Slashdot Mirror
Another iPod Competitor
rael9real writes "NOMAD has intoduced a new player. It has USB 2 and FireWire (finally), and supports WMA and MP3. It has a 20GB drive like the high-end iPod, and supposedly holds more music because it supports WMA (though why someone would want to use WMA is beyond me). It *is* cheaper than the iPod, though. Looks like a definite competitor. Maybe it'll drive iPod pricing down." Update: 10/14 21:21 GMT by T : Note that the listed specs for the player mention only "USB," not USB 2.
Will it support Ogg Vorbis?
Have you been stalked by Seth today?
...part of the fun is doing other stuff with it and the community/culture of hacking it to do other stuff besides just play MP3 files. How much fun will the Nomad provide, and will it be able to generate the same sort of interest?
And oh yeah...what about ogg? (sheesh)
guac-foo
Lots of petrified grits
One of the nice things about the iPod was the fact that it is essentially a firewire hard drive. You can put anything on it. It also has a very weak system to prevent music from being copied from the iPod back to the computer. How about this player? Will I be able to jockey files back and forth between my friend's computer and my own?
I would buy this as soon as possible if it played OGG. I suppose we need to make it clear to the manufacturers that OGG support would be beneficial to sales.
Perhaps we just need to give OGG time to become more pervasive.
I may just be stupid, but where is the release date for this thing....and where is the price? I couldn't find that info anywhere....
I wonder how shock absorbent this guy is -- if I take it running and shake it around a lot, how long is this thing going to last before I mess up the hard drive or something?
> ... holds more music because it supports WMA (though why someone would want to use WMA is beyond me).
Uhm, because it holds more music?
geesh.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Will it support DRM-only transfers/songs?
Zech Harvey, MCSE, MCDBA, CCNA
I'm sure it's been said many times on slashdot, but i refuse to purchase a Portable Audio Jukebox, unless it can also act as a Vorbis player. When that time comes, i won't mind shelling out even a bit extra for Vorbis support.
It's worth pointing out that, if you're just ripping your own CDs, WMA isn't a *terrible* format. It's reasonable size, reasonable quality. It can't compare to a quality ten ogg vorbis file, but then again I don't believe it's meant to. For portable devices, it almost makes sense - except, of course, for the lack of linux support. And if you want to do anything involving sharing music and putting it on your player, than of course the WMA DRM features can be - but aren't always - a problem.
I'm the stranger...posting to
Anotherng that will hold the iPod is it's exclisive Macintosh support. Now, I'm not trying to troll, but if they wanted the iPod to gain market share they would have it support all of the major platforms, much like how Microsoft is developing Office for OSX. Now, if they wanted to only use the iPod as a tool to bring people to Macintosh exclusivly, then it was a good idea; however they should have accepted that as more products became availible they would gain in popularity.
The poster took artistic license and "upgraded" this device to USB 2.0 status, or they simply failed to mention that anywhere on the site..
That would be a guaranteed selling point to 99% of Slashdot readers. How many units sold is that?
Infact, why doesn't somebody produce an Ogg Vorbis only player - I.E. it doesn't play mp3. That way, they would save licensing fees, and since I assume that most players are based on an existing chipset, they could implement a completely new design in silicon. A single chip solution maybe - a watch with 256 MB RAM, an IRDA connection, and a headphone socket, maybe?
They didn't have any more info than the press release did, though. They had 1-2 week availability listed.
So it's $100 cheaper than the same size ipod, with USB connectivity and WMA capability.
stored on computers from birth to the grave
that's all anyone ever does. Gateway with their commercial of their computer jumping over imacs, ms copying apple's switcher ads, everyone comparing their MP3 players to an ipod... if nothing else, apple innovates ...
I make these: http://beatseqr.com
I can't find the price anywhere on the site.
The Linux kids must be dying for something about Gnome by now. :-)
It's not exclusive. they have an official windows version now. not to mention all the unofficial unix clients.
stored on computers from birth to the grave
"You can charge the NOMAD Jukebox Zen via the USB port too!"
hmm. is this a wise thing?
Aside from that, if it IS cheaper than iPOD, then i'm game.
thelikesofwhich.com
Umm - did anyone notice that it does not have USB 2.0? So really how useful is it to the hoards of people who don't have firewire? Not very is the right answer. Transferring music over USB 1.1 would take like a day to fill the player.
Why would you need to carry around ~20 gigs of music? The battery would run out before the music would... Is it for the better music selection or quality?
Would it be possible to modify it to use it as a portable hard drive? That would be a whole lot more useful than those 1.44 meg disks or burning a cd.You wouldn't have to worry about having a zip drive or whatnot either.
I can't figure out whether this unit features those features, because they're both listed, but "require an optional remote control". Does that mean that the features are built in (and therefore I'm paying for them in terms of extra hardware costs and weight), but can only get to them by buying a stupid remote? Or is the actual functionality built into the remote?
I have a first generation Nomad Jukebox. There are several newsgroups & websites devoted to hacking these, so I'm assuming that the newer ones will be hackable also.
I love my Nomad, with the exception of it's size (Portable CD player size), slow transfer (USB only) and battery life (About 2 hours), but this new player seems to fix all of those. As soon as it has been out a while and prices drop, I would definately love to have one of these.
This isn't about Apple, it's about another company making a product that may compete with Apple's iPod. Get over it.
I recently bought a ipod (windows 20gb version) after years of using minidiscs. All i can say is they rule. 1 hour charge time to 80%, firewire connectivity, ability to jsut use it as a external harddisk, the interface rocks. And above all they look sweet as well.
Any competitor is going to have to do a lot to beat Apples domination of the market.
