Gracenote Tapped by Microsoft to Power Music Recognition for Xbox Music

EMERYVILLE, Calif., Dec. 5, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Gracenote® today announced that its music recognition technology and metadata is powering music matching in the Xbox Music service. With an Xbox Music Pass, the Gracenote-powered feature will let Xbox Music users identify albums and tracks they already own, unlock them in the cloud and stream them for free across Windows 8, Windows RT tablets and PCs as well as Windows Phone 8 smart phones, iOS & Android phones and the Xbox 360® and Xbox One entertainment systems.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20121218/SF29025LOGO)

Xbox Music subscribers will be able to unlock digital music files in the cloud regardless whether albums and songs were purchased from other services or ripped from CDs. This nearly eliminates the need for music fans to spend time manually rebuilding their entire collection.  In addition, subscribers can tap into Gracenote's vast collection of music metadata to drive data-driven music recommendations, edit song and genre information, manage collections and fill-in missing album cover art.

"A big frustration for music fans is having to completely rebuild their collections when switching between streaming or download services," said Stephen White, president at Gracenote.  "Gracenote music recognition and data will make it easy for Xbox Music users to migrate their collections to the cloud without searching, repurchasing or even uploading."

Xbox Music provides a simple and convenient place to migrate collections to the cloud, then add more music, enjoy playlists and discover new artists. It leverages Gracenote's extensive database of "audio fingerprints" to identify and match the millions of songs in the Xbox Music catalog. When Xbox Music fans scan their music collection, these fingerprints are matched to the Gracenote database to pick the correct albums and tracks in the Xbox Music service.

To learn more about Xbox Music or sign up for the Xbox Music Pass subscription today, visit http://www.xbox.com/en-US/music

About Gracenote
Gracenote, Inc. provides music and video content and technologies to the world's hottest entertainment products and brands. Gracenote is the industry standard for music and video recognition and is supported by the largest source of music and video metadata, featuring descriptions of more than 130 million tracks and TV listings for 28 countries. A wholly owned, independent subsidiary of the Sony Corporation of America (SCA), Gracenote has offices in Tokyo, Munich, Berlin, Seoul, Taipei and San Francisco with worldwide headquarters in Emeryville, Calif. For more information, visit our website www.gracenote.com or follow us at @GracenoteTweets and www.facebook.com/PoweredbyGracenote.

Gracenote is a registered trademark of Gracenote, Inc. All other names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

For More Information Contact:
Sunok Pak
Gracenote, Inc.
spak@gracenote.com
(415) 999-4646

SOURCE Gracenote