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Portables Media Music Hardware

iRiver H320 (Almost) Hits The Market 323

Posted by timothy from the looks-sweet dept.
skyshock21 writes "iRiver appears to now be taking pre-orders for their H320 hard drive MP3 player. This is the one with the color screen that was featured on Slashdot a while back. Although it doesn't support .flac files like the Rio Karma, it does support .ogg, in addition to the usual file formats (mp3, .wmv, .asf, .wav) and sports a nifty color screen. There is also a review posted on CNET."
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iRiver H320 (Almost) Hits The Market More

iRiver H320 (Almost) Hits The Market

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  • Battery life? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NETHED ( 258016 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @09:16AM (#10318207) Homepage
    I for one, don't want a color screen. I want a battery that lasts me a month. I'll deal with a small, effective, elegant monochrome screen.

    Just my two bits.

    • Re:Battery life? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by RazzleFrog ( 537054 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @09:21AM (#10318245)
      You know I thought the same thing about cell phones until I got my Samsung. The color screen is much easier to read in bright sunlight as well as pitch black night. The battery life obviously suffers but I have a charger at work and at home.

      The iRiver says it has a 16 hour life so figure 10-12 hours realistically. Unless you are flying half-way across the globe I think that should get you to and from work.
      • You can skip between songs and change volume etc without _needing_ to see the screen in the dark, but you can't find phone numbers or send a text in the dark so easily.

        In other works, I see your point about a phone screen but I don't think the same applies to a music player. Battery life is still more important IMO.

    • Re:Battery life? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by garcia ( 6573 ) *
      What I'm more concerned with is whether or not the battery can be replaced without returning the unit.

      Yeah, it's great to have a Lithium Ion but what happens when it stops recharging? Am I going to be able to easily replace it or am I going to have to return it to the manufacturer only for them to tell me it's out of warranty and there's nothing they can do?

      I have had too many devices' batteries go south without an acceptable replacement route.

      • Re:Battery life? (Score:3, Informative)

        by thesp ( 307649 )
        Well, the previous models' batteries can be replaced with a TORX screwdriver [iriverlounge.com], so no reason why the newer should be any different.

      • Re:Battery life? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Pieroxy ( 222434 )
        Giving that they usually sell the batteries for half the price of the unit (or close), in a couple of years when yours will stop recharging, you'll rather buy a new unit anyways...

        All these devices are slowly becoming disposable, simply because the turn-over is really quick and the prices are going down.

    • Re:Battery life? (Score:5, Informative)

      by OverlordQ ( 264228 ) * on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @09:22AM (#10318258) Journal
      According to the CNET review it get's 16 hours of playback. Which is over twice that of the iPod [ipodbatteryfaq.com]. That's twice as long with a color screen then the iPod with your 'monocrome' screen.

      • Re:Battery life? (Score:5, Informative)

        by twbecker ( 315312 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @09:28AM (#10318305)
        It's not twice as long as the 4G iPod. They can get around 12 hours.
        • Apple claim 8 hours battery life on my ipod, but after using it 5 hours, its mostly empty, and the battery shouldn't be fully discharged either. Personally, I dont foresee me being able to accomplish 8 hours even when the battery was brand new.

          Battery life is dependant on the way their record it. Remember that the battery life they claim is max battery life, in perfect temperature conditions probably, low humidity, with the volume of the player down to 0, the backlight off, etc. Just because a battery has

        • Re:Battery life? (Score:3, Insightful)

          by aardwolf204 ( 630780 )
          Thats just marketdroid speak. I've got a 4G iPod and under "Normal Real People" conditions it gets maybe 6 - 7 hours, which is still enough for a long car trip. Maybe they got 12 hours by putting a 4 MB 64k AAC in the flash buffer and set the ipod on repeat ;)

        • Re:Battery life? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by dasmegabyte ( 267018 ) <das@OHNOWHATSTHISdasmegabyte.org> on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @10:39AM (#10319020) Homepage Journal
          Right, and the old 3G iPod can get the same gains with the higher capacity aftermarket batteries that came out. I bought one for $25, I get about 10 hours of life out of it now.

