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Portable MP3 Player w/ Unix Support?
oobeleck asks: "With my birthday just around the corner and my 8 mile runs needing music, I am thinking of asking for a portable mp3 player. What is the Slashdot community's experience with MP3 portables. What has the most support, what should I stay away from. I have been eye-balling the Diamond Rio 600/800 model. Any opinions on the Rio? I want something that works good with Linux/OpenBSD. Thanks for your help." Ask Slashdot last ran such an article back in April of 2000, I'm sure bigger and better MP3 players have been made since then. Which of today's players would you all recommend?
Looks like Archos has actually revamped this product, because mine doesn't look like the one displayed at the above link. Has anyone used one of these particular models before and can tell me if they've improved on the problem bits that I've mentioned?
If they have, I'd surely recommend this model to anyone who is in the market for an MP3 player.
I have a similar question...but I'm looking for a player that works on a 7 mile run. While everyone is busy researching 8 mile MP3 players for that dude, keep an eye-ball open for one for me, too, eh?? Thanks, because I'm too stinking lazy to do it myself.
Would like to heartily second this recommendation. I only have the 6-gig model, but having a portable FAT32 hd is incredibly convenient. If you can mount a Windows drive, you can mount this in your silly Linux thingee.
Durable: I drop this thing at least once a day, it's over a year old and still going. It recharges in ~6 hours for ~6 hours of playback. If you strap the case to your back (as opposed to keeping it on your hip), you won't have as much problem w/ skip, but you will look like a complete dork.
The problem Cliff is experiencing appears to be unintentional jostling of the stop (off) button, so careful how you position it when you run.
[o]_O
Yes, it's expensive. No there isn't Linux support. But if you've got the cash, you won't find a better player out there. The interface is seamless, the battery life is good, and if you have 20GB of music, it'll accommodate that just fine. Oh yeah, you can also store your contacts & calendar on it just for kicks.
I've had the 5GB version for about 6 months, and am constantly impressed with just how usable it is. I just wish Apple would hurry up & put out a PDA in the same vein....
--Mid
I suggest the iPod. With MacOS, *nix (if you can get XTunes to compile; holy crap what a nightmare), and (soon) Windows support, you can't go wrong. The price is a bit higher than other mp3 players, but you get the added bonus of having a portable hard drive for moving files around, if you need it.
On that note, are there portable players with Vorbis support?
"You're getting brutal, Sark. Brutal and needlessly sadistic."
"Thank you, Master Control"
-Sark and the MCP
I picked up a Diamond Rio 500 when it first became available. I really liked it at first, though the Rio Manager software (for Windows) was so gawd-awful that I bought a replacement (musicmatch). There are fairly mature drivers and software for Linux though I must admit I haven't ever played around with them. I suspect they work with the later models as well.
That said, I am now not so happy with my purchase. The RIO contains only 64 megs of memory which, in your case, would probably be fine. I wanted more. More importantly, though, I have been unimpressed with the 'customer service' for this product. At times (last month), Windows drivers were not available for download. Finding a contact email address was difficult (though this may be resolved now). But more importantly, these devices just aren't very sturdy. Mine is now unusable except when left flat on a table and NOT MOVED. If I pick it up, the thing powers down. My brother and sister both bought one as well and at least one of the two no longer works for them, either.
So what did I get? A Creative Nomad Jukebox 3. 20 gigs of storage and it works very well. I doubt this would be suitable for you, though... no good Linux support yet and it is very much overkill for 3 mile runs. :) In fact, as it is hard-drive based, I wouldn't want to run with it at all. On the other hand, it is great for a one week trip to Mexico (yay!) and for extended bus trips and the like. Heck, I have ALL my CDs ripped to MP3 and stored on the device and I still have over 1/3 of the storage available to me. Firewire and USB, oh my.
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
Out of all the things I have purchased and never used, my minidisk player is NOT one of them. I love that thing.
