Slashdot Mirror

• Neuros Digital Audio Computer
• Rio Karma 20 (Picture)
• PhatNoise's PhatBox, Kenwood's Music Keg (Powered by PhatNoise) These are in-car players that are installed into the trunk of your car and hooked up to your car stereo. Both players run ARM-Linux and support playback of FLAC files. Beta firmware to support Ogg Vorbis is available at http://phatbox.sixpak.org/phatbox/ogg.phtml.
• KISS Technology's DP-450 and DP-500 DVD Players
• MPST Digital Jukebox
• Freemax FW-960
• iRiver iHP-120, iHP-100, iGP-100, possibly others
• Umax/Yamada have a few standalone DVD players that support Vorbis.
• Neuston provides a standalone DVD player (model DVX-1201) that supports Vorbis.
• Samsung The MCD-CM600 is now available in Korea. It is a CD portable that can play Vorbis, MP3, and WMA. Page with photo of MCD-CM600. Closeup of MCD-CM600.

Just in time to compete with the new Rio, iRiver, and Philips hard drive players.

Unfortunatelly it's not easy to have support for many codecs in portables. Their system is too embedded - 8 MB flash + 16 MB RAM is normal.. And you have to fit in whole OS, use RAM for disk caching etc.. iRiver tried very hard to support OGG on players designed without OGG in mind - see here.

iRiver made an announcement a few days ago about what devices past and future will be supported. Most aside from the lowest-model devices (i.e. 100-series) will be supported, but those with only 8Mbit flash will either support MP3/OGG or WMA/MP3, but not both. The newest devices out on the market will have 16Mbit flash, and so should support plenty of formats including Ogg. The one I'm most looking forward to is the iFP-500, their 256M to 1GB (w00t!) solid state player. Ogg support, up to 1GB flash. Very nice.

iRiver made an announcement a few days ago about what devices past and future will be supported. Most aside from the lowest-model devices (i.e. 100-series) will be supported, but those with only 8Mbit flash will either support MP3/OGG or WMA/MP3, but not both. The newest devices out on the market will have 16Mbit flash, and so should support plenty of formats including Ogg. The one I'm most looking forward to is the iFP-500, their 256M to 1GB (w00t!) solid state player. Ogg support, up to 1GB flash. Very nice.

You might very well have hope anyway with your iMP-350, see: iRiver's announcement

Yes, the 350 will support Ogg. Details from iRiver
However, due to its limited (8mb) flash rom you'll have to select between MP3 and Ogg support.

Here is iRiver's schedule and detailed information regarding Ogg support for their existing players.

There's a Wiki list of (hopefully) all portable Vorbis players at http://wiki.xiph.org/VorbisHardware. That page has a link to some detailed information from iRiver about which of their players will support Vorbis.

From the International iRiver Site (North America lags behind):

[Notice] Progress of OGG Support

First of all thank you for your support and showing your interest to iRiver.
iRiver would like to make an announcement about the OGG Codec.

Plan for supporting OGG files:
There are many customers who are wondering if iRiver would ever support OGG file formats. Technically, it is difficult to play an OGG file from a portable audio device. There is currently an OGG Codec available (only for non portable players) on www.xiph.org. According to this site, the Fixed Point version source "Tremor" is required to make an OGG Codec. This version is not optimized for Embedded (or portable) audio devices. To insert this Codec in the iRiver MP3 player, the size of source needs to be reduced by half. It is possible to reduce a source about 10 to 20% without making any major changes.
Unfortunately, it is impossible to reduce the size of the source by 50% without changing the algorithm of the source. Since OGG file has been recently developed, there is not enough information or research result available to modify the algorithm of the source. iRiver is currently researching and developing a Codec that would allow OGG files to be played by a portable player with two side companies. Please wait patiently and iRiver will update you the research and development process of the new Codec.

Link: http://iriver.com/company/news_view.asp?idx=347

Plays mp3 & wma, with OGG support shortly on it's way

CD's can "sync" with just about anything

Upgrades keep coming out, even for older players.

No song manager needed, but the remote (of the discman) has _exelent_ navigation

Built-in FM tuner. (The remote is the antena actually ;)

Ok, so it doesn't record from FM, big deal.