          The iPod's "dismal battery life" was a result of its form factor. Apple used the smallest battery they could to get a minimum of 8 hours playback, so you could listen all day at work. Now that there are millions of uses for batteries that size, many battery manufacturers are creating higher capacity flat batteries that are also mega cheap. Blaming Apple for using the best battery on the market at the time is kind of stupid.

          Incidentally, I will not be replacing my iPod with an iRiver any time soon, because while the colour screen is really cool, the device looks pretty large, has WAY too many click tactile buttons to break and ports that will fill with lint, the visual interface looks pretty dull (reminds me of KDE, ew) and the human interface poorly laid out. It is hard to use tiny little buttons while on the go...that's why the iPod has a huge fucking wheel (and why mine has large, inset, finger sized buttons). Why does everybody else insist on making tiny little buttons and putting them right next to each other? Aesthetics? Who sees the thing when it's in your coat pocket? If you NEED to make some small buttons, at least space them more than a thumb's width apart, so you don't press all of them at once. GOD, why is Apple the only company who can engineer a fucking device that doesn't feel like some sadistic toy?

          • Re:Battery life? (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Anonymous Coward
            Your story about design and battery improvements is nice. You can make excuses, blame Canada, or fabricate some documents about how Bush was involved in the battery choice, the fact remains... The iPod as sold right now and today, has HOURS less battery life and an increasing amount of "less" features then similar players also available in the market right now. The point of all Apple had available months/years ago is a moot point when they are still making it now and today!

            • Re:Battery life? (Score:3, Insightful)

              by dasmegabyte ( 267018 )
              And the battery they're using today is, again, the largest capacity available at that size. And the battery life they get today is, again, 50% higher than what they got last year. So does this mean that the argument is, again, retarded?

              As for having "less" features than the other players: I think it should be obvious to anyone who understands mathematics that the massive deficit in sales between more expensive, "under featured" iPod and its competitors should be proof that these features are not what sel

    • Re:Battery life? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Shadow_139 ( 707786 )
      I've have one of these for about 3/4 months now, living in Ireland. Had the IHP140 which was cool. Better batt life on this one, and I got a batt. pack that is take any 4xAA batterys. 28:06:42:12 Meow
    • You're right. Seems silly to have a device which only shows JPEG and Bitmaps (BMP).

      I guess if you want to have album covers displayed on screen it's good... but where is XviD support?

  • Firmware (Score:4, Insightful)

    by The_Real_Nire ( 786847 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @09:18AM (#10318215)
    Hopefully now that this is about done for the US, they will get their act together and concentrate on the firmware updates for the rest of us, instead of ignoring existing customers.

  • Fine print... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by RenHoek ( 101570 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @09:18AM (#10318223) Homepage
    1GB equals 1,000,000,000 bytes, not all memory space available for file storage.

    Euhm, so.... how much space DO we have left? Could be anything really.. Damn marketing speak!

    • Re:Fine print... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by twbecker ( 315312 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @09:32AM (#10318343)
      Is that really a suprise? Pretty much ALL manufacturers use 1 million MB to mean a GB now. My 20GB iPod only has 18.5GB of usable space on it. You'd think they would stop this practice, considering how many "My new x GB hard drive is busted! It only has x-y GB of space!" support calls they get.

      • Re:Fine print... (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Nos. ( 179609 )
        Whatever happened to that lawsuit against hard drive manufacturers. It seems to me there was a group suing Maxtor, Samsung, etc. over this issue. Selling a "120GB" drive and it only having about 110GB of usable space. I did some googling but couldn't find anything.
      • 1 million MB to mean a GB
        Shouldn't that be 1000MB to mean a GB, or 1million KB to mean a GB, or 1millionMB to mean a TB.

        Get what your saying, though. Hard drives are always measured in millions, not in 2^20, of bytes.


