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Hardware

The New Nomad Jukebox, And Handheld Oggs 183

Posted by timothy from the pretty-pictures-pretty-sound dept.
Tha_Zanthrax writes: "The best portable MP3-player has become better! The people from Tbreak.com have recieved a Nomad/Creative Jukebox 3. They have yet to write a review but have put up some detailed pics on their messageboard. It's a bit smaller, but the best improvements are the firewire-port and the 2 (!) internal batteries for 22 hours of operation. Too bad I recieved my Creative JB2 last week ..." If you have a hankering to play Ogg Vorbis audio, though, it looks like the first handheld ogg player has finally arrived in the form of a (payware) app for the Sharp Zaurus called tkc Player, available from theKompany. Where's there's one, there will be more. Woo-hoo!
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The New Nomad Jukebox, And Handheld Oggs More

The New Nomad Jukebox, And Handheld Oggs

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  • The newer Ogg codec is really good. Much better to my ear than my mp3's. That player for the Sharp isn't bad either, interface could use some tweaking but sounds great.

  • the best ? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward


    I thought the IPOD was the best mp3 player ?

    ----------
    you can keep linux,
    its 2002 no 1982 if you hadn't noticed

    • Re:the best ? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Midnight Thunder ( 17205 ) on Friday April 12, 2002 @06:43AM (#3328700) Homepage Journal
      The iPOD also has the size advantage - ie it will fit in your trouser, or shirt, pockets without any problems. You are going to need cargo pants for the RIO. Size makes a big difference when it comes to usability, and for most intents and purposes the 10Gb configuration of the iPOD is plenty for many people. I don't have either but I would rather put my money down for the iPOD, especially since it looks good.
      • Indeed, I would vote for an iPod as my definition of the best mp3 player. It already hs firewire, it's lovely and small, has more than acceptable battery life, weighs less than 200g, has more than enough storage, works as an exceptionally handy general stirage medium, works perfectly with my G4 powermac, works acceptably with my PC at work and looks cool.

        The problem is that this article asserts that the Nomad is the best - this is, however, merely a subjective decision. I initially read it and thought "ooh, a new iPod". I'm also sure others will read it and go "ooh, a new ****" (replace **** with an mp3 player of your choice).

        This immediately puts people who disagree with the initial assertion on the wrong foot - and biasing their comments etc accordingly.

        Surely a posting to Slashdot should be, at least title-wise, objective, to avoid knee-jerk reactions by other people who, rightly or wrongly, have differing opinions about the subject-matter at hand.

        Troc

        PS Yes, I used too many commas, however I'm at work and we've a box of them that are nearing their use-by date.
    • Depends on your needs. I'm finding that the 20 gig hd my Neo has isn't large enough and plan to throw a 30-40 gig drive in. The 10 gig cap and the fact that it won't work well with my computer makes the iPod not the best player for me.

  • Next (Score:4, Funny)

    by Joe the Lesser ( 533425 ) on Friday April 12, 2002 @06:25AM (#3328655) Homepage Journal
    I think the next improvement should be a cynic inside the machine, who would scold you appropriatly if you were listening to N'Sync, or congratulate you for picking Radiohead.

  • Whats the difference... (Score:3, Informative)

    by afinn ( 467407 ) on Friday April 12, 2002 @06:28AM (#3328662) Homepage
    .. between this and nomad v2? Basically it's got a firewire port and lithium ion batteries. Some more details available here [mp3newswire.net].
  • Do people actually care about the colored templates one can snap on the face? It seems kinda silly... and my experience with similar devices has been that over time the one I'm using ends up getting cracked.

    After rolling through all three (or whatever) faceplaces, the unit ends up looking naked; there's no way I'm going to plunk down $20 + S&H for a new set.

    • Of course they do -- ever notice the plethora of faceplates for cellphones -- any color, pattern, or theme that you can think is available. Never underestimate the superficiality or vacuousness of the general public. Give me technology, but it better be cute and personable or it will never be widely adopted. For example, the dumbing down of the Windows interface (not NT or 2K) for the general public... most vomitous

      • Re:Color faceplates (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Inoshiro ( 71693 )
        Eh?

        Just because you don't like something, doesn't make it "wrong" for others to like it.

        The new XP look is nicer than the old Windows look, just like I prefer the "metal2" icewm theme to "warp4." Does that make me a "most vomitous" person?

