your set to go

 

[TechGuy]

I think a lot of newer MP3 players can play WMA directly.

 

[shadowcat]

OK, tried Acoustica and a couple of other programs to try and get my music to play on my player (which does support WMAs).... and it doesn't work.

I've purchased another song from Tower Records' website (via Liquid.com), who claimed that the song is also portable. Well, my player sees it but will not play it. I believe it has to do with the protective software they laced into the songs so the player cannot do anything with the songs.

You know, either I have to buy an iPod to make my songs portable (using iTunes) or just quit wasting my money on purchasing songs that don't work on my player (that I like a lot, too).

 

[saiyuki]

My MP3 player plays WMA directly. Thats why ALL of my music is set at 80kb/s wma now. As in all 800 odd songs. Rip from CD then put on mp3 player.

The program I use is DBPoweramp. Free, and is beyond simple to use. Best one I found.

DBPoweramp

 

[John Larsen]

Just had a nasty battle with Walmarts Customer Service. And wanted to warn others.
Was going to puchase Kids Bop 3,4,5 to give to my kid for her birthday.
Got 5 from itunes, while 3 and 4 where significantly cheaper on walmarts site than itunes, so I figured id give it a try.
The site said "Full Album Download" for 9.44
(while itunes had it for 19.99, I should have been suspect at this point in time but I wasn't.)

After I downloaded both the albums I want searching for album cover art and found a website that listed the songs on the albums. I realized that what I downloaded wasn't complete, it was only 18 out of 30 songs, and no way to buy the rest. The real album in the store was only 14.99 so I figured I'd call, point out the mistake on the website, get a refund and buy the real album in the store. Well I half heartenly accepted when they told me that as the DRM had already been activated (I attempted to play one song) they couldn't give me a refund. But then when I asked them, they absolutly refused to change the wording on the website. I told them, its intentional misleading where it says "Full Album Download." They told me no, and that "It IS the full album that the record company provided is to distribute on the website, it may not be the same as the retail album but it is the full album" I said, no I don't want a refund anymore, I just want you to fix it on the website. They said "NO!" and got very angry at me.

 

[prospect]

And they wonder why Napster was such a success.

 

[msm55]

We purchased 4 children MP3's. We bought the older 3 big name MP3's and the younger a less expensive brand. We found the cheaper was very EXclusive and difficult. It did not support the same music files that we easily were able to download and play on the others. We buy our music through MusicMatch (in my opinion, very expensive: too many "extra" $) but the cheaper MP3 didn't support MusicMatch. None of this was disclosed on the packaging so, thinking it was our lack of intelligence, we kept trying to get it to work; converting files, etc. I finally realized, it was the player, not the operator, gave up and bought another big name player (+ have since bought one for myself for my workouts ). I suggest that before purchasing, go to the company website and READ. Find out if your preferred music purchase site is supported by the brand MP3 you intend to purchase. Send emails and ask questions about mp3, wma and whether it WILL PLAY converted files AND chat in forums to see if you can find happy/unhappy customers. It seems too that the bigger names in the business are doing a better job in user friendly players.