        T.

      • Re:Fine print... (Score:3, Informative)

        by OverlordQ ( 264228 ) *
        It's not the Hard Drive manufacturers that need to stop the practice, it's all the users who dont know what a GB is.

        20 GB = 20 * 10^9 Bytes = 20,000,000,000 Bytes
        20 GiB = 20 * 2^30 Bytes = 21,474,836,480 Bytes

        20 GB = 18.5 GiB.

        bar = (foo * 10^9)/1073741824
        Where foo is the Metric GB and bar is the Binary GiB.

  • Um. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by eddy ( 18759 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @09:18AM (#10318224) Homepage Journal

    Although it doesn't support .flac files like the Rio Karma, it does support .ogg,

    That's pretty close to a contradiction since we have both Ogg FLAC and Ogg Vorbis. You meant to say it supports Vorbis? Or is it just plain FLAC files it doesn't support, but Ogg FLAC is fine?

    • Re:Um. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by tuffy ( 10202 )
      That's pretty close to a contradiction since we have both Ogg FLAC and Ogg Vorbis. You meant to say it supports Vorbis? Or is it just plain FLAC files it doesn't support, but Ogg FLAC is fine?

      I don't know of any player that supports Ogg FLAC, much less a hardware one. They're all content to use FLAC's native container format instead. From what I've seen, Ogg FLAC is more of a proof-of-concept format - at least until the Ogg plugins start supporting it.

    • More importantly, why does the thing support OGG files but not AAC files? We're talking about a multimedia standard created by the people who made MP3 and DVD and that's popularized by one of the most heavily used jukebox applications. And rather than support this great next generation format, iRiver chose Vorbis -- a standard backed by nobody, produced by volunteers with no commercial support whatsoever?

      I've got no problem with OGG, but come on, guys...here I am with a 120 gig AAC library and I'm not go

    • Re:Um. (Score:2)

      by t482 ( 193197 )
      If the support is like their smaller players then it only supports ogg vorbis greater than 96Kbs

      On my smaller iriver all my voice recordings in OGG Vorbis format will not play. I recorded several audio books at 46Kbs Ogg. Each AudioBook CD is 12 Meg and very clear. The iriver only works with oggs vorbis at over 96Kbs. I would like to see 32Kbs + Ogg Vorbis support. Speex support would be even better(8 kHz, 16 kHz, and 32 kHz). I had to re-record my audiobooks in mp3 with lame (at 26 Meg and lower quality).

    • Re:Um. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by hackstraw ( 262471 ) * on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @11:11AM (#10319396)
      A little offtopic, but a rant that I want to express.

      I'm getting sick of the whole container/codec thing. Noone knows whats inside of a .mov, .wmv, .ogg, etc file. I know whats in a .mp3, .wav, .aac or whatever. I have a Mac with the latest Windows Media Player and it will not play all .wmv files. There is no way that I can tell from a filename that I can even view the file after it downloads.

      Every time /. posts an article about a portable music player there is the "Does it play flac and/or ogg?" And then people bring up the specific codecs inside of the .ogg file. If us technoweenies can't get it straight, how can anybody?

      Am I the only one that has issues with these multimedia containers?
  • Seems to be a major oversight and a major reason why I wont buy one.
  • It seems silly that it doesn't support FLAC, being a device with a large hard drive.

  • Semantics, semantics... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by irokitt ( 663593 ) <archimandrites-iaur.yahoo@com> on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @09:19AM (#10318230)
    "Almost hits the market" is like "almost pregnant". Doesn't count. After all, Duke Nukem Forever has been "almost released" for about six years.

  • US release? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Billy69 ( 805214 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @09:20AM (#10318240)
    I'm a bit confused by this. 2 weeks ago I went to my local branch of Richer Sounds [richersounds.co.uk] and was offered one of these when I asked for an iHP140. The showed me it, I prodded it a bit. So, does this 'taking advance orders' thing apply only to the US release?
  • take a look at the frickin' mess of an interface on this thing! Yeech.

