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Here is a better portable audio player that does the stuff the article talks about (and some more) and has a very reasonable price - Neuros.

- First off, it comes with a small memory card and optional 20GB HD attachment, so you can go light when you are jogging and attach HD for long road trips;

- Speaking of road trips, it has an FM transmitter that lets it play any audio on any FM radio without extra connections;

- It has FM radio, and is able to record directly from FM radio to MP3 format;

- It has a microphone and a voice recorder;

- It has full Linux support;

- It has Vorbis support;

- The whole package - the unit itself, software, USB cable, earphones, 20GB HD attachment, regular charger, car charger = $230.

That would be less than half the price of iPod. I would like to see some reviews of this baby.

sounds like you want a neuros player

• 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.

The Neuros also has a way to upgrade the firmware easily, allowing additional features as the product matures.

Were huge? MiniDisc still is huge, and growing, as far as I can tell. I've got one myself and wouldn't replace it with anything. A few of my friends have MD players, and I see them all over campus and in class. And I'm in Canada, eh.

So far, I've bought two minidisc players in my life, and though I love them dearly, Sony really needs to get their act together if they want these things to catch on big-time.

My first minidisc player was great, for all intents and purposes it was just a souped-up walkman. Record with line-in, play to line-out, worked great.

The second was NetMD-enabled, it promised to hold 5 times as much music, and sported a USB cable for fast(er) data transfer. It had no support for linux whatsoever! The thing was basically useless to me! Gah.

I settled for recording via analogue, but that's actually a big hassle, especially when you know there's a perfectly good USB cable to connect the thing.

I probably won't be buying another MiniDisc player ever again. In fact, my next portable music player is probably going to be the Neuros. I like to think of it as the iPod for PCs... it's got a 20 GB HD, supports Ogg Vorbis, upgradeable firmware, native linux support... what more could a guy want? Well, Canadian retailers, I guess... :(

-h-

Brief summary: (1) Has 20 GB (2) $399 (3) Line-in for recording (4) FM antenna (5) Can record FM radio (6) 10 hour battery life

So it's basically a Neuros that's marked up $200 and crippled with DRM?

Neuros Audio Computer Bundle

Not bad for $229.

128MB backpack (good for a run) and 20GB backpack (good for taking your CD collection on the road).

Built in FM radio (records directly to MP3, nice for catching up on Talk of the Nation Science Friday or capture "thumbprint" of now playing tune for later automated identification). Rumored upcoming TiVo-like functionality for the radio.

Built in FM transmitter so you can use the player in your car without requiring a slew of cables. (Autoseeks to find an un(der)-used FM frequency or dial a frequency yourself).

Builtin microphone (record those class lectures to MP3).

First player I know of to support Ogg Vorbis NOW (via beta firmware download). Also supports MP3, WMA and WAV.

Active developer community.

Can't imagine living without mine.

Just wish it had 1) USB 2.0 or Firewire and 2) a remote control. With those it would be perfect. (New backpack in development will support USB 2.0)

Neuros has posted a social contract that decries DRM and supports Free Software via the BSD license.

Yeah, it has some drawbacks - the big one being that it's still a USB 1.1 device. Also, you can't get one outside of North America because it seems that the US and Canada are two of a very small number of countries that don't get in a snarl over micro-powered FM transmitters. Also, it doesn't support FLAC, but I'm not sure that's a drawback...after all, none of these players can really present itself as an audiophile device.

The 20GB model costs $199 in the US. I've got one and I like it. It's not an iPod killer, but I get the impression that it wasn't meant to be.

-h-

Neuros has posted a social contract that decries DRM and supports Free Software via the BSD license.

Yeah, it has some drawbacks - the big one being that it's still a USB 1.1 device. Also, you can't get one outside of North America because it seems that the US and Canada are two of a very small number of countries that don't get in a snarl over micro-powered FM transmitters. Also, it doesn't support FLAC, but I'm not sure that's a drawback...after all, none of these players can really present itself as an audiophile device.

The 20GB model costs $199 in the US. I've got one and I like it. It's not an iPod killer, but I get the impression that it wasn't meant to be.

