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New MP3 Portables
Posted by
michael
on Sat Sep 21, 2002 09:20 PM
from the no-ogg-in-sight dept.
from the no-ogg-in-sight dept.
An anonymous reader writes "This has been a busy week for the announcement of the latest crop of MP3 portables, probably just the start of many more with the holiday season only a few months away. First Samsung has announced their first jukebox model the Yepp YP-900, a 10GB unit using Toshiba's 1.8-inch drive for storage (same one as in the iPod) and eschewing FireWire (400 mbps) for a USB 2.0 (480 mbps) connection to transfer files. Mambo has also announced a jukebox player called the Digital Media-X PhotoBank Jukebox that is more akin to the Archos Jukebox Multimedia in that it can store and display photo files and possibly video files in the future. The Mambo holds 20GB of memory on a more common 2.5-inch hard drive, making it a heavier unit than the YP-900. Like the Yepp, the Mambo also goes with a USB 2.0 connection, heating up the competition between FireWire in digital music portables. The most interesting feature about the Yepp? It also has a MMC/SD card slot to facilitate trading tunes to and from other digital music players. (Take that SDMI). Finally SonicBlue has started shipping replacements for the Rio 600 and the Nike PSA[play 120 (made by Rio for gym workouts). Both the Rio S30S for the exercise-minded and the Rio S10 come with 64MB of memory and are upgradeable to 192MB through MMC flash cards. The S30S comes with an FM radio, while the base-optioned S10 is claiming 35 hours of running time on a single AA battery. Both players transfer files via USB 1.1's 12mbps port."
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If it played OGG (Score:5, Funny)
OGG Petition for Ipod (Score:3, Informative)
I didn't sign it, but then, I don't really care.
all junk (Score:2, Interesting)
why is it no one has caught with apple yet? the ipod is great but there is room for improvement.
its like no one wishes to actually compete. they arent even copying apple like they usually do. they just aren't doing ANYTHING
What's with the attitude? (Score:3, Interesting)
The Yepp player uses the same drive as the iPod, so it could have exactly the same form factor and weight (specs weren't released, so this si speculation), and has the same capacity. And it transfers with USB 2.0, which is both faster than the iPod's FireWire, and is also more commonly available on the PC platform. So why is this "junk"? If anything its good competition.
Re:What's with the attitude? (Score:2)
Probably because the guy is an apple-head and has drunk the kool-aide. It is amazing how people will react to something they feel threatens them. Like all the folk who will swear blind that CD sound is grossly inferior to vinyl...
What I would like is a device that combined a number of features of the devices listed. I want the mmc/sd slot, I want the microphone, I wanth the 1.8" drive.
I would also like the thing to have a PDA sized display. Perhaps what I really want is a pda with a 10Gb hard drive... Wonder If I could add one to my Zaurus...
The mmc/sd format is really cute. The chips are the size of a quarter. I have seen a 512Gb chip which OK costs $350 at the moment but will soon be on sale in costco for $50. A couple of those would last me quite a while.
The mmc/sd format is small enough that the chip and player could easily be built into a pair of headphones. If Bose would make something like that I would buy it in an instant...
Re:What's with the attitude? (Score:4, Informative)
Apparently, you have never read a critical review of any Bose audio products.
Parent
Re:What's with the attitude? (Score:4, Interesting)
And it transfers with USB 2.0, which is both faster than the iPod's FireWire, and is also more commonly available on the PC platform.
I don't want to throw a monkeywrench in here, but I might as well try:
How is USB 2.0 support more ubiquitous for x86 in terms of OS-level support? I was under the impression that it's still being tweaked for Linux (but it's there) and that Windows support was confined to Windows 2000 and XP. At least, that's the impression I get from the Microsoft KB [microsoft.com]. For other x86 operating systems, I have no clue.
Somehow, I suspect FireWire support is (potentially) a bit more common, though it does require additional hardware for most x86 PCs. Beat me with a stick, but I seem to recall there being FireWire support in the OS for earlier versions of Windows, so at least it's an option (where it isn't with USB 2.0).
I also suffer from the delusion that USB 2.0 requires USB 2.0 hardware ports for full transfer rates [everythingusb.com]. I would think most consumers are still stuck with USB 1.1 interfaces and so, with sub-optimal transfers relative to FireWire.
