iPOD

Martin

I like the sound of these open source firmwares, maybe we will get FLAC support one day. However, by the time that happens compatible 80 GByte or more hard drives should be available and space for uncompressed files will not be so much of an issue.

Nick

There is already podzilla up and running and they have a hacked version of doom to play on the ipod colour, sweet.

Come to think of it I think Linux runs on a variety of Palm PCs. If there is a model with a decent sound card it should be straight forward to make your own MP3 player and not be limited crappy constraints the industry tries to force upon us.

cheers
Gus

Is it just me or do I want to play games and look at photos on an MP3 player about as much as I'd want to on my Naim hifi.

Why are the technology companies so obsessed with combining as many devices as possible in all their developments. If I wanted to play games I'd go to an amusement arcade. Bah!!!

Jonathan

quote:

Originally posted by gusi:
Pardon my ignorance but how configurable are these MP3 devices?

Do they use standard notebook components. ie Can you replace the 20G drive with an 80G drive?

Is the OS stored on the drive or in ROM?

cheers
Gus

Gus,

the firmware (equivelent of O/S & apps for a PC) is stored on a PROM of some sort (Flash, I think). The drives simply need to be replaced, and formatted.

Although these use fairly standard HD technology, they are 1.8" drives, wheras laptop drives are 2.5". A few laptop designs are moving to these smaller drives, where weight & size outweigh performance considerations.

iRiver use Toshiba drives with 20GB platters. The single platter drives can now be upgraded from 20 to 30GB, and the (thicker) twin platter drives from 40 to 60GB. See Span.com - toshiba 1.8 inch drives.

By the end of the year the next generation of drives, with 40GB platters, will be available (ie 40GB or 80GB, depending on case size).

Each drive generation can also survive bigger shocks without damage.

I never saw the jump to 60GB to be worthwhile, but I'll probably upgrade to 80GB when they become available.

cheers, Martin

quote:

I never saw the jump to 60GB to be worthwhile, but I'll probably upgrade to 80GB when they become available.

Me too, I thought that doubling the capacity of my player would be a worthwhile increase.

Nick

quote:

Originally posted by Shayman:
Is it just me or do I want to play games and look at photos on an MP3 player about as much as I'd want to on my Naim hifi.

Why are the technology companies so obsessed with combining as many devices as possible in all their developments. If I wanted to play games I'd go to an amusement arcade.

Jonathan,

I don't play games, so don't see the attraction of that.

However, it is a pain to lug several devices, each with screen, battery, headphones in to work every day.

Although I don't use it often, the ability to plug my player into a PC and have a load of files available is very useful.

It also supports "USB-on-the-go", so it can copy the files from a camera or flash card to the internal HD. Very useful, because I tend to fill my flash card most days when I'm on holiday.

It would be very convenient to have an integrated player + phone + camera, but that would surely be at the expense of sound quality, which would put me right off.

Long term, I guess the 3G phone companies want us to be listening to streaming music rather than carrying around bulky HD's.

cheers, Martin

I would not like to try to change the HD in the Apple iPod. I tried this with an an iBook and it had 86 screws to hold the disk in place. I know Apple have made this easier now, but I'd exercise caution.

Rotf

I can also vouch for the ipod - it is great for what it does. Also, the amount of accessories means it will stay in the mainstream for at least the next few years.

May be worth keeping an eye on the news on September 7th - the iPod phone ?

Rgds,
Tim

Tim - Don't like the sound of iPod Phone - people could phone me while I'm in the middle of listening to Joy Division Oven Gloves from the latest HMHB elpee: Achtung Bono. I like to have a separate phone preferably switched off.

Martin - I'm sure mobile phone companies would like us to use their lacklustre products for listening to music (after all they gave the world the Crazy Frog) - but I'd sooner not.

What about the Creative Zen MP3 players?Are they able to compet with iPOD?I can use iTUNE software on Windows XP,no?

quote:

Originally posted by Martin Payne:
Lots of Codecs supported or on the way - MP3 (of course), WAV, OGG/Vorbis (thank goodness), WavPack (lossless), MP2 (eg replay of direct recordings off FreeView). Not sure which others. Also not sure which of those will be supported for recording.

To clarify this, apparently there is support for FLAC, WavPack & ALAC for lossless playback, and WavPack for lossles recording.

WMA is not, and probably never will be supported (proprietary to MS).

Many players (including the iPod?) insert a small pause between MP3 tracks. Very annoying on Pink Floyd albums, live stuff, etc. Rockbox seems to have achieved "gapless" playback of OGG and LAME-encoded MP3s. Those gaps can be really annoying.

cheers, Martin

iPod mini silver 4GB
iPOD 40 Gb
Which should I buy?the iPOD 4 Gb is only 200 Euros

iPOD 4 GB or iPOD 20 GB.iPOD 4 GB is only 200 Euros.It might be what I need,no?or is better go for 20 GB?

Nuno.