It can plug into car stereo, boom-box, etc. as long as you have the right cable ;)

Embraces the 'looks damn good, must have it' community (The player's just plain sexy)

And, importantly:

REALLY REALLY light and small! Very portable, unlike a big HD player.

Battery life is excelent. 5+ hours with just the discman, 8+ with battery stick (tube for 2x AA)

Oh, and did I mention: It's top notch design!

PS. I'm talking about my wine red iRiver iMP-400 SlimX II, but the newest one, the iMP-550, is even better.

How about this? (yah it doesn't have ogg, but it's being worked on, or so they say).

You're right... at some point, more space doesn't matter... however, longer battery life, more features like the above will be bigger selling points for some. IMHO, I think the features and battery life of this unit outweigh the "elegance" of the ipod.

And as for OGG support for Codec CD players, iRiver is making (some) progress: ---------- [OGG status report] First of all thank you for your support and showing your interest to iRiver. iRiver would like to make an announcement about the OGG Codec. Plan for supporting OGG files: There are many customers who are wondering if iRiver would ever support OGG file formats. Technically, it is difficult to play an OGG file from a portable audio device. There is currently an OGG Codec available (only for non portable players) on www.xiph.org. According to this site, the Fixed Point version source "Tremor" is required to make an OGG Codec. This version is not optimized for Embedded (or portable) audio devices. To insert this Codec in the iRiver MP3 player, the size of source needs to be reduced by half. It is possible to reduce a source about 10 to 20% without making any major changes. Unfortunately, it is impossible to reduce the size of the source by 50% without changing the algorithm of the source. Since OGG file has been recently developed, there is not enough information or research result available to modify the algorithm of the source. iRiver is currently researching and developing a Codec that would allow OGG files to be played by a portable player with two side companies. Please wait patiently and iRiver will update you the research and development process of the new Codec. ---------- From: /me keeps hoping!

It should be pointed out that the Volts are actually re-branded iRiver players. iRiver is a Korean corporation that had been manufacturing cheap CD players under a variety of names until Rio sold their player as the Rio Volt and actually made it successful. Now iRiver is selling the players under its own name and undercutting Rio's prices.

For what it's worth, iRiver (the same people who make the original RioVolt line and the current SlimX and flashplayer things you find at Bestbuy) just made a news release detailing their Ogg efforts. http://www.iriver.com/company/news_view.asp?idx=34 7

Essentially what they're saying is that Tremor is too big for their embedded devices (read: CD players and flash players). I suppose this can be an excusable claim, depending on the device. However, I'm really disappointed their hard drive doesn't include Ogg support, as a hard drive is a bigger and heaver item, and it shouldn't hurt too much for them to include Ogg support on the ROM.

In related news, iRiver gave this update on Vorbis support earlier this week: here

check out this. ihp-100 coming soon to a retailer near you..

Which is a shame, because iRiver make the sexiest MP3 portables IMHO.

In other news iRiver released their newest flash based mp3 player, the iFP-300... The Craft[iRiver.com]. The player is flashable, and probably capable of Ogg Vorbis support (don't ask... Please... It's very strange). It comes in a sleek design too :)

Try one of these. iRiver iFP-195TC 512MB, tiny, 20 hours from a single AA battery. Amazon started selling them last week. I love mine.

Oh, and I found even more info:

E-mail on the iRiver Forums about the status of Ogg/Vorbis in their players.

Umh, it's iRiver that makes the RioVolt...They also do firmware upgrades...

So, they are the one to pester...of course, the iMP-250 is not available from iRiver America (exclusitivity agreements)...

But, the SlimX series (iMP-350 and iMP-400) are more likely to get Ogg Vorbis support...

From what I hear the SlimX players are more powerful than previous players...

So, it's not likely that your 250 will get support...maybe the iMP-150 (which seems to be the only early model still being produced)...of course, you should check out the FAQ first...

The iRiver iFP-180T lets you record FM radio, but I'm not sure if it's programmable.

It does look like a great mp3 player though.

The iRive iFP-180T has 128 MB of memory as well as a 90 dB S/N ratio and a LCD for about $140 at Best Buy. I don't own one...but if the specs tell anything, as well as the one review I read, this product seems like a great one. I wonder why it has hardly been noticed by the mp3 community?

