Video Games Live, a show that tours America, is a full sized Orchestra that plays some of the classic arcade game music of the past and present - in front of a big screen showing the game in action. Hearing some of these old classics, expertly re-created is a real treat for the gaming geek!

The new version of the BBC iPlayer is due to be released tomorrow, with features lots of us have been waiting for. The most important below:

• Full integration for TV as well as Radio
• A rewind and Fast-forward function for Radio, as per TV
• Easier Navigation, including Last Played option
• Combined categories for TV and Radio, allowing easier access to relevant content
• Larger TV viewing area
• A TV Schedule for viewer planning

So all-in-all a better experience for your online pleasure. But then we do actually pay a license fee for this stuff, so maybe we should demand it. Either way the iPlayer should be a bit more user friendly for the future after the updates.

Tesco have offered their customers WMA files for a while now, but the really interesting thing with this story is that they will also be offering MP3’s next month - no DRM. This is obvious competition to iTunes, but I think more importantly with be a direct competitor to Amazon when they release their MP3 downloads service in the UK. Are Tesco trying to get a foot in the door early?

I guess it seems as though the consumer is starting to vote with it’s feet. Available in the US only, at the moment, Amazon MP3 are starting to make a mark in Apple’s music store dominance. The DRM-free music available from Amazon MP3 is proving a hit with customers, as sales have driven the new on-line store to second place after just six months of operation. Hopefully over the next six months Amazon will continue to eat into Apple’s 80% share of the market. [SHOW ME]

Firstly Skymonkey.org would like to extend it’s thanks to Russell for taking time out to answer a few questions.

In case you haven’t heard of it, Media Monkey is a music player with a difference. Rather than just playing music (which it does really well) Media Monkey is also a platform for organising your music collection. Not only does it support the normal music file types and MP3 players - including iPods and the such, it also has the ability to rip CDs and convert, for example wma files to ogg. But where Media Monkey really excels is it’s powerful ability to re-organise your music collection. It can take information contained within the ID3 tags of the MP3’s, and use it to create a file structure that suits your needs. Media Monkey is free, but if you purchase the Gold Edition for $19.95, you get extra features such as the ability to monitor directories for updates, and on-the-fly format conversion for MP3 players (just in case your whole library is in ogg format, and you need them in mp3 format for your mp3 player.) You also get all future updates for that version. There is also a lifetime license available that means any new versions that come out will automatically be available for you to download and use in full.

The Media Monkey team consists of 5 people. Russell Samuels, Jiri Hajek & 3 other developers.

Paul: How did Media Monkey first come to being?

Rusty: Jiri was working on Songs-DB because he was unsatisfied with the state of Music Management apps at the time. I was looking for a new business opportunity and had similar thoughts about the need for a music manager that would meet the needs of more serious collectors. We hooked up and MM was born, and since then, it’s been a labor of love.

Paul: Have you written Media Monkey’s front-end with a view to entice current Winamp or iTunes users by providing a familiar interface?

Rusty: We’re always influenced by good ideas whatever their source might be. Early versions of MediaMonkey were designed to use Winamp skins as that was a way of quickly getting a skin library for MediaMonkey, so the player ended up looking like Winamp’s. MediaMonkey’s Tree and Tracklist were modeled after Windows Explorer, the main difference being that MM’s tree is used to model attributes other than location. Newer versions of the player are supported by a better skinning engine, that allows for much more creative designs that can be unique, or modeled after iTunes, Windows Media Player, or any other visually pleasing music app.

Paul: Media Monkey seems to share a few similarities with Winamp. For instance, the Visualisations are compatible with Winamp’s, and the Shoutcast support, plus some other details. Is the code base for Media Monkey completely separate from Winamp, or is it based on, or have pieces in common with Winamp?

Rusty: MediaMonkey was designed to be compatible with many of the Winamp 2.x APIs since that allowed its functionality to be extended in the absence of an active developer base. In early versions of MM, there was common code for a couple of freely licensed input/output plugins. Today, MM doesn’t have any common code with Winamp, though it still supports the Winamp 2.x APIs.

Paul: Are there any plans, other than sales, for monetisation? For instance, are you looking to in the future perhaps fund the free version with ads?

Rusty: We’ve thought about having an ad-supported version, but have rejected that as too damaging to our brand–we don’t want to be labeled as adware. We currently derive a small amount of revenue from affiliate sales of music via Amazon, and hope to grow that with the launch of Amazon’s MP3 store.

Paul: Do you feel the community of users are important to the future of Media Monkey’s ongoing development?

Rusty: Without its community, MediaMonkey is nothing. Our community has translated MM into 15 languages, developed countless scripts, created skins and icons, beta tested, provided invaluable feedback, etc. We try to give back to our community by carefully listening to what they’re asking for, and providing in the free version enough that it is useful for most people. I suspect that with time, our community will become even more critical to MM’s success.

Paul: How do you feel the record industry is coping with the change of people buying more and more music online, and where do you think Media Monkey fits into this change?

