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Portable Mini-CD MP3 Player / Burner
An Anonymous Coward writes: "Here is a neat new toy. It is an MP3/CD portable that not only plays music files, it burns them. Called the RipGO, it was just released by Imation and runs about $400. The article includes a photo of the player."
Will be bitching because they can get a portable, more functional CDRW for a few hundred bucks cheaper.
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Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
I haven't seen any mini CD-R media laying around but I would imagine that it costs more than regular sized CD-R media. At this point, you'd be better off buying a portable CD burner and getting a separate MP3 player. Neat concept though.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
No doubt the morons at the RIAA will complain that this device violates the DMCA, but in reality it will encourage people to buy CDs, because they will listen to the music in very low quality MP3 format, and later on they will buy the genuine CD, to get the extra sound quality.
I just hope these guys stay under the RIAA's radar.
But 185mb doesn't sound like it's enough to really hold that much. Also a CD-RW version would be a little nicer. They're probably saving that for v2.
As far as I can tell, this device sells for $400 (same price as the iPod) and holds 185 MB per cd versus the iPod's 5 GB. I am not saying that the iPod is worth it's price but it can also be used as a portable FW hard drive. I think that this device is much less useful than an iPod. I personally use a 16x FW CD burner and my Rio Volt and am fine with that, this device like the iPod is a little overpriced.
Although it's still too expensive as well. My portable MP3 player right now consists of a 10 year old walkman with a tape deck.
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
Posts slamming Apple for releasing a $399US 5GB Firewire hard drive-based MP3 player that weighs 6 ounces...
Posts lauding a mini-CD-burning 160MB player that does... Oh, wait, that's all it does. For $400US...
I'll gladly take an iPod, thanks... And thanks to the Firewire Disk mode, I can write it off as capital equipment that I can use while consulting... Tax writeoff = free... Wait, I guess I could do that with this teeny CD burner, too... Or is it MP3 only?
It is pitch dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
And their's is only $250.
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
and grind down regular cdr discs into mini cdr discs
How long will the writer last if it is constantly being dropped, banged against your thigh when you walk/jog, or piled under a stack of books on a desk or a schoolbag? I mean, the mechanism to write cd's must be fairly delicate....
- If This Peace Is Fictious, I Shall Destroy It
seeing the issues all the current portable mp3 tech seems to have (some combination of: not enough space, not fast enough to reload, 2-sec gap between songs, bitrate restrictions, etc), i would certainly recommend waiting for a few reviews to come out.
i hate thinking, "this would have been so cool had they taken another four days to design it!"
Cretin - a powerful and flexible CD reencoder
the unit works on both Macintosh and Windows (except 95 and NT)
So, it only works on XP and WFW 3.11?
Do you guys think USB is too slow for stuff like this? I know USB 2.0 is quicker but I assume this is using USB 1.0.
It seems like devices like this would benefit a ton from firewire. USB 1.0 works great for mice and printers and other low bandwidth devices but in my experiences, it seems too slow for transferring large amounts of data.
That being said, I have noticed that my Sony PIII 650 MHz laptop running WinME is quicker than my Athlon at 550 MHz running Win2k, so maybe chipset or OS has more to do with it than anything.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
First thing, its a CDR drive. In my experience, CDR drives are fragile and flaky and prone to sudden death even while standing still (I'm on my 8th in 5 years). MP3 players are also fragile and flaky and prone to sudden death (scratch two PMP300s and two NJBs - my RioVolt shows up next week along with the replacement HD for my NJB).
:)
Second thing, related to the first. Who makes it? Assuming IMation has OEM'd the thing out, who did the fab? I would suspect the thing is far from durable.
Third thing, I have seen mini CDR media but no mini CDRW. Who wants to backup their stuff onto a 180MB mini CDR? I mean once in a while its cool, but if you can't use your CDR to back up CDs, whats the point? The mini media is nice, but a mini burner that wont take fullsize media at all is useless IMHO.