So, how is it more commonly available on the PC platform again?
Parent
hmm 2 ports (Score:2)
because firewire you have to pay apple for every device you ship (unless your sony who apple love)
USB is a standard that is Open and backwards compatable and people love that because it works with all your old hardware
but it might have to have 2 ports one for power and one for USB which kind of sucks (although this has changed in USB 2 it depends on the power )
unlike the firewire that you can draw a decent amount of power from
regards
John Jones
Re:hmm 2 ports (Score:4, Informative)
Firewire is free [apple.com]:
Parent
Re:hmm 2 ports (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What's with the attitude? (Score:3, Insightful)
The Yepp isn't coming out until Feb/March, so it is way behind the iPod in that respect. By the time it comes out, Apple will have had the 10GB iPod on the market for a year. I mean come on, "Oh yeah, well wait 6 months...I'm going to get an MP3 player with the same capacity as your iPod and a slightly faster connection speed for the same price you paid today! Oh, yeah, the interface will probably suck too."
Besides which USB 2.0 isn't really faster than Firewire, and either one is faster than that 1.8" HD can handle anyway. The real advantage to Firewire is that it provides power too, so you can charge and sync your iPod by only plugging in one cable.
Re:What's with the attitude? (Score:5, Insightful)
However you really should look up the current specs. The latest model iPods do offer more then the Yepp, FireWire and USB 2.0 are about tied for market penetraton (their speeds are essentially identical right now though FireWire is going faster RSN), and most agree that the iPod interface & software integration are the best on the market.
While everyone is welcome to choose whatever fits their needs best the iPod is a remarkably good value bang-for-the-buck, particularly in the latest revisions. Comparing iPod Rev. A specs with the latest Yepp isn't particularly valid unless price is also listed (iPods have gotten cheaper quite quickly.)
Parent
Re:What's with the attitude? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, because the difference between 400Mb/s and 480Mb/s really matter when connecting an external hard disk. It's 2002. Hard disks do not run at 480Mb/s.
Besides, the "USB2 is faster then FireWire" talk is just Intel's marketing; USB2 is 480Mb/s peak, where FireWire is 400Mb/s sustained.
Parent
Re:What's with the attitude? (Score:5, Informative)
I am sure that in a lab you can get usb 2.0 to go faster than firewire but in reality there is no way it will.
I have both and I have usb 2.0 and firewire external drives and the firewire one smokes the usb one (they are both 7200 rpm ibm drives) even when the drive is the only thing on the usb chain.....
if I add a mouse it gets comical.
Troc
Parent
Re:What's with the attitude? (Score:3, Informative)
And a big advantage of USB2 is that it also works on USB1 ports--slower, but it works, and just about every computer has USB1.
Re:all junk (Score:4, Informative)
The NJB3 for example, has built-in recording in either uncompressed or MP3 format, and a battery life that's in the ~22 hour range with two batteries loaded.
It also supports bi-directional file transfer, so you're not stuck just "syncing" your media when you connect it to the host computer.
It's bigger, yes - but it also utilizes industry-standard 2.5" drives (which go up to 60gb now). That offers a lot more room for expansion than the 1.8" drives which are used in the smaller devices.
Saying "everything else is a joke" is naive, and flamebait imho. What may work for you may not fill my needs - the opposite can be true as well, but let's be honest here.
Parent
Ogg Vorbis support? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Ogg Vorbis support? (Score:2, Funny)
a grrl & her server [danamania.com]
Re:Ogg Vorbis support? (Score:2)
Linux Zealots LOVE Ogg.. why? Because of the licensing.. not the compression rate..
No, you're not trolling, and I am Elvis.
true but... (Score:2)
ogg because its free means not having to pay people for their libs which means reduced costs and so reduced cost to consumer (the fact that large companys have already payed does not mean its not true)
AND
its what I think is right
we can have an opinion infact they are credited to us in the small print at the bottom of this page
if your writeing a music app that is fairly self contained and your part of a small company I would not put MP3 in it because of the law simple as that
regards
John Jones
Re:Ogg Vorbis support? (Score:3, Insightful)
Vorbis has come a _LONG_ way since then. To my ears, OGG files sound quite a bit better, especially when one is comparing lower bitrates.
