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Bummer, I don't think my Sansa c240 can take SDHC. Of course, it only cost $19 at microcenter, so I don't really expect much from it. And it runs Rockbox, which totally rocks. I've never actually used the Sansa-provided firmware, as I bought it with the intent of putting Rockbox on it. And the 2GB micro SD card was only $6.99, so for my $26 investment I have a nice little player.

"Unfortunately I can't really play any of those formats save for on my computer"

Wrong

FLAC fine. But have you anything to play Theora video that isn't a PC?

Oh, and don't forget to rockbox your iPod.

From the page you linked: "not the Shuffle, 2nd/3rd/4th gen Nano, Classic or Touch". That's why kelnos says Rockbox doesn't count.

"Unfortunately I can't really play any of those formats save for on my computer"

Wrong

Oh, and don't forget to rockbox your iPod.

That would be rock box. http://www.rockbox.org/. Only works for old i pods though.

Why do geeks buy XBoxes and try to turn them into Linux PC's or media devices? Why do people jailbreak smart phones? It's because geeks are geeks, and the challenge is fun. As George Mallory would say, it's because they're THERE.

Secondly, even on a more practical note, the iPod is just a nice piece of hardware. I've dropped mine a thousand times and abused it repeatedly (err, non-sexually!)... and you just can't break the thing. I simply haven't found that kind of quality in competing devices, and I am certainly NOT an Apple fanboy by any stretch.

I put the RockBox operating system on my iPod (which still leaves you the ability to dual-boot into Apple's OS if you need to)... and now my iPod functions as a typical mass-storage player. I don't need iTunes, can just copy music files on and off like a USB stick, and have support for any format I'd want (e.g. OGG, Flac, etc). Combine that with the sheer quality of the hardware (my iPod has lasted three times longer than any previous player I've had), and I'm a happy geek. If other people want to port other OS's to the device, then that's awesome and more power to them.

Uuuhhh...if that is all you are worried about simply get any of the models of Cown that support Rockbox. The problem with iTunes is not only the proprietary nature of the thing(as I use Windows I can't really bitch about that) it is the fact that iTunes is a MAC app. Which is just fine if you have a Mac, and from using friends Macs I can see why they like it as it "just works". Not so much in Windows though. I don't know how many weird bugs and app crashes I've had dealing with my customers iTunes. It has gotten to the point that if I am writing out a support ticket and a customer tries to bring up iTunes problems I just hold up my hand and say "I can give you Songbird, WMP11, or Mediamonkey but I do NOT deal with iTunes. You have a problem with iTunes talk to Apple." and most after trying Songbird are quite happy with the switch.

That is why we need to point out when talking about iTunes or Safari that we are talking about the Windows or OSX version, since they really are two different beasts. Saying that iTunes works for you on your Mac is like saying the iPod works really great in your Ferrari. Since most of us don't actually HAVE a Ferrari that doesn't really help us now, does it?

rockbox ftw.

I would buy it, open it, immediatly rip it to FLAC, convert those files to MP3 V0, and drop it on my MP3 player. From that point forward, if I am at my computer, I am listening to FLAC, and if I am away, I am listening on my MP3 player.

Shameless plug: I wrote FlacSquisher for just that purpose. I do the same thing, but with Oggs on my Rockbox'd Sansa.

*They also encrypt firmware on all new ipods, specifically to prevent people from installing alternate firmware such as Rockbox.

Seriously, encrypting firmware? How evil is that? How can apple apologists even try to justify that?

You can play Doom on pretty much any mp3 player?

That must be one of those hidden features I never quite found.

I am surprised, with Apple constantly spouting "The first music player that talks to you", that no one has yet mentioned Rockbox's voice capabilities.

It has existed for some time, and even supports it on some very cheap hardware, by calculating and storing the speech synth on a PC while the player is plugged in.

So, Apple has, in fact, been fighting to keep speech synth off the iPod for years.

http://www.rockbox.org/
Our code is open source.
We beat Apple's runtime on the 1st and 2nd gen. Period.
We don't use any "hardware decoder" on the iPods. Period.

In fact, we beat 170mW power consumption on playback on every single CPU decoding device. That's 42.5 ma @ 4v LiIon. We beat that on every single device.

Code is there, battery discharge curves are there. Battery capacity numbers are there.

Either you keep making up shit or you read the facts presented to you a day ago.

Ok, sick and tired of those who don't understand what is in a DAP:

iPods:
http://ipodlinux.org/wiki/Generations
Note they are all ARM processors with no hardware decoder.
Older ones are PortalPlayer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PortalPlayer
Newer ones are Apple labeled ARM chips
Also note on the wikipedia page how many DAPs use these chipsets.
Again, not hardware decoders.