If they do bring the ipods price down, it wont be a bad thing. Yes ill probably feel resentful cause i paid more, but what the hell. The morepeople that have iPods the better.
Oh and if you have a Windows Ipod, dont use the enclosed software, use Ephpod, a fantastic bit of free software which is so much better than Apples bundled Music Match Jukebox.
Ok everyone wants Ogg because we're all libertarians here. I'm all for Ogg, but what about lossless audio? Do any players now play plain old raw bitstream files like .wav?
The reason iPod is such a great product is because it integrates perfectly with iTunes. Not only does the hardware interface become a pleasure to use but the software-hardware interface is seamless as well. The real question here is how well thought out is Creative PlayCenter 3. Assuming that Creative made the hardware intuitive AND made organizing/transfering your music to it just as good, then they may have something here, at least for PC users. God knows that the iPod for Windows and MusicMatch Jukebox is just embarassing to use.
Eddy.WriteLinux.Com
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these!
It must charge it at a fairly low current - the total allowed is 500 ma, if I remember correctly.
Having said that, even 50 ma is probably more than enough, it's a solid state device, so it's probably fine.
However, it would be nice to be able to disable it, incase you are using it on a laptop or something, where it doesn't make much sense to charge one battery from another.
"Now availble for Macintosh or Windows".
If i didn't just buy a powerbook, i would really want one. now that i own a powerbook.. well.. ok, i still really want one.
I will not buy one. Hell, if iPod support Ogg Vorbis I would
pick one up despite its overinflated price.
At least with regard to the iPOD, Apple was late to the game. Archos had products on the market LONG before Apple released the iPod.
Keep clinging to the fantasy, that everyone wants to be as innovative as Steve tho.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
Why not? If it doesnt drain too much power in the process (presumably not too different to actually powering the device anyway). Sounds like a great idea - less cables to carry around - multiple charge points.
I've been lurking in various Creative boards, largely because I just bought the Nomad Jukebox 3. Anyway, the general belief is that the Zen is a somewhat stripped down Nomad Jukebox 3. When you think about it, this makes sense.
The Jukebox 3 is a hard drive based MP3 player, just like the iPod. That said, they occupy slightly different niches. The iPod is small and very portable. The Jukebox 3 is bigger, but it has much more battery space, recording capabilities, a wired remote, more disk for the price, etc. There are two different markets here, and Creative wants a piece of the iPod's pie. The Zen appears to be a Jukebox 3 without the extra battery space, without the recording features (expect through its external wired remote), without the docking station port, etc. It's smaller, more portable, and easier to carry than the Jukebox 3. It also does less than the Jukebox 3.
Truthfully, it's a wonderful time to be thinking about an MP3 player (especially hd based). Every possible configuration is out there. On the cheap side, you have Archos with it's video player. Creative has a richly featured (and fairly inexpensive) Jukebox and a less featured, more portable Zen. Apple has a very portable and light iPod that's also more expensive. There's a toy for every price range and feature set!
iPod specs here
Jukebox Zen
specs here
Height: iPod =101.6 mm vs. Zen=112.6
Width: iPod =60.96 mm vs. Zen=75.9
Depth: iPod =21.34 mm vs. Zen=24.5
Weight: iPod =7.2 oz vs. Zen=9.5 oz
Display: iPod=160x128 pix vs. Zen=132x64 pix
Output Power: iPod=60mW vs. Zen=100mW
Playing Time: iPod=10hours vs. Zen=12hours
You can only upload files to it? Too bad. It could have replaced DAT for stealth recording concerts. The Nomad 3 works good, but the Zen looks sharp - much smaller.
pronoblem
It costs $349.00 US, and there is a $50 rebate, bringing the price down to $299.00 once you wait for that rebate check to come.
Of course, it's Windows-only. You'd think they would include an iTunes plug-in to try and get some of the Apple users.
- Vincit qui patitur.
Keywords: "Apple related"
Apple makes iPod, this competes with iPod, therefore it is Apple related.
This new Nomad is still quite a bit larger than the iPod as it uses a larger hard drive.
iPod and NOMAD both use a hard disk as its storage medium. Normally, I would imagine that it's therefore not safe to go jogging with one of these. However, are these two MP3 players ruggedized in some way? Does anybody have an horror stories about scratched platters from running with one of these players?
Check out my podcast: DreamStation.cc Video Game Show
This thing only has a 90-day limited warranty, which is exactly what the iPod had. Now the iPod's up to a 1-yr warranty, retroactive for all original iPods (who expire in coming weeks).
Either the article is wrong, or Creative is...
Creative has it listed for 300 after rebate, where in the article is says 300 before rebate...
It's only Firewire and USB. It doesn't have USB 2.
No USB 2 for you. Come back 1 year!
Does anyone know anything about the next version of the Ipod and when Apple is going to release it?
They'll probably support this device as good as the previous mp3 players they've sold!
In that case, DON'T BUY IT!
I bought their first mp3 player, a Nomad I (64MB, parallel port). There was never any driver upgrade for windows 2000 or higher. All I had were crappy windows 95 drivers that also worked on windows 98.
And to make things worse, mine broke down last week. Doesn't power-up anymore. dead.
No more creative for me.
not sure about the looks of this player.. I like the one Bantam is in the works with right now.
p 1.html
Bantam BA 1000 Preview:
http://gear.ign.com/articles/372/372006
of course its just emulating the Ipod design, but I still dig it.
Are they available? Atleast these specs tell very little. Anyway, I was thinking whether it would have the HW to run a real OS. I guess it must. If so, someone could throw in a small footprint Linux and make it support ogg. And ofcourse, it would not be just a jukebox anymore.
Is this a parody? Libertarianism would abolish IP as that is not a core function of government. I don't know if lossless audio is patented, but I tend to think it isn't--at least uncompressed.