        Never underestimate the superficiality of some people who think that just because someone's taste in what looks good is different, they're stupid.
    • I agree faceplates tend to be cheap, and oriented to the fashion conscience. However, they have uses.

      My sister-in-law carries her cellphone in her purse (a lot of dresses just don't have pockets). When it rang, she had a hard time finding it. Flip-o change-o to a bright colored faceplate and the problem was solved.

      The real issue with faceplates is when they're cheap pieces of plastic, as opposed to those made for cellphones which tend to be more rugged.

  • Still waiting... (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    For a mini-disc player/recorder that not only "supports" mp3/ogg/wav/etc, but will also play them in their original format instead of converting it to an ATRAC file (such as the new Sony NET mini-disc players). No matter what happens to the price of CF cards, it will be a very long time before it can compete with the cost of a single 700MB mini-disc. These hard drive driven portables and such would have a hard time competing in terms of cost of unit + media, weight of the player, and size.
    • And I'm still waiting for a minidisc player that lets me upload recordings to my computer in faster-than-real time. I guess the current belief (SONY NetMD) is that allowing the minidisc player to do so would promote piracy.<grumble/>

      psxndc

    • Couple of points there AC.

      Minidiscs do not hold 700mb of data, they only hold 160mb(the 74 minute discs anyway, not 100% sure about the 80 mins.) There was once an actual minidisc data drive for the pc which failed pretty much because they were small capacity, though the fact that they were slow as frell also weighed in heavily.

      I can't disagree about an actual mp3 holding md player though, that would be an incredible toy. Even at 160mb, with CAN$6 discs, it wouldn't be a problem. But hey, I'm fine until then with what I have. Recording real-time doesn't bother most of the real md fan(atics?). NetMD is available too, though majorly crippled by Sony's piracy protection.

      The (Hopefully) Great Slashdot Blackout [slashdot.org] , April 21-27
      • I believe the point the poster was trying to make is that while mini-disks are currently at 160MB, they have newer disks in R&D. A year ago I read an article on /. about Sharp pushing the size up to 4GB - most likely using multi-layer blue laser technology. While 4GB will certainly not make it out until blue lasers are very common, a smaller 700MB or possibly even 1GB disk is technically viable.

        Think of it this way, minidisks are actually very old - over ten years since their introduction. It's very possible to apply recent technologies, similar to what is now common in DVD players, to increase their capacity. Such a disk would make minidisks very competitive with the iPod and such.

        Willy

    • Try this [compaq.com]. Okay, so it's not really minidisc, but it's mini-CD, which is cheaper and holds just as much. I bought this device when it first came out, and I absolutely love it so far. It doesn't play anything but WAV, CDDA, and MP3, but for the price, I can't really complain. The best part is the flexibility, though. Three little pocket-sized miniCD's will hold about 10 hours of music. And I think there's supposed to be mini-CDRW's on the horizon, which are slated to cost less than $2.00 each (which i'm sure will come down over time)...then you get the added value of being able to rewrite on the same discs, just like flash memory or minidisc.
    • Hmmm, lets see.
      74 minutes of decent quality for $2 a disc
      $150 for a MD-player/recorder.
      740 minutes = $20+$150
      Weight of 20 discs + weight of MD player?
      Realtime upload; 2x if you're lucky. Is there a 4x?

      iPod
      $399 for 5gb
      3000+ minutes = 6.5oz
      $499 for 10gb
      6000+ minutes = 6.5oz
      Near instantaneous upload; 74 minutes of music in 10 seconds of upload. 2 gb of music in 4 minutes

      Just to be fair, I *do* own both a minidisc and an iPod, but the MD is now relegated for note-taking and recording purposes, rather than music :)
  • I have the original Jukebox, and this new one is gonna be even better. I only wish it were out right now. Anyone got any info on the cost?
  • inally Ogg is making an impact. But still endorsment by big cmpanies is needed before we have ogg plugins in evey mp3 player in market

  • Ogg Vorbis Player (Score:2, Interesting)

    by j09824 ( 572485 )
    There are a bunch of excellent, free graphical Ogg Vorbis players for X11, and they even work on small screens and handhelds. Why ever would you pay money for something like tkcPlayer?

    • Re:Ogg Vorbis Player (Score:4, Informative)

      by kenydl ( 145388 ) on Friday April 12, 2002 @06:40AM (#3328690) Homepage
      I think the major break-through is that this implementation uses a "fixed-point decoder".

