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Handhelds Software Hardware Linux

More Linux Portable Media Players On The Way 181

Posted by timothy from the promises-promises dept.
An anonymous reader writes "According to LinuxDevices.com, Taiwanese motherboard maker FIC will unveil a Linux-based portable media player (PMP) at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. FIC's 'Vassili' includes a 3.6-inch color LCD screen and a 20GB hard drive, and supports files in MPEG 1-4, MP3, WMA, WAV, ASF, AVI, and JPEG format. Speaking of Linux-based PMPs, Archos will also showcase its lastest PMP, the Pocket Media Assistant PMA400 at CES, and other Linux-based PMPs have recently been announced by iRiver, Veritouch, and Zupera."
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More Linux Portable Media Players On The Way More

More Linux Portable Media Players On The Way

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  • But the real question is... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mohrt ( 72095 ) on Monday January 03, 2005 @07:10PM (#11249241) Homepage
    can I hack it to run MAME [mame.net]?

  • I'll save you all the trouble. . . (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Limburgher ( 523006 ) on Monday January 03, 2005 @07:14PM (#11249286) Homepage Journal
    What about OGG support? That's the single killer feature for me.
    • Damn, you got there first.

      You are a worthy typist.

    • Re:I'll save you all the trouble. . . (Score:5, Informative)

      by JaxWeb ( 715417 ) on Monday January 03, 2005 @07:28PM (#11249431) Homepage Journal
      Seeing as you're lazy, I'll click those little hyperlinks for you. Maybe I'll get like modded up or something for my efforts:

      The FIC Vassili is limited to MPEG4, MP3, WMA, WAV, ASF, AVI, and JPEG.

      The iRiver PMP-120 does not currently support it, but they promise it will soon, I think.

      The VeriTouch iVue doesn't mention which formats it supports.

      Zupera Technology's one is limited to MP3, WMA, WAV, CD and AC-3.

      So none of them support it.
    • Any more TLAs and IGN!
    • Unfortunately they sell to the masses and the masses don't know what an .ogg is...just like they don't know what spyware/malware are. Get an iriver, I love mine and all that is on it is .ogg's. If .ogg's were half as easy to download (pirate) as mp3's it would be on every mp3 player produced.
    • "What about OGG support? That's the single killer feature for me."

      EXACTLY. I'm in the market for an HDD music player. It HAS to handle Ogg Vorbis, as all my files are in that format. It turns out, my "Christmas bonus" is in the form of a gift certificate from (choose one) BestBuy, Amazon.com, or CircuitCity. So, now I'm looking at PMP's. The iRiver PMP-120 sounds worthy, since at least three (third-party) online reviews have stated it has Ogg support, yet there is nary a mention of this on any of the
      • Although this does not solve your conundrum I would feel inclined to believe a PMP device from iRiver should support Ogg as well.

        I am surpirsed their websie don;t specify this, the documentation they provide is second to none, I would have a second look at manuals and available information.
    • If you want ogg support you don't need to pay big money for the PMP... iriver also sells the H320 and H340 both of which are standard fare HD music players, and both officially support ogg. supposedly reviews say the pmp supports ogg, but the specs for it fail to mention that, perhaps as an accidental ommision?

  • Death of the PDA (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 03, 2005 @07:15PM (#11249291)
    Am I the only one who finds it sad that these monstrosities are replacing PDA's? I remember how excited I was at the possibilities presented by those amazing, tiny computers. The things we could do with them, now and in the future. Now that everyone has their calendar app, the innovative companies that were making them are either going out of business or dropping the product lines.

    But it's OK! We have this nifty device you can watch movies on! Look at the pretty colors!
    • It seems like PDAs are more likely to merge with phones than with portable media players. Most of these PMPs don't even have touch screens; how are you supposed to input anything?
    • "Am I the only one who finds it sad that these monstrosities are replacing PDA's?"

      Are they? Well, let's assume they are:

      I don't find it sad. It's hard to justify $500 for a PDA. Whoopee, it has a calender. Whoopee, it can kinda sorta browse the web and get email. Whoopee, some of them have cameras. Besides playing media, what use do they have that would appeal to a broad segment? Why is it so 'sad' that entertainment machines that are capable of storing fun-to-watch stuff is, as you say, popular?
    • It depends what you mean by 'PDA', of course.

      When it first got used, I think it really meant 'pocket computer' -- Newtons and Psions are general-purpose machines and you can do an awful lot of stuff with them, particularly the later ones. But then Palms and their type became popular and took over the market, and 'PDA' came to mean 'electronic calendar and address book', because that's all people could find to do with them (and, initially, all they were up to).