Fourth thing, its $400. That's enough for an NJB($220), a RioVolt 90 ($89, for when the NJB breaks) and an internal CDR for your computer ($89).
Based on point four - what advantage does this thing really have over the NJB+Riovolt+CDR-in-your-computer? And if you don't have room in your computer for a CDR, and you're gonna buy this contraption, could you not just buy a USB CDRW and a Riovolt for less? Of course you could. And that way you're not banging your CDR drive around.
Seems like a silly idea to me. Now if only it had restrictive rights management!
-- "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge." (Charles Darwin)
What is the advantage of this over 10-year-old minidisc technology?
The difference is mini-cds can be played in a regular CD player too. Ever noticed the indention in the middle of a CD player's tray? That's for a mini-CD. Minidisc is proprietary and requires you use a Sony licensed player.
Electronic Frontier Foundation for online civil rights information
It's already in stock at CompUSA. It was in their ad this weekend.
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
You might as well go the MiniDisc route. Cheaper/Available media, etc. Yeah yeah yeah, I know its a closed format and such, but the damn thing works, and it works well. They're (finally) making a bit of a dent here thanks to some Mp3->ATRAC software.
I love the MD!
It doesn't (yet) work with Linux, BSD, QNX, or Amiga, it seems...
I bet this is not "First Post."
I just picked up this <A HREF='http://www.archos.com/us/products/product_50 0201.html'>puppy</A> that has 6 Gigs of storage and can rip directly from any audio source. And it's $350. Seems to me to be the best of the IPod and this thing, for 50 bucks less. You can take that cash and buy 2 Rocco DVD's
Minidisc is proprietary and requires you use a Sony licensed player. :)
It's not as if Sony is forcing you to use a Sony Player/Recorder.. far from it... there Panasonic/JVC/Awia/Sharp minidisc players/recorders.. if Sony was really evil, they'd start saying that you couldn't play minidiscs correctly because you don't have Sony MiniDisc Explorer 6.. err..
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Insert Witty Sig Here
...if you'd just read the article.
/.
It's USB. Win95 or WinNT can't deal with USB in any reasonable fashion. Win2K supports USB just fine.
Y'know, WinME was based on Win98 was based on Win95, so, by process of elimination, it looks like it'll only work on Macs.
PhilMills
-Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, will be taken out of context and posted on
Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, will be quoted out of context on
I imagine that they disqualify 98 and NT because neither of those have USB support. Any Windows released after '98 should have the requisite USB support (that includes Windows 98 and Win2K).
Of course USB is dog slow for this kind of product. For the same amount of scratch you can get an iPod with a five gig capacity and FireWire connectivity. Just my $0.02.
This
What about minidisks??? They're smaller, you can burn on the go, and re-burn whenever you want. You don't have to worry about gettin the disk scratched or anything either. The capacity of an MD is pretty much the same too. So why is everybody getting all hyped up about this when MD's do it better?
Oh goody. Another over-priced MP3 player with too many bells and whistles. And a price that's way higher than it should be.
All I want is a decent MP3 player. I want one that supports some sort of smart media card, supports at least 128MB, and has USB. And most importantly, doesn't cost $400! Is that too much to ask? The Diamond Rio 500 came closest to that, but of course it's not made anymore (and cost too much anyway). Instead, SonicBlue produces the vastly inferior Rio 600 or the way over-priced 800. If I can buy a camcorder for $300, a freaking MP3 player oughta be under $100.
I don't need a built-in CD player (that's why I have MP3's fer crissakes!) I don't need a built-in hard drive. I don't need a goddamn built-in toaster oven. I just want a little MP3 player that holds more than 5 songs that I can stick in my pocket when I go for a walk. I certainly don't need to put my entire MP3 collection on it all at once.