I've used Play Center 3 a good bit because it came with my Sound Blaster Audigy, and I can't stand it. Version 3 is better than the older versions, but it's still clunky and over complicated. That's just my opinion of course and others may have had better experiences. Having used both Play Center 3 and iTunes though, I would say that iTunes is much better than Play Center. iTunes just has a ton of thought put into makeing the user interaction with the software as simple as possible.
to iPod competitors that aren't bigger, uglier, with a less functional interface, less capabilities, a lesser computer/player interface, shorter battery life and not worth even considering? It would save us all alot of time.
slogg vorbis is shit. Stop whining about your fucking audio codec that no one will ever fucking suport because no one wants it. MP3 is the standard and ogg will fade away into nothing.
Firstly, how can a codec that's gaining momentum "fade into nothing"? It's not mainstream now, but neither were computers, UNIX, digital audio, etc.
Second, more and more companies are picking up OGG Vorbis support. Why is that? Well, let's see. It's a completely FREE codec that is continually getting better. It's supported by an organization that's dedicated to creating free multimedia codecs for use in open, free, and commercial use -- all without charging a cent. Most importantly, however, OGG Vorbis IS superior to WMA and MP3. If you think otherwise, try looking into some of the various listening tests. Or check out Vorbis' Listen page. If you're such a blind zealot that you won't actually test various codecs, you have no right to praise or flame any codec for any reason.
Grow up and leave the technology details to people who know what they're doing and talking about.
I have a mere 5gb iPod, and yearn for the 20GB - then I would only have to change out content once a month or less. As it is right now, I swap out some songs from time to time as I get tired of them...
I also like to record the MP3's at a fairly high quality so it's nice to have the space to store a lot of quality MP3's.
Of course, what I'd like even more is a player that supported OGG and loading software that supported bitrate reduction so I could squeeze more songs on the thing at a bitrate that made sense for a portable player.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If I was marketing these products, I would reverse the names. The iPod is zen. Zazen. Simple. The Womad is a pod. Pod-like.
My two cents.
Right there in the specs, that it plays .wav files as well.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
It's longer, wider, and thicker than the ipod. Portable electronic devices are supposed to get _smaller_ over time. While this is definately smaller than their old monsters, I would have thought they'd be able to top Apple by now.
I'm waiting for them to come out with one that supports .mid, so I can fit MILLIONS of hours on the drive. My dream is to listen to music constantly for the rest of my life without repeating a song once.
And those horrible video game music loops don't count. ;)
Any sufficiently simple magic can be passed off as mere advanced technology.
Does anybody know what the hell this is? The website mentions that this player connects using SB1394, and that SB1394 is compatible with FireWire. But what is it? This is the first I've ever heard of it.
Comparing the volume of the 20GB offering from each company gives:
iPod: 132 cc
Zen: 209 cc
The Zen is 58% larger.
Given the overall dimensions, I suspect that the Zen is using a 2.5" HD vs. the iPod's 1.8"
On another note, after almost a year of heavy use / abuse, my 5GB iPod's battery life sucked - only about 3-4 hours, and it would be dead if left unplugged for a few days. I brought it to my local (Schaumburg, IL) Apple store and they swapped it out for a new (?) unit which has a kickass 11 hours of playtime. I have no experience with Creative Labs, but I wonder what level of warranty, and in my case out of warranty, support they give.
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
Yeah dude, just like the VA Stock I bought is now $2,750 a share.
Theres nothing indicating that it has USB 2.0 support on the creative site...
Once again, I have to be the bullshit patrol.
gaining momentum...
Where? By what measurement? Name it.
more and more companies are picking up OGG Vorbis support
Name two. I wonder if you can name even one.
Rumor has it that Apple is not only the purveyor of shiny things but that they are an actual technology company. In fact, according to recent reports Apple is an innovator, which admittedly is a term many people are confused about, after having heard it from the lips of Microsoft lawyers while they were defending the right to rob us all blind.
Let's recap:
Apple = technology innovator
technology = nerdy
slashdot = news for nerds
You following me? Whining because there's yet another article on slashdot about a company who's products you don't own is just that...whining.
And besides, the article isn't about Apple. It's about Nomad. Sheesh.
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
The first one to market with an interface that can easily be hacked will be the winner in my book. The Tivo benefits from being easily modifiable, why not a MP3 player? CMIIW, If the Terrapin Mine (linux, right?) played oggs I think we'd have something.
Since USB and Firewire were brought up... I have to ask... do they have any competition?
I was looking at webcams, but they are all USB, meaning they can't be hooked up through a cable longer than 5 feet. Firewire would allow 35 feet, but that would mean FINDING a firewire webcam.
Besides, the BSDs seem to be SOL when it comes to firewire support.
Bluetooth might be a nice solution when some devices (webcams, printers) start supporting it. At less than 1MBps, it wouldn't fare too well for something like a wireless external hard drive.
So... Is there anything out there to challenge USB? Firewire isn't anywhere but in digital camcorders (and a few hard drives), and we all know that 'there can be only one' in the end. Any challengers? Please...
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
One of the best things that Apple has going for it (IMHO) is the look of its products, aside from the God-awful new iMac (a.k.a. iLamp). The iPod is very, very, very good looking and sleek. This thing just looks cheap by comparison. Now, it's certainly cool that it's cheaper and people are going to be more able to afford it, but I think that it is cheaper at the expense of looking cheaper and losing a lot of the "cool" factor that the iPod has.
I couldn't tell if you were experimenting with poor-man's cryogenics or looking for the orange sherbet.