Latest Sansas:
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/SansaE200v2
http://www.anythingbutipod.com/archives/2008/03/sandisk-sansa-fuze-disassembly.php
Note AMS SoC
http://www.austriamicrosystems.com/eng/content/download/7921/128739/version/1/file/AS3525_PB_1v0.pdf

Older Sansas:
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/SandiskE200HardwareComponents
Note PortalPlayer Soc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PortalPlayer

Note when you see the word "codec" when referring to a chip it is the D/A converter, not a MP3 decoding chip:
http://www.semiconductors.philips.com/acrobat/datasheets/UDA1380_4.pdf
http://www.wolfsonmicro.com/products/WM8987/

Philips:
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/GoGearHDD6330

Cowon:
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/CowonD2Info

Creative:
http://www.anythingbutipod.com/archives/2008/07/creative-zen-xfi-disassembled.php
look up the chip numbers - general purpose CPU, no hardware decoder.

Do you want me to link more?

Ok, sick and tired of those who don't understand what is in a DAP:

iPods:
http://ipodlinux.org/wiki/Generations
Note they are all ARM processors with no hardware decoder.
Older ones are PortalPlayer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PortalPlayer
Newer ones are Apple labeled ARM chips
Also note on the wikipedia page how many DAPs use these chipsets.
Again, not hardware decoders.

Latest Sansas:
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/SansaE200v2
http://www.anythingbutipod.com/archives/2008/03/sandisk-sansa-fuze-disassembly.php
Note AMS SoC
http://www.austriamicrosystems.com/eng/content/download/7921/128739/version/1/file/AS3525_PB_1v0.pdf

Older Sansas:
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/SandiskE200HardwareComponents
Note PortalPlayer Soc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PortalPlayer

Note when you see the word "codec" when referring to a chip it is the D/A converter, not a MP3 decoding chip:
http://www.semiconductors.philips.com/acrobat/datasheets/UDA1380_4.pdf
http://www.wolfsonmicro.com/products/WM8987/

Philips:
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/GoGearHDD6330

Cowon:
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/CowonD2Info

Creative:
http://www.anythingbutipod.com/archives/2008/07/creative-zen-xfi-disassembled.php
look up the chip numbers - general purpose CPU, no hardware decoder.

Do you want me to link more?

Ok, sick and tired of those who don't understand what is in a DAP:

iPods:
http://ipodlinux.org/wiki/Generations
Note they are all ARM processors with no hardware decoder.
Older ones are PortalPlayer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PortalPlayer
Newer ones are Apple labeled ARM chips
Also note on the wikipedia page how many DAPs use these chipsets.
Again, not hardware decoders.

Latest Sansas:
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/SansaE200v2
http://www.anythingbutipod.com/archives/2008/03/sandisk-sansa-fuze-disassembly.php
Note AMS SoC
http://www.austriamicrosystems.com/eng/content/download/7921/128739/version/1/file/AS3525_PB_1v0.pdf

Older Sansas:
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/SandiskE200HardwareComponents
Note PortalPlayer Soc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PortalPlayer

Note when you see the word "codec" when referring to a chip it is the D/A converter, not a MP3 decoding chip:
http://www.semiconductors.philips.com/acrobat/datasheets/UDA1380_4.pdf
http://www.wolfsonmicro.com/products/WM8987/

Philips:
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/GoGearHDD6330

Cowon:
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/CowonD2Info

Creative:
http://www.anythingbutipod.com/archives/2008/07/creative-zen-xfi-disassembled.php
look up the chip numbers - general purpose CPU, no hardware decoder.

Do you want me to link more?

Ok, sick and tired of those who don't understand what is in a DAP:

iPods:
http://ipodlinux.org/wiki/Generations
Note they are all ARM processors with no hardware decoder.
Older ones are PortalPlayer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PortalPlayer
Newer ones are Apple labeled ARM chips
Also note on the wikipedia page how many DAPs use these chipsets.
Again, not hardware decoders.

Latest Sansas:
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/SansaE200v2
http://www.anythingbutipod.com/archives/2008/03/sandisk-sansa-fuze-disassembly.php
Note AMS SoC
http://www.austriamicrosystems.com/eng/content/download/7921/128739/version/1/file/AS3525_PB_1v0.pdf

Older Sansas:
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/SandiskE200HardwareComponents
Note PortalPlayer Soc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PortalPlayer

Note when you see the word "codec" when referring to a chip it is the D/A converter, not a MP3 decoding chip:
http://www.semiconductors.philips.com/acrobat/datasheets/UDA1380_4.pdf
http://www.wolfsonmicro.com/products/WM8987/

Philips:
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/GoGearHDD6330

Cowon:
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/CowonD2Info

Creative:
http://www.anythingbutipod.com/archives/2008/07/creative-zen-xfi-disassembled.php
look up the chip numbers - general purpose CPU, no hardware decoder.