Rusty: The record industry’s response to the internet as a distribution medium was to tighten control over content with DRM. We’ve never been a fan of DRM–it’s only caused problems for our users, and believe in a future of unencumbered music such as that offered in Amazon’s MP3 store. But, it’ll still be hard to sell tracks for $1 when they can be found via p2p for free–so the industry will have to provide enough value at any particular price point that makes it worth paying for the track instead of getting it via p2p.

In that context, MediaMonkey will have to get better at helping users find the music that they seek and helping users discover music that they might be interested in, given their tastes. If we do this effectively, it will yield affiliate revenues that will help fund the project in the long term.

Paul: Are there any other plans for Media Monkey in the future?

Rusty: World domination?

Once again, our thanks are extended to Russell for his time. If you are interested, Media Monkey can be downloaded from [HERE]

The government is proposing to introduce a “3 strikes & you’re out” policy amongst ISPs to target illegal downloading of music from the internet. Backed by the record companies it is thought that the policy in this government green paper will make the ISPs comply with their rules, or risk reprisals from the authorities. The 3 strikes will result in: 1) You will receive an email detailing that you have been found to be illegally downloading music, and you should stop. 2) Temporary suspension of your internet access account. 3) Your account will be terminated.

The green paper has been drawn up due to the lack of co-operation between the record industry and ISPs to put a stop to illegal file sharing. Why are the ISPs reluctant to strike a voluntary deal? Because they know that their customers will vote with their feet. The BPI have recently commented on this green paper & the proposed policy - a quote states in the press release that “For years, ISPs have built a business on other people’s music.” This quote alone will make the ISPs even more reluctant to partner with the BPI.

Of course, it does make you wonder how the whole problem of people sharing unsecured wifi will be dealt with, and how the traffic can be monitored correctly. If you are just looking at types of traffic and not the ports, then you could argue that bit torrents can be used for legal means. Whereas if you’re looking at just ports, the ports can easily be changed in any bit torrent program. However, if you’re looking at the physical connections to IP addresses, or even hosting your own governmental “honey trap” server for unknowing file sharers, most people will find a way around it and download something like Peer Guardian. If the green paper is approved in principle then I will be very interested to report on how this will actually work - when drafts are drawn up for the ISPs. Of course, whether you agree with the proposal or not, the idea makes sense and can be argued either way for whose benefit it really is for. The artist or the record industries? - you decide. And if it is successful, will it stop people sharing music or just drive it underground again? Everyone has a USB stick nowadays… [SHOW ME]

After successful trials in the States, Amazon are going to offer their music store globally now which will be direct competition with Apple’s Music Store. The big difference with Amazon’s offering is that the music will have no Digital Rights Management (DRM) tied into it - meaning anyone can buy the songs, and download to the mp3 player, phone or computer of their choice.

Record companies are flocking to Amazon as they realise people that buy music want to keep it & use it under their terms, not Apple’s. It would be nice to choose the format of the music - but it looks as if “mp3″ is the way forward, for the meantime at least, for Amazon. [SHOW ME]

Quite a quick post this one (which is testament to how easy it is) to show you how to share your iTunes library over the internet, without any complicated SSH tunnels, or port forwarding or anything - but still have it secure. Also, this method allows multiple remote connections with ease (as long as the computer hosting the iTunes library has enough upload bandwidth, of course.) How?

First things first, share your iTunes library on the host machine. Edit preferences, Sharing, Share My Library Over My Local Network (ticked.) Secondly - obviously - make sure you have iTunes installed on your work PC, or any other PC you want access to your iTunes library. And the second to last step - install Hamachi (google it) on both computers. Turn on Hamachi on both machines - create a new network on the host machine & connect to it using the client machine. Start iTunes on both PCs and bingo! You can even play protected content, just by authorising your works PC. Simplicity itself!

Partly because I just completed portal for the second time, and partly because I’ve always wondered - here’s how you extract the end credits music (which is both really well written, and also sums up the whole game.) WARNING - If you haven’t completed the game, don’t extract the portal music, as it contains spoilers for the game.. Of course, you can use the same program to extract other music from Half Life 2 & Episode 1/2.

The first thing you need is a crafty download - the program gcfscape, available [here] is the answer. It allows you to extract .gcf files in Half Life 2, which are like zip files, to their component parts. For the portal music, navigate to & open the file “portal content.gcf” which can be found in your “Valve” installation folder in “Steam\SteamApps\”. When opened, navigate within the file to “portal\sounds\music” and extract the file “portal_still_alive.mp3″ by right-clicking it. You can also get the Half Life 2 songs from “Steam\SteamApps\source sounds.gcf”

OK, maybe not to death, but it’s only a matter of time right? In the last couple of days there have been 2 reports of ipod nanos catching fire. Now I’m guessing this is probably due to the fact they’ve been damaged, the battery contents being exposed to air and spontaneously igniting - a common thing with the chemicals found in most rechargeable batteries. What strikes me as odd though is the sudden interest - I guess it’s because one story gets some attention, a second comes along and it snowballs until you get a general consensus that every iPod is under suspicion of being a fiery killer. I knew Steve Jobs had a bigger plan.. Never trusted him.. The most recent story on The Register has a great title to the article (even better than this one) with "iPod Nano in airport trouser conflagration horror" [SHOW ME]