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Cassette-Shell Sized MP3 Player/Recorder
octa-g writes: "USA Today tech reviews is featuring a nifty little cassette sized MP3 player that records analog audio. 'The Digisette Duo-DX can copy cassette tapes in a dual-well tape deck or boombox. Or you can make recordings by connecting an output cable from a stereo source to the Duo's earphone port and holding down the Duo's play and fast-forward buttons.' The ability to record audio straight to the player, or to record some of my old tapes/LPs to MP3 without a computer or other recording equipment intrigues me." This sounds like a good way to add fast-forward to the old car radio.
The RIAA is likely to say that only terrorists would be likely to get such a device...
This product (or one exactly like it) has been on the market for years now!
How is this "News for Nerds?!"
Is Slashdot now being paid to run stories for products? I hope not, but honestly, I can see no other reason for this story being on Slashdot....
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
Still, the interface is a new thing, particularly being able to control it through standard FF/RW/Play controls on the tape deck.
-T
Can we meet in person? An insight like that should be rewarded with a donkey punch.
Here is the product's actual website.
So .. what makes this casette-sized mp3 player more special than the others that have been around for quite some time?
What's the point of having a digital device and not keeping it digital?
said company: how will we reach our target audience with this product?
/. still have tape decks in our cars. What else is this thing good for? For 200 bucks, I Would much rather have a unit with an LCD and deal with using a car adapter.
money hungry geek: we can post the story on slashdot. that way it will reach everyone we would like it to.
Fact of the matter is, I would like to know how many of us that read
"Honey, can you fast-forward NPR to 7:00 am? I want to see what my commute is going to be like tomorrow..."
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Cool! Now if they can just make an track player in the shape of a CD, I'll be back in business, baby...
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
Isn't strange that every time there's a Bush in the Whitehouse, we're at war with the Arabs and the economy is in the toilet?
Somebody must not like those guys
For atleast a year now! Still clumsy to use and face stiff competition from devices with more ease of use/Storage Space/and offer the same features one way or the other.
(You can always plug an ipod or a competing device using a casette adapter)
Their full review
Anyone have any idea how this little bitty (and pretty cheap) thing does real time MP3 encoding? From the article:
I'm I just out of it, or is that pretty impressive?
-Peter
I jog a few miles a day, and I'm thinking about getting an MP3 player because the radio reception where I'm at stinks (and having nothing to concentrate on but actually running makes a mile seem like an eternity). The iPod seems like a good solution, but I'm hesitant to get one because it uses a hard drive and I'm worried that the jostling will damage it in short order.
The guy at the Mac store in my local mall said that it's not a problem and that people use the iPod for workout tunes all the time, but I'm not sure I believe him.
Experience, anyone?
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Man, I remember seeing this MP3 players at CES like 3 years ago.
Am I in a time warp? I was just searching through Slashdot's search feature, and thought I perhaps I had somehow ended up viewing a page from 1999.
Who wants to listen to those? Who wants to re-record that quality?
Who even HAS those? Mine or melted or were sold at the garage sales.
Give it a look
The Rome that you linked to is seems better in that, you can FF/RW from the tape deck's controls. You also can have an LCD display. Finally, the review complained about the buttons being flush mounted, the Rome offering overcomes this issue.
The only thing missing from the Rome offering is the abillity to record which will be important to some and not to others.
Forget this, it would have been a nice Mp3 player except for the expansion cards are MMC format. Far too expensive. At this price you might as well get a Mp3 CD player. No doubt this Mp3 player recorder is loaded with DRM software. One can only wonder if your allowed to transfer your recorded files?
This thing was on TV back in June...
r y/0,24330,2398475,00.html
http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/products/sto
Link
Great, another 32MB MP3 player. Gee, a guess I gotta go get another one to sit in a drawer, because this new 32MB model will be so much better than the 32MB models from the last couple years, especially since it will play cassette quality audio in a cassette player. That's innovation, and dammit, that's what consumers want.
Now if someone could program the thing to act as a multitrack device, that would kick ass.
portable studio the size of a cassette.
-- too cruel for schuel
How could you? Would you tear open the front of your car stereo? It's enough trouble just to read the clock while I'm driving, let alone some tiny little letters no larger than the thickness of a cassette tape!