      I believe the major problem with ogg was that it was very floating-point intensive, which doesn't suit the processors used in mp3 players and PDAs. theKompany must have developed or implemented a non floating point version of the decoder, thus enabling it to be used on the Zaurus without a huge cpu hit.

      • I see. Like the fixed point MP3 decoder, I suspect the free Ogg libraries will probably be updated to include a fixed point version as well soon and you'll just be able to use that with the existing clients; usually, those kinds of conversions aren't all that hard, at least if you have a C++ compiler.
      • But do not forget that ogg is better than mp3 in couple of points. For example, the beginning of songs in mp3 has holes. So that even you have some gappless plug-ins for mp3 players, they do not work very well. :)
      • I remember reading ~6 months ago that one of the key Ogg devs was working on an example fixed-point decoder. IIRC, it was assembly for a specific architecture, but was touted as being somewhat portable. theKompany may have used that decoder, or they may have written their own.

        I suppose the point is, there is, or will be soon, a decoder for portable devices.

  • more details about tckPlayer (Score:5, Informative)

    by HeUnique ( 187 ) <hetz-homeNO@SPAMcobol2java.com> on Friday April 12, 2002 @06:40AM (#3328691) Homepage
    You can find more details about the tckPlayer here [loveslinux.com] - it can be bought as a single stand alone app or it can be bought in a package of 9 applications for (for Zaurus) for $74.95 (details are here [thekompany.com])

  • The Best? Hardly! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by @madeus ( 24818 ) <slashdot_24818@mac.com> on Friday April 12, 2002 @06:42AM (#3328697)
    Even though you have to download software seperately if your a Windows user, Apple's 10 GB iPod is by far and away better.

    There is no way any objective person could think this unit is superior.

    It's got a 10 GB HD, 32 MB of Ram, the battery life is 10 hours, you can store your contacts on it, you can use it as a hard drive, you can even *BOOT* off it. There are also 3rd party apps to extend the functionality.

    And still it's less then half the size of this thing!

    For me, that's a key feature This thing is way too big for my pocket (the Nomad is *still* discman size!). It's just not practicle, whereas my iPod fit's in my shirt pocket (and isn't nearly as heavy).

    The iPod is so small, and it's interface so simple and elegant, that I take it everywhere, even just nipping down the to the shop. I know I'd think twice before taking this thing outside with me.

    I guess it depends on how much you like music.

    - If your a big music fan, then your better off with something cassete player sized (ThinkGeek has one, though bigger that the iPod, it has slightly more storage, and still of a practicle in-your-pocket size)

    - If your not a big music fan and only want something for long journeys then this could be the unit for you. But if you are, you'd be better getting a discman for 30 USD instead...
    • i would have to partialy agree with you, the ipod interface is very sweet, and the size is great, but when it comes down to it, i choose the archos models over any others any day, it works as a usb hard drive on ANY os! i just have to plus it into my linux box, and mount it, and its done. on windows you have to get drivers, on the mac (not os X) it will automagicaly download and install then mount the device for you, which is also pretty sweet.
      plus archos is coming out with a new model that is so good i cant believe it! just go to their site and look at what they have lined up.

    • I love my iPod as well, but unless you are a full-time Mac user, it is a pain in the ass to get music onto it.

      The current crop of Windows-based iPod software is just NOT up to the job. XPlay [mediafour.com] will lock up your iPod regularly and corrupt its table-of-contents, forcing you to do a full reset and lose everything on the disk. I was unable to get EphPod [williams.edu] to work at all on my Windows 2000 box. I got a setup screen to configure it, and the application appeared in the taskbar when I started it, but no user interface ever showed up. I had to kill it with the Task Manager to get rid of it.

      The only realistic option is using a Macintosh for managing your MP3 collection, and if you have your files stored on a network server as I do, this can be problematic as well.

      Under MacOS X, you can mount SMB servers and browse them in the finder as you'd expect. You can even drag an MP3 folder from a network drive directly into iTunes or into your iPod. Oops, that doesn't work!. You get a mysterious error -39 when you try this.

      All of your MP3s need to live locally on your Mac's filesystems before iTunes will let you add them to your Collection or copy them to your iPod. Couple this with the woeful SMB performance under OSX, and feeding your iPod becomes a painful experience of copying and syncing.

      Once you have the music (or audiobooks, or contacts or whatever) on the unit, though, its a true joy to use. I love the iPod, I just detest the software surrounding it.