      So, personally speaking, I'm not too upset

  • So they run Linux ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 03, 2005 @07:15PM (#11249298)
    ... Who the FUCK cares?

    Girl: "Hey, that's a cool MP3 player!"
    Luser: "It's not JUST an MP3 player! It runs Linux with a 2.4 kernel, and I even have a copy of GCC installed so that I can compile stuff on it!"
    Girl: "Uhh, okay ... *goes off to flirt with some other dude with an iPod*"

  • But is it OPEN? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by orthogonal ( 588627 ) on Monday January 03, 2005 @07:16PM (#11249303) Journal
    Serious question: does that mean they are open source?

    I mean, as an end user, I don't much care if something is "linux-based" or "foot fungus-based" if I can't open it up and re-do the way that works best for me.

    I had an Archos, and the guys at rockbox.org went to considerable trouble to reverse engineer it (and I contributed my own smidgen of code to that project), but Archos apparently saved a bunch of money on assembling their machines, and the damned thing broke down (and mine was far from the only one to break down -- I'll no longer buy anything from Archos).

    And Archos's firmware was so ridiculously bad (the Rockbox guys sped up directory browsing alone by a factor of perhaps 50) that I no longer want to buy an mp3 player that I can't hack. Having hacked with teh Rockbox software, I know what I want in an mp3 player -- and I figure I'll have to do it myself.

    I want a new mp3 player, indeed my mom wanted to buy me one for Christmas and asked what kind I wanted, but I wasn't anymore versed on what is open source and what isn't but is reversed engineered and what is totally closed, so I couldn't tell Mom what to buy.

    Loss for me, loss for the electronics store, loss for the manufacturer.

    So "linux-based" I don't really care about -- open source, I care about.

    So reply if you know: what hard-drive based mp3 players have hackable source or open source firmware replacements?

  • Is this Useful? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Thunderstruck ( 210399 ) on Monday January 03, 2005 @07:19PM (#11249340)
    Where is a device like this going to see the most use? At home most gadget customers have the equipment to play all sorts of media, a larger screen, and a couch.

    At work, they have a 14" screen but no couch.

    Outside of work and home, well its -15F today...

    • As-is, it probably isn't that useful. However, I could see a use for a high-quality, compact embeddable device that could be installed where pre-recorded sounds would normally be used.

      eg: Pre-recorded announcements on trains/busses. Pre-recorded speech/sounds for exhibits at museums, science centers, etc.

      Quality playback systems wouldn't go amis on those animatronic toys the stores get stuffed silly with. At present, they sound like someone used a cheap tape deck, worn-out cassettes, and a tin can for a

    • "Where is a device like this going to see the most use? At home most gadget customers have the equipment to play all sorts of media, a larger screen, and a couch."

      I wonder if questions like this were raised when the first laptops came out.

      I actually have a TabletPC that does basically that job for me. It has all my music and a few DivX rips of DVDs I have. Sometimes when I feel like laying down and watching a movie, I use it for that. I'd enjoy having a smaller more portable version of a media player

    • Re:Is this Useful? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by __aacvzh55 ( 843836 )

      I spend at least 2 hours every day on public transit.

      Plenty of time to find the Amulet of Yendor while humming along to some mp3's :)
    • I commute half hour each day, each way to my office. I would love to watch movies during my daily commute.

  • No Ogg Vorbis? (Score:2, Funny)

    by o'davy ( 606052 )
    WTF? And I bet the music manager only runs on Windows and OS/X. But it's based on Linux! Super.
  • Speaking of portable multimedia, I was lucky enough to get a Nintendo DS for Xmas! I hear that there will be a mp3/mp4 player for this great system, but I hope to actually be able to run linux (or maybe an alternative OS like kontiki) on the DS and play theora movies and vorbis audio... somehow.

    Has anyone heard of any new progress on the Linux/Nintendo DS front? I heard that there was a $1,000 bounty for getting linux to load up on the DS, but that site is now down! I think it uses a dual ARM7/9 processor
    • It would require hackers to break Nintendo's proprietary media format. So far I haven't read any news on this front.

      How long did it take for writeable media to come out for the GBA?

      On the other hand, maybe we can take advantage of the DS's wireless download capability, that would be easier I think. Someone just needs to figure out Nintendo's crazy wireless protocol (just checkout www.teamxlink.co.uk to find people trying just that).