--
I romp with joy in the bookish dark
When the original one of those was released me and my friend were wondering if we could make a copy which was powered by the cogs moving the tape.
We needed one of the Amulet chips which were silly low power and no power consumpton between playing samples.
But instead I decided to make one powered by a hamster.
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
When are the MP3 makers going to figure out a removable memory module is better than fixed.
I already have a few 128 and 256mb Compactflash cards for my camera. Thats a hell of alot more music storage that 96megs.
I'm still sold on the NEXII. $80 on ebay w/compactflash slot.
Nice gadget, really. On the other hand, I doubt I'd buy one as I don't have a lot of tapes. And for car radios, there are cheap adaptors around.
where's all that Karma?
What no complaints in the last 30 seconds about my technical spec fauz pas? Lazy ACs.
Patented interface? Wasn't the whole point that this thing acts exactly like a cassette?
--
I romp with joy in the bookish dark
What if it could simultaneously record and playback?! How about TiVo for radio?
A VHS video casette which has a slot to place a mini DVD.
It will play DVDs through your video maachine.
And it would have to be powered using dinamos from the turning of the tape.
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
"Another feature allows the Duo to act as a recording device. Just insert the Duo into a cassette recorder and press the record button and it will convert an analog source into MP3 audio."
Well, given that mp3's are relatively small, and radio broadcast quality is relatively low, then time shifting shouldn't be too difficult to do (especially when you got ram cards that can do 128 megs and be a bit larger than a stamp and much thinner than this cassette). Wow, that would be quite the product. Put it in your car, turn on the radio and the timeshift cassette. Let it go for like 5 min, and just listen without commercials. Or record your daytime radio show. Or record that one song that you just cannot find the name or artist of (since the station i listen to never ever ever announces who sung it or what it was).
Damn, now if you could get a radio that did all this out of the box... that would be worth buying.
Of course, now the RIAA is going to be annoyed by time shifting.
The only place I could see using this is in a car that only has a cassette deck. Even then, you could replace the cassette with an in-dash MP3 cd player for about fifty dollars more. I also really can't see fast-forwarding through 160 megs of Mp3's. Random acess, baby...
I used to work out with my ex all the time and she carried an Ipod with her, for running on the treadmill or working out in the weight room. She's using the first gen Ipod and still works fine. Only adjustment she had to make was finding a way hideaway the player while running. She found a workout top with a small pocket in the back. It keeps the Ipod from moving around, and feels unnoticeable while running. If you're looking for an mp3 player while running, I'd suggest a much smaller mp3 player, possibly flashed based, or internal memory, like the Nike mp3 player. It has an arm strap and hold 96MB of mem. Running for hours, any bit of weight on you will feel like a ton, I'd say, lighter the better.
Cassette type MP3 players have been out for nearly two years now.
Why is this "news"?
P.S. 8-track fromat is dead - I'll submit the article later OK?
----- In Your Cubicle No One Can Hear You Scream...
I would rather spend $189 on a cd player for my car thank you very much. for the value its not that great. The features are lacking and a car deck will do more then that.. and how many people out there still have cassette walkmans!! come on...
Innovations are mostly combining two existing devices and joining them together. This is no different. This just provides a cheap alternative for people who want to have an mp3 player with them without having to spend more money on their car audio.
Another particular innovation I'm looking is Creative lab's Muvo: combination diskonkey and mp3 device. Very clever combination; no proprietary software involved and no learning curve. Plus, you get the features of moveable storage.
...when you can just hook up a tape deck to your computer and record to an actual cassette.
crazy dynamite monkey
Yeah, but those were pretty useless because all they did was play back. This one actually allows you to record, which it then digitizes. Still not that useful, but if you were trying to record a seminar/interview or something and were just going to convert it to MP3 anyway, this'd be the easiest way to go.
They had something very much like this in the early 1970s. It was called cassette tape. You could both record AND play back in an ORDINARY tape deck!
Price? About $2 for a really good one that stored up to 120 min of music.