I recently bought an iRiver iFP-180T mp3 player which does what you're asking, but no timer function. 128M memory, mp3/wma playback, microphone, FM tuner and the abiliity to record off FM (I believe it records at 32kbps).

So far I really like it, though I think the UI could be a bit better. Around $150.

And I use it to record NPR.

No, actually it takes a bit -less- processing power to decode vorbis, but a bit more memory. The real problem here is that most of these players use dedicated mp3-decoding chips. That's all they do, and can't be reprogrammed for other things. Some players use ARM based processors, and this is where a firmware upgrade enabling vorbis-decoding is possible. However, the truth is that right now most of these companies are losing money on portable players - they're just so cheap. To make them play oggs requires engineers, and engineers cost money. Most of these companies have already laid off all their engineers because they can't afford to keep paying them after initially creating the hardware/firmware.

Anyway, you didn't hear it from me, but iRiver is currently working on implementing vorbis support in their portables.

They also have their own lineup of, IMHO, a lot more sexier, better and more feature rich units than those from RIO. See the SlimX and their new HD unit, iDP-100 on their product listing page.

I'm getting a iMP-350 soon, and I guess this means that Real Soon Now(tm) I'll get to rip my CD collection to OGG and play it on this beauty! It's got very good reviews everywhere.

Cheers!

Costyn.

Please wait. We are busy translating your messages to understand what you are saying. Thank you.

link I guess it makes it a slight bit harder to implement a codec when you don't even know what the people asking for it are saying =)

Hey guys, after some minor *hacking* you can get the RioVolt SP-250, to use the Iriver IMP250 firmware. I am pretty sure that they do not support Ogg-vorbis yet, but IMO their firmware is superior (more features etc.) If you want to know how to hack the Iriver firmware, follow the instructions below.


IMPORTANT
The hack worked fine on my player, I accept absolutely no responsibility in the event that it [being the firmware hack] messes up (screws up, destroys, renders unusable... etc.) your RioVolt.

1) Download the IMP-250 firmware and extract it.
2) Open it up in your favorite hex editor. I used Hex Workshop.
3)Change the first 16 characters to

53502D3235300000

4)Save the file, and quit.
5)Rename the file from "IMP-250.hex" to "SP-250.hex"
6)Burn the file to the root of a CD, throw it in your RioVolt, and enjoy.

(MAKE SURE THE POWER DOES NOT DIE WHILE FLASHING THE FIRMWARE!)
If you have any problems e-mail me (subject: SLASHDOT)
Happy Hacking!

Emmett
2002-09-24 15:51:43 (Xiph.org - Ogg Vorbis) Hey, folks, please read. Ladies and Gentlemen and other assorted interested parties:

This morning (2:28am, EDT), I received an E-mail from Y.H. Lee, the Chief Engineer of iRiver's products. He has informed me that they are currently porting the fixed-point Ogg Vorbis decoder (Tremor) to their product. We will endeavour to assist them in any way we can.

In addition to letting iRiver know that we stand behind them ready to assist with technical issues, I believe a huge thanks is in order to the people who have contacted iRiver asking them to support our format. We're indebted to all of you who have posted looking for Vorbis support on this thread, as well as all of you who have sent iRiver E-mails and called them on the telephone.

With any luck, it won't be long before iRiver starts releasing products with Ogg Vorbis support. When the day comes, I hope you'll all take a moment to congratulate yourselves, and celebrate with a portable full of music encoded in an open and free format. :)

If anyone has any questions, comments, or anything they want to talk about, please feel free to drop me an E-mail to emmett@xiph.org, or give me a call at 215-820-9583. We're an open source project, and we love hearing from people, talking about the codec, and discussing cool stuff. Please don't hesitate to contact us if you want to gripe, complain or compliment.

Thanks again for all your help, folks. We couldn't do it without you.

Emmett Plant
CEO, Xiph.org Foundation

Here's the link!

We'll see if they're able to get it into an upgrade of their current firmware.. Even if they don't its still quite exciting news for the future.