    On a separate note, why are they putting off until a later firmware update the ability to view pictures and listen to music at the same time? Shouldn't that have been one of the top priority jobs? Shouldn't they wait until they have that done?

    • Re:For all those dismissive of the iPod's interfac (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      and if you buy one of these, don't hold your breath for the "later firmware update". i had an H120 for a while, desperately waiting for 2 promised firmware updates (May and June of 2004). finally sold it in August. my major beef was dropped samples during audio line-in/mic recording. this is a major issue that should have stopped release of the product until it was resolved. no reputable audio manufacturer would release with such a bug. anyway, the device worked fine from a player standpoint, just just be

      • Re:For all those dismissive of the iPod's interfac (Score:5, Informative)

        by PeterChenoweth ( 603694 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @10:13AM (#10318769)
        Anonymous Coward may be an anonymous coward, but he/she speaks the truth. I've had an iHP-120 for about a year, and the "firmware upgrades" have been pitiful or non-existent. The player's hardware is fantastic, the software is the problem. The iHP has several flaws (the shuffle isn't shuffle, files played in a different order than they were copied - but it's always the same order), and iRiver has made several promises over the past 6-9 months that they simply have not met. I will not be buying another iRiver product, I just can't handle a company lying to its customers.

        Don't believe me? http://www.iriver.com/community/notice_view.asp?pa ge=&idx=31&mode=&strque=&field=1 [iriver.com] They admit the problems and plan a fix. Never happens. Appology note posted says that they're still working on it, with no date in sight.

        Sometime later they post this... http://www.iriver.com/company/news_view.asp?idx=37 3 [iriver.com]

        and there is much rejoicing at such a comprehensive list of both defect fixes and user complaints/suggestions.

        And they don't make this date either, with no explanation ("Late July/Early August" != September)

        Sometime later, http://www.iriver.com/support/download_view.asp?id x=609&page=2&p_name=&word=&categor y= [iriver.com] finally appears. But compare it's feature set with what was promised. A couple of things were fixed, but gapless playback isn't gapless, it just shortens the time between songs. With all the other mp3 players, gapless playback means that one song fades into the next. Shuffle still isn't shuffle.

        No, I will not be doing business with iRiver anymore.

        • No, I will not be doing business with iRiver anymore.

          But...But...But they support OGG! How can any company that supports OGG be poorly run? Could it be that maybe supporting free file formats instead of file formats licensing fees is a way of cutting corners? Could it be that companies that cut corners in some areas MIGHT cut them in others?

  • Why Never An AM Tuner? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jetkust ( 596906 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @09:28AM (#10318301)
    Can you radio experts help me out on this one? Why do mp3 players never have an AM tuner? Always FM only, but most talk radio comes in AM, it seems only natural that they would include this. What's the holdup.

    • AM is essentially deprecated in the US market (Score:5, Interesting)

      by sczimme ( 603413 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @09:39AM (#10318418)

      When radio first became popular, I believe all stations were AM. When FM technology gained ground and passed AM, the AM market began to decrease. Currently talk radio is the primary reason for using AM, but since a lot of programs are available on AM and FM stations (often the AM will have an FM counterpart) there is a relatively small demand for AM these days. Adding parts/manufacturing expense - thus increasing the cost of the final product - to support AM is seen as a losing proposition (low to negative ROI for the PHBs in the audience).

      I like AM. The signals propagate much further than FM, and late at night one can pull in AM stations from hundreds of miles away. However (for me) this is an amusing sidebar: the [lack of] support for AM wouldn't be a dealbreaker in the MP3 player purchase decisionmaking process.

      /Buzzword Bingo is fun
      /leverage your synergy!