      • Funny,
        I have EphPod working on a WinNT 4/sp6 machine, and have MediaFour's Xplay working on a win2k box. (Still waiting for development to firm up a bit on linux communications).

        As for iTunes management, that's only if you have it be the primary machine. You can move music around without having to have it on the machine first.

        Go to MetaMage.com [metamage.com] and get EscapePod to move mp3s off the iPod to iTunes.

        Or, get iPod Free File Sync... [crispsofties.com]

        Or, get PodMaster... [mac.com]

        So, there are a range of options you haven't tried to make managing your music a little more flexible.

      • You can even drag an MP3 folder from a network drive directly into iTunes or into your iPod. Oops, that doesn't work!. You get a mysterious error -39 when you try this.

        According to this list of Mac OS error codes [cam.ac.uk], error -39 is "end of file". The mysterious thing is why iTunes gives you "end of file" in when syncing through Samba.

      • Actually with PR5 from Xplay you can rebuild the database so you don't have to reset the unit. I also beleieve they have greatly minimized the lockups. (Oh and btw, its a windows firewire driver thing NOT a software thing, you can get the exact same results by transfering stuff to the ipod without their software on it (one user did it as a diagnostic, he formatted the ipod's drive as fat32 and tried transferring files to it on a virgin xp install, no dice same kind of lockups))
      • Just a nit-pick:

        All of your MP3s need to live locally on your Mac's filesystems before iTunes will let you add them to your Collection or copy them to your iPod.

        That may be true for SMB (I haven't tried), but not for volumes mounted over AppleShare or NFS. It works just fine for me anyway.
    • "There is no way any objective person could think this unit is superior."

      It depends on your needs again. I realise that a lot of people love their iPods, but I wish they'd see that it's not the perfect solution for everyone. I have some 1500 cds in my collection. The power of an MP3 player for me is that I can decide to listen to THAT Dark Star or Black Clouds or Tweezer and odds are I'd have it with me. 10 gigs just doesn't cut it.
    • "There is no way any objective person could think this unit is superior."

      The iPod currently does not:
      - allow you to play all songs of a given genre (without having made a playlist holding them in iTunes first)
      - create a playlist on the fly from just the iPod

      (All playlists must be made in iTunes ahead of time, unless you play an album or all tunes of an artist.)

      The nomad jukebox does both (and every discman and home CD player in the world lets you do #2). Until this is fixed I couldn't really use the iPod. I frequently don't know what I want to listen to until I'm about to listen, except that I rarely, if ever, want to listen to songs by artist or album. Usually, I queue up a bunch of songs I feel like listenting to, or a bunch in a certain genre and put it on repeat. This is a key feature of any jukebox. Hopefully they will fix this in newer firmware.
      • yes, this feature is desperately needed. but it's the sort of thing that apple could add in a firmware upgrade (like they added EQ per customer input). i can wait for that.
    • iPod is seeeeexy! But, can it play ogg files? I prefer oggs to mp3s. I don't like mp3s much. ogg is better.

    • Amen (Score:2)

      by sulli ( 195030 )
      My 5 GB iPod is the best electronic device I have bought in years. If only I could trade it in for a 10 GB one ... but dem's da breaks.

      Size matters!

    • Even though you have to download software seperately if your a Windows user, Apple's 10 GB iPod is by far and away better.

      There is no way any objective person could think this unit is superior.

      It's got a 10 GB HD, 32 MB of Ram, the battery life is 10 hours, you can store your contacts on it, you can use it as a hard drive, you can even *BOOT* off it. There are also 3rd party apps to extend the functionality.

      Waitaminute. Only 10Gb HD? The Nomad Jukebox 2 has 20Gb today .

      The new Jukebox 3 will also have 20Gb, Firewire, etc. for the price of a 5Gb iPod.

      What's superior about the iPod again? Oh... yeah... the size.

      Well, sod the size. I want to carry my entire MP3 collection without paying a massive premium on top of the price of a Toshiba card-drive.

      Simon

      • iPod has only 10GB? WTF can you store on that? THe Nomad has 20 Gb TODAY and the Nomad 3 is going to have 30GB and firewire.
      • Nomad can play 3rd party formats, iPod can't
      • iPod only works with Mac. If you want to use it wirh Windows you have to buy 3rd party software. And good luck getting it to work in Linux at all (I know there are efforts, but from what I have seen none have come to fruition yet). The Nomad works with Mac, Windows, AND Linux, out of the box. There is even a Nomad KIO Slave, so yes, you can use it as a hard drive,

        Why id iPod superior again? Oh yeah, cause you own one. Sorry bub, that doesn't cut it for me.