Do you want me to link more?

Ogg might be "better" than MP3 in terms of sound quality

First: <pedantic>Ogg is the container format, like QuickTime or AVI. Vorbis is the audio codec being compared to MP3. You could, if you wanted to, put MP3 bits into an Ogg container; I guess this would be "Ogg MP3". </pedantic>.

Vorbis gives you better quality per bit than MP3. That means you can have higher quality in the same number of bits, or similar quality in fewer bits. Given that most of us aren't using modems anymore, perhaps this is only a weak selling point for Vorbis. It's still nice for small portable music players, though.

but ultimately it consumes significantly more CPU time.

As I understand it, the overhead for Vorbis isn't really that bad. The chief sticking point is that the little portable players use DSP chips, and the DSP chip vendors have excellent support for MP3 and no support for Vorbis. This means that when a project like Rockbox adds Vorbis support to a portable player, often they use the main CPU instead of the DSP chip, and that means a drastically worse power drain.

A sticking point from the past was that Vorbis was written to use floating-point math in the decoder. The Vorbis folks made an integer-math-only decoder called Tremor, which answers that point.

For a desktop computer, you would never notice the difference between a good Vorbis decoder and a good MP3 decoder.

I think the main reason for the lack of Vorbis takeup is inertia. Everyone has MP3s, so the players all support MP3s. Since the players support MP3s, only geeks like me bother with Vorbis, so the player companies don't feel motivated to support anything but MP3. I used to hope for Vorbis support everywhere, but now MP3 is just a few years away from its patents expiring, so it's going to be MP3 for the near to middle term.

I own a couple of Sansa players that can play Ogg Vorbis. They have excellent battery life, despite being tiny little things. They stand as examples that there is no inherent technical reason why Vorbis cannot work on small portable players. By the way, if you are a geek, you should consider one of these before you buy an iPod Shuffle; more features for less money, and it works as a USB storage device so it works perfectly well on Linux.

http://www.sansa.com/players/sansa_clip/tech

steveha

It would be awesome if the open source Rockbox media player firmware was ported to the Zune and could use the "squirt" hardware, but without that nasty DRM.

I wish I could remember the name of this device, but it was essentially a MP3 player with no screen; just directional buttons and voice-based navigation. It was manufactured for blind users, and it worked wonderfully. It could even read text files and accept CF cards for expansion!

I have never heard of any MP3 player that works from voice commands, so I would like to hear more about that! Or do you mean synthesized speech based navigation? If so, you may have been thinking of RockBox. Which is FOSS that runs on a variety of hardware.

I think that a cell phone with just buttons on it and braille lettering would suffice, provided that the voice navigation is really good. An added advantage is that having no screen can make for very thin and attractive devices, if aesthetics is something of a priority for them.

I think this could also be a good opportunity to market to tech-phobic grandma types that want a cell phone that is only a phone. ("Why does a phone need a screen anyway?") The only cell phone I have encountered without a screen (Owasys 22C) was not as thin as I thought it could/should be. This was a couple of years ago though. Aesthetics can be more than visual. I know a couple of blind folks that were sold on Macs because they took the time to hold a Mini in their hands.

I play Ogg Vorbis on my Samsung all the time thanks to RockBox. Why let the crappy software your music player comes with determine what you can or cannot do?

And as for complaining about not having Ogg: if you cannot convert from FLAC to Ogg, you should go straight to Nerd Jail, do not pass GOTO, do not collect 200 zorkmids.

If you don't mind a small "REFURB" engraved in the case, consider something like a refurbished Sandisk Sansa C2xx or E2xx, likely among the cheapest Rockbox compatible players out there. Regardless of what an mp3 player is designed for, if it can run Rockbox (and is not an Archos) it will play Ogg Vorbis and mp3 files, as well as a number of other file formats. Woot features players like this often enough that it has become a sort of running joke; if you're patient you might get a good deal there. I got my refurbished 2GB Sansa C250 at Woot for $15 + $5 shipping, then added a 2GB MicroSD card I had picked up elsewhere for around $5.

