Slashdot Mirror

My iRiver H320 is seen by Linux distros as a MSC, but if I recall correctly, later models like your Clix dropped that functionality when iRiver got in bed with Microsoft and their DRM. You'll probably find more info on http://www.misticriver.net/ .

An effort is also being made to create a plugin on Rockbox that can access a converted Wikipedia dump http://rockipedia.techmight.com/index.php?title=Ma in_Page The project is floundering a bit though due to losing the main coder.. http://misticriver.net/showthread.php?t=36924&page =27

I use an iriver mp3 player for a combination of home-ripped oggs and napster to go DRM wma. Not much choice but to use WMP 10 (will try WMP 11 after it is shaken out a little). Fairly easy to find ogg codecs for WMP (e.g. http://www.illiminable.com/ogg/ ). But these only allow you to play oggs, and they get treated as Other Media instead of Music. There is a project named WMP Tag Support Extender found at http://wmptagext.sourceforge.net/index.html which will recognize the tags and allow you to have much better functionality. A little more info can be found related to my iriver solution at http://www.misticriver.net/showthread.php?t=34423

• Album Art
• On-the-go playlists
• Real peak meters (excellent for recording, and something that nearly every other MP3 player manufacturer neglects!)
• Custom skins
• Doom!

Why don't you get a new hard drive for your iRiver instead. I have an even older generation H140 and it's still going strong. It seems pretty indestructable to me. Only reason to get an iPod would be better car stereo integration.

This Misticriver thread mentions replacing the 20GB harddisk with a 30GB Toshiba disk for $125:

http://www.misticriver.net/showthread.php?t=34516& highlight=toshiba

X.

It looks like the latest firmware for the iRiver imp550 cd players does ogg vorbis audio; but I'm not sure how "car-stereo" it is...

But is still not the same as uncompressed PCM.

What is the audible difference between a "pristine" stereo audio source sampled at 44.1 kHz and the same audio source encoded at 192 kbps ABR Vorbis? Have you benchmarked codecs against your ears in ABX testing? Besides, if you claim that pop music isn't compressed, you're wrong.

I won't say I'm completely disappointed with it, but it certainly does not live up to my expectations. The early iRiver products, like yours, were truly wonderful; and were what gave iRiver its reputation. Unfortunately, their later models do not seem to have that level of attention paid towards them.

For starters, I have to load in a special UMS (Usb Mass Storage) firmware to enable the player to be mounted as a Mass Storage drive. If I don't, I have to get stuck with their crappy software for pushing music to the player.

Next, I can only play ogg vorbis files from 96kbps (64kbps using a modded firmware) to 224kbps. Somehow the volume drops when I play vorbis files. And there are pops at the end of vorbis files.

Thirdly, the recording feature is rubbish - recording with the inbuilt mic adds a ticking noise to the recording. Did I mention that I can't record above 96kbps? (This applies to radio & line-in recording too) For some reason, the non-UMS firmware can record up to 320kbps...

For just music listening, I would say it isn't too bad - it sounds quite good, with my tin-can ears. The battery life is pretty good as well - about a week of intensive usage per charge (it uses a single AA-size batt; I'm using 2500mAh NiMH batteries for it) Definately lives up to its claim of 40hr batt life. using AA-size batteries does make it a bit fatter (it's a bit tight in my jeans pants pocket) than those players using AAA-size batteries, but the batt life is worth it.

If you're looking to buy a player that can play ogg vorbis, I suggest you take a look at the new Samsung players, as well as the Rio offerings - iRiver isn't the only one with Vorbis support now.

You should also head over to Misticriver if you're thinking of buying an iRiver. The forums there have a lot of useful info on the different models, and other stuff.

FM radio complicates nothing. My iRivier H340 has FM radio, microphone recording, a full color screen, video playback, and USB on the Go which is handy when the camera gets full and I don't have a laptop around. It has a picture viewer, text viewer, and better audio format support than the iPod. It was cheaper, too, and comes without any software requirements beyond USB2/FAT32 support. Toss a linux image on there so I can use it to USB boot and it makes a decent digital swiss army knife. Apple's iPod is hardly the only thing (or the most feature rich) on the market.

While it is true that Clearchannel programming is universally worthless, I live in an area with a couple college stations and an extraordinarily good NPR affiliate (WXXI). Being able to tune them in is a bonus, especially when I'm using the iRivier for more computer-related tasks and haven't got any tunes loaded. Radio also has a lot of applications in other areas that are useful for some people (traffic, wilderness, etc).

I can think of only three features I'd like to see added... better video playback with video-out, record from radio, and Sirius support. Good to see the next model will almost certainly have the latter. Apple can keep their iPods, especially if they remain shortsighted enough to keep thinking of them as file-only devices. (Frankly, Jobs is not that foolish, so I don't think that'll be an issue.)

I can assure you that my tiny antennaless device gets exceptional broadcast clarity from all of the local radio stations. It bookmarks my stations, and the interface is a breeze. I'm also sure this feature cost them all of about 50 cents per unit to include. Radio is so easy it's a goddamn afterthought.

So, for anyone who's looking for an MP3 player with a radio tuner with video playback that's in the same price range as Apple's little toy, check out iRiver and the Mistic River user community for more information. Btw, their peripherals are exceptional, especially the docking stations.