Off the press release:
"At approximately 250 grams, the SV-PT1 SD media storage unit is compact and lightweight. Its 5 GB PC-card-type removable hard disk and SD memory card slot can store approximately 5,000 digital still pictures.2 With one battery recharge sufficient for up to 10 transfers of data from a 512 MB SD memory card, it allows the user to store images exceeding the capacity of a SD memory card without having to use a computer. A video output terminal connects the SV-PT1 to a TV set, letting the user view stored images when selecting images to save."
No word of MP3 playback, but still interesting.
Cant really tell from the "specifications".
Most people dont know or forget that the iPod can recharge its batteries over firewire. And what the heck is SB1394?
Creative going out on a branch and doing god knows what.
it may just be me, but does this thing look like they just slapped a screen and some hookups onto an old hard drive casing? part of the attractiveness of the ipod is, well... it's attractiveness.
Although it appears to be the same spec, 'SB1394 FireWire' is really just a fairly weak attempt to hijack recognition of the spec and attach it to the 'SoundBlaster' line. From Creative's website:
...in other words, they think it'd be neat if the sheep associate FireWire with them, and they claim that the oh-so-powerful brand recognition of the Creative and SoundBlaster brands will serve as an advantage.
--What is the purpose of the SB1394 Certification Program?
There are differences among IEEE-1394 connectivity relative to performance and overall ease of use. Creative engineers developed the SB1394 Certification Program to ensure optimal performance and usability of SB1394 connectivity for digital entertainment consumers.
--How does SB1394 Certification Program benefit my product?
A SB1394-certified device is eligible for joint promotional opportunities, such as in-box cross-promotion, joint soft bundle channel opportunities, e-mail campaigns, on-line exposure, joint presence at selected trade shows, and much more. That is, an SB1394-cetified device has the opportunity to tap into the huge Sound Blaster installed base, leverage the strength of the powerful Sound Blaster brand, and expand market reach in the PC marketplace.
--cut--
Sigh.
On a more technical note, while it may be handy to have both USB and 1394 on the box, it does involve additional hardware and (most important) additional plugs. I have found through my history of players (Original Nomad Jukebox, 64MB flash player, iPod 5GB) that the common point of failure during daily use has been with the plug integrity itself as well as with the entry of dirt, lint, etc. into the plugs. One of the attractions of the iPod is that it only has two ports - one headphone and one FireWire - and both (along with the only edge-mounted control, the lock switch) share the top edge of the unit. this means that only that one side need be carefully protected from FOD and etc.
The primary advantage of this unit seems to be the ability to create and edit playlists on the machine itself. While this is a nice feature, I can say from my two years with the Nomad Jukebox that the art of UI design is SEVERELY LACKING in Creative's hardware dept. Although one could edit and manupulate lists on that player, it would usually take around 4 or 5 menus to add a single track...
A hero is someone who knows when to run away. I am a hero. -Trent the Uncatchable
While you may understandably think that a cheaper feature-for-feature iPod competitor would cause apple to drop the price on the iPod to match, there is reason this won't happen.
It's a common misconception that Apple in the business of selling hardware and software, much like people think that Nike sells shoes.
But Nike does not sell shoes and Apple does not sell computers. They are first and foremost Image companies, selling themselves -- they are their product. This is not a commant on quality, speed or anything of the sort, but it is on price. When you buy and iPod, you are first anf foremost paying for the the fact that is not simply a hard drive, decoder and DAC, but that it's a work of art put together by skilled Apple designers.
This is why Apple won't bother to match prices, because they don't need to. Though brand names may be little more than stories we tell each other, they are more than enough to justify a higher cost on an equal product. If the iPod does the same but looks better and has a better backstory, people will have little trouble justifying the extra cost.
Hilary Rosen's speech was about her love of money and her desire to roll around naked in a pile of money.
Seems no one has noticed that the Toshiba Mobilphile (what used to be known as the gigabeat in Japan) is now available.
G 50 AS.html
:)
:)
http://www.toshiba.com/tacp/portable/current/ME
It's SMALLER than the Zen but bigger than the iPod.
Has an ejectable card instead of haveing to HACK your unit when you want to upgrade.
Though in only comes with a 5gb drive as standard so after selling it on ebay and buying the 20GB drive would run you more.
RUNS LINUX!!!
Suposedly lasts 18 hours!
Does not have as good of a S/N ratio as the Zen.
Does not have Firewire (USB 2.0).
Cheaper than either of them (but only 5gb).
This is the player I'll probably get. Longer battery life and the chance to try to hack the Linux OS on the thing!
--- tracer.ca
Unix obscure?
hahahahahahaha
I just love these people that think they're technically literate but also think that all major mainframes, engineering workstations, web servers etc must be running windoze.
I believe they just put an assload of RAM in the machine and buffer a chunk of the playlist. You'd get really crappy battery life if the hard drive was spinning all the time. I seem to recall reading that the new small drives are fairly impact resistant too.
Don't use them. I *DO* want an FM Tuner. I can't figure out why no one else adds one. I use my MP3 player at the gym a lot. When doing cardio I'd like to watch the news or the game on the TV, but to hear it I need an FM tuner. That's another device to bother with.
"It aint worth a dog
If it won't play my ogg."
doo-wop doo-wop doo-wop
I'm won't buy any digital audio hardware without Ogg Vorbis support!
Another iPod clone, this time from not-so-Creative! Joy! :-)
Chris
I thought it said USB 2.0. Woops...
By the way, I'm an Apple user for the record, and I want an iPod BAD. I thought it was worth mentioning, though, that someone is *finally* trying to compete with the iPod, which may drive down their rather exhorbitant prices. Looking at the features and knowing Creative's penchant for rather clunky interfaces, I'd rather spend more for the iPod, but who can afford it?