Rockbox, on any supported player, allows far more customization than the built-in software. You can even write your own programs (plugins) to run on it, or modify the Rockbox software itself, if you're so inclined. Rockbox is open source.

Obama is an iPod user and someone lent him a Zune. Shame, that was not was not spotted before Slashdot was used as another Wintel advertisement vehicle for the very failed Zune players. Knowing M$, they had W.E. slip him one so they could splash the story around for Christmas. Sorry, Steve, it won't work.

People looking for a music player should buy a used iPod and install Rockbox. You keep good quality hardware out of a landfill and get software freedom for a better price than a Zune that way.

Rockbox doesn't support the latest ipods. I thought I read that the iphone and the 6th gen ipods where very similar underneath the hood (and very different from previous generation ipods). Can someone who knows more say if this development will help rockbox port to the 6th gen ipod?

Keeping the files on the MP3 player in a database is fine for that, but the iPod could operate as a regular mass storage device and build the database on the iPod rather than using iTunes (I believe that's what Rockbox does). Or is there something special that iTunes does?

Buy a used iPod (not refurbished and not from Apple), run Rockbox on it, and don't purchase anything else from the iTunes Music Store. Apple doesn't make any money from you on that. That's how I've acquired 3 out of my 4 Apple products (the other was a gift).

If you want to avoid it on principle, I don't know of any competing player that uses the same dock standard, but even so, if you are rejecting on principle, do you want to encourage others to accept Apple's dock connector? As I recall, it is patented and has to be licensed from Apple - you don't want to encourage more people to pay licensing fees to Apple, do you?

3.5mm stereo minijack or stereo RCA all the way. No encryption, no DRM, just analog goodness. Sure you need an additional wire for power, but that's rarely a problem.

That's what http://www.rockbox.org/ is for, provided you don't have a newer iPod with BS firmware encryption.

The people worried about lack of support for FLAC and Ogg Vorbis need only use Rockbox on their iPod.

Everything I can think of that falls in this class of device (PDA-ish or MP3 player with additional features) is locked to a propriety OS, be it OSX, WinCE, Palm, or something else. Very rarely can you change it out, even if it is an Android phone. It's still limited to what it came with.

They are not all as "locked-down" as their manufacturers would have you believe.

Rockbox is a Linux-based alternative firmware which can provide enhanced functions on a variety of media players. It can be installed on several versions of iPod, as well as some media players from Archos, Cowon, iRiver, Olympus, SanDisk, and Toshiba. See http://www.rockbox.org/ or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockbox, for instance.

Hmm... looks like the problems still exist http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/SansaFAQ

Though they're not as bad as I remembered them being. Maybe it's worth giving it a try after all.

No, Rockbox is ported to devices which somebody with the talent and desire chooses to port it to.
The iPods, with their huge user base, is statistically likely to get a port.
You'll notice the newer iPods, with their encrypted original firmware is unlikely to get a port.
The discussion on work towards your device can be found at:
http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?topic=10078.0

It only really supports MPEG2 (the one DVD uses, specifically). You also have to encode it to particular framerats, aspects etc..

See this page for details.

Just beware, the Sansa v2 family is not supported, the vendor went and implemented a whole new board. The new one is some sort of system-on-a-chip that they are working on, but so far is unusable.

See this forum thread. You'll probably agree with me that some of these developers know their stuff.

Note: One of the holdbacks is that the vendor will only give a particular developer documentation, under the condition that he/she can't share it with others. Nice.

Well, a more specific reason why it doesn't work on Nano 2nd Gen and newer...stupid draconian design. I grew up on Apple // hardware had used to have a distinct nostalgic appreciation for the company, even though I haven't used the platform since System 7.

Lately, it's turned into loathing.

Have read the manual...

In that case I suggest posting a question on our own forums (not /.ed yet) explaining which bit of the playlist section in the manual has you confused, and we'll do our best to help you out. http://forums.rockbox.org/

Or, don't install iTunes on your PC/Mac at all, and install Rockbox on your iPod.
Problem solved.

http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/BlindFAQ

> Disclosure: I have a 4gb iPod Nano which I got for free. I'd rather have something else which wasn't bound to the fancies of Lord Steve, but currently cannot afford it.

Then Rockbox it.

EP

Someone handed me a Sansa e270 they couldn't get to do what they wanted.