    • Re:Why Never An AM Tuner? (Score:5, Informative)

      by vladoman ( 148026 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @09:48AM (#10318507)
      Because they all use the TEA5757 tuner chip or similar, this one only has FM capabilities.
    • Most people want an MP3 player to play music. A few play audio books, true, but music is the thing. AM radio is truly Lo-Fi, staticy and monophonic. That's why music stations moved to FM in the 60's. AM is suited to voice-only programming like talk radio and news. Why bother with it on a relatively expensive device that is primarily a music player? My suggestion is that if you want to listen to talk radio while jogging, buy a cheap armband radio and leave the expensive MP3 palyer at home.
    • Because very few people listen to AM radio these days? (as compared to FM at any rate)

      The only time I've turned the AM band on in my car since i got it (aside from accidentally) was to check traffic reports from a "tune to this band if these lights are flashing" sign

    • Re:Why Never An AM Tuner? (Score:5, Informative)

      by iBod ( 534920 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @10:00AM (#10318626)
      Not exactly sure, but possibly: 1) A built-in AM antenna (ferrite rod type) is too bulky to fit inside the case. With FM you can use the headphone cord as an antenna. 2) The noise generated by the clock signals of the player's circuitry would affect AM reception too much. FM is generally broadcast on higher frequencies than AM and stands up better to interference.

      • Re:Why Never An AM Tuner? (Score:5, Informative)

        by Kiryat Malachi ( 177258 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @10:28AM (#10318933) Journal
        2 is wrong.

        AM is more subject to interference than FM due to the modulation method used, not due to the frequency. AM at 88-107 MHz is susceptible to interference just like AM at 560-1600 kHz. AM carries its information in the amplitude of the signal; FM carries it in the instantaneous frequency. Noise is (generally treated as) additive in amplitude, meaning that in AM noise adds directly to the message, while in FM noise only indirectly affects the message via how it changes the instantaneous frequency. In addition, in FM interference is inversely proportional to carrier amplitude, while in AM it is independent.

        The analysis to prove it is pretty complex, but basically - angle-modulation methods (PM and FM) have higher noise immunity by design than amplitude modulation; the cost is they require greater bandwidth. It has very little to do with the frequency they run at.
    • I think the main purpose of the AM tuner would be to achieve Tivo-like functionality on a radio. If you listen to AM talk radio, you would know that there is about 50% content and 50% commercials. To me, this is not an acceptable compensation for my time, therefore I will not listen to talk radio for any prolonged period of time. But if I could Tivo the radio (for a reasonable cost) I would definitely listen to AM more.

      Here [radioyourway.com] is an AM Tivo-like product, but it is $150. The sad thing is that it is probab
    • In Europe there are almost no AM stations left, so you would be adding functionality half the market would not use. (I suspect that Japan and large chunks of Asia are the same.)

      Now, a Long Wave tuner so that I could pick up Radio4LW and the cricket, that would be worth having.

    • OH COME ON (Score:3, Funny)

      by nobodyman ( 90587 )
      For awhile now, I've been waiting for a music player that supports ogg vorbis. Not because I want to play ogg files (I have an iPod), I've just wanted to see what the new official slashdot why-i-wont-buy-it whine will be.

      In a million years, I couldn't have predicted "It doesn't have an AM tuner". AM TUNER!?? Are you friggin kidding me?

      Come on, just flat out say that you are never gonna buy one of these things.

  • A color screen... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by MetalliQaZ ( 539913 )
    ...but no support for video?
    What a waste. If i wanted to look at my digital pictures on a tiny display, i'd look at them on the camera that took them.

  • My Opinions (Score:5, Informative)

    by elynnia ( 815633 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @09:34AM (#10318367)
    I personally got an E340 (40GB, same type) a few weeks back, and - being a 2G iPod owner I have a few comments about the good and the bad: The good: Recording features (internal/external mic, line-in), 40GB, file browser, FM radio, connection to USB Mass Storage devices directly, and -line out-. The bad: Here's where the Apple really beats the iRiver - the buttons make scrolling through a big list of songs/artists/albums slow, very limited settings for EQ, no option to play groups such as -all songs by Artist- (The iRiver, although comes with a -rather bad- databasing application, organises songs internally through the filetree), no LCD Remote (which is standard on the H100 series), no on-the-go playlists, and the LCD turns itself off after 20 seconds (can be changed) to save the battery. Having said that, the E300 series is one of the best MP3 players out there, but if you want ease of use and everything to work together I'd recommend the iPod...if you're a feature-hungry music geek (like me) then the E300 series, IMO, is for you. *~Aly~*
    • I own an iRiver SlimX 350 CD based mp3 player, which has the same filetree based song list.