"Thanks for your suggestion. Actually iRiver have listened to our users' need and start working with Ogg Vorbis format, ManPower have been allocated to develop the Ogg Vorbis, let's give our engineers more time to develop this format. Some users suggested to give a schedule on this issue. However, it is really difficult to tell at this moment, let's just hope it to be released as soon as possible."

http://www.iriver.com/user/user_view.asp?page=1&id x=1268&mode=Àüü&strque=&field=1

Thats clipped from their forums.

Check out products from iRiver. They have a lot of cool, feature-rich stuff. I'm not sure if they have a sub $100 player. Check it out...

Let's not forget about the iRiver iFP-180T. It's a fixed flash-based player with 128MB of RAM. Although they haven't officially announced it in the US, Best Buy apparently has the exclusive distribution rights and is already shelving them. Rumor has it they will be advertised in their flyers for tomorrow's newspapers. I picked on up a couple days ago for the reasonable price of $140. For those on a budget, they also have a 64MB model for $100 and a 32MB for ... $70 (I think).

It's a tiny little thing, slightly larger than a bic lighter. Unfortunately, this means no storage upgrades. But it does have a very nice display, good battery life, ships with decent earbud headphones (Sennheiser mx300) and it supports Japanese fonts (something important to me...)

iRiver does offer upgradeable firmware. Plenty of people have been demanding ogg support and they claim they want to support it. Their engineers are currently evaluating the ability to add it. Interesting side note, the CEO of Xiph, Emmett Plant, posted to the iRiver user boards and offered support from their engineers to get it done.

But I digress. Despite a few minor short comings, I think this is a great little digital music player.

Let's not forget about the iRiver iFP-180T. It's a fixed flash-based player with 128MB of RAM. Although they haven't officially announced it in the US, Best Buy apparently has the exclusive distribution rights and is already shelving them. Rumor has it they will be advertised in their flyers for tomorrow's newspapers. I picked on up a couple days ago for the reasonable price of $140. For those on a budget, they also have a 64MB model for $100 and a 32MB for ... $70 (I think).

It's a tiny little thing, slightly larger than a bic lighter. Unfortunately, this means no storage upgrades. But it does have a very nice display, good battery life, ships with decent earbud headphones (Sennheiser mx300) and it supports Japanese fonts (something important to me...)

iRiver does offer upgradeable firmware. Plenty of people have been demanding ogg support and they claim they want to support it. Their engineers are currently evaluating the ability to add it. Interesting side note, the CEO of Xiph, Emmett Plant, posted to the iRiver user boards and offered support from their engineers to get it done.

But I digress. Despite a few minor short comings, I think this is a great little digital music player.

For companies to produce portable Vorbis players, they need to be made aware that there is a market for them. Every day, I hear the same thing from Vorbis listeners; 'I'm not buying a hardware portable music player unless it supports Ogg Vorbis.' It's nice to hear, but we can't do anything about it (we're not a hardware company). So, this page is here to let you send that message to people who can. Remember, be polite!

The Companies:

Frontier Labs - URL - has told a lot of people that they're considering implementing Vorbis support for the NEX II machine. Here's their information:

Frontier Labs
Unit 2206 - 8, Cyberincubator, Kodak House II
No. 321 Java Road
North Point, Hong Kong
Telephone: 852.2527.3322
Fax: 852.2528.5277
E-mail: techsupport@frontierlabs.com

iRiver - URL - has said they are planning to support Ogg Vorbis in the future via firmware upgrade, but the schedule is not yet finalized. Here's their information:

iRiver America
1716 Ringwood Avenue
San Jose, CA 95131
Telephone: 1-408-452-7940
Fax: 1-408-452-9944
E-mail: contact@iriveramerica.com

UPDATE: Forwarded E-mail from iRiver America

The engineers have Ogg Vorbis under consideration to support. However, at this time, there is no decision whether it will be supported in the future or not.

Regards,

Erica L. Briggs
Customer Service Representative
iRiver America, Inc.
Direct: 408.452.7940

Wouldn't you like to see Vorbis on the super-sexy iPod? We would, too. Here's some contact information for Apple Computer (URL):

Apple
1 Infinite Loop
Cupertino, CA 95014
Telephone: 408-996-1010

UPDATE: Don't forget to drop a note to Apple about the iPod at http://www.apple.com/feedback/ipod.html!