Grab CDex [n3.net]. It includes LAME and OGG encoders, or check out the comparison [xiph.org] on the ogg vorbis page. You may be surprised. Please dont quote articles that analyzed the codec before the developers even considered it to be a 1.0 release (I'm sure that even the Fraunhofer encoder was quite poor before its own "1.0" release).
Oh, btw, I'm not a linux/oss/fsf zealot. I prefer windows on my desktop and linux on my servers.
different study (Score:3, Informative)
Recently, one of the best German computing magazines [heise.de] performed an extensive public test [heise.de] of various audio compression codecs, judging Ogg Vorbis as the clear winner. Slashdot article here [slashdot.org].
While certainly not a flawless study, it seems a lot more legitimate than what you cite.
Re:Ogg Vorbis support? (Score:3, Informative)
While there's no dedicated Ogg chip currently, there's proably very few, if any, dedicated WMA chips out there, so immediate availability of Ogg chips isn't a make-or-break for the format.
However, as for the parent post's link to that single, outdated study, I think I trust the huge, distributed test covered by c't [infoanarchy.org] over one guy, thanks.
Floating-point intesive? Try again. [xiph.org] Take a careful look at the HUGE TEXT at the very top of the page.
And how about those format specifications, eh? [xiph.org]
If anything's a joke here, it's your post.
Re:Ogg Vorbis support? (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure most of them do that. The trouble is, you need to have the decoder written for the processor that the player uses and the right format to be flashed into rom. You can't just take the newest winamp plugin and have it work on anything.
Now, they could make it so you can mix and match which decoders you install instead of just throwing all the decoders in, but there's no benefit to that until they run out of flash rom.
upgrades (Score:2)
they do apple use's a hardware MP3 decoder with a ARM7 much like the rio's so they could infact play windows media if they really wanted
you get upgardes via apple support infact I just downloaded a new firmware to allow it to act as a calander/phone book
Because then you wouldn't make money off of selling the next player when the old one isn't good enough any more?
this is of course true to an extent it is after all what the market will take most players claim that they are software upgrades and they fix bugs this way
regards
John Jones
ARM ADS, dedicated MP3 chips, and bus power (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh Apple, when will you do the right thing? The libraries for Ogg Vorbis decoding are released under the BSD license. They can be compiled via [either GCC or] ARM ADS and its free
GCC and the Tremor library (integer arithmetic Vorbis decoder) are free software, but ARM ADS software is hardly "free". It's proprietary and $6,000 per seat.
How hard is this for them? What I really think is the problem is that QuickTime and iTunes cannot deal with variable bit rate audio codecs, so playing them on Mac OS is a no-no.
Actually, the big problem is that the iPod player runs audio through a chip that takes MP3 audio on one pin and produces PCM audio on another. It's much harder to change hardware than software.
Oh, and USB2 connection? Sure you don't have to pay a buck to apple every time you sell a device, but the power has to be a separate plug.
Not necessarily. USB 2.0 devices can be bus-powered. Besides, you need batteries anyway for when the device is disconnected from the host computer.
Short range FM broadcast? (Score:2, Interesting)
I personally only care about sub $100 market (Score:4, Insightful)
I bought the GF2MX when it hit $90 and a GF3Ti200 when it hit $90. I bought my (older) 11 second buffering sony car discman when those hit $90. (It gets like 80 hours play on a pair of AAs, too, and works flawlessly to this day. Very nice.) So any MP3 player I'm going to buy is going to cost less than a hundred bucks.
I also don't want a device where the media costs more than the machine, which limits my choices to a pretty narrow range. Lik-Sang doesn't even seem to be loading, but that's where I'd ordinarily look for a device like that.
Does anyone know of a very thin CDRW/CDR/CD player which does VBRE MP3s and costs less than $100 which doesn't simply fall apart within a week of the warranty's end?
Pretty cool offerings (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, when are all these big name vendors going to start using a truely free format? I can't imagine that the likes of Sharp or Sony want to be beholden to some german company in a case of patent infringement.
