Believe in Better? (Part 3)

You'd think I have it in for Sky or something.

I've just come across a further demonstration of the bollox Sky spout. On Monday they launched a thing called Sky Music. Basically it's another one of those "we'll save the music industry from illegal downloads" sites that have sprung up since someone decided the music industry was worth saying. You know the form. It's like Spotify (something I got bored with after a month) but with a twist. For £6.49 you can download tracks to your computer. Only ten mind but you get the idea.  

As I've mentioned before I'm not a fan of the mp3 format, in all it's compressed awfulness. And you'll also recall that I was disputing the assertion that mp3 sounds as good as CD.  So I had a look to see what format these downloads were in and at what bitrate. I came across this in their FAQs 

How good is the quality of the music from Sky Songs?
All the music files at Sky Songs are either recorded at 192Kbit/s or 320Kbit/s. The 192Kbit/s songs deliver sound quality that is virtually indistinguishable from CD quality. The 320Kbit/s songs offer extremely high quality sound files.

How can something be "virtually Indistinguishable" when the whole point of "indistinguishable" is that you can't tell the bloody difference? 

"Why are Sky Songs' downloaded files bigger than those from other suppliers?
Simply because Sky Songs provides as premium music product as possible, using less compression on the files to keep the sound quality as high as possible. This is commonly known as 'lossless compression' which does mean that the file size is somewhat larger than other inferior quality music."

Less compression is known as lossless? No it isn't. mp3 at 320kps (the current maximum) is a compressed lossly format. That's how mp3 works for Christ sake. You "loose" things. Clearly they are getting mixed up with a real compressed non-lossly format like FLAC. CD streams at 1440kps. So where does the other 1120kps go? That's right it's "lost" 

So there we have it. mp3 not only sounds "virtually" as good as CD it's also "virtually" lossless. 

And lo, the music industry is "virtually" saved.