      Since I only play the whole CD whenever I use the unit, I personally don't mind that.

      However, if I did want to filter what songs I played based on artist, what I would probably do was to organize the files I transfer to the player in a manner that would help me do that. I sort of do that already.

      I organize the songs into directories as follows:

      Artist1
      Album1
      Album2
      Artist2
      Album1
      Album2

      This way I can a

    • Re:My Opinions (Score:3, Informative)

      by Mant ( 578427 )

      , no option to play groups such as -all songs by Artist- (The iRiver, although comes with a -rather bad- databasing application, organises songs internally through the filetree)

      That is a bit sucky, I have an iHP140, and I can just go to the Artist option, choose the artist, then under the list of albums there is "Select All".

      Shame they seem to be taking features out of the newer ones.

    • (The iRiver, although comes with a -rather bad- databasing application, organises songs internally through the filetree)

      This is the one thing I cant stand about the iPod. Who was the smart ass that decided to list songs by artist / album from the ID3 tags! I've got my entire collection in folders just the way I want it. What a shame, none of the ID3 taggers Ive found are any good.

  • low price too (Score:3, Interesting)

    by blanks ( 108019 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @09:34AM (#10318370) Homepage Journal
    Price starts at 330.00 for the 20 gig player. Not bad, considering this is not just an mp3 player, but a multimedia player.

    16 hours of battery life, but really Im thinking that running the screen at all times would drop that to at least 10 or even 8 hours if your lucky.

  • storage (Score:2, Funny)

    by alatesystems ( 51331 )
    640KB should be enough for anybody.

    This thing looks awesome. I might sell my free iPod and buy this.

    Chris

  • How much space do you need? (Score:3, Funny)

    by sstidman ( 323182 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @09:37AM (#10318395) Journal
    Speaking for myself, I would not be able to use up 20 GBytes. I'm kind of lame, though.

    For the rest of you, I'm curious ... how much space would be the ideal maximum?
    • > how much space would be the ideal maximum?

      640KB should be enough for everyone.

      Seriously, there is no such thing as enough space. I've got a 60GB Zen a few month ago and now it's about 80% full. I don't know what I'm gonna do when it's full, deleting songs each time I want to listen to something else which is not there yet would really suck.
    • I'd love a 40 GB iPod because I could also use it as a backup HD. There are several utilities out there that will let you sync files to the iPod automagically. Very handy in the event of a HD crash like the one I experienced two weeks ago.

      Oh, unless of course you're using it with a PC.

  • H340 listed on their site, too. (Score:3, Informative)

    by DeeKayWon ( 155842 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @09:39AM (#10318417)
    They're also making a 40GB version [iriveramerica.com] as well. But what I'd like to know is, are they going to work harder at making it available than they did for the iHP-140?

    When I was looking for a 40GB player (yes, my music collection plus use as a portable HDD necessitates 40GB for me), I could find quite a few local places that had the iHP-120, but no one who had the iHP-140. Heck, it was even a pain finding any online store in Canada that had it.

    I ended up buying an iPod since I could have it in my hands right when I purchased it, get a student discount and not have to pay any shipping.

  • Flac files are great... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anita Coney ( 648748 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @09:39AM (#10318422) Homepage
    But I'm not sure why you'd want them on a portable system. Can anyone really tell the difference between an OGG file and a Flac file via headphones while riding in a subway, walking in the street, or driving in your car?!