Re:Pretty cool offerings (Score:3, Informative)
Personally I prefer the PhatNoise PhatBox [phatnoise.com]. Supports MP3, FLAC, Windows Media, Audible, and soon to support Ogg (available in alpha test now). It comes in either 20 GB or 40 GB carts and interfaces with a bunch of head units. Also the Kenwood Audio Keg [kenwoodusa.com] is the same thing (licensed PhatNoise). It uses 10 GB carts and works only with Kenwood Headunits (I got an Audio Keg myself). There are a lot of cool features including m3u playlists and text-to-speech technology to announce the name of each playlist.
Editors: Please Edit! (Score:2)
TheFrood
Some important facts about the new Rio players (Score:3, Interesting)
Supports Microsoft Windows Media digital rights management
Upgradeable to future music formats
http://www.sonicblue.com/audio/rio/s30s.asp
User interface (Score:2)
SATA External? (Score:2)
Cable length spec is 1 meter, hot swap.... And the interface is basically free. Imagine that the device already uses a SATA hard disk internally, you just pop the disk out and plug it in to your computer, that way the external device doesn't have to have electronics to support any connections to a host.
Power connections may need some tweaking, I'm not sure how that would be handled. On a side note, MS says about SATA hot swap:
When does Microsoft plan to support true "hot plug" for Serial ATA devices?
The Microsoft plan of record is to provide support in the next version of the Windows operating system.
http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/tech/storage/ser
This seems like a reasonable future direction for this to go in. It won't happen right away, but it almost seems inevitable now that SATA is finally snowballing.
Re:SATA External? (Score:2)
Cable length spec is 1 meter??? Man that wouldn't even reach from the back of my case to my desk, and my case is under my desk. I can't see anything whose cable length is that limited take off for external devices.
Re:SATA External? (Score:2)
How about running it out the *front* of the computer case?
Take your player, stick it on top of/in front of the case, plug it in, and you can download three times faster than usb2/firewire. I think the slightly smaller range would be worth it.
Dont Forget MiniDisc (Score:2, Interesting)
It's about time (Score:2)
It's about time we got some decent USB 2.0 players to compete with the iPod. While the iPod is a nice player and all, I'm not prepared to fork over even more money for a firewiire card when I have 4 perfectly good USB 2.0 ports on my motherboard, which are faster. Plus, people with USB 1 can still use the player until they upgrade. With Apple hardware also supporting USB 2.0, it is a no-brainer choice over firewire in my opinion. This FM tuner on the Yepp is also a very nice feature, especially for switching over to catch the news or something.
Listen buddy-- (Score:4, Funny)
I dunno about you, but I will find the player I want independent of bus interface and THEN, and only then, will I decide that I am not too cheap for
AN EIGHTEEN DOLLAR PART!!! [buyaib.com]
Sorry 'bout that.
Parent
Water-proof player (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Water-proof player (Score:5, Funny)
But Aquaman, you cannot marry a woman without gills, you're from two different worlds!
~jeff
Parent
Re:Water-proof player (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Rio 600? Say what? (Score:3, Informative)
I think there must be two distinct groups at SonicBlue designing MP3 players. One does fairly standard players, often sold under somebody else's label. The other grinds out these strange backpack players.
What the second group is smoking is one of the great mysteries of our time. The players and backpacks are filled with strange, inexplicable features. On the other hand, this series is one of the few that supports bookmarks, which are essential to us spoken word types.
Give me some ogg player (Score:2, Insightful)
If I'd find a reasonably priced player, preferably CD, that would play ogg I would buy it. I own a relatively small collection of music (~1GB) 80% of which is MP3 but I'm starting to rip my new CDs with ogg.
Anyone knows of CD players that read ogg files on CDs?
Disclaimer: I don't care about people saying "you stupid! just rip your CDs in MP3" because they don't get the point. I don't want to start a fanatic war on ogg vs. mp3 either because it misses the point too. I just want to listen to ogg files because I like it.
Don't waste your time... (Score:2)
And don't talk to me about an FM radio. With 1000's of songs and playlists based on music style to ratings (ala iTunes) why the hell would I want to listen to a radio? Please, no replys unless you have USED an iPod... if you havn't, treat yourself and enjoy! Amazing design and usability WITH great construction (virtual wheel too! Woot!)