  • I hope they use mplayer... (and support NUV) (Score:5, Interesting)

    by poopie ( 35416 ) on Monday January 03, 2005 @07:25PM (#11249387) Journal
    I seriously hope they use mplayer and add support for all of the file formats that mplayer can handle.

    Why?

    Well... mythtv records in this crazy format called NUV. It's opensource, but it's not in any top ten codecs list. But... mplayer supports it just fine.

    I sure would like to have a portable media player that supported "raw" mythtv recordings
    • Legal devices can't use mplayer unless they rip out all the patented (e.g. good) codecs, since patents and the GPL don't mix.
    • Well... mythtv records in this crazy format called NUV.

      It's not really a crazy format. If I remember correctly, It's an information wrapper around some other media format (MPEG2, MPEG4, etc.) You can then export it to various other standard formats via nuvexport.

  • Just wanted to throw my hat in for the Archos 400. It runs an embedded operating system that I THINK (don't quote me) is Linux. Regardless, it's reliable and plays DivX movies beautifully. I have about 20 movies on the thing (that I purchased, thank you very much) and they all run great. Battery life is respectable, too (about 8-10 hours). Made me give up my iPod.

  • Why why why oh why? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gelfling ( 6534 ) on Monday January 03, 2005 @07:27PM (#11249416) Homepage Journal
    Yesterday I was in Target and MP3 players have reached the point where they are packaged in that impossible to open plastic card and hung on metal pegboard hooks in lots of 10. Even with extra storage we're still talking in the $150 range. Why would anyone care what OS it runs? It's practically disposable at that point.
    • If you want to hack something it is much easier to do so if you know the item to be hacked is using something you are already familiar with.

      ANd alos there are many of us who care who different companies are paying to when implementing embedded solutions.

      I will rather support companies using OSS software since they will al least be aware of how it works, closed source company should be punished when one can do so since their business model is stalling progress in the IT industry.
  • Linux-based digital music players are a great idea, but the manufacturers don't always honor the GPL by making the source available. For example, iRiver appears to be violating the GPL with its PMP-140 product:

  • I read the blurb.. (Score:2, Offtopic)

    by CliffH ( 64518 )

    and the first thing I heard in my mind was Snoop and 50 cent:

    I don't know what you heard about me
    But da iPod ain't got nuthin over me
    I have color LCD and more bling tham you can see
    cause I'm a m%$*&*&%#%& PiMP

  • It's a Linux-based product that supports every codec you'd probably need but the open source one I use all the time, Ogg Vorbis. They really did a great job on that one.

  • GPL Compliance (Score:3, Interesting)

    by PingXao ( 153057 ) on Monday January 03, 2005 @07:40PM (#11249541)
    I hope all these manufacturers adhere to the GPL and release the source code for their devices. Right now there are several big players in the SOHO router marketplace that do not. The ones that do provide stripped-down versions of what they actually ship, and most of them had to be persuaded to do so. They consider their device driver modules proprietary and don't provide source for those regardless of what the GPL says. Many of these manufacturers are not based in the U.S., so I can see how it might be expensive to bring a court action to enforce copyright, but that shouldn't be an excuse. Restraining orders preventing manufacturers from selling their products can be very effective.

    Will the FSF or other copyright holders finally stand up for their rights? I'm no lawyer, but I seem to recall that if you don't take affirmative steps to protect your copyrights you can lose the protection they provide.
  • Is PMP pronounced "pimp"?
  • All these companies claim that their device is somehow "Linux-based" or "Powered by Linux". The problem is that most of these companies are making it worthless to be run by Linux. I mean honestly--what the hell use is it to me that a device is Linux-powered if the crucial device logic, drivers, or userland applications are all closed-source?

    NONE.

    So unless their devices are 100% open source that I can hack and modify freely, these are just more companies jumping on the "Hey we run Linux too! *snicker*" ban

  • How did FIC license wmv for Linux? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Thagg ( 9904 ) <thadbeier@gmail.com> on Monday January 03, 2005 @08:41PM (#11250015) Journal
    I was under the impression that the wmv family of formats was proprietary to Microsoft. I'd be shocked into next Tuesday if MS licensed those codecs to be used for a Linux-based player. How is it possible that FIC is doing this legally?

    Thad

    • Re:How did FIC license wmv for Linux? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I was under the impression that the wmv family of formats was proprietary to Microsoft. I'd be shocked into next Tuesday if MS licensed those codecs to be used for a Linux-based player.