  • Payware (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Phexro ( 9814 ) on Friday April 12, 2002 @06:43AM (#3328699)
    Even though the player is payware, I'm sure it's worth it. It sure looks like it from the screenshots [thekompany.com].

    theKompany [thekompany.com] is a good company which has done a lot for the KDE /FS community. They have developed Aethera, Kamera, KDE Studio, Kivio, and Kugar, all of which are available under the GPL for free.

    Support the companies that support Free Software. Buy something from theKompany.

    • brrrrrr... (Score:2, Funny)

      by koekepeer ( 197127 )
      they're playing "modern talking" on the tkc player. they *must be evil*

      ;-)

    • Even though the player is payware, I'm sure it's worth it. It sure looks like it from the screenshots

      Hmmm...having looked at those screenshots, I'm curious - the Zaurus is a Linux PDA, yes?

      And...

      Support the companies that support Free Software. Buy something from theKompany.

      So why does that player software have icons from Windows XP all over the place?

      I do hope they've licensed them from Microsoft, given they're charging money for the product.

      Tim

  • Does anyone have an iomega hipzip mp3 player? I have heard rumors (from reliable sources) that this player will play ogg vorbis files.

    Can someone please test and confirm this?
  • I just looked at the pictures of the ogg vorbis player... and I have to say, I was quite shocked by this one [thekompany.com].

    I was shocked by the amazing similarity between the (software) ogg player's interface and Apple's iPod [apple.com]. First iPod ripoff or what?

    I guess this silences those who said the iPod's interface was "teh suck."

  • Where is my code for this? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bagder ( 32513 ) on Friday April 12, 2002 @07:14AM (#3328763) Homepage
    The Archos MP3 player series at least have this ambitious crowd of hackers working on replacing the firmware with an open source alternative:

    http://bjorn.haxx.se/rockbox/

  • Archos is smaller, cheaper, more GB, USB 2.0 (Score:5, Informative)

    by jbridges ( 70118 ) on Friday April 12, 2002 @07:21AM (#3328785)
    Archos model 500277
    Jukebox MP3 Recorder 20 - 20GB HD (USB 2.0)

    PriceWatch lists it for $315

    Jukebox MP3 Recorders / USB Hard Drives [archos.com]

    Can both record and playback MP3s

    USB 2.0 is standard on newer PCs
    • I use mine all the time for transporting gigs of data about the place.
    • True, but it's GUI sucks and it doesn't support playlists or ID3 tags. I have yet to see a test of the sound output quality. If you want a cheap portable HD with MP3 player on the side, go for the Archos.
      If you want a really nice MP3 player, I suggest the Nomad or iPod.

      Disclaimer: I'm not trying to flamebait or troll. A friend of mine has the Archos and likes it, but I think it has some serious drawbacks.
      • Maybe your friend has one of the older models. I have the 6GB recorder (which can easily be upgraded to any size 9.5mm harddrive) and it *does* support ID3 tags (version 1.0 or 1.1) as well as playlists (tip: use absolute paths, not relative paths in the lists). Helpful links: Archos faq at funmp3players [funmp3players.com]
        Upgrade the harddrive [funmp3players.com]
      • True, but it's GUI sucks and it doesn't support playlists or ID3 tags. I have yet to see a test of the sound output quality.

        You seem to be confused - you're probably thinking of the ancient Archos mp3 player insead of the 20GB recorder he was talking about. Not only does it support ID3 and playlists (you can even make new ones in the field, or drag and drop your fav winamp playlists from your computer), and have a great GUI, it has a digital output!
        That means that as wellas using it as a portable player, when I get home I can plug it into my home theatre system directly via the digital, and the results are amazing compared to connecting any other portable CD, MD, or mp3 player I've ever had (because portable units by neccessity don't have fantastic analogue systems, and normally you have to connect them via analogue jack - and with a good sound system, this is more apparent than portable listening in heavy traffic).

        On top of that, it has both analogue and digital input (it records), fits in your pocket (unlike the Nomad), and unlike the iPod it has replaceable batteries (so you can take it camping) and upgradable HDD. The upgradable HDD is important because of the digital output - when you're using this unit with a home sound system, then 128bps (more than enough for portable listening) doesn't cut it anymore, and you'll want space for bigger files.