-h-

The Neuros has support for mp3 and Ogg (though Ogg support isn't totally complete for files with very high nominal bitrates), and you can also use it with Linux. It's been out a while now, and its models have two basic storage sizes - 20 GB and 128 MB. The model with 128 MB uses solid-state memory for storage.

The neuros has been available with vorbis support for several months. If you want something today, the neuros is pretty much your only choice. If you don't mind waiting it out, then by all means wait for iRiver or Rio.

The Neuros is currently deeply discounted in preparation for the newer models coming out...

The 128MB unit is going for $150, the 20GB model is on sale for $200 and the combo bundle (128MB/20GB, etc.) is currently only $230.

I bought my combo set for $343, and that was after both a $50 sale discount & a $25 Linux user's discount.

I don't mean to sound like a salesman, but this is a great deal!

Anything below 128k/s (in my opinion) is only good for streaming and embedding

On the other hand, since I've already encoded them at 192kbps (-q 6), and I really don't have too many CDs, and the only real player choice I have is Neuros which has a 20GB disk, which could fit all my "CD" quality Oggs anyway.

You can have this now, from Neuros - plus FM in and out, and swappable HD or flash "sleds" to boot. I'm seriously considering buying one.

• Plays Ogg Vorbis files (DI employs one of Vorbis' founders).
  
• Can sync w/ Linux.
  
• "Backpack" system lets you remove the hard drive when you want to go solid state. Also allows for upgrades (like the upcoming USB 2 backpack).
  
• Open source cross-platform song manager (NeurosDBM)
  
• Built-in FM tuner.
  
• "MiSi" feature, which allows you to record a clip from FM, and have it identified when you sync.
  
• Low-power FM transmitter, which can be picked up by a car stereo, boom-box, etc.
  
• Embraces the open source community.
  
• Stands behind a social contract
  

• Plays Ogg Vorbis files (DI employs one of Vorbis' founders).
  
• Can sync w/ Linux.
  
• "Backpack" system lets you remove the hard drive when you want to go solid state. Also allows for upgrades (like the upcoming USB 2 backpack).
  
• Open source cross-platform song manager (NeurosDBM)
  
• Built-in FM tuner.
  
• "MiSi" feature, which allows you to record a clip from FM, and have it identified when you sync.
  
• Low-power FM transmitter, which can be picked up by a car stereo, boom-box, etc.
  
• Embraces the open source community.
  
• Stands behind a social contract
  

• Plays Ogg Vorbis files (DI employs one of Vorbis' founders).
  
• Can sync w/ Linux.
  
• "Backpack" system lets you remove the hard drive when you want to go solid state. Also allows for upgrades (like the upcoming USB 2 backpack).
  
• Open source cross-platform song manager (NeurosDBM)
  
• Built-in FM tuner.
  
• "MiSi" feature, which allows you to record a clip from FM, and have it identified when you sync.
  
• Low-power FM transmitter, which can be picked up by a car stereo, boom-box, etc.
  
• Embraces the open source community.
  
• Stands behind a social contract
  

The Neuros with firmware 1.40 (I'm using 1.40A, which is 1.40 with the fully optimized Vorbis decoder which rocks because now I can listen to my 160kbps ABR Vorbis files without clicks over MyFi [in 1.40, they skipped to the point of being unlistenable over MyFi, but only skipped in really complicated sections of songs through the headphone out]...but I'm getting a bit off topic now). Anyway, support for recording to wav files was added in firmware 1.40, with the option of recording 8kHz/8-bit, or 44.1kHz/16-bit or 48kHz/16-bit. 48kHz/16-bit is DAT quality, and the Neuros has a line-in jack so you should be able to hook up most external mics to it (at least with a preamp because it doesn't have a +20dB signal boost; of course I assume that bootleggers don't use crappy unpowered mics that have a maximum signal level of -20 dB instead of 0 dB).

The only problem with recording is that the unit's built in mic picks up a low pitched "hum," which I assume is electrical noise and the noise of the hard drive spinning when it needs to dump the recorded data from where it caches it (I'm not sure if it just caches in RAM or if it writes to the built in flash and then copies over the hd; I think it writes to flash because the hd only spun up once every ten minutes or so when I was recording for about an hour in 44.1kHz/16-bit mode).