Bear in mind the ipod can be used as a portable harddrive as well, so if you get a larger one it will come in usefull for other things

As for changing harddrive etc, it is no where near as difficult as an iBook , you just need a little plastic tool which splits the plastic from the metal part then the harddrive is right there on a little connection strip.

quote:

Originally posted by Nuno Baptista:
iPOD 4 GB or iPOD 20 GB.iPOD 4 GB is only 200 Euros.It might be what I need,no?or is better go for 20 GB?

I've no experience of the apple players, but I can give you my experience with compressed music players in general.

If you use a portable CD player, you tend to grab a couple of CDs as you're leaving for work, that happen to suit your mood of the moment. The next day, you may grab a completely different selection.

It doesn't work that way with an MP3 player. At the very least, you could have your whole music library on your PC's hard disk, and spend a few minutes in the morning transferring "todays" music onto the player. Quite a hassle, since you also need to decide what to dump to clear out some space.

You also need to be aware that encoding compressed music involves a decision about how much you're prepared to reduce the quality (the bit-rate) in order to make the file sizes smaller. The theory is that once you get above a certain bitrate you will no longer be able to detect the difference between the original and the copy. This is known as Transparency . It is often suggested this is achieved somewhere around 192kbps to 256kbps, ie 1.4 - 1.9 MBytes for each minute. Put another way, you can fit 9-12 hours of audio per GB of capacity.

For me, even 320kbps (LAME -alt-preset-INSANE, ie an "insanely high bitrate") is woefully short of CD quality - the sort of thing where you notice the shortfall on the first note of the track.

I tend to compress my music using OGG Vorbis at the maximum quality, around 520kbps (4.3 hours of music per GB). This is still far short of CD quality, but better than MP3. [This format is not available on iPods.]

I have a few tracks stored as WAV files. These are full CD quality, but can only fit 1.5 hours of music per GB.

There are a couple of formats (FLAC, ALAC, WavPack), which can reduce the size of a WAV file to about half it's original size, whilst retaining all the quality (ie 3 hours per GB). I believe some iPods support ALAC, but possibly not the 4GB mini players?????

For me, the point of an MP3 player is that I can carry a large part of my music collection around, and whatever piece of music takes my fancy, it will be there for me to play.

Frankly, a 40GB player falls well short of this for me (I would need a few hundred GB to store all of my music in OGG format), but I can carry a lot of old (and new) favourites around with me, and usually find something on there to tickle my fancy.

One rather unobvious way that I can collect new music with my iRiver is to bootleg concerts, using line-in and an external microphone. I could do with a better mic than came in the box, but even so the results are surprisingly good. The iPod cannot do this. (BTW, I guess the line-in would also be a convenient way to copy music from vinyl, but I haven't tried it).

If you are considering a low-capacity player, I would think long-and-hard about whether this will be frustrating to use before buying something you may quickly regret (or not, depending how you think you will really use it).

One word of caution - the highest capacity player that I am aware of is the iPod Photo 60GB. This is widely reputed to suck in sound quality terms, so best avoided.

I am really looking forward to the day I can upgrade my player to 80GB.

cheers, Martin

Thank you ,Martin: Now I understand the advantage to carry a 20 GB MP3 player. But I don´t want to carry all my CD´s around,I think I will choose the iPOD 4 GB!Then,if I really like to play my music on the move,I can get later a MP3 with larger capacity!

Do not forget about Naim's iSupply, which is a really worthwhile addition, if you want to use an iPod in your hifi system as well. Using Apple Lossless (ALE) Encoding process, makes the iPod/iSupply/Nait5i and nSat really kicking and very useful, economical combination. You only need a nice interconnect between the iPod and NAIT5i, like the iPod cables from Chord (DIN or RCA) or Audience or Kimber (RCA).


ferenc

OK,and I will decide soon if I want to buy iPOD 4 GB or 20 GB!

Nuno, I have a 4GB and love it. The small size & low weight make it ideal for daily commuting. I have around 500 tracks on it (at 192 storage which for me is the ideal trade off between quality & quantity.) I have about 1gig left to play with. Don't forget to consider the 6gig mini too - its not that much more than the 4G and the extra space is handy!

quote:

OK,and I will decide soon if I want to buy iPOD 4 GB or 20 GB!

Two words......Jupiter and CD5

Aaaaarrrggghhhhhh!!!!

Jonathan


PS Only Joking Nuno! Best of luck with whatever you choose

It´s not easy to get a iPOD here,because most people want it.I think I will buy the one is in stock,so either 4 GB or 20 Gb is fine for me!

I´ve got a 20 Gb iPOD in my hand ,today.It is not so heavy,and looks nice.I heard a Perception Digital,but is not good enought.With the 20 GB iPOD I can carry my all favorites CD´s and organize the folders.It seems to me the way to go!

Nice Nuno. Now get yourself some headphones and your off.

Jim

Enjoy it Nuno! I just got the Sennheiser PX100 headphones for my ipod and they are a big improvement!