Is it just me or do i speak for everyone when i say STOP RELEASEING THIS RETARDED FLASH MEMORY BASED MP3 PLAYERS. i do NOT want to hear the same 10 songs over and over. The best you can get in flash right now is 256mb i think, and you will pay out the *ass* for that much flash memory. I think the iPod and the nomad proved that hard disk based mp3 is the way to go, because i won't touch another mp3 player for the rest of my days unless it's at least 5 gigs.
ok i'm done ranting..
- tristan
I have posted links about Rome MP3 player - same as this, 1.5 years ago, but it my story was rejected. Do I have to get my story to big publishing warehouse, before it can show up on ./?
get a fucking life?
if so then there would at least be a link to the company selling these. I wanted to buy one because i always thought about getting something like that but now it was too much trouble to look up the url, no link no biz...
Did she have one of those MP3-Cassette things?
SO now my tapedeck can eat my MP3's too!
The question now is whether the RIAA will lobby for the right to remotely cause your tapedeck to eat your mp3s....
Only for national security, of course!
I use a cassette adapter to listen to mp3s (and the rest of the audio coming from my computer) and the sound is crystal clear. The low quality of sound you are refering to comes from the magnetic tape itself, not the tape player, so this player should be capable of high quality output. And as the previous post stated, it holds 96 MB and is upgradable to 160... Which is pretty decent. Read the article, maybe you would have caught that.
Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
Have you ever used one of those cassette adaptors to play you cd player through a car cassette player? They suck. They work by having a cassette head placed next to the one in your car player and magneticly couple. The frequency response sucks and with some players you get lots of flutter and wow if the thing doesn't seat properly and moves around. If the adaptor isn't lined up just right, the thing sounds worse than an 8 track. I can just imagine how bad it will pickup for recording. An FM radio link would work much better.
well, i applaud their work and understand their practical market-driven motivation. however i do not think the cassette metaphor (linear access) is the best way to navigate data of any kind, including music. one really wants constant time random access.
i think what is really needed is some interface innovation to help people manage thousands of hours of music available from their car stereo in a random access fashion. that's what's holding back car mp3 imho. maybe voice control is the best way, given the attentional demands and safety concerns inherent in driving.
-- p
For all those who like to listen to CDs on the road, but haven't found a good, clean solution - this is what you've been waiting for. My car, like many others in its price range, has a cassette deck but no CD player. I don't feel like springing for an in-dash MP3 player yet. The typical solution is to get a CD/mp3/whatever player with a car kit and 12VDC cigarette-lighter adapter. While this works, it leads to the "messy dash" syndrome mentioned in the article, possibility of breakin and theft, and the clincher: it requires user interaction to operate. My current setup requires me to 1) Start the car, 2) Open the glovebox where my mp3 player is, 3) Push "play", and wait a few seconds for it to "boot up", then finally 4) continue driving. If I want to put the player on "shuffle" or something, it takes even longer. It's a small annoyance, but enough of one that I finally decided to rip it all out and listen to the radio instead.
This device might be exactly what I'm looking for. It hold 96M of audio, which is enough for an hour or so of somewhat-good quality music. There is no intervention, because it starts playing music prompted by the servo in your cassette deck. Theft is unlikely, becuase your cassette deck will very likely keep the whole thing concealed by design. Messy dash? A thing of the past.
Frankly, I'm sold on the idea, and as soon as I have a spare ~$200, I will probably go pick this gizmo up.
This product has been on the market for a long time. Why the press now? Anyhow, I think the design is definitely interesting and intuitive for the semi-literate PC-using public.
:)
I think Sony's Mini Disc with USB is a great idea but I deplore the horrible software that comes with it. It is not intuitive and is extremely aggravating to use.What the Mini Disc has going for it is that the hardware and functions are for the most part tight.
However,the best MP3 Player (DMP) that I have come across is the Frontier Labs Nex II. Awesome product!!
Initially I bought an RCA Lyra. It was to be a present for my boyfriend. I like to woo my geek with geeky hardware.
It came with a lot of goodies. It seemed too good to be true and it was.
It claims to be a MP3 player but you have to use MusicMatch to transfer *cough* convert *cough* music to the player which then stores the song in another format on the player.
After which, you can't move the song back because it isn't in the MP3 format anymore.
I bought an MP3 player to play MP3s, correct?
I ended up returning the product in favor of the Nex II which allows you to move MP3s to it without compromising the format. Nice!!