    I consider Flac more appropriate for home entertainment systems.
    • But I'm not sure why you'd want them on a portable system. Can anyone really tell the difference between an OGG file and a Flac file via headphones while riding in a subway, walking in the street, or driving in your car?!

      Some wierdos like me actually archive their music in lossless formats so that they can enjoy them for years to come. I'm looking to buy a 40Gig player soon myself, and flac would be a nice feature so that I don't have to take the time to encode my music into some other format. To me its
    • The reason for me is obvious. I rip all my cd's to FLAC for archival purposes. If the player doesn't support FLAC I either have to transcode as I transfer, which slows the process down. Or I have to have another directory that contains everything in MP3 as well. It would just be simpler for me if the device played FLAC.

  • microphone input (Score:3, Interesting)

    by StripedCow ( 776465 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @09:41AM (#10318436)
    When are these portable players/recorders going to include a decent (high-quality) microphone input. I mean, as opposed to offering some cheap 'voice-recorder' option. It would be really nice if I could record concerts, and the like, with near-original sound-quality. Until now, this seems only possible with a Sony MiniDisc.
    • Near original sound quality? I take it you don't mean just holding a mic up in the crowd (the method used by most minidisk owners I'm aquainted with)

    • It would be really nice if I could record concerts, and the like, with near-original sound-quality.

      Expect to hear from the RIAA soon. :P

    • When are these portable players/recorders going to include a decent (high-quality) microphone input.

      Most of Archos' [archos.com] current product line has a microphone input (via included line-in dongle; you have to provide the mic and preamp yourself).

      I bought a MiniDisc recorder for the purpose of recording live music about three years ago, and in retrospect wish I hadn't (or more accurately, wish that portable HD audio devices like today's had existed back then). For one, the mic jack ran extremely hot, even witho

    • Re:microphone input (Score:4, Informative)

      by shaka ( 13165 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @10:44AM (#10319076)
      Funny you should ask that, since all of the iRiver iHP/H Series players have built-in mic, (amplified) microphone input and line-in, as well as (IIRC) S/PDIF in and out, and has had this for years.

      If you need really high quality, just get an amplified mic or external amplifier, or build your own.

      Check your facts.
  • Whoah, sure beats my iPod's 8 hour battery life!
  • Get ready for a bunch of snarky reviews of it with either the title or hidden in the text somewhere: "cry me an iRiver". Bleh.

  • Whatever happened to. . . (Score:5, Insightful)

    by twbecker ( 315312 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @09:50AM (#10318522)
    doing one thing, and doing it well? How many people seriously want to carry digital photos around wherever they go? I just don't get the color screen. I guess it's for the same people that like having a camera in their cell phone. True, the thing has an FM tuner and can record voice and radio. That's good, but it's also bulky, has a relatively poor interface and is $30 more expensive than an iPod, which /.ers already bash for being too pricey. Here's an idea: instead of giving us more bloat, why don't they just make the ultimate music player. One that will playback ALL major formats, has a good interface, and super long battery life. Although my iPod is great, it fails to meet 2 of these criteria. I guess we'll have to keep waiting. ..

    • How many people seriously want to carry digital photos around wherever they go?

      Some of these devices have adapters that allow you to transfer digital photos from CompactFlash cards, SmartMedia cards, and the like. Being able to transfer digital photos onto a portable HD directly without a computer involved is useful for digital cameras when they become full. The iPod has adapters, even though it can't display the photos. With a device like this, at least you can see what you have transferred.

    • Whatever happened to... doing one thing, and doing it well? [snip] One that will playback ALL major formats, has a good interface, and super long battery life. Although my iPod is great, it fails to meet 2 of these criteria...

      And you still bought an iPod. Things don't have to do one thing "well" to sell; the iPod does things "not quite as well as you'd like but is kinda slick and people think it's cool" so it sells.