Beer... The cause of - and solution to - all of lifes problems. -- Homer Simpson
The winner will be who ever gets out an mp3 player that holds at least 1 hour of music for 49.95 and is expanable.
My Rio Volt MP3 CD player plays CDs that hold 15 hours of MP3 music at 96 kbps mono (I don't need the distraction of stereo in the environments where I typically use it). It cost me $69.95. Too bad the $20 rebate (which would have made it $49.95) expired literally while I was being driven home from Circuit City.
Will I retire or break 10K?
They've picked up support for it, or they are going to (documented). But maybe those don't fit your definition of companies.
-Phil
Archose didn't innovate anything. They put a bigger storage medium onto mp3 players.
Apple brought functionality and un-matched system integration with a first class application (iTunes). They have managed to turn the device into a personal organizer as well. The only thing out there that I have seen that comes close to this is the PocketPC devices, but the storage and battery is dismal on those devices.
I would say that Apple delivered the full widget where other manufacturers have failed. I consider that strongly innovative and even more progressive.
It says:
,
Bring over 8,000 songs (WMA/80kbps) or 5,000 songs (MP3/128kbps) everywhere you go with this cutting-edge compact 20GB player.
But then it also says:
"The Zen offers up to 12 hours of continuous playback using the quick-charge battery, and the sleek aluminum body makes carrying your music even more fun."
Forget about how a "sleek aluminum body makes carrying your music even more fun", but 20 GB would offer around 400 hours or so of music. Obviously the batteries cant keep up with that, but enough battery life to listen to more than a tiny fraction of your music would be nice.. I guess this goes back to the whole batteries arent progressing fast enough argument....
-- -- Warning. Do not stare directly at the sun.
And the price is the same as the IPod after "rebate" read 8 months to get your money.
The 20GB iPod is $499.
The Jukebox Zen 20GB player is $349 before the rebate, and $299 after.
"And like that
Lossless audio is encumbered by patents
Assuming that "lossless audio" refers to "PCM audio compressed using a lossless coding method", what patents affect FLAC?
Will I retire or break 10K?
..though why someone would want to use WMA is beyond me.
Well.. without even needing to think about it, I can tell you one huge great reason why this player supports WMA over say OGG.. think of all the new users of Windows XP (of which there must be millions) all discovering the new features, which includes the ability to rip music from a CD and store it locally on their machine. What format does Windows Media Player encode in by default unless you buy an 'Addon' pack from people like Cyberlink? Bingo.. WMA.. and as most people use their system 'as is' without changing settings, chances are there are a fair few users with a harddrive full of WMA encoded tunes.
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
After seeing rockbox on the archos i can not see how a geek would jump for a player that supports things like wma.
http://rockbox.haxx.se/
Nope, no sig
Not to be an ass, but Apple has a bad habit of giving up on a market they have early dominance in (lot of topics on it recently... Newton for one. I guess you could say the same about the GUI based PC).
So my question is this the end of their lead in portable electronic music? Sure, the iPod seems to be right up there now but how long before someone makes a product that is "almost good enough" but that is a) hell of a lot cheaper b) supporting the latest whims of the market (Ogg support for example).
Apple seems to have a bad habit of being a Dad: "Oh no, silly user! You don't need that! haha! Trust my judgement!" Then everybody goes off to more friendly shores. Any evidence they won't do it this time?
What is music when you despise all sound?
Not readily noticed or seen; inconspicuous: an obscure flaw.
:-)
It definitely is obscure by this defintion. Maybe you should try worrying about something else other than an OS? Have a good night, alone I'm sure
Holy fuck.
Windows competes with Mac OS, therefore Windows news is Apple-related.
Compaq/Dell/Gateway/etc. make computers that compete with Macintoshes, therefore Compaq/Dell/Gateway hardware news is Apple-related.
Any product that uses Firewire is Apple-related.
Any Quicktime streams are Apple-related.
Anything having to do with Pixar is Apple-related.
Lots of things are related to Apple but that doesn't mean that it is really Apple news. It's just that Apple is more and more relevant. So fucking what?
Why don't you cry and shit yourself over it, in that order.
Ogg sounds better than MP3, yes, but: OGG will continue to improve, while MP3, for all intents and purposes, is effectively DEAD.
Yes, DEAD. The "standard" MP3 is not going to improve. Any attempt to improve it will be NON-standard. MP3Pro isn't MP3. Any 'official' enhancements to MP3 will be like MP3Pro--for profit. The MP3 "game" is up; Fraunhoffer and their ilk won't let the next goose that lays a golden egg get away.
Ogg on the other hand is free to change and evolve on it's own, patent free. Our idiot "MP3 is standard and ogg sucks" troll, obviously, didn't consider this. Nor did he consider the fact that major game companies are now using Ogg Vorbis for music formats (NWN, UT2k3, Serious Sam, etc), and NOT MP3.
Also newsworthy: There is alpha-level Ogg Vorbis support for the PhatNoise/Kenwood Music Keg -now-, downloadable from the PhatNoise web site. Looks like the Music Keg is the first one to market with Ogg! (at least for car players, anyway...)
Apple (and Creative Labs) just take a product designed in Asia and put their brand name on it. Said products are better than Archos' Jukeboxes, BUT remember Archos created its Jukeboxes a few years ago and were the first ones with hard drives mp3 players...
:)
Plus, the new Archos players can read divx videos, act as a camera, video recorder, mp3 recorder, compact flash + SD card reader... apart from being a cool firewire+USB2 portable hard drive. I'm sure Apple will follow, but they're just doing that : following the trend.
Good thing Archos is a French company
iTunes is a dream to use. Creative PlayCenter 3 is standing on the pitchers mound in front of a sellout crowd at Yankee Stadium while naked with a microphone when you just forgot the words to "The Star Spangled Banner."
