HMV Digital

Posted on 2 Sep 2010 at 15:47

HMV is attempting to shore up its high-street business with an online store, but can it compete with the web startups?

In 2008, the music giant revamped its music download store, moving from a library of DRM-protected WMA tracks to a new service based around DRM-free MP3s. Last year, it bought a 50% stake in 7digital, with the latter now powering HMV’s service, although prices vary between the two.

Prices for individual tracks are all over the place, with some longer songs ringing through the virtual tills at a whopping £2.79

Price-wise, HMV is a mid-table contender. It isn’t as cheap as
Play.com, Amazon or Tesco for chart titles, and its £7.99 baseline price for back-catalogue albums is on a par with iTunes, 7digital and Play.com.

It also has to be said that prices for individual tracks are all over the place, with some longer songs ringing through the virtual tills at a whopping £2.79.

You do, however, get a good selection of artists and albums, particularly within mainstream rock and pop, and a reasonable library of world, jazz and classical material, even if the breadth of coverage isn’t always equalled by the depth.

On usability, the store is a mixed bag. There are good themed sales, interesting recommendations, and a great visual search engine with album art and previews as you type in.

On the other hand, there are sloppy irritations. For example, classical music is listed by conductor and orchestra rather than composer, which makes it difficult to compare prices for different recordings of the same piece.

We do, however, like the feature to get a streaming preview widget for a track or album that you can embed on your website or blog.

The majority of the catalogue comprises 320Kbits/sec MP3 files, but watch out for music in 256Kbits/sec or even 192Kbits/sec.

Downloading tracks requires the use of a rebranded version of the 7digital download manager, based on Adobe AIR. This occupies only 19MB of system RAM, rising to around 27MB while downloading. It’s a simple, effective little applet, but low on features and integrates with only iTunes, not Windows Media Player.

HMV’s store is a solid option, and a little cheaper than its 7digital stablemate on many albums. All the same, it isn’t as aggressive on pricing as Amazon or Tesco, and not as interesting a place to shop as we7 or 7digital.