Before the Nex II, I did consider a Rio since I love my Rio MP3 CD Player but when you drag and drop the files to the Rio they are changed into an SDMI-encrypted format. You can't get the MP3 back either from this device.
Just some information that I wanted to share from my MP3 player experiences.
Note: Perhaps there are ways to get around the obstacles that some of these devices present but is it really worth the aggravation? You be the judge of that.
Truth like surgery, may hurt, but it cures. - Han Suyin, Chinese Physician and Writer
I submitted that a year ago :P
...decides to eat a tape, it'll eat an expensive MP3 player, rather than an inexpensive cassette!
I knew there was a reason that I replaced the cassette player in my car!
-Ed
docbrown.net
Graphic Design, Web Design, Role-Playing Games...all the good stuff
Ed Wedig
Graphic design services
docbrown.net
This has reminded me of a question I wanted to ask here but didn't think warrented a whole "Ask /.". I have a standalone MP3 player that goes into my amp, and I have an intercom system in my house that can be tuned to AM and FM. The stereo isn't close to the the receiver for the speaker system, it's about 30 feet (9 meters) away. I've found FM transmitters for cars that allow you to listen to portable CD or MP3 players (or anything that has a phono jack), but none that have the range I'm looking for. Does anyone know of a model that does this, or are there FCC type problems?
-no broken link
This is a very interesting device, however it will suffer from lack of many features that other players of this type provide. Here is an idea - since this player looks like a cassette, provide an optional cassette case - a box that holds one cassette, but this should be a very special cassette case, it would interface with the mp3 player through some port, and will have an LCD pannel and some better controls on the case.
You can't handle the truth.
I have one. Plusses: It works. It sounds great. It's cool, and it's faster than burning CDs. It also plays WMA, which does sound (to me) better than MP3s. If you don't have a CD player in your car (and my car limits me to a choice of a couple expensive trunk-mounted changers) this is the way to go.
The minuses are that higher-bitrate recordings limit you to about 80 minutes of music, unless you get the expanded memory (the newer ones might come with more memory). Recharging the battery is a little inconvenient. And I wish it played Oggs.
I wrote parts of this stuff
Microsoft® Windows® 98SE, ME, 2000, XP Operating System, or Macintosh OS9.X or OS-X and iTunes 1.X or higher
Pentium (or compatible) 166MHz or higher PC
Also, is $200 a bit high for an MP3 player/recorder that only has room for like an album and a half. Afer all, a 5gig ipod is only $299.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
This actually is a great idea for one reason...being able to digitize all the stuff I have on old casettes. Up til now, the only feasible way was to take a line out of the headphone jack, connect it to the mic in/line in on my soundcard and try to get the levels right in my recording software (this was NOT easy to do). I can take all those bootlegged concert tapes (legal ones, mind you :) and put them in mp3 format. Wow.
This will make it 10 times easier, and for that reason alone it's worth it. Being able to take mp3s in my car is another great feature but with CDRs being so cheap, it's not nearly as important.
--trb
First of all there is the issue of using flash memory based MP3 players. Unless you're willing to buy added flash cards and pay out the nose for them, it's not the way to go. If I only want to listen one CD's worth of music, I'll burn one and whip out my old Discman. 64mb just doesn't cut it anymore and if you get flash in 256 your poor credit cards is getting raped for a boat load of cash.
Better options for MP3 playing is the MP3 CD-R(W) and a portable player. For around $100-150 plus the cost of the CD you can jam 300-600+ minutes on a blank disk depending on media type and the compression you use.
--OR--
There is the option I went with. I picked up a Nomad 20gb Jukebox for $230. It has 20gb of space on it (I have nearly 500 songs at 256k and I still haven't hit 25% of drive usage). It can record to MP3 on the fly by using the line input on the unit itself. It has front and rear speaker outputs so I can hook it to a set of Harmon Kardons with the sub and front and rear satalites and get really killer sound out of it. The only drawback that I had with the unit was no real way to carry it, but that was solved with my leatherworking skills I picked up in the SCA...made a custom leather belt pouch to hold it, so problem solved.