$comment =~ s/($verb)\s+($noun)/IN SOVIET RUSSIA, $2 $1s YOU!/g;
Main Entry: Brigadoon
...
...
Function: noun
: a place that is idyllic, unaffected by time, or remote from reality
I picked a that as a word, not as a musical. Get a clue.
The iPod uses a 1.8 in. hard disk; the Creative uses a standard 2.5 in. notebook
hard disk -- therefore the Creative player is about twice as big as the iPod.
Not only is this not novel (Archos has been using 2.5 in. notebook
drives in similarly-sized MP3 players for a while), it's also not a competitor
in my book.
Let's not forget that the company that makes this, Creative Labs, hopped on the DRM bandwagon.
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
ellen feiss is hot!
natalie and ellen petrified in a compromising position!
People are complaining about features? The Nomad does have features over and above the iPod. Most notably recording. Many people in the live & location recording circles are exploring the Nomads as a replacement for DAT and Mini Disc recording. Creative engineers have been quite active with end users on some of the message boards I frequent with refining the firmware of the Nomad III to enable bit accurate recording and data transfer, so they will listen to a relatively small customer base to improve their product. That said I think I remember reading an article that discussed why so few portable devices support OGG and other codecs. It basically comes down to CPU power. Most of the embedded chips do not have enough processing power to support OGG decoding. Any device this small makes a tradeoff between battery and processing power. Finally 10-12 hours of nonstop music is a lot, maybe I can't listen to EVERY song on a player in that time, but do you always know what songs you listen to before you leave the house? I don't, so it's nice to have a large selection to choose from. And the ability to recharge from a USB port or an AC adapter sounds pretty nice to me. Competition in this market will drive innovation and lower prices. The iPod and Nomad are both prime examples of that, so let's hope for our sake the battle continues.
This page serves up a product comparision of hard drive based MP4 players...comprehensive data and errata. Also iPod news, links, etc.
is that you can't slam Creative for "stealing" Apples innovation, when Apple was far from the first to market.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
Their number for product Information (non-technical issues only) is: 1-800-998-5227 (non-technical issues only, please) or FAX: 1-405-624-6780. Operating Hours (Central Time) 9AM - 6PM, Monday - Friday, Closed Public Holidays.
They have a contact page here: http://www.nomadworld.com/scripts/selectCountry.as p?t=ps - just
click on that, then select "MP3 players".
It looks like that just dumps you into their customer support page, at: https://www.americas.creative.com/youraccount/sign in.asp?gstrAccountWay=2&c=True.
Please, if you mean it, contact them and ask for Ogg Vorbis support. Most companies will listen if large numbers of potential customers call up and say "I will buy this if you add feature X." It only makes sense!
Their bites hurt less than those of supermodels.
And I married one. I should know.
My blog
I've actually just recently gotten hooked on MiniDiscs. Yes, I know, the DRM sucks, but it's easy enough to get around (besides, I usually rip straight from CD anyway so it's not a big deal.) The NetMDs are way cool, the MDLP4 format can hold about 4 full length CDs on one MD (albeit at a reduced bitrate, but with the headphones most people use with light portables, you'd never be able to tell the difference.) The thing is impossible to skip, the battery life is insane (60+ hrs on a single AA,) plus it's small and the media's cheap.
I really do wish Sony would get over the stupid DRM bullshit though, as that's really the only major flaw the NetMDs have. Well, that and lack of cross-platform drivers, but that seems to be a problem for a lot of portables. You can pick them up at Best Buy for around $150, but I'm sure with some online searching you could find them for a bit less. The discs are about a buck a pop, but when compared to flash media or a cratered hard drive, it's a steal.
Yeah, I know, a lot of people are going to bitch about how the format is closed and very much proprietary, but personally I don't care so long as it works. If you're just looking for a solid portable, take a look at the NetMDs. Yeah, 10 gigs of MP3s on a hard drive player sounds nice, but I'm not sure I wanna plunk down that kind of cash on something with as many sensitive, breakable parts as are in a hard drive. Aw well, any other MD fans out there?
I am impressed by the support for both USB and Firewire. Though firewire is better for transferring mp3s, and large amounts of data, computers are more likely to have USB. The ipod, for instance, would be virtually useless to me for bringing reports/papers to my campus for printing because the university is entirely IBM based.
The other problem is that neither Windows, nor MacOS X, support Ogg Vorbis standard. Currently you have to know where to look to download the codec. Until Ogg Vorbis is supported native by either Windows Media Player or Quicktime, we aren't going to see portable media players supporting this format. After all, what's the point of including support for a media format that the average person can't encode to in the first place. Once the situation changes on the OS side, then we are likely to see the situation change on player side. Sure these companies may just prove me wrong, but that doesn't bother me :)
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
a friend brought a cool little WMA (hardware-layer supported wma, so no encoding/decoding needed) player/recorder with 256MB of RAM... to a KDTU (Karl Denson's Tiny Univers -- see them!!)show last week, patched into a serious taper's rig, and now has a great recording and didn't have to bring anything with him that didn;t fit in his pocket. he said the device cost him $200. wish I could recall what it was, but seriously, any mp3/wma player really needs good recording ability to pique my interest. am I alone?
La via sola al paradiso incommincia nel inferno
next time you're at a bang and olufsen store check out the cordless phone with the nifty jog dial. then, ask the sales person when that phone was designed. steal from the best!
but, i still do prefer the ipod, it is smaller and lighter than this product. all this stuff gets heavy! laptop, digital camera, small mouse, mp3 player... i think i permanently tilt to one side.
I would be interested to know whether the Nomad gets this right... or does everyone simply have to listen to pop music?