Other companies producing audio hardware:

Archos Technology Inc. - URL
3-A Goodyear
Irvine, CA 92618
Telephone: (949) 609-1400
Fax: (949) 609-1414

ReQuest Multimedia - URL
435 2nd Ave.
Troy, NY 12182
E-mail: bizdev@request.com

Evolution Technologies - URL
118 Kitty Hawk Drive
Morrisville, NC 27560
Telephone: 919-544-3777 / toll-free: 866-848-8070
E-mail: info@nowevolution.com

UPDATE: Note from Evolution Technologies

Evolution Technologies, Inc. is committed to support our consumers music appetite. We will support the formats that are consistent with both their desires and good business practices. While we have not ruled out supporting "open source" formats, we must first evaluate the acceptance levels with the buying public so that our organization can justify the expense of developing a new compatible CODEC. When the demand is sufficient, we will support the technology.

Sonic Blue - URL
2841 Mission College Blvd.
Santa Clara, CA 95054-1838
Telephone: (408) 588-8000

I-Jam Multimedia LLC - URL
1092 National Parkway
Schaumburg, IL 60173
Telephone: 847-839-1233
Fax: 847-839-1277
E-mail: ehamnett@geltzerpr.com

Alaris, Inc. - URL
44061 Nobel Drive
Fremont, CA 94538

Creative Labs, Inc. - URL
Developer Relations
1901 McCarthy Blvd.
Milpitas, California 95035
Telephone: 408-546-6425
Fax: 408-432-6717
E-mail: devmusic@creativelabs.com

Daisy Technology, LLC - URL
111 N. Market Street, Suite 624
San Jose, CA 95113
Telephone: 408-286-7697
Fax: 408-351-3330
E-mail: info@daisytech-usa.com

Procell Media - URL
69 Wrexham Road
Whitchurch, Shropshire
SY13 1HT
UNITED KINGDOM
Telephone: +44 (0)1948 665048
Fax: +44 (0)1948 667099

G-NET Canada Headquarters - URL
11 Sinclair Court
Cambridge, Ontario
N1T 1K2 CANADA
Telephone: 519-623-4901
Fax: 519-623-3229

Dude,
Then you haven't looked harde enough. I dunno if this is what you are looking for, but there's an excellent MP3 CD player the iRiver SlimX. Very sexy design, very slim, and has an FM tuner.

Alternatives for mp3 players:
- RAM
- Hard Disk
- mini disc
- CD

RAM based units are annoying...

At 3.5mins & 4.5MB per song 64 MB stores what, 50 minutes of music? How often will the listener get tired of this same set? Me, I would want to swap music after each run.

While the capacity is low, filling the thing with music takes too long. One must go through his collection looking for 14 motivating songs, hooking up all the gear and downloading to the device. This process will take something like 20 - 30 minutes.

So we have 30 minutes of work to maintain each exercise session. Not very efficient.

Due to inherent fragilty, hard disk players are not recommended for athletic use.

Like RAM units Minidisks don't store enough, recording is slow and besides, they're yet another media format.

Therefore, the conclusion for the fitness enthusiast is that CD based mp3 players are the only way to go.

It is agreed that today's best unit is the iriver iMP-350 SlimX. I just bought one for $130 and I love it!

You can use any of a hundred different programs in any OS to burn your mp3 CDs. My current exercise CD has 158 songs or 9.2 HOURS!

It has a FM receiver to tune in gym TVs while on the treadmill.

Another plus of the iriver for us workout geeks is the sweet remote controller. No digging through your pack to hit PAUSE when that gym bunny says "Hi" to you!

Cheers,

Bill

• It's the thinnest mp3 cd player out there (it uses those gum-stick batteries seen in minidisk players)
• Firmware Flashable
• Supports ID3 tags
• MP3, AAC, and WMF format compatible (I believe OGG format is in the works, it'e mentioned manual)
• Backlit in-line remote (like minidisk players again)
• user definable EQ, with like 5 presets
• AC adapter, external battery pack, and it charges it's batteries when you tell it to when it's connected to AC.
• It supports both Rockridge extensions, and M$'s Joliet. I have long filenames on my cds, and they all work perfectly (unlike the other piece of plastic shit I purchased off Spamazon for $160 two years ago)
• AAAAANNND, a built in FM tuner with presets