        Actually, I lie, I think you void your warrentee by upgrading it yourself, but that didn't stop me jumping to 30gig :-)

        Oh, and it's the least crippled HDD mp3 player that I know of. I think copyright compliance is the responsibility of the user, and should not be enforced by function and feature cripples in the unit. So I boycott crippleware.

        That said, I wouldn't recommend it to everyone. But for what I want, it's great. I'm mainly writing this because you posted mistakenly.
    • I have one....they really are great.
  • Everytime I hear about his new Nomad player, I
    think of that old Star Trek episode, with the
    confused probe. You know, it was an Earth probe
    with a mission to explore that melded with an
    alien probe who's mission was to sterilize. So it
    went around finding new planets to wipe clear of
    life. Ahhh the memories.

  • It's down... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Tha_Zanthrax ( 521419 ) <{ln.xarhtnaz} {ta} {todhsals}> on Friday April 12, 2002 @07:34AM (#3328824) Homepage Journal
    another source for news on Nomad JB's has some info too. http://www.nomadness.com/ [nomadness.com]

  • The best MP3 player? (Score:5, Funny)

    by chrysrobyn ( 106763 ) on Friday April 12, 2002 @07:36AM (#3328828)

    I don't understand. The posting starts off saying, "The best portable MP3-player has become better!" and then goes on to talk about the battery munching USB wielding Bigger Than A Discman Nomad.

    Was there an editorial problem? Shouldn't we have heard about it when the story broke? [apple.com] "The best MP3 player on the planet just got even better." It's small, it's got battery life beyond what I thought possible and the transfer rate over [IEEE 1394|Firewire|iLink] is pretty good.

    Of course, that announcement was like a month ago.

  • IGN has a preview of the Jukebox3 too... (Score:5, Informative)

    by psxndc ( 105904 ) on Friday April 12, 2002 @07:58AM (#3328893) Journal
    http://gear.ign.com/articles/317/317470p1.html [ign.com]. The site listed here was slashdotted so:
    • Firewire port
    • USB port
    • 2 line outs
    • head phone out
    • Mic/optical input (sorry iPod fans, your baby doesn't have this one. I wish it did, but it don't)
    • 20 Gig Drive

    And they've shrunk it. It's still bigger than the iPod by a good amount, but it appears to be less-than-CD-player size (see the site)

    psxndc

  • I purchased the original 6GB NJB, and although it does work well as a MP3 player there are a lot of bugs that Creative will probably never fix. Some of these bugs sound simple to correct (eg. no line wrap on long song titles), but I now suspect that firmware development for the first NJB is done (last update sometime last year). I'm not sure when I will learn my lesson and stop buying creative products. They used to be a really great company and I have bought thousands of dollars worth of their products over the years (from several of the original soundblasters all the way to Live5.1 bla bla bla's, video cards, you name it). In the past few years I've just started to feel like support beyond their latest gizmo is not a priority for them. Oh well my next MP3 player purchase is a few months away so we'll see how the reviews are....
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Ogg (Score:4, Informative)

      by Sloppy ( 14984 ) on Friday April 12, 2002 @09:55AM (#3329414) Homepage Journal

      Did someone make a non-FPU version of the decoder?

      Yes. Xiph. They have two decoders. One is free but requires floating point. The other is commercial and only needs integers (and judging from some of Monty's posts, it sounds like the integer player even includes some hand-crafted assembly code specifically for ARM).

      • Re:Ogg (Score:2, Informative)

        by mcspock ( 252093 )
        This is incorrect; the xiph integerized codebase is pure C. There is another integerized vorbis decoder which only plays up to beta4 content available at http://ivdev.sourceforge.net [sourceforge.net], but this is not endorsed or supported by xiph.

    • Or does the kernel on the Zaurus have FPU emulation enabled?

      The ARM GCC toolchain will let you statically link FPU emulation into a binary if your kernel doesn't support it. It simply replaces all F___ instructions with calls to the emulator.

      The differences between the Zaurus PDA and a pocket MP3 player: Zaurus has a very fast general-purpose ARM CPU, while the pocket MP3 players rely on either a cheap processor just barely fast enough to decode 192 kbps MP3 at 90% CPU or a dedicated MPEG audio decoder chip.

      • This is incorrect; the strongarm 206mhz processor in the zaurus is not fast enough to decode ogg real time using floating point emulation. It's close, but not quite.

