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The encoder's not that great a product - you don't want to have to encode more than once, so you have to have somewhere to put all the encoded files. Smartmedia cards might be coming down in price, but they're not that cheap yet. So, what should they be encoded on? A CD or DVD drive that can encode MP3s direct to the computer's hard drive would be a better tool - it would save hours on my computer...

Kris.

Win a Rio (or join the SETI Club via same link)

Has anyone else found the storage capacity, and general memory in these things to always be described a little decptively? Typically they quote music times using a 64k/s format, and the 64MB Nomad is just the 32MB version with a 32MB smartmedia card bundled.

Now the "Yepp" is only expandable with "Yepp-cards" (smartcards). Notice it doesn't say smartmedia cards, just smartcards. Why would you need smartcards? They're for things like tickets, electronic wallets, etc - I know, I'm wearing one on my wrist as I type (Swatch Access). How much are they going to cost, and when are they going to be available, and what sizes?

Only the 64MB Rio Special edition appears to be quoting size, and total size when expanded, in MB - without any deception. (even then, they have fudged the play time on occasion)

Kris.

Win a Rio (or join the SETI Club via same link)

What I find annoying is that Diamond is caving on this issue

Actually, I think they're just patronising the RIAA. "There, there, we'll support your little format."

Kris.

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What if I want to play my encrypted music on something else, like X11Amp or another MP3-playing device that doesn't support the secure format? I guess I'm SOL there. Well, looks like this is another technology we're going to have to boycott. Anti-piracy technology has *never* worked for an industry and I don't think it will. All it does is piss people like me off.

Thank You! - finally someone else has worked this out, and said it. Anyone here tried "Mjuice"? Not only doesn't their secure download thing work if you've got anything resembling a firewall or proxy between you and them, but you can only play their music in their crappy player, on the PC you download it to.

This sucks. I bought a Rio to take music away from my desktop. How clueless are these people?

Kris.

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Whoo-hoo! I've always believed that MP3s were a great way for mainstream artists to distribute recordings from live events, and other "rare" stuff.

"People used to make a record, as in a record of an event" -- some music lyric, I forget.

Stoked,

Kris.

Win a Rio (or join the SETI Club via same link)

I think "K-jofol" can play VQF files... Let me check;

http://www.kjofol.org/

Supported File Formats: .mp?, .vqf, .pls, .m3u, .aac, .cda

HTH,

Kris.

Win a Rio (or join the SETI Club via same link)

P75, CD, et al
Black, hi-fi component width case
IR remote keyboard with trackball
Integrated Video-Out.

ActiveX is just an automated way of installing plug-ins.

This is useful, but not the last word in active content.

Kris.

Win a Rio (or join the SETI Club via same link)

This is how I listen to, purchase & collect music.

Either I; Listen to a national, public, "youth" radio station called "TripleJ" and occasionaly get inspired to buy a CD from an up-and-coming band - often on an independant label, but not always. Then I copy the CD to the MP3 library on my hard drive.

Or I; Check out the new uploads at MP3.com in either the electronica section, or in my local region (Perth, Australia). I download these files into the MP3 library on my hard drive.

Then every few days I regenerate a randomly ordered playlist of all the MP3s in that library and play them on and off during the day using K-jofol. And every day I randomly select 48MB (using RioPump - cool) to load onto my Rio for that day's "wandering and waiting"

Whenever I feel that one of the (new-ish) songs I'm listening to is particularly cool, I specifically try to source some more from that artist.

I have an older PC connected to my Hi-fi with about 250MB for MP3s - it also has a CD drive, for both audio and data/MP3 discs.

I'll be burning my first two volumes of MP3s to free up some space on the hard drive soon - then I'll be adding a random MP3 CD into the random mix described above.

Notice how I quite legally (or at least morally) create my own MP3s from CD. If M$ releases a proprietory system were I have to pay for the compressor, I'm not going to be interested. Anyway, I've bought a Rio, so I've said that MP3 is plenty good enough for me.

Kris.

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I think you'll find that's SmartMedia. And the 32MB ones are just starting to be advertised for US$99.

Kris.

Win a Rio (or join the SETI Club via same link)

Funnily enough, in one of my favourite SF series, the term "Terran" was used in a mirror universe where we've all been turned into a slave race. It was spat out even more harshly than "hu-mon".

But I do like the "What makes you think you can have an empire" comment below.. :)

Kris.


Win a Rio (or join the SETI Club via same link)

There is no device that will give you a personal collection of near-CD quality music with the small size, light weight and 12 hour battery life the Rio offers, at any price.

* The minidisc players are typically half the battery life and a little heavier.