... that one of the most appealing aspects of the iPod is the hardware design? Looking at the Zen reminds me a lot of the Nomad MG (which I own). A great player, but the fact that there are buttons on BOTH sides of the unit makes it a huge hassle to hold onto (always pushing buttons by accident). At least the MG has different button layouts on each side -- the Zen has identical button layouts on each side, making the situation even worse. The iPod's wheel and push button method of interacting with the UI is much more intuitive than having to remember two sets of buttons located on the side of the unit, which you can not see while looking at the screen.
I don't own a Macintosh, or any Apple product for that matter, but THIS is the reason why Apple is still around. You can talk about things like Ogg support and the ability to hack a device with custom apps until you are blue in the face. At the end of the day, those things don't sell product, but making thoughtfully and intelligently designed products will.
That said, I do think the Nomad MuVo looks interesting for active MP3 listening (running, snowboarding, etc).apple uses great batteries! i have never had a powerbook battery die or have an incredibly reduced life, yet my dell's batteries are lucky to hold any charge after a year. i got rid of some powerbook 2400s, and after 3-4 years they still held a good charge.
Yep, I'm guessing they realized that with GB's of storage, just uncompressed is an option.
its part of the spec for usb... it provides power... why wouldn't it be wise to do it?
either your nomad takes the juice and stores it, or it goes out the back as heat.
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
Is intoducing legal? Wouldn't the DMCA prohibit that? :)
-jc
Just to expand on that a little, Nullsoft is owned by AOL/TimeWarner -- The only competition MicroSoft has in the huge-overpowerful-monopoly department.
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
..we carried plastic boxens holding 200 pieces of 3.5" (HIGH density) floppies; each filled to the brim with delightful midi tracks..
..nowdays, people give me strange looks at superbowl, when I hum the national anthem the way the midi player that was bundled with Windows 3.x once taught me..
kids these days..
A horse can't be sick, you know, even if he wants to.
Media Player does support MP3 but only at a max of 64kbps. That's a whole other issue though, and one I'm surprised hasn't been covered by Slashdot. The short version is that Microsoft used to have a page on their web site claiming that WMA is better quality than MP3 with the 'proof' being a comparison between WMA at 128kbps and MP3 and 64kbps.
Ugh, Play Center is the worst aspect of the Creative MP3 player line.
I notice the Zen uses the same crappy software as my Nomad3.
It's buggy, it doesn't handle standard ID3 tags properly (and it *only* reads ID3 tags - not the file name) and contrary to Creative's website, their software does *NOT* support foreign character sets (eg. Japanese.)
Why couldn't they just make this thing show up like a HD under Windows? Microsoft's Explorer works a whole lot better than Creative's cheap knock-off.
I bought an iPod because not only was it a nifty device to play my mp3's with, but it also looks pretty :)
I saw this on CNET a month ago. Hardly Newsworthy now. They have a 40 GB model as well.
a Beowulf cluster of THESE!!!!
when was the last time a compan released a firmware update that actually provided something you wanted?
-
It has USB 2 and FireWire (finally), and supports WMA and MP3
Unbelieveable, it took them almost a full year to implement the firewire spec! I mean i have had SB Audigy in my PC for almost a year, and every time it booted up it gave me a little applet that kept on telling me how well it'll go with nomad... Thought i must admit, Creative did learn from it's previous mistakes, and they have improved nomad quite signficantly. The product no longer looks like an overgrown portabe CD player from 90's without the slot.
Live for the present, learn from the past, and dream of the future!
Wow, unlike all those posters praising Vorbis, you actually have a clue. You forget one another thing. There are many mp3/wma decoder single-chip solutions, but there isn't a single one that supports Ogg. Implementing Ogg would require a very expensive general-purpose DSP, a discrete DAC chip, and glue circuitry in addition to paying the normal patent license fees (no, MP3 is not going anywhere). That would increase the cost by more than $50 just for the hardware, and several dollars more to amortize the cost of developing a software decoder for the DSP.
Besides, hardly anyone wants ogg. I personally don't give a shit about patent fees and whatnot, and I don't see any reason to encode things to Ogg when everything works with MP3.
it took less than two weeks to get my rebate back.
have you ever submitted a rebate to apple? i do it at least twice a year, and it's always fast.
m-
You catch enchiladas by picking them up behind the head and holding them underwater until they don't kick anymore -VeGas
Isn't the name FireWire the official name of 1394? It's like calling USB it's IEEE #. Why don't they use the real official name? Strange.
There are a lot more specs then that on those page: recording capablity:
zen: yes, ipod no
radio
zen: yes, ipod no
S/N ratio:
zen: 98db, ipod: dosn't say
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Contrary to popular belief, that computer salespeople at Best Buy are not all nitwits. Most of them know what they are talking about but are hindered by corporate policy.
Which Best Buy do you go to. The one's here in Michigan have nothing but underage morons. Why I even had one sales-punk tell me I should not even look at a dvd player unless I had a digital TV.
Ahhhh! Maybe one day I SHOULD take over the world and kill all lawyers. While I am at it I should get ride of the sales folks at Best Buy and Circuit City.
Yeah for me.
Since this device includes an MP3 encoder, the proper question to ask about supporting Ogg is whether it would be possible with firmware updates to support on the fly Ogg encoding. This is of course a lot harder than decoding, and I'm not aware of integer encoders for Ogg (though I imagine someone's thinking about them for Speex). Are we going to see this in the near future?
(I'm still waiting for more choices besides a Sharp Zaurus for the player)
- Dara
Err, Winamp is only one of the most popular multimedia players on the PC and has been for years. And Lycos has been around and well know for years too. Where have you been?