:-) ) and record and listen. I've later converted it to mp3 on my computer and have shared them with my freinds. I've done the same with SSX tricky. SSX tricky has a juke box feature where all the songs are played. The sound quality is fantastic!
They are pretty cheap now, I paid 80 bucks for my Sony MD walkman (bit of an older model now). The tapes are cheap too.
One of my favorite things to do is record video game music off the stereo. I'm able to pop in GTA 3 select Head radio (better variety of weird noises between songs
I recently purchased a really nice microphone for my MD player. Now I can sample sounds all over the place and use them on my computer to make music. Great if your into that sort of thing.
Oh plus the tape adapters for the car work great! I'll never understand why they haven't caught on more with consumers. My friends say the same thing now after they have seen all the uses I've gotten out of it.
Second on that one... I own the SP250 and like it very much. Besides doing an admirable job of playing standard CDs, MP3 and WMA files (it's played everything I've tossed at it), it's got an FM tuner.
Another important feature: upgradable firmware. Few players have this. If you get the SP250, be sure to upgrade the firmware to 2.05 (available from Rio's SP250 page under the "Support" section), which adds a lot of neat stuff and fixes common complaints about the OS. I imagine it wouldn't be too hard for some enterprising soul to hack the firmware and get Ogg support.
Also: It comes with rechargable batteries, and the player doubles as a charger.
The only thing I don't like about the SP250 is the fact that it takes a little too long from the time you power up to the time you actually start hearing music. The SP250 "remembers" the information for the last 5 MP3/WMA CDs that you put into it -- so it doesn't need to do the time-consuming scan on them -- but it still takes several seconds of eternity from disc insert to disc play.
I have a Nex II from Frontier Labs and absolutely love it.
It uses a Compact Flash slot. I've used several brands and they've all worked. It currently has a 128MB card in it, but it could take the IBM Microdrive, 1GB!!
It acts like a removable drive, attached via USB (I actually have some non-MP3 files on it and the player doesn't care). You can drag and drop (or cp) right to the NexII. You can take the NexII to another machine and drag and drop from the Nex to the machine. Lovely.
It's incredibly small and light, just a few ounces plus battery weight. Mine came with a sweet neoprene case to carry it in that has an attached belt clip. Perfect to run or bike with.
You can find it for dirt cheap brand new on eBay, about $80. This company sells them, it's where I got mine and I'll vouch for them. (I'm not associate, just a happy customer.) 128MB compact flash card go for about $40 new on ebay.
You can get "Nexkins" to change the look of the device. Pretty trivial (the machine already looks cool) but there are some neat ones you can find on ebay.
The Nex is really easy to use, and it's just so userfriendly I love it. Moving between tracks, changing the volume, adjusting the built in equalizer (it really works!), using the backlight are all very easy.
I haven't had any problems with mine and I've had it for over a year. Love it, love it, love it. It really is everything you want: light, inexpensive, n*x compatible as removable USB storage, usable, and reliable.
I really don't think you could go wrong with this.
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
I have a zaurus SL5500. I haven't gone jogging with it and it doesn't have any ergonomic controls like a thumb wheel to control volume. That aside, it still is unix friendly. I transfer data by two methods, put the CF card in the CompactFlash adapter and then mount that as drive on my Linux laptop - rip, copy, eject!
At home I have a 802.11b network, plug in the
CF 802.11b card and the Qtopia desktop application will work with the IP address - upload, manage, roam!
Besides that, it has a healthy developer community, Sharp supports open source efforts and it's a PDA! I'm sure that a 256MB storage card is enough for your 8-mile run! Short of a solid state device I'll only invest in an iPod.
Since you're planning on using your player for running/strenous activity, be very sure that whatever you buy is well made and water-resistant!! Sounds obvious, but believe it or not this actually disqualifies at least half of the players out there.
.its VERY small and light, has 128 megs, relatively inexpensive, and I've heard good things about its durability. That might be one for you to consider.