      And as long as people compromise and buy iPods, we'll never see a do-it-all fantastic
  • I've never owned a device like this, but two of the features that it lists on the page are:
    • Ultra-fast USB 2.0 transfers
    • Supports secure transfers from Windows Media Player(TM)

    Does anyone know how easy it is to transfer music to it from Linux? My Nikon digital camera lets me mount it like a USB hard drive and just drag files over in Nautilus or whatever. Does anyone know if this music player can do something like that? I do have Windows, with Media Player. But I don't want to boot over to Windows

    • The iRiver players use the USB mass storage standard, and work with any OS that recognises that. Just drag and drop with a file manager if you want.

      WMP10 has special stuff for synching with remote devices, and transfering secure WMA files, which this also does. Presumably you couldn't just drag and drop the secure WMA files, there has to some sort of authorisation.

  • Bulky? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Scud ( 1607 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @09:55AM (#10318580)
    I'm curious as to why the reviewer says that it's a bit bulky, the difference between it and the 20gig iPod being about 3/8th's of an inch more in depth, and an extra ounce for the 320.

    Not much of a difference that I can see.

  • Er... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Tomahawk ( 1343 ) * on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @09:59AM (#10318614) Homepage
    Er, I ordered one of these yesterday (the site I ordered off didn't have the H340 40Gb version, which is lucky from my credit card's point of view).

    There was no mention of it being a preorder - they had 10 in stock, and it's now in packaging and waiting to be shipped to me.

    So, how is it that they are only taking preorders on something that I have already purchased?

    T.

  • Storing images (Score:2, Interesting)

    by WearyVulture ( 740042 )
    Does anybody know if it allows copying images directly from a compact flash card? That is, can I just plug an USB compactflash card reader to it and transfer the pictures? That alone would justify the purchase, since it would replace the need to carry a laptop or a bunch of flash cards.

    Come to think of it, any other player that does support that? I don't need a fancy color screen, just the storage capability.

    • can I just plug an USB compactflash card reader to it and transfer the pictures?

      Come to think of it, any other player that does support that? I don't need a fancy color screen, just the storage capability.

      Belkin makes a Media Reader [belkin.com] for the iPod that allows you to transfer images onto an iPod.

  • cost? (Score:2, Funny)

    by spoonyfork ( 23307 )
    How much does a front page press-release advertisement for pre-market goods on Slashdot cost these days? I want to buy one.

  • Although it doesn't support .flac files like the Rio Karma, it does support .ogg, in addition to the usual file formats (mp3, .wmv, .asf, .wav)

    Interesting. What makes .asf and .wmv "usual" formats while .ogg is not? Does "usual" mean industry standard? I didn't know that .asf and .wmv support were de-facto standards yet. Has anybody submitted .ogg to a standards body?

  • Support hi-rate MP3 encoding without DRM... (Score:3, Informative)

    by ArghBlarg ( 79067 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @11:10AM (#10319376) Homepage
    then I might be interested in any of iRiver's new models.

    A warning to everyone: their flash players are decent, but intentionally cripple their UMS firmware to limit MP3 recording to lower bitrate (well below 128kbps/44.1kHz -- I don't have my player here right now).

    The regular firmware requires their special iRiver Manager program, which tries to prevent MP3 and WAV files being copied back off the device. (Hint: rename your files to .REC before copying them into the MP3/ directory on their flash players -- they play fine, but you can also copy them back out if need be).

    iRiver has always given a totally lame-ass explanation that UMS functionality somehow prevents high-bitrate encoding. Tell me how the USB interface code has *anything* to do with the audio signal path or the A/D convertors used for recording.

    And, as others have said, they promise to ugrade their firmware but it always gets pushed back. Nice players if you like the features they offer at time of purchase -- but don't buy one if you are waiting for one of their 'real soon now' promises.

  • So is there a version of Rockbox for it? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Kazoo the Clown ( 644526 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @01:38PM (#10321130)

    Or equivalent? http://rockbox.haxx.se/ [rockbox.haxx.se]

    If not, I'll pass. If open-source firmware isn't available for it, I'll buy another model that does...

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