I have an ipod (Score:5, Interesting)
- Apple overnights me a box
- I stick ipod in box
- I call to have the shipping company pick up box
- Apple sends me a brand new ipod, arrives 2 days later
That's what I call service, most of the other players I've seen have a very limited warranty and the companies are almost guaranteed to object to a replacement. Apple was amazing and they should be, with the recent release of the ipod for windows, they are bound to get a few converts if they keep that level of service.iPod problems (Score:4, Informative)
Overall, the machine is quite good and probably the best on the market. However ther are a few things that it doesn't get right.
First, gap removal -- I have many albums that arte contimuous (live recordings, DJ mixes, classical music, etc.) The iPod provides no gap suppression, so that in between every track there is a noticeable gap of about 1/2 second (or up to five seconds if the hard disk decides to spin up at the same time.) Now, I realize that due to the architecture of most portable mp3 players, gap suppression is not feasible because it requires processing on the decoded audio. So I went and re-encoded all those albums as single mp3s. However, that didn't work well because of:
File size limit: The iPod is very poor at handling files that exceed the size of its 32MB memory buffer. It is incapable of playing music while reading from the hard disk. So if you have a file that is longer than 32mb, it will play the first 32mb, then pause for 3-5 seconds while reading the next 32mb chunk into memory. This means that there is no way to properly listen to continuously recorded albums.
Furthermore, the iPod provides no mechanism for bookmarking or labeling points within a track, so it's impossible for me to see what the title of the current section on my continuously encoded album is. I would find this even more annoying if I listened to audio books.
The backlight is not adjustable, and it's too bright. In a dark room it hurts my eyes.
The backlight, unlike most other kinds of backlight, needs to invert the screen when it's on, which you can see if you take the iPod out into the sunlight. But on a cloudy day, the backlight and the ambient light balance out almost exactly, and the display is unreadable. I can hold down the "Menu" key to turn the backlight off, but that isn't helpful because when I move the wheel the backlight turns on agin immediately. So I have to navigate through the menu system (which is tricky when you can't see the display) to turn off the backlight.
Did I mention the menu interface? The menu interface provides no provision for muscle memory; it cannot be operated by touch. You must be constantly looking at the display while you move the wheel. This makes the iPod downright dangerous for use in the car (which is about 50/70% of where I use the thing). Much of the danger could be alleviated if the wheel provided any sort of tactile feedback -- there is a audible "clicker" you can enable, but you cannot hear it in a noisy environment, or while the music is playing. You cannot adjust the volume unless you are in the "Now Playing" section of the menu interface. If you wanted to turn down the volume without looking at the display, the sequence you have to go through is this:
That's a little much to expect when you're trying to just mute the damn thing while keeping your eyes on the road!
Finally, iTunes seems to have some speed issues in reading files off of CD-ROMs. Off the hard drive is nice and speedy, but from the CD it clocks in at around USB1.0 speeds. I don't know why this is the case.
I would like to know if there are any portable hard-drive based mp3 players which address these issues.
And a 1 and a 2... (Score:2)
Re:Umm.. nice but (Score:2, Informative)
I've got a usb flash reader but the linux drivers are tring to be too helpful and want to read the flash partition table. Too bad the format doesn't have one. Anyone know how to tell one of these generic USB flash readers "give me the real block 0"?
Re:Any comments of ipod? (Score:3, Insightful)
I keep hearing that exact sentiment and I don't know if it's really true or not but at the very least there could be another way of looking at it. In the first scenario Apple made a huge mistake when not making a "Windows version" of iPod because that's just plain lost sales! Similarly, Apple makes a huge mistake when not porting iTunes because the bundled Windows software sucks ass and will impact sales of Windows iPods...again, lost sales.
The second way of looking at it goes a bit like this. Apple doesn't hurry to port the iPod because the lure of using one is enough to drum up some computer sales. Maybe not the same number of computer sales as the lost iPod sales, but computers are higher ticket items and presumably Apple makes more money on them. Similarly, Apple doesn't bother porting iTunes because it's one of those things that make the Mac look really good compared to the PC - again, more computer sales.
Which scenario is closer to the truth? Only Apple knows and even they don't know for sure because you can't count sales you didn't get. We can assume, however, that they are the most interested party when it comes to Apple sales and revenues...and thus they probably did their homework before deciding how to play it.
Which brings me to my final point: why are there an endless stream of second-guessers who figure they know that Apple would have made more sales/money if they had done differently?