Using myself as an example of why you might want to listen to my advice, I bought an mp3 player with more or less the same goals you did, with the addition of wanting it cheap. So, I ended up buying a jaMp3 from KBGear. One trip to the weight room was all it took. I'm a big guy and I work out hard; the sucker died the first time out from (I believe) getting sweaty.
Anyways, I'm currently looking at the Samsung YEPP-30sh. .
- - - - - - - -
Don't worry, being eaten by a crocodile is just like going to sleep in a giant blender.
I use my PJB100 about 4 hours a day. It has a linux kernel module available (but possibly not maintained) and a very nice open source command line tool (thanks folks!). I've never used my pjb with anything other than linux and haven't had any problems.
;-) Not that the original Compaq guys didn't do a good job, the thing NEVER crashes.
Pro's:
upgradable hard drive - I'm putting a 40 gig in this weekend, up from 20
rechargable lithium ion battery (internal)
battery lasts ~7-8 hours if you don't modify the playlist too often
sounds better than most other mp3 products I've listened too.
linux, mac, and windows clients
the firmware is very very stable
Con's
The company that makes it is almost invisible
The firmware is stable, but also never gets upgrade
(and worse) the firmware is closed source
Its not as pretty as the ipod
It does not have a regular filesystem, which limits its potential use as a usb harddrive
USB isn't as fast as firewire (ipod)
It's expensive
It could be smaller. Jogging? You would need to hold it or have a fanny pack. it's too heavy for a belt.
It comes with a car cigarette adaptor
The table of contents is constrained by a max size, which makes multiple playlists impossible when you've got 20 gigs worth of songs.
All in all, I love my pjb100. I use it almost every single day on the bus and at work and it boosts the quality of life much more than any other gadget I can think of. Still, I wish the firmware was OS so that somebody smarter than me could add features
You can purchase it at http://www.mp3factorydirect.com
I suppose I'm not too threatening, presently, but wait till I start Nautilus
Seriously... why look for a UNIX-compatible MP3 player when you can have an MP3 + Ogg + MOD player that *runs* UNIX?
I've been using my iPAQ (with Linux) as a portable music player for a while, and it works extremely well. Capacity is not enormous, but you can add compact flash cards (or even PCMCIA hard drives if you don't mind the bulk).
-John
Here's what I suggest. Go to eBay and get a rio 500. They're going for $50. Here are some of the reasons why...
1) Full VBR and all bitrate MP3 support
2) Great command line linux utilities to transfer mp3s. Fast and easy to use.
3) upgradable firmware (the latest versions add some great features)
4) SmartMedia support
5) Long battery life
6) it's $50
7) lasts forever
8) never skips or fades
9) fast USB transfer. It only takes 2-3 minutes to change music with the linux utilities.
I put a 64 meg card in mine (giving me 128 megs of space), and with a good encoder (such as LAME ABR) 3 cds worth of music will sound just fine.
I've used mine for running and working out for years and it's showing signs of wear, but still working great and it's still as solid as the day I bought it.
2) The screen is kinda small
3) It crashes on VBR MP3s sometime. Not too often but enough to notice
4) Turning it on is irritatingly long. You'd think it's just a few seconds, but...
You need RockBox. The purpose of this project is to write an Open Source replacement firmware for the Archos Jukebox 5000, 6000, Studio and Recorder MP3 players.
Get it now. It, um, rocks. Really.
In the course of every project, it will become necessary to shoot the scientists and begin production.
Buy an iPod. Apple so squarely has the rest of the market beat, that it's worth installing a windows partition just to interface with the unit.
I've owned a Nomad Jukebox and used an Archos model, and they're both horribly inferior to the Apple unit.
Note that it's somewhat easy to scratch the exterior, but the new iPods come with a decent carrying case, so that's mostly irrelevent.
Only on slashdot can a posting be rated "Score -1, Insightful".
You're stuck with realtime speeds loading music on the media. It takes 74 minutes to fill up a disk with 74 minutes worth of tunes. The other problem is that I have home mp3 server with my entire collection on it. No batch copy, no drag 'n' drop just a phono plug. Try me again when I can do a :
/dev/minidisc /mnt/minidisc /mnt/minidisc
mount -t vfat
cp -r tunes/
and fill a disc up in 5 minutes or less.