Now granted there are those out there that prefer the iPod, or other hard drive based systems, but hte theroy is the same between them. HD is cheaper than Flash...hands down. For my $230 I got 20gb storage. Flash memory for that same amount of storage is going to cost you say $300 for a sony mp3 player that comes with 128mb with it PLUS you would need to purchase 159 additional memory sticks at a cost of $17,600 ($110 each). For just what I'm using in storage (5gb) you're still talking about $4400 in memory sticks alone.
I don't know about you but if I had that kinda cash I'd be spending it on a Plasma TV rather than MP3.
The gizmo in the article is nifty and all, but is it going to be worth it or will it fall the way of the MP3 player springboard module in my Visor? IE Sitting in the box that it came in waiting for someone poor fool on E-Bay to take it off my hands?
-- Wiccan Army, 13th Airborne Division "We will not fly silently into the night"
With it getting harder and harder to steal music, is another MP3 player needed?
just let them try to plug the 'analog ho'....
Can you record her voice for me on your new digicasette please!
Thanks!
It is much appreciated!
If this thing is interacting with the tape drive mechanism in the tape player anyway, why don't they add a small generator to recharge the batteries while it plays? Obviously, I'm asking this more in the interest of technical coolness than practicality, but it would remove the need for a separate wire going from the cassette player to the cigarette lighter socket for long-term play.
I owned one and it worked great in my wife's Honda CRV, but in my Honda Accord, the tape deck wouldn't properly align with the heads on the mp3 player. I tried plugging the cassette adapter into one of those Sony cassette -> cd adapters and it worked fine. Of course, that kinda defeats the purpose of an MP3 player that can be used without an adapter.
The only other thing I didn't like about it was the flimsy battery door. That would definately be a tape job after a few months of use.
Here is my review of it on Amazon.com
I was excited to see that the Digisette improved from it's orginal design and made a better tape like MP3 player. Unfortunately, on my Honda 2001 Accord, the tape deck won't align properly with the head in my cassette stereo, causing lots of static and distortion. It's not the player itself, because it works fine in my wife's Honda CRV. Actually, it works if I use an old Sony cassette adapter plugged into the mp3 player.
Im not an electronic engineer, but I think if Digisette would make the head on the mp3 unit bigger, it would have worked fine. I compared the head of the mp3 to the Sony cassette apadter I had laying around and the Sony head is much bigger.
Digisette support was very helpful and had me try a few fixed, but none fixed the distortion and static.
As far as the controls and stuff, everything worked fine. Like I said, if you have a 2001 Accord, I wouldn't recommend it.
Live web cams
i've been using a Duo-Aria (slightly different model) for over a year, and it makes me scream with agony. the usability is hellish and the product has never worked quite right. the accompanying software is a joke.
(when i fight it into submission, though, it and audible.com make my hour-long commute much less painful.)
As far as I know, this is the only MP3 recorder out there that can input directly from your tape deck.
... those things get pretty hot (particularly auto cassette players).
I don't know if those tape adaptors for CD players can handle both recording and playback. Does anyone know if something exists like this and a matching regular MP3 player/recorder that can interface in such a fashion?
I would personally rather have the mp3 player outside the tape deck then having the player be cooked inside
And forget the whole MP3 thing entirely. Frankly I think the ATRAC3 format is better quality, they're hell of a lot cheaper as far as media storage goes (you can pick up a minidisc for less than a buck)
Where they lack is in data transfer rates (at max 16x on lp4 from computer to MD and you have to go analog if you want to drop stuff back to a computer).
If you're just in it for music get a nomad.
If you like quality or want to record get a minidisc recorder.
Wow! Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these babies!
pXgray
End of Post
You are at the end of the post. To the north lies the post.
There is a sig here.
It uses a TI chipset that includes support for
PERSONAL RIGHTS INFRINGEMENT technologies. I
don't know about you, but I, as a natural person,
and not a corporate entity, and I refuse to support
those would seek to deny me those rights due
to all natural persons.
Copyright is an author's rights with respect
to A COPY, not the act of copying. A more
fitting term would actually be "Publishing rights".
An author must also be a natural person, even though the US judiciary seems to think
corporations are born of woman, and is only
granted those publisher's rights to encourage
disemination of knowledge for the public good.
(Yes copyright exists to encourage people to
publish source code! That was the original point!)