        Pocket MP3 players typically use a cirrus 7212 74mhz arm processor, which are much faster than you describe (decode at less than 60% of the cpu). Also, as a side note, decoding 192kbps is easier than decoding, say, 96kbps; you just spend more time pushing the data through.

  • my iomega "hipzip" has been playing ogg for a while now
    • But at only 40Meg per hip zip, that's barely an album per disk at "normal" (VBR) encode rates. Seems hardly worth it.
    • The HipZip, unfortunately, never officially supported Ogg and the firmware for HipZip that plays oggs only handles up to beta 4 files. It may well never be updated at this point due to an unfortunate pissing match involving the company that supplied the firmware for HipZip (iObjects/Fullplay).

      So, yes, it can certainly be argued HipZip was first. HipZip certainly proved that an embedded processor had the necessary power (the early beta files were even more expensive to decode than current Vorbis files). However, Iomega never officially acknowledged Ogg support.

      In terms of official company support, theKompany/Zaurus are definately the first handheld, and the first handheld to play all current/future OggVorbis I files.

      Monty

  • There will be more? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RadioheadKid ( 461411 ) on Friday April 12, 2002 @10:16AM (#3329563)
    Where's there's one, there will be more. Woo-hoo!

    Not necessarily, xiph.org seems to be missing the point, so apparently they need money, but they won't be able to get any money if nobody wants Vorbis, and the missing piece for people wanting Vorbis is the portable market. They are liscensing a fixed point decoder (the code needed to play on ARM processors and others that are in portable players and handhelds) that they wrote, well if big companies are contemplating Ogg Vorbis support for their handhelds, this isn't going to push them any closer, most likely it will turn them away. They will only take a chance on Ogg Vorbis if it's won't be a big loss to them, and in an almost-commodity market of MP3 players, adding the extra cost of licensing the Vorbis code doesn't really fly, so don't hold your breath on this one.

    Yeah the Vorbis people have to eat and are wondering "Why do people want everything for free?" Well, if you're trying to create a paradigm shift in the market, your not going to do it this way...Sorry
    • Not necessarily, xiph.org seems to be missing the point, so apparently they need money, but they won't be able to get any money if nobody wants Vorbis, and the missing piece for people wanting Vorbis is the portable market. They are liscensing a fixed point decoder (the code needed to play on ARM processors and others that are in portable players and handhelds) that they wrote, well if big companies are contemplating Ogg Vorbis support for their handhelds, this isn't going to push them any closer, most likely it will turn them away.


      Hey there, Emmett Plant here.

      I think you're missing a key here. If no one wanted Vorbis, no one would have licensed it from us in the first place. theKompany was the first company to license it, but they're certainly not the last.

      This may seem ridiculous, but many people in the hardware sector want to pay for licenses. If we agree to license the decoder to them, we're also responsible for supporting them and making sure that everything works. If you were making these devices, wouldn't support be important to you? After all, you intend to make money with these devices.

      That being said, the cost of licensing Tremor is unbelievably low compared to licensing mp3 from Fraunhofer. Remember, the people that are making these devices are paying hand-over-fist to Fraunhofer to use mp3. Perhaps the people licensing our software are interested in the long-term. If they support our format now, and foster market penetration of our codec, they might not have to pay the unbelievable prices on mp3 for their next device.

      Emmett Plant
      CEO, Xiph.org Foundation

      • This may seem ridiculous, but many people in the hardware sector want to pay for licenses.

        Really, you must be working in a different hardware sector, obviously you've never brought a hardware product to market. Every cent counts when you are building devices (like MP3 players) that are close to becoming a commodity. A recurring licensing cost is a killer, but the fact that everyone has to pay the MP3 license makes that license a non-issue. Why do I want to add more fixed cost to my product, if the demand isn't there? You may say that Ogg Vorbis is a feature that other products don't have, yes, but it's only a feature, currently, to a select few, and not enough to increase sales to cover my cost per license.

        • Really, you must be working in a different hardware sector, obviously you've never brought a hardware product to market.

          You are correct.

          Every cent counts when you are building devices (like MP3 players) that are close to becoming a commodity. A recurring licensing cost is a killer, but the fact that everyone has to pay the MP3 license makes that license a non-issue.

          You may be right, but a forward-thinking hardware developer (as I mention above), may be looking far beyond our technical superiority. They may support our codec on the basis that it provides a way to hedge their bets against having to pay the insane costs of licensing mp3 in the future.