* Normal CD players are much larger

* Tape players are poor all-round, but especially in the quality department.

* Radios don't give you control of the music.

This says nothing about the shock-proof-ness of the Rio. Solid-state rocks.

What's so insane about wanting to carry a personal selection of music around in such a small, light, long-battery-life, package?

Kris.

Win a Rio (or join the SETI Club via same link)

Some points about the two posts above;

* Moving parts suck. Suck power that is. Ignoring the shock-proofing (Pro-MD people with say it's near impossible to skip a good MD player), moving parts really drain power. Not that where I live is the best example, but a MD player the same approx. size at the Rio, that runs off a single AA, only goes for 6 hours, the Rio goes for 12. (the MD player is also noticably heaver, particularly when loaded with a disc)

* It's all about infrastructure. If you've already got a library of MP3 files on your hard drive, buy a Rio - If you've got a library of MiniDiscs in your bookcase, but a portable MD player.

And yes, someone PLEASE make a solid-state MP3 Player with a USB connection.

Kris.

Win a Rio (or join the SETI Club via same link)

The magnesia-something that the Sharp Actius case is made from is probably the best of all worlds. I've got one of those cute Nokia phones, and the fingerprints - oh, man.

Anyway, it's nice that companies are producing electronic stuff in _anything_ other than black and cream these days - I say, take what you can get. (and if anyone knows an on-line place that'll ship the RioSE & 32MB cards to Australia, please drop me an e-mail.)

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The "CPU" is plenty fast enough to decode 128k MP3s, it can do 256k if you want. It's not like it's particpating in Distributed.Net in the background. It's not a computer that can get temporarily busy, it's a hardware MP3 decoder, that's what it does.

This talk of the Rio "skipping" is bizarre.

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When will people realise that the Rio CAN NOT skip. The term makes no sense in a solid-state device.

Any breaks in the music are due to the ripping or encoding process. That same piece of music will break in the same place, in the same way, on ANY MP3 playing hardware or software.

If you're having problems with MP3s, try a different CD ripper program. WinDAC32 has amazing success on my Sharp PCMCIA drive (where everything else screws up)

If you have problems with electronic-type sounds, try a different encoding rate or program.

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Hi Guys, I wrote terminatorX and I like to add some comments to what I read above....

o BeOS: I think that BeOS-Arrogance I read above is really sad, reminds me of 'em old Mac vs. PC days. From what I've read it's a really cool OS, but as commercial OS that costs quite some money I don't expect it to be around for long... although I'd like to be proved wrong.

o "Vinylness" of use: (I will not start discussions about the SOUND of vinyl ;)) If you attach your mouse to somekind of pseudo-turntable you can get "fulll vinyl feeling" even with terminatorX. A friend of mine had the even cooler Idea to buy an extra mouse, open that, and connect its x-axis directly to a real turntable's axis. If I have enough money and time I will check that out ... that should be close to "perfect" (well the hardware at least ;))
One more thing on vinyl: Its expensive! And digitial audio data is is much more flexible....

o MP3 mania: In my oppinion mp3 should not be used to create NEW music (quality aspects). And that's what I do with terminatorX. That`s why there`s no mp3-support in terminatorX now. But that might change after some mergeing with Andy`s alsaplayer . Also, YOU can come along and help. terminatorX will be in CVS soon....

All for now, bye, Alex

If you don't want to put up all the cash for BeOS and this new product, check out terminatorX. All you need is a linux box, X11, a mouse, and a couple of wave files. It's great fun scratching up a bunch of Hitchhiker's Guide clips to a breakbeat :)

But it's entirely in software, and at the moment only handles 16-bit .WAV files. However, it's extremely, gut-wrenchingly cool, runs on Linux, and is GPL'd. You load a .wav file (and, optionally, another .wav to act as a loop) and scratcha-scratcha-scratcha with your mouse. Check it out here. . I've got (so far) the only user scratch on the "send Your Scratches In" page.

Might wanna try #movieworld also, I just happen to help run that channel. We usually have good stuff on our dump sites, and things get continually ripped by members.

try here for info: Movieworld

Are there any (modern) MP3 encoders for Unix with source available?

Well, BladeEnc is going to release the source Real Soon Now (TM), and there are lots of Unix binaries already.

With freshmeat going down (for the time being), I put up a webpage w/ a searchable appindex script on it. It's no replacement for freshmeat (and isn't intended to be), though. It's at http://appindex.cjb.net.

While I'm at it, I'd like to thank scoop for his work and dedication to freshmeat. I'd really like to see it come back up; it's one of the best sites out there.