Once you buy it, you own it (doctrine of first sale). After you sell something you legally
published, you have no further rights with respect
to that copy.
Why buy a product designed for making copies,
that is also designed to prevent you from
exercising your right to copy?
Anybody familiar with the specs on the Nex II? Well, it seems from the many posts endorsing the Nex II as the best Mp3 flash card player. The only thing the player has going for it is it has a backlit display, which many manufactures refuse to make standard. Another plus is the ability to add almost any size card. Say 512MB CF card. Very few offer this ability. Sure there is the Diva Mp3 player but no backlit screen. ;-( Okay so back to the specs on the Nex II. You can only play Mp3 encoded between Bit rates supported: 32Kbps -- 256Kbps & VBR. They need to go back to the drawing board and correct this. Mp3 files go up to 320Kbps. No thanks!
I heard they are coming out with an 8-Track Version that will have double the capacity!
Rock on People!
Give it up!
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess? - Joshua (Wargames)
Who cares if the tape can fast forward. I want the car to "fast forward". 0-60mph in, oh, 4 seconds or so will do just fine.
I saw this device at ComDex 99 and thought it was one of the best things at the show. The company making it was looking for venture capital at the time to be able to produce them in scale. I tried to get as much information as I could but no one at the booth spoke english real well.
Too bad CD's are at least 3x more expensive than they should be. If they came down to around $8-$10 a piece, I'd be inclined to actually buy the stuff...mostly to replace what I had as a kid on tapes..also to replace the stuff I had stolen.
Do I own the music or the medium when I buy a CD? Why can't I go to a store with only my receipt and get a new CD when one becomes ruined or stolen, or god-forbid, a new format comes out and I'd like to take advantage of it with the music I have already purchased.
Nifty little device, but it wouldn't have a whole lot of use if the RIAA would get its head out of its ass.
Fuck that shit. Give me an iPod with 20gb and an FM car adapter. Load my entire cd collection once then it's rock and roll time!
The middle mind speaks!
I own a digisette and have been using it off an on in my 'high quality' '85 chevy wagon for a couple years. (I bought the wagon for 500 bucks and it had a hole in the dash where the stereo should have been. 18 bucks later and I had a cheap tape deck radio that no one in their right mind would steal . . .or suspect there was a 150 buck mp3 player in . . . )
The old digisette worked fairly well as both a headphone mp3 player and a player that worked in the console. It had all the fast foward and rewind features that this new one has, but the biggest difference is you could not record audio onto it in a tape deck.
The biggest disappointment I had with the old one (and will have with this one) is the low memory expansion. The original came with 64 meg onboard, and a single MMC slot (which my original docs said was limited to 64 meg). It was enough to hold a cd and a half. This new one has a bit more (an extra 32 on board, but still the 64 meg mmc card limit).
So, other stuff about this device . . . transferring data to it from the pc took a USB cable. I didn't find a way to get it work under Linux (I did not try hard). The connector on the cable was really touchy and it doesn't stay in that well anymore; they may have fixed it in the new model.
To sum up, the old one was a pretty good design and perfect for those of us with old cars. It doesn't have the memory you'd like in some of the newer players, but the specialized tape adaptation you can forgive it. It is unlikely you'd want to buy this device if you are just going to use it with a pair of headsets, there are better products out there for this purpose. This new product is probably ideal if you plan on doing analog transfers or hour and half long recordings (the college class application someone mentioned was great), but if you aren't going to record analog, go for the older version.
It doesn't make sense to make it this way, as an alternative would be easy to devise: Put optical (or even mechanical) switches on the inside of the "drive" hole, and add a small piezo beeper to the thing. When the user hits "play" on the tape deck, the device senses the speed of the capstan through the hole, and if it is slowly moving one way, it is playing, fast moving one direction is track advance, other direction is previous track. For each track advanced, beep, so that the user can guage when to stop the advancing to continue to listen to the tracks.
Not quite as convienient as random access controls, but this device doesn't have them anyhow, and it would utilise the controls already standard on the deck, which are designed from a usability standpoint (and many times for a vehicle, at least with OEM equipment, the controls are designed for ease-of-use while driving).