The recording stuff has a nice level stereo level meter but no editing tools (yet), so it isn't quite as nice to use as many recorders, but Digital Innovations seems to be responsive to user requests for features (Ogg Vorbis support, scheduled radio recording, equalization, etc.) so maybe there will be a few simple editing tools added eventually (I'm thinking stuff like being able to hit one of the present buttons to make a mark and then hitting the menu button to do something like delete everything between markers or normalize it, etc.). Still, it works great for just recording stuff and then copying it to a computer for editing.

Without RTFA I can say, why not the Neuros? Albeit a bit bigger you can swap in the hard drive module and voila. You also get the ability to transmit FM and song identification, not to mention support for Ogg and Linux via positron.

The next 20 GB backpack has USB2.0, and it's a free upgrade for people who purchase a 20GB model on or before August 31, 2003.

The problem with the Karma here is it doesn't appear to have a radio tuner, unlike the Neuros. The Neuros also:

• Broadcasts on a locally unused FM frequency so you can transmit it to a nearby radio.
• Record and encode MP3s from any source (internal radio tuner or line-in). [I have been told that recording to OGG is a possible future firmware update.]
• The syncing software is being ported to linux.
• If they come out with a higher capacity, you just get a new storage "backpack". No need to buy an entirely new unit.

The main thing the Neuros doesn't have that I would like is a line-out, but oh well. It does nearly everything else I'd want.

We all know about the Neuros Player (right? right?!) but it's nice to see Rio join to help us crush those dirty abberations known as mp3 files. *spit* OGG SHALL PREVAIL!!!

Even though Digital Innovations got my money for being the first out of the gate with Neuros support for Ogg Vorbis, competition is always a good thing, and having more players that support Vorbis means lower prices and less potential for lock-in or obsolescence.

Ogg Vorbis destroys MP3 in terms of quality, and is competitive with all of the newer proprietary codecs (e.g., AAC, MP3Pro, WMA) at high bitrates while providing much better performance than those at low bitrates (e.g., sub-64kbps).

Don't let the intelligentsia decide whether Vorbis is the right codec for you or not: the free market will decide this question, and as a result of this development, that market just got more interesting.

Take a look at the Neuros. It's a bit bigger than the ipod, but it's backpack based. I have a 128M flash backpack I can use while exercising, while using the 20G backpack while in the car. It plays Vorbis and MP3 files quite nicely and will also broadcast over FM to a variety of channels (YMMV outside the US).

Linux friendly (there are 3 apps to sync over Linux) as well. Much of the Linux and Vorbis work are being done by Xiph.

Yep. Tired of seeing inferior technology coming up as "news".

I wonder why this is mentioned on Slashdot. You can get cheaper players elsewhere. And if you're willing to pay more, go right ahead and get yourself a real player, which supports good codecs.

Yes, it is illegal, and not just in the UK - this is quite common in Europe, I believe. If you look at the Neuros forum pages, you'll see that they're intending to disable broadcast capability. They may well do this in firmware.

Yeah, I have one and it works pretty well with the beta Neurosetta Ogg Vorbis firmware.
At first it locked up frequently, but this was determined to be an issue on files encoded with the pre-1.0 oggenc. I had to re-encode a few CDs, but I did also gain about 50 MB by doing so.

BTW, according to the New Features Schedule the integrated firmware is due by the end of July.

What? Off-freaking-topic? This should be at least +4! It's completely ON-TOPIC. What are the mods smoking?

Either, they don't know what you're talking about, didn't bother to click the link, or think, omg, everyone knows about THAT. Well, in any case, let me try to help you out man: Neuros Ogg Vorbis Firmware Released

The Vorbis team is working with the makers of Neuros to update the player's firmware to decode Ogg Vorbis files.

It's nearly complete.

One already exists

Reviews I have read says it only accurately identifies tracks which you'd probably know anyway (Emenem etc, basically high chart stuff), but that it has the potential to grow and become an effective service...

The upgrade offer is good until July 31.

You didn't have to do that. The Neuros will play over your FM radio. :-)

http://open.neurosaudio.com/

Emmett

http://open.neurosaudio.com

This topic, and device, was last discussed on Slashdot May 12th (found via slashdot search for "radio your way".)