My NEXII is currently in the posession of my brother who is carrying it with him as he hikes the Appalachian trail. He has it to listen to the Lord of the Rings a few hours a day while he hikes.
The fact that it only uses Compact Flash cards (no internal memory) allows me to mail him more cards and let him listen to new content without having to mail the player back home to be re-filled.
<freedom rant>
Because this player takes CF cards and behaves like a external drive it does not have any SDMI/DRM trappings of other players, allowing me to put whatever I want on the player from whatever computer I choose. Plus it works great with my linux box as a removable drive (no dumb special purpose drivers or reverse engineered hacks).
</freedom rant>
Comments should be like skirts. Short enough to keep your attention, but long enough to cover the subject
OK....this has bugged for years....
"Minidiscs never caught on because they use a lossy compression algorhythm"
I wonder how MP3 caught on then...
I mean if all that people cared about was sound quality,
I think I would have a 1/2 inch reel-to-reel in my car by now.
(analog tapes are lossy, yet they are everywhere...why is that??)
There are different uses for different technologies.
CONVENIENCE VS. QUALITY.
Scenario 1.
Quality.
I really like the sound quality of DAT.
It's sampling rate is higher than that of cd (48Khz).
I also have -all the time in the world- to fast forward and rewind what are essentially cassette tapes 2.0.
I can overlook such things as bulky players, delicate internal mechinisms,
and fragile tapes.... for some of the best quality possible.
Scenario 2.
Convenience.
"I'm usually on the go when i listen to music.
I really like being able to throw my MD in my pocket with a couple of discs and go.
I can overlook things like "lossless" recording, higher frequencies i can't hear,
and the ability to trade DAT GD/Phish/DMB shows
for the versitiliy and convenience of minidisc."
Now this is a little silly...people don't talk like this...but they do SHOP like this.
HOW and WHERE do you do your listening?
In the car?
In a private listening room with headphones?
In a subway train?
Is space limited?
Is there a lot of background noise?
All of these things must be factored before a decision can be made on the appropriate format for the occasion.
FYI, I personally use...
MD when biking, walking around,
DAT when mastering/archiving studio tracks,
CD when in the shower,
Vinyl in a quiet room and headphones,
Car-MP3CD when driving,
HD-MP3 for my main jukebox,
MD-Data for recording OUT of the studio,
ADAT for recording IN the studio,
and old analog tapes for mixes for my not-so-high tech friends.
Everything has it's place.
They've been very good on delivering on their promises so far (and even giving you things you wouldn't expect -- the 5-CD memory was added in a firmware upgrade) so it's a good choice if you want to move to Ogg in the future.
actually for less money you can get a solid state 1GB CF card that will drain your batteries at least 40-50% slower. It also has 0% chance of being ruined by mechanical shock. After seeing those pictures of the guy from ground 0's D30 and then seeing the pictures recovered from his CF card I have figured out that CF is basically indistructable.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Info on the Frontier Labs Nex II here
Quick reasons why:
1. CF and Microdrive support
2. No proprietary software, just drag and drop files
3. Works on windows and Linux
4. Cheap
5. Great battery life
6. No DRM crap
7. Customer service that actually writes back (unlike SonicBlueBalls)
Agreed - my Nomad is history too and has been replaced by a 10GB iPod (ooooh! 20GB? I should have waited a month!). The size and weight are the key issues - I have to occasionally find the pod in my clothing (certainly not something I could say for the Nomad). Size matters. I also prefer the playlist and eq features of the iPod (but then again I run mostly on OS X now, with my only SuSEs being a pair of Sun 5s in the corner of the house...
The Pros:
The Cons:
To summarize, if you are looking to purchase an MP3 player for your runs, I would not recommend the HipZip. Other players are lighter, smaller, and offer more storage than this unit.