      I hope you're sitting down: any company is allowed to license WMA/WMV for any platform. [microsoft.com] Microsoft hates Linux, but they won't sacrifice Windows Media world domination just to spite Linux.
      • AC says: I hope you're sitting down: any company is allowed to license WMA/WMV for any platform. Microsoft hates Linux, but they won't sacrifice Windows Media world domination just to spite Linux.

        Thank you, AC -- that's interesting. I hadn't thought it was possible, but the link you include clearly MS will allow and perhaps even encourage this kind of thing. My internal model of the nuances of Microsoft's plan for world domination will have to be modified considerably :)

        Thad Beier
    • I wasn't aware that Microsoft was really a big
      competitor in the embedded market.

      They don't care what OS is on people's embedded
      processors, it's the desktop market that they are
      after.
  • The question I have about this is where you're going to get the video from in the first place? It doesn't look like any of these are designed to have PVR features that will let them capture material off a Cable or VCR.

    If you have to rip a DVD first, then you're looking at a fair bit of time at a desktop first, and then a portable DVD player starts to make more sense because you won't get that many ripped DVDs with reasonable quality on these units.

    I would like to see one of these that can be docked in a

    • That is the fundamental problem of these devices. I currently own the old Archos Multimedia 20 and while it does an admirable job of playing videos, it is very specific about what it will play and requires the resolution to be drastically reduced to fit its screensize. Unfortunately, that resolution is something you would never use on a computer or on VCDs, so you effectively have two or three copies of every movie. Archos' answer is to use their PVR plug-in module, but the frame rate and quality on that

  • These sorts of consumer products are what will REALLY show the non-technical consumers the benefits of open source in their pocket devices. They will soon come to see that once they buy the product it does not remain static, but will adapt as user groups form that contain techies motivated to extend the products capabilities. As more and more consumers realize the advantages, the market for open-source based devices will increase, and hopefully open-source will become an important sales feature.

    Companie

    • These sorts of consumer products are what will REALLY show the non-technical consumers the benefits of open source in their pocket devices. They will soon come to see that once they buy the product it does not remain static, but will adapt as user groups form that contain techies motivated to extend the products capabilities.

      Yeah, right. Half of the embedded Linux products on the market come with no source code (sure it's illegal, but what are you going to do about it?) and the other half come with minima

  • Inevitable "But what about the iPod" post (Score:3, Funny)

    by Kiryat Malachi ( 177258 ) on Monday January 03, 2005 @10:28PM (#11250714) Journal
    See, here's the thing.

    These Linux based PMPs are cool.

    But the iPod Photo is a Portable Image and Music Player.

    And everyone knows nothing else is as cool as a PIMP.

  • PDAs with hard drives (Score:3, Interesting)

    by DaveOf9thKey ( 599178 ) on Tuesday January 04, 2005 @12:08AM (#11251199) Homepage Journal
    That Archos PMA400 that's going to be introduced at CES is really going to be more than just a PVP. It's going to be a full-fledged PDA with a built-in hard drive. You'll be able to keep your calendar and contacts on it, check your email on it via Wi-Fi (or via Bluetooth, if your cell phone lets you do that), and possibly do some web surfing as well.

    So why don't we see more PDAs with built-in hard drives?

    Seriously, is it a battery life issue, or is it just that nobody else has thought of it yet? It seems to me that if a Palm or PocketPC device came out with even a 5GB microdrive inside, it would cause real problems for a lot of MP3 players that aren't iPods. Plus, PDAs with built-in hard drives would automatically have an advantage over most smartphones in terms of storage. Add in a faster processor and some extra memory, and now you're talking about something as close to a PC as you can get in your pocket. (Assuming your pockets aren't quite big enough for that OQO, of course...)

    Personally, I'd be all over something like that Tapwave Zodiac if it could hold 20GB of my music collection, too. Wouldn't you?
  • Just in case you are interested in Linux connectivity to other portable audio and video players [tuxmobil.org], there are reports for Apple iPod [tuxmobil.org], Archos JukeBox [tuxmobil.org], Creative Nomad MuVo [tuxmobil.org], Diamond Rio [tuxmobil.org], Sony Diskman [tuxmobil.org] and many more models. There is also a survey of Linux Applications for Portable Music and Video Players [tuxmobil.org], links to free music (GPLed or under Creative Commons license [tuxmobil.org] and tips and tricks about repairing, upgrading and disassembling your portable media player [tuxmobil.org].

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