• It's the thinnest mp3 cd player out there (it uses those gum-stick batteries seen in minidisk players)
• Firmware Flashable
• Supports ID3 tags
• MP3, AAC, and WMF format compatible (I believe OGG format is in the works, it'e mentioned manual)
• Backlit in-line remote (like minidisk players again)
• user definable EQ, with like 5 presets
• AC adapter, external battery pack, and it charges it's batteries when you tell it to when it's connected to AC.
• It supports both Rockridge extensions, and M$'s Joliet. I have long filenames on my cds, and they all work perfectly (unlike the other piece of plastic shit I purchased off Spamazon for $160 two years ago)
• AAAAANNND, a built in FM tuner with presets

• It's the thinnest mp3 cd player out there (it uses those gum-stick batteries seen in minidisk players)
• Firmware Flashable
• Supports ID3 tags
• MP3, AAC, and WMF format compatible (I believe OGG format is in the works, it'e mentioned manual)
• Backlit in-line remote (like minidisk players again)
• user definable EQ, with like 5 presets
• AC adapter, external battery pack, and it charges it's batteries when you tell it to when it's connected to AC.
• It supports both Rockridge extensions, and M$'s Joliet. I have long filenames on my cds, and they all work perfectly (unlike the other piece of plastic shit I purchased off Spamazon for $160 two years ago)
• AAAAANNND, a built in FM tuner with presets

In theory, all the iRiver and Riovolt players can be upgraded for Ogg support because of the flash firmware available on the players. One thing to note is that iRiver usually releases firmware much more frequently and much earlier than Rio does, so official Rio fw updates containing ogg might take even longer to release. However, rumor has it that iRiver is having trouble implementing Ogg support. Two reasons I've heard on the mp3.com message boards is that there's some floating point calculations involved or that they've run into legal troubles releasing the firmware (look for the reply by CrashWire). The first reason is plausible, although I don't know if that's the real reason. Can someone tell me if Ogg actually does go through some floating point calcs? The second reason sounds really really really doubtful since legal troubles is precisely what Ogg is trying to avoid.

Not all MP3 player companies are using the ASIC MP3 decoders. iRiver the company that produces the CD MP3 players that Rio rebrands as their own is using ARM processors and is actively developing Ogg support for their players.

Thier New Player the SlimX is really quite neat looking, some pictures are provided here.

If you are looking for discussions about MP3/etc players I recoment MP3's Portables message board.

-OctaneZ

Not all MP3 player companies are using the ASIC MP3 decoders. iRiver the company that produces the CD MP3 players that Rio rebrands as their own is using ARM processors and is actively developing Ogg support for their players.

Thier New Player the SlimX is really quite neat looking, some pictures are provided here.

If you are looking for discussions about MP3/etc players I recoment MP3's Portables message board.

-OctaneZ

Not all MP3 player companies are using the ASIC MP3 decoders. iRiver the company that produces the CD MP3 players that Rio rebrands as their own is using ARM processors and is actively developing Ogg support for their players.

Thier New Player the SlimX is really quite neat looking, some pictures are provided here.

If you are looking for discussions about MP3/etc players I recoment MP3's Portables message board.

-OctaneZ

I wrote SonicBlue (the makers of Rio) a while back and got this rather luckwarm response:

"Dear Valued Customer,

We cannot comment about possible updates until said updates are released.Currently, there are no new plans on adding additional formats."

Not sure about the other members of the Rio line, but SonicBlue doesn't write the software for the Riovolt. iRiver, the designers of the Riovolt (aka iRiver iMP-100 and AVC Soulplayer), do. Riovolt owners will have to convince iRiver rather than SonicBlue to write support for Ogg Vorbis. (Interestingly, Cirrus Logic -- the makers of the ARM processor used in the Riovolt/iRiver/Soulplayer -- wrote a MP3 and AAC software player for their processor which can be obtained under NDA. Later, they added ASF audio support to this player. Soon after CL added ASF support, iRiver followed with the same for their player. This suggests perhaps Cirrus Logic is the author of the decoding routines and maybe iRiver is too far below in the food-chain to effectively lobby for Ogg support.

If you want Ogg Vorbis support for your Rio product, find who designed and updates the software for your Rio product and lobby them.