          By the way, Fraunhofer wants $15,000 up-front for mp3 licensing, as well as a per-unit cost. I fear anyone that considers $15,000 a 'non-issue.' Maybe it's considered 'the cost to play the game,' but anyone who's really concerned with making money will be focused on how to play the game at a discount next year.

          Why do I want to add more fixed cost to my product, if the demand isn't there? You may say that Ogg Vorbis is a feature that other products don't have, yes, but it's only a feature, currently, to a select few, and not enough to increase sales to cover my cost per license.

          If superior technology isn't enough to convince you, that's okay, and I understand. History provides plenty of examples where people ignore the best solution in the place of a more expensive, inferior product. Still, I hear from people every day that tell me that they're prepared to buy a portable, as long as it supports Ogg Vorbis.

          Maybe the number of people is incredibly small, and it's not worth doing. Maybe your profit margins are so low that it's impossible for you to take an inexpensive chance on support for 'the select few.' One thing is absolutely certain; Those who want Ogg Vorbis support on their portable will not be purchasing a portable from you.

          Personally, I think if you're really interested in developing a superior product that will catch the eyes and ears of the market, you'll do anything you can to ensure that your customers are getting the best possible product. I wouldn't buy products from companies that feel differently, and neither should you.

          Emmett Plant
          CEO, Xiph.org Foundation

          • I fear anyone that considers $15,000 a 'non-issue.'

            It IS a non-issue because that's the cost to play, and you can't tell me that someone will produce a compressed audio player that won't have MP3 support anytime in the near future and be successful with it.

            ...you'll do anything you can to ensure that your customers are getting the best possible product. I wouldn't buy products from companies that feel differently, and neither should you.

            I'm pretty sure you have bought products from companies that think otherwise. That's all well and good on paper, but you have to compete with others and at best you try to give your customers the best possible product for their money spent on it. Maybe you are just ignoring how I keep refering to the MP3 player market as a near commodity market, meaning there will soon be, if not already, many players that do the same thing and are interchangable as far as price and features are concerned. Once it gets to that point every cent does count, maybe Ogg Vorbis will be an advantage in the future, but it isn't today.
  • I don't know how you can claim the Creative Labs Nomad 2 or 3 is a good device when they are still playing catch up to the HanGo PJB-100's.

    These PJB-100's have Lithium Ion batters that for me last nearly 3 days (rated around 18 hours if I remember). Have had 20GB hard drives for over a year ( Some vendors already have 40GB versions ).

    Unfortunately the downside of these devices is poor support on Windows XP (unofficially the WIndows 2000 driver works). The driver source code is GPL'd and works great under linux kernels 2.2.x or 2.4.x.

    Numerious open source projects exist for this device (PJBExplorer is an exelent windows application that allows you to turn the PJB-100 into a USB Hard drive).

    And one other item. Having had a Creative Nomad 2 with 6GB hard drive and the HanGo PJB-100, I can firmly state the Nomad is not a device you would car to take jogging with you, or in my case, used as a major component in a Volkswagen stereo system.

    The nomad when used in my 1973 VW Thing, ups and pukes with skipping, quick death of the batteries, and a pretty quick lockup of the drive. The PJB-100 I have taken off road in my VW Thing and never had a skip, and just a few occasional resets due to read errors during song load.

    If it can survive the VW, its good enough for me.
  • For the Nth time, if Creative would put an S/PDIF line in on their Nomad, they would gain a HUGE user base. As long as it didn't resample the input, digital live show tapers would LOVE it for the simplicity. Right to a hard drive, then fire wire out to a computer, track it, encode it to Shorten, and you're done. For more info: http://www.etree.org [etree.org].


  • http://www.sonicblue.com/audio/rio/rio_riot.asp
  • When I saw that the original Nomad Jukebox could record line-level signals to hard disk, I saw it as a great alternative to DAT and MD for recording my band's live performances, since it was much cheaper than a DAT recorder, supports better sampling rates than MD, and could record continuously at 44.1KHz for around 8 hours.

    The reality of the Jukebox was that for various reasons, the recorded music was frequently unavailable for upload to the computer. Sometimes the music appeared in the track list on the player but was "invisible" to the computer, other times the music disappeared entirely from the player.

    The infrequent firmware and PlayCenter upgrades frequently broke working features, and the support from Creative for it was abysmal.

    As a portable music player for ripping and listening, the Nomad Jukebox may be great. However, I feel I need to warn any of you who may have the same "aha!" response I had when you see the item on the Jukebox feature list describing its line-in recording capabilities.

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