Let's see a cheap MP3 player that does one thing exceptionally well, instead of an overpriced MP3 player that does half a dozen things poorly.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
As far as I can tell, the format is still Sony's to control. They're just letting others use it. Technically, they could do the whole proprietary thing (as you joked), but it's really not in their best interests. One really can learn a lesson from Microsoft in how NOT to do business in the longterm :)
Electronic Frontier Foundation for online civil rights information
The difference is mini-cds can be played in a regular CD player too
My car has a slot-load CD player. Guess that's not "regular"....
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I know, minidisc does it already, but minidisc players don't have digital output for PC post-production work and actually doesn't sound as good as plain old WAV files.
If this had a mic input, you could burn directly to MP3 and have 6 hours of digital recording - 6 times that of a minidisc.
If the iPod had a mic input, you could burn 10 hours of uncompressed audio or 100 hours of MP3s. Portable 2 track recording studio!
Who buys a $400 walkman? They're too small and fragile and easily stolen, not to mention outdated fairly quickly by the next "big thing."
Besides, I'd rather have a burner where I can use it most efficiently - at home, attached to my RAID, where my 4,000+ MP3s are!
What if it's a 16x burner...
I guess if they make it burn slow enough for USB to keep up. I don't think USB 1.0 can keep up with 16x burn speeds can it?
Call me impatient, but when I burn CDs I don't want to wait. 4x doesn't cut it. Granted, when I'm burning I'm usually not making audio cds that might be worth listening but instead I'm backing up data from a webserver. Maybe I'd be more patient if it were something fun like audio cds.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Check out MyDivaPlayer.com. They have a 128MB player that also supports CompactFlash for $135 shipped after discount. It is extremely small -- about 3"; fits in the palm of your hand. I haven't had any experience with it, but the few reviews I could find are raves. I plan to buy one for Christmas. The coolness factor of having a mini "Zip drive"/MP3 player/voice recorder for $135 is really what attracted me to this one. --Erica
The problem with iPod is that you need to buy an Apple PC to go with it. The bottom line is that Apple and Imation have subsidized their product for the sake of other interests! In the case of Imation, they are supporting an open standard so I will take their product over Apple's (technologically superior) product any day.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
The problem with iPod is that you need to buy an Apple PC to go with it.
True, and no doubt Apple knows this is a downer. This and the price makes it obvious they're currently selling the iPod as a Mac peripheral, rather than a general-purpose MP3 player.
However, I expect Apple will: (1) bring down the price on the device after a few months, (2) develop and/or partner for non-Apple compatability for the device. If people like it, no doubt third-party attachments for non-FireWire computers will become available. The FireWire is one of the best features about the iPod, though, so I don't expect that to ever go away.
Just my thoughts. Sony sells all their portables with Memory Stick compatability; Apple sells for Mac compatability; Microsoft sells for Windows compatability. It's normal for the industry to at least *start* with closed compatability and open it as time goes on. Smaller companies benefit from open technologies, like MP3 CDs, because they don't have to develop as much.
But as has been said, Apple is profitable *because* they target a niche audience, and the only reason to complain that they're focusing on that niche is if you aren't yet part of it. So I'd expect the iPod price drop and wider compatability to arrive at about the same time. Best thing you ("you" meaning "all Slashdot's readers") can do to hasten that process: WRITE APPLE AND TELL THEM YOU WANT LINUX COMPATABILITY. It's got to be easier than Microsoft compatability, right?
I meant "Any Windows released after '95..."
I knew that "preview" button was there for a reason!
This
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
yes mp3 is a standard. so is minidisc.
The similarity is that both are proprietary standards.
See:
http://www.mp3licensing.com/help/developer.html
I want to support mp3/mp3PRO in my products. Do I need a license? YES
I have my own/third party mp3 software. Do I need a license? YES
Do I need a license to stream mp3/mp3PRO encoded content over the Internet? YES
Do I need a license to distribute mp3/mp3PRO encoded content? YES
Time to read up on http://www.vorbis.org/ and support them instead.
--jeff
ipv6 is my vpn
The small discs also won't work in those old caddy-loading CD drives, although there is an adapter that comes with the Sony CDr cameras that may cope with slot-loading and caddy-loading drivers...