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
In Europe, a fancier version called Dual Play is
available from some British online stores. It goes for 299 pounds, but has more features. (like 256MB Flash and realtime MP3 encoding, to make it a recorder)
Like, you mean, like my Minidisc Walkman has been for 8 years!!???
A-fucking-mazing!
Fuck. This computer stuff sure is cool!
Morons.
No, I am not a shill for this product, but I find it has captured my attention every time I hear of it. I don't understand why technology such as this hasn't garnered more acclaim. Why bother owning a portable mp3 player and using a cassette adapter when your mp3 can be found within the cassette adapter itself! I find this to be an amazing advancement in further reducing the size of modern appliances and electronics. Am I the only one who sees the advantage in ripping your favorite songs and uploading them to this easily portable devise that can be played back in your car (for those of us without a CD player let alone one that can read mp3 format)!??!?! The first time I saw a device that could play back mp3's in my cassette deck in an issue of Crutchfield about a year ago, I'm shocked that I haven't seen more of these hit the mainstream.
I hate all sigs, even this one.
Their 20 gig recorder is USB 2.0 compatible, lets you record "of up to 20,000 minutes of top quality music in MP3 format" and is roughly the size of the ipod.
"You can record directly from any audio source, including your stereo set, radio, or pre-amplified microphone via the stereo, line-in jack. It will also work as a high-quality voice recorder."
I've seen them around for $250 and alot less for the smaller giggage.
-- ribbit
What about the sound recording of this thing? Because if it's good enough I regret getting my NetMD, which does not allow you to upload recorded stuff back to the PC.
I am unique, just like you, and you, and you...
Cause I am getting tired of playing Gorf.
What about the RomeMP3 and MP Wow players? Do they work with Linux?
I like the fact that it has a built in microphone, so it acts as a mini tape recorder, but you don't have to spend any time converting to MP3 (like if you want a little clip of something for a web page) and I can't tell you how many times I wish I had a recorder handy when I'm listening to the radio, not just for music, but for something funny they are saying or some strange trivia question I'll never hear the answer to because I'm on my way into work. With this thing you just hit record. You ever notice that there has never been a record button in your car? My Dad told me that a law was passed in the 50s/60s that didn't allow tape recorders in automobiles because ppl would record (steal) the music. I can't find a record of this law, but I wonder if this little thing violates it (if it is still in effect, that is)
Why is this news? Using an analog input to circumvent copy protection is hardly ground-breaking technology. Making an MP3 player that emulates an audio cassette isn't at all new. Nor is it a particularly good idea. It sounds cool -- an MP3 player that you can operate with the controls of your car cassette player. But it doesn't work all that well in practice. Auto cassette players vary a lot in the way their controls work, and you usually can't use all the features of the MP3 player. Plus you have to do without that handy LCD readout.
All in all, I'd much rather have a conventional MP3 player with a pseudo-cassette adapter. I only bought the Digessette because it had other good features that outweighted the silliness of the basic concept.
The Nokia 5510 mobile can record from an audio source ... doubles up as a usable phone as well. Will be trying to get hold of one as soon as my current contract expires .....
For the same price you get that fantastic piece of technology, I will get one hundred thousand of cassettes.
-I'll be able to play my music in the same way (car, home, bla bla bla), I get the same "revolutionary" benefits.
-Ageing of tapes is quite bad but what's the point when comparing to 96 Mb of storage.
-The quality is crap for both. If you're happy with the overall quality of MP3s you don't demand much anyway.
What a piece of shit.
When will companies that make MP3 players realize that no matter how light they make them or how many features they add - that 32, 64, or even 96 MB is not going to cut it for anyone remotely serious about music. Why carry a device that allows you to listen to roughly one (maybe two) CD's worth of music. I know it's heavier (after all it is a hard drive), but solutions like the Archos Jukebox with 20 GB are so much more appealing. It hold approx. 500 CDs worth of music in MP3 format and it doubles as a portable USB hard drive, allowing you to store and transport any size/kind of file. And you can use it with a standard cassette adapter if you are so inclined. And obviously, there's the iPod which I hear nothing but greatness about. Sorry to sound like a music snob or something, but I just don't understand who is buying all these MP3 players with such limited space. What is the point?
This is cool and all but I can't seem to find a Linux utility to manage the tracks.
Anyone know if this will work with Linux?