If you're familiar with the open source mp3 player software called Rockbox, which was originally developed for the old Archos MP3 players, the Rockbox team is porting Rockbox to the iRiver. It's a far better MP3 player OS than any commercial ones I've used.

Is it legal to download music from site AllOFMP3.com?

All the materials in the MediaServices projects are available for distribution through Internet according to license # LS-3Ì-05-03 of the Russian Multimedia and Internet Society. Under the license terms, MediaServices pays license fees for all the materials subject to the Law of the Russian Federation "On Copyright and Related Rights". All the materials are available solely for personal use and must not be used for further distribution, resale or broadcasting.

Users are responsible for any usage and distribution of all materials received from AllOFMP3.com. This responsibility depends on the local legislation of each user's country of residence. AllOFMP3.com's Administration does not keep up with the laws of different countries and is not responsible the actions of non-Russian users.

All Of MP3's Terms of Use Contract

Other supporting sites on legalities of useing ALLofMP3

ALLOFMP3 FAQ
Misticriver Forum
A third Forum

What the fuck is that? Please speak English, or at least geek, instead of MartketingSpeak.

And when you've bought it, head over to http://www.misticriver.net/ to figure out how to use it.

"Figure out" how to use it? WTF?

iRiver = iPod Killer.

I'll believe this when it happens. Do you have any evidence of the iRiver having sales anywhere near the level of the iPod's? Nearly every MP3 player has claimed to be an "iPod Killer" at one point or the other. Yet none have made an impact on the market.

The fact that they need to promote themselves as the "anti-iPod" instead of touting the actual merits of their players, just strengthens Apple's brand image, and shows the weak position the competitors are in. Why are they trying to copy the iPod instead of innovate?

And this:

And when you've bought it, head over to http://www.misticriver.net/ to figure out how to use it.


is why this:

iRiver = iPod Killer.


Will never be true

Or, you could spare yourself the proprietary interfaces altogether and get an iRiver H300 (comes in 20gb and 40gb flavours). They already have usb-on-the-go, fm radio & recording, line in recording, photo viewing, text viewing, longer battery life, uses filetree directory structure, and they play videos.

Been out since August of last year (if not earlier).

https://secure1.nexternal.com/shared/StoreFront/de fault.asp?CS=iriver&BusType=BtoC&Count1=988826930& Count2=905967354

And when you've bought it, head over to http://www.misticriver.net/ to figure out how to use it.

iRiver = iPod Killer.

OGG is not so good for power consumption, it takes 3/4 hours off the battery life of my iRiver ifp390, and I hear there are similar results for other ogg supporting players (mostly iRiver).

Theres the problem that the implementations Ive seen dont support <48kbs bitrates, so quite a few of my -q3 encodings failed to play. Coding at -q6 or whatever makes the files bigger than the standard MP3s I use.

The ogg battery life problem may have been solved, but I had a similar on my ifp device.

Except the iHP recording is buggy....

http://www.misticriver.net/boards/showpost.php?p=4 9159&postcount=8

I believe you can change the encoding it uses to read tags in the Language option in the General tab of the options menu.

I have it set to Ukrainian, but don't see that affecting anything -- the interface is still in English and the song titles are still displayed using ISO-8859-1 (or, maybe, -15), but not with any of the Cyrillic fonts.

I'll check the MisticRiver out, though. Thanks!

I believe you can change the encoding it uses to read tags in the Language option in the General tab of the options menu.

MisticRiver i s your friend.

By the way, there's already a program to modify the images on the iRiver H300 series: H3Mod (look for it in the forums at MR cause I'm too lazy).

Here's a video of an iRiver playing a movie of an iPod photo trying to play a movie

Since engadget is slow now (wonder why!), here's the text from the above link:

We're the first to admit playing a "movie" on an iPod Photo by exporting the sound, and thousands of frames is as silly as it sounds, so ludicrous that we had to do a how-to on it. Now things are getting toally wacky, and already a video has turned up of someone watching a video on their iRiver H320 (an MP3 player which just recently acquired the ability to playback video clips) of us "watching" the new Star Wars trailer on our iPod Photo. It's getting mighty recursive in here.

Read

Backlit remote control with 4-line display

iRiver earphones

Carrying case

Installation software CD

AC adapter

USB 2.0 cable

Line-in cable

External microphone

Printed user manual
H340
packed with:

iRiver earphones

Carrying case

USB 2.0 cable

Audio line-in cable

Installation CD

AC adapter

another source: click

From what I've seen on the MisticRiver http://misticriver.net/ forums, this type of support isn't unusual.

You may find this review better than cnet's.

From what I understand, and can corroborate from my own experience, there is an annoying, often audible glitch that occurs due to periodically dropped sequences of 32 (?) frames during recording. It's subtle, but quite audible when it falls in a place on the waveform resulting in a very large difference between the remaining segments.

I'm currently working on software that will automatically remove some of the more audible resulting clicks, but I would much rather work on firmware that doesn't drop any samples in the first place!

I own an Archos Jukebox 6000, and I own an iRiver IHP-140.

There is some talk about iRiver firmware hacking in forums and whatnot (misticriver's are probably the best), and some talk among the Rockbox folks about porting their firmware to different devices, but as best I know it's still mostly talk.

The iRiver mounts as a removable drive, same as the Archos, and its database can be dispensed with (or, actually, never installed in the first place). I would strongly recommend getting rid of the iRiver's database, as it greatly increases the IHP's boot time.