Two links I found useful were a a competing piece of hardware, Neuros, and a much cheaper substitute if the radio program is streamed on the internet, Replay Radio. Plus an even earlier Slashdot thread.

In fairness, this is not a dupe, as the May 12th thread was about 'future' products and this is a product review.

--LP

your argument is:

My argument is that Vorbis support is cheap and pretty easy to add. Someone will add it. Eventually everyone will add it.

It's easiest on real computers. And guess what -- it's already there: WinAmp, iTunes, and XMMS can all play Vorbis-encoded files.

It's harder on portable devices, but it will happen there too. My understanding (correct me if I'm wrong, folks) is that any device with enough computer horsepower to decode Windows Media audio has enough horsepower to decode Vorbis. There are already portable devices that can play WMA. And the first portable to play Ogg, the Neuros, is on its way.

steveha

I had no idea that this was going on up Slashdot today at all. Matter of fact, it kinda hosed my afternoon because I didn't expect it, and I didn't know about it.

So, no, I didn't submit this story. Usually when I submit stuff that I think is particularly relevant, I take it to timothy directly, and Michael Sims posted this one.

Emmett Plant
Community Outreach
Neuros Audio

RTF Produce Spec

Clearly states USB 1.1.

USB 2.0 support is coming, but not here now.

Also, drop me your mailing address, too; I might be able to send you extra goodies. Don't worry, I'll make sure your E-mail address and mailing address are kept private. Thanks!

Emmett Plant
Community Outreach
Neuros Audio

The best part about the Neuros is that it based on an open architecture. Basiclly gives you the option of making it into whatever you want.

My good friend has one, and he loves it. It is a really nice portable mp3 player. He was able to develop a program so that it automaticly sends his voice mail (in mp3 format) to his Neuros. The only thing that I didn't like about it is that it is bigger than most mp3 players. Especially when you add on the 20 gig backpack to it. Awsome features! Fm transmitter, ogg mp3 wma support, and good battery life.

There's a lot of really interesting and cool things coming soon (especially for those hip to Linux and Open Source) in terms of what we're working on. We're absolutely committed to Open Source, and there's going to be a lot of news coming from us soon in this vein.

It's why I was hired, by the way. :)

Emmett Plant
Community Outreach
Neuros Audio

We're working very hard on making the device available for sale worldwide. One of the options (MyFi, the FM broadcast part) means that the Neuros will have to pass through a few regulatory bodies before this can happen. That being said, though, we're hauling ass to make it available anywhere we can.

More importantly, we're trying to find ways to sell in other countries that don't necessitate us driving up the price in places that aren't the US. Other manufacturers (that shall remain nameless) do this, and we're not really interested in soaking foreign users.

I know it sucks, but we're working on it. Please bear with us, hopefully we'll be able to sell to you soon.

Emmett Plant
Community Outreach
NeurosAudio

Cool, eh?

Emmett Plant
Community Outreach
NeurosAudio

Well, it's the weekend, but come Tuesday when everyone is back at their desks, this work will continue. :)

Emmett Plant
Community Outreach
NeurosAudio

Neuros Audio has a player that will record. 128 MB and 20 GB models are available. I own one, and it is quite a nice player. Recording in a meeting environment does well, too.

I am seriously considering this one, because of its amazing features though its bigger than the iPod. It has some really cool features like FM radio, recording from radio or any audio source, FM transmitter, recording voice notes, bidirectional "plug'n'sychronize" (to synch your device playlists with your PC and vise versa). The site also says you can record an excerpt of a song (on the radio say..) and identify it later using their PC software. Another really cool thing is the detachable drive, in case you feel you have filled up your drive you can migrate to a bigger one easily or maybe have 2 drives. It also supports playlist editing on the device itself.

Some problems: Supports USB 1.1 (though they say the USB2.0 version is coming in a couple of months), supports only mp3 (but again they say supporting more formats is just a firmware upgrade away). Also support for Linux and OGG is in the pipeline. The best part is however support for developers, who can put in their own customizations.

No, but this will as soon as it's released. Previous /. story here