40GB RCA Lyra: Apple Fans Needn't Fret

PaulEshoreLives writes "The Globe and Mail isn't taking too kindly to RCA's Lyra 40GB iPod 'competitor.' Amongst its gripes are a crazy-slow FFW. How slow? Like 6 minutes to get to the end of a 60 minute file. Gotta wonder how these things get missed at the beta stage."

Re:ffw ?

[jrandall]

I believe what is being referred to is a ridiculously slow "Fast Forward" function.

Hey, not all codecs ..

[torpor]

.. are conducive to rapid-scan indexing of frames.

Sure, on an uncompressed mpeg4, you can just fseek() where you need to go and pick right up, but some codecs (not gonna mention names) are designed with limitations that make faster-than-1x speed indexes exceedingly difficult for simple lower-power processors ..

Ebooks

[nurb432]

I have a few that are MUCH longer then an hour..

And are not split up by chapter... so its one huge file..

Re:Again? Look, can we just take it as read

[thisfred]

In that case: have a look at the Rio Karma. 1. It's cheaper 2. It plays Ogg 3. It has a better screen resolution 4. It has cross platform support (a java client that uses an ethernet connection to download/upload music from/to it)

Re:Lyra: the * MPY * player. (not MP3)

[crownrai]

I have the 64MB RCA Lyra. Same as the 128MB except for the obvious gimpyness of less storage space.

It can play MP3, WMA(plain or DRM), and MP3pro. I haven't use WMA's on it much but for MP3 or MP3pro playback you just hook it up to your machine and copy the files using your OS' filemanger. No extra software required. Havent even heard of this MPY format you speak of.

It does come with music manager software but that still on the CD. Perhaps it stores music on the device in this MPY format.

Nice feature about this player is the SD card slot. I'll be getting a 1GB when the SD cards drop even more then they have already.

I have the old version of RCA's 40 gig player...

[Jomboni]

It's the Lyra RD2840. It's got it's faults but overall it's a great player for what I need it to do. Initially, it had lots of problems. You couldn't resume a track from where you left off if you turned the unit off and back on, the track would start over. If you had both mp3s and wma files on it, there was static when it switched between the 2 formats. Shuffle was buggy, etc... these were all fixed in a recent firmware upgrade though. FFW is slow on mine, but not as slow as the review says it is on the new model. Playback isn't gapless, but it's "pretty close." Battery life so far seems to be about 10 hours continuous play, 7-8 if I shuffle around, so that's not bad. It comes with an AC adapter, cigarette lighter adapter, carrying case, and the headphones are better than the typical stock headphones. The downside: For some reason, the line-out is a 1/16" jack instead of the usual 1/8" headphone sized. An adapter is included though. Also, it requires a 5.5v AC adapter, which I have had trouble locating online... so if you lose your adapter I'm not sure what you'd do. Occasionally, if you shuffle around to songs that aren't in order, the song will start about 1/2-1 second into the track. The one feature that sold me, over everything else, is that it's one of the few players that doens't require any special software. It's recognized as a standard external USB drive, you just copy files over to it like you would any normal drive (so you can also use it to store other files besides music). There IS a Windows system tray application that you use to "profile" the device, which scans all the id3 tags so that you can browse your songs by artist/genre/album/etc. But you don't need to use it, because the player has a profiling feature built in! It's just a little slower than using the windows app. In other words, this player is PERFECT for linux users. And, they're cheap. I got mine refurbished on ebay for only $160. At that price, for a 40 gig player that includes all the accessories and requires no software and runs effortlessly under Linux I don't mind the few faults it has!

Re:But there already IS something better

[nolen]

iPod does not convert everything to aac. It plays mp3, as well as several lossless formats (aif, wav, apple lossless) without converting anything at all. It does not play ogg or wma, true. But that does not make it dependent on 1 format.

Re:But there already IS something better

[Talthane]

Actually, the iPod doesn't convert everything to AAC. Why do you think it's called an MP3 player? It'll play either of those two formats.

Secondly, AAC can either be lossy or lossless, depending on which format you choose. AAC Lossless is, by definition, lossless (er...hence the name).

So apart from getting both of those facts wrong, you were almost right :-)

Re:ffw ?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's an old /. troll that attacks an OS (usually Linux or OSX) on the basis that copying a file of some large size takes 17 minutes. It's usually pretty subtle and gets a lot of responses if used correctly.

Re:Lyra: the * MPY * player. (not MP3)

[StikyPad]

I know this is /. and nobody ever reads the fucking article, so here's your answer. Obviously some other idiots didn't RTFA either since they modded you up. I'll probably get modded down for reading the article; that's just how it works.

The Lyra plays MP3 files from 32 Kbps to 320 Kbps, MP3PRO files from 48 Kbps to 96 Kbps, and Windows Media files (including Windows Media 9 DRM) from 32 Kbps to 192 Kbps. iTunes is not supported.

Re:But there already IS something better

[beezly]

I find that "Application Integration" on the iRiver is FAR better than the ipod. I can for example

cp -a /misc/music /media/sda1/Music

or even...

rsync -r --ignore-existing /misc/music /media/sda1/Music

Who needs application integration when you have rsync?!

Re:Why should Apple fans fret?

[psbrogna]

I understand why you say this. After purchasing an Apple Quadra 840 for around $6k in the early 1990's, I felt violated when PC's of comparable performance where available at a fraction of the cost. I learned my lesson- I don't pay the premium for the Apple brand anymore. It just doesn't make sense. (xServe's withstanding- they're a solid value)

However, I've gotten the impression that most Apple loyalists are immune to this phenomenon. They attribute the difference in price to the value of the superior engineering in Apple products. Huh. Yeah. More money for less mouse buttons is basically the situation. They must have put alot of effort into determining that it was in the users best interest to be denied those harmful context sensitive right click menus.

Re:But there already IS something better

[pknoll]

Cheaper, longer battery life, lighter, better headphones, more supported file formats etc.

More, eh? Maybe more that you care about, but that's not what you said. The iRivier iHP supports MP3, WMA, ASF, WAV, and OGG. That's 5 formats. The iPod plays AAC, MP3, Apple Lossless, AIFF, Audible, and WAV; a total of 6.

Re:Why should Apple fans fret?

[tenton]

$255 plus s/h? I hope you're talking non US $, because the replacement program is $99.95 [apple.com] plus $6.95 shipping (for a total cost of $105.95).