I looked around, and found http://www.rockbox.org./

From their site:

Rockbox is an open source firmware for mp3 players, written from scratch. It runs on a wide range of players:

        * Apple: 1st through 5.5th generation iPod, iPod Mini and 1st generation iPod Nano
            (not the Shuffle, 2nd/3rd gen Nano, Classic or Touch)
        * Archos: Jukebox 5000, 6000, Studio, Recorder, FM Recorder, Recorder V2 and Ondio
        * Cowon: iAudio X5, X5V, X5L, M5, M5L, M3 and M3L
        * iriver: H100, H300 and H10 series
        * Olympus: M:Robe 100
        * SanDisk: Sansa c200, e200 and e200R series (not the v2 models)
        * Toshiba: Gigabeat X and F series (not the S series)

So, in theory, you can have that wicked cool Apple hardware, and the ability to play oggs, flacs, wavs, all sorts of games, video if you have the horsepower, and anything else you want to compile.

I love it.

I just recently started hacking RockBox, and it's a lot of fun. You can quickly go from having a boring MP3 player to doing something unique. It's portable, so you can show your friends, etc.

You're limited to using C, but that way he's got half a chance of understanding what's going on in the machine, unlike with high level languages.

I'd install it on a player, maybe a spare one that isn't actively in use (though it may be an upgrade to the existing firmware, it's pretty slick). Let him see the demos, modify them, and go from there. You could start with simple things like changing the colours or something in the existing programs.

The iPod is just fine; its OS is a bit of a pain, though. If you don't care about synchronizing with other iTunes or Video, try RockBox. I've been using it for three years on multiple different devices.

The iPod is already gaming capable (well, at least somewhat) if you stick Rockbox on it!

Not just Rios. ROCKBOX works on all sorts of hardware ( I'm using a Sansa E270, myself, but I hear it works on a lot of iPod hardware, too. )

http://www.rockbox.org/

Rockbox is an open source firmware for mp3 players, written from scratch. It runs on a wide range of players:

        * Apple: 1st through 5.5th generation iPod, iPod Mini and 1st generation iPod Nano
            (not the Shuffle, 2nd/3rd gen Nano, Classic or Touch)
        * Archos: Jukebox 5000, 6000, Studio, Recorder, FM Recorder, Recorder V2 and Ondio
        * Cowon: iAudio X5, X5V, X5L, M5, M5L, M3 and M3L
        * iriver: H100, H300 and H10 series
        * Olympus: M:Robe 100
        * SanDisk: Sansa c200, e200 and e200R series (not the v2 models)
        * Toshiba: Gigabeat X and F series (not the S series)

Also, if you do choose to buy an ipod, you don't have to use itunes.
You don't even have to use apple-firmware in your ipod. There's an upgrade-firmware that makes itunes totally obsolete.
It's not available for all ipod-models yet though...

All in all, though, an installer that offers the option of installing irrelevant software (like installers that offer "google toolbar" or "Safari" or "superduper spywareinstaller") should have that option unselected as default.

The Open Source community actually HAS added it, in the form of alternate firmware.

http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/WhyRockbox

Well, you can decode the flac (using any old flac decoder, but the official one works fine) to a .wav file, which you can then convert to whatever you want.

See here: http://flac.sourceforge.net/

Also, if you are OK with putting third-party firmware on your I-Pod, check out http://www.rockbox.org/ - support for over 20 codecs, and is quite nice. I have it on my sansa E200. Flac is supported VERY well.

(rockbox is not for the feint of heart, but it is POWERFUL. You can play doom on your ipod. You can configure crossfeeding, preamp, etc. see http://tinyurl.com/lfsqx

I know you're talking about the iPod Touch, but for regular iPods, RockBox handles just about all of those issues (except the non-removable storage and battery ones, obviously). It ain't always pretty, but it gets the job done.

Actually devices that you can put the alternative Rockbox firmware on them do support OGG. This includes Sansa, Archos, iRiver, Cowon and others.

Hey Jim, you can play ogg vorbis on an Ipod, so fear not. You just need to replace its built-in O/S with Linux first. Rockbox makes this possible, and easy to do. http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/1005957

Myself and many others still prefer the form factor of the iPod, input device (the tiny joystick ones on the iRiver and Cowon units I've used have driven me insane, and the touchscreen units I've found don't offer enough storage for me) as well as the numerous pieces of accessories available.

I agree with you that the default firmware of the iPod is crippled, which is why I chose to replace it with rockbox. It works quite well I find. I can play my flac and ogg files and all kinds of other cool stuff -- frozen bubble, doom, etc.

Eventually I hope to go with a non Apple player, as I'd like to support a company that supports more open standards, but as it stands now I can't find a player with the same storage:physical size ratio and aa usable of an input device. If anyone has any suggestions I'm open, I'm looking at upgrading from 80GB as soon as something I like comes out, or Rockbox supports the new iPod classic.