It's included in popular players such as:
WinAmp,
Sonique,
FreeAmp,
Xmms,
Unsanity Echo for MacOS.
It's also supported in popular audio applications such as:
CDex,
Siren Jukebox,
GoldWave.
I don't really see much advantage of this over the Terapin Mine or the Archos player. Sure, it looks nice, but doesn't functionally matter more?
That's exactly right, you won't notice unix is all over the place if you keep your head up your ass. However, I don't find this to be a compelling reason to make the blanket statement that unix is obscure, since probably 90% of colleges and IT professionals know about and use unix (not for *everything* of course).
For a great price on creative nomad products, check out www.focusebiz.com
What bothers me a lot more is this:
So it looks like the unit has some obnoxious DRM built in and it can't play unprotected MP3's. You have to convert your files using some proprietary Windoze program even though it runs Linux internally. You can't just stick the PCMCIA drive into your laptop and dump MP3's to it, which to me would have been the main attraction of this thing. Plus, it costs $495, which is way more than I want to play for an MP3 player, even an Ipod.I also wonder how GPL-friendly the thing can be if it's got that DRM stuff. Unless the hardware itself implements the DRM, I don't see how they can give out the source code without making the DRM defeatable.
The fact is that the new WMA format (which comes with WMP9) is the best audio compression there is. MP3 is not even close, nor is Ogg. Try using WM9 for vrb, for lossless (!) encoding! Excellent! Even with normal encoding WMA9 sounds better in 96kb/s than MP3 in 160! I have tested this with several cd and lp recordings, and have made blind tests with 7 of my friends, with different material. Everytime (and I mean every single time) WMA was chosen as the best of all three; WMA, MP3 and OGG.
Read more about WMA9 here: http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/wm9series.asp
This being the case, I wonder why nobody makes one using a DVD mechanism instead of CD. One disc would hold around 80 hours of music (4.7GB) at 128 kbps. In fact you can get double sided DVD-R blanks with 9.4GB capacity if you don't mind flipping the disc over.
If somebody made a DVD-based player that could play audio CD's, and could also play WAV and compressed files (MP3 and Vorbis, natch) on CD-R and DVD-R discs, they'd really have something (hey, it could play DVD Video too, but I wouldn't want to pay for it). It could still cost in the $100 range and except for the larger size, would do most everything the HD units do, with much more flexibility and lower cost.
news.com reports that ir does have USB 2.0 support http://news.com.com/2100-1040-961918.html
such as Unreal Tournament 2003.
I like esp this line in the "System requirements" section
;)
# Sound Blaster® Audigy(TM), Extigy(TM) or Live!(TM) For EAX® enhanced MP3 encoding
just like an XboX can run Mandrake, this thing can play OGG, imho
it just doesn't *yet*
Hmmm, I've been taught that: 2.4 is less then 3, 4 is less then 4.43, and .75 is less then 1.0.
So the iPod is smaller in all dimensions, but maybe
you live in a different world with different rules.
solid state device?
(apologies for yelling)
IT'S GOT A FRIGGIN HARD DRIVE, YOU MORON.
So, anyway, nevermind.
That's right, nobody seems to care about frequency response, distortion, output power, all those other specs that actually determine how likely you are to actually enjoy listening to the damn thing. Nomad vs. iPod, fine, whatever... does anybody have a clue which one actually sounds better? Or does that matter any more?
I wonder how much it will cost in Canada
I was typing very quickly and didn't have a chance to proofread... parent post has nothing to do with mp3.com, grammar style is awful, and there are a few nasty typos. Ugh, I need more coffee.
I would rather see PlayCenter adhere to the KISS principle as well.
It DOES support foreign character sets -- I've seen Chinese on it. You get one less line on the display due to the size of the kanji.
As a matter of fact, the Nomad Muvo does show up as a drive letter in Windows, and 3rd-party software exists that allows the HDD-based players to do so as well. It just isn't built-in, unfortunately.
I've tried getting Japanese (kanji) to show up in it, and apparentally unless your OS supports the language, it won't work. I'm running Win2k, which is unicode underneath so it's technically capable...but the application doesn't use unicode.
I don't want to have to grab a copy of Win2k-J in order to get Creative's 2-bit POS software to work properly...
Hello I have 3 questions 1. Will it alow for a diary( will this be a possibility if hacked?) 2. Will it allow for upgrades, maybe ORGVORBIS in the future upgrades? 3. Does it come with a carrycase/cover? tka amni
It's important to note that for me one of the big draws of the iPod is it's relatively small size and weight. Here's the info on these players:
iPod 20GB
Height: 4.0 in
Width: 2.4 in
Depth: 0.84 in
Weight: 7.2 oz (204 g)
Archos Jukebox Studio 20
Height: 4.5 in
Width: 3.2 in
Depth: 1.3 in
Weight: 12 oz (290 g)
Nomad Jukebox Zen
Height: 4.5 in
Width: 3.04 in
Depth: 0.98 in
Weight: 9.5 oz (268g)
The iPod is significantly smaller and lighter. This is despite Creative's claim that the Zen is the "World's Smallest Hard Drive MP3 Player".
However the Zen is smaller and lighter than the Archos, so for someone looking for a "cheaper" iPod it's a lot better deal.
don't you think the zen is such a better value? i mean you're getting 20gbs and better sound quality for only $300! looking at the iPod's, to get 20gbs you've gotta pay $500. sure, the iPod is a little smaller, but the zen is still portable. i had ordered an iPod the other day, but then as soon as i read about the zen, i canceled my iPod order. now, i'm just waiting for buy.com to get the zen in.
Using a standard drive opens up the possibility of installing a much higher-capacity one in the future, don't you think?
On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!], "Pray, Mr.
Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers
come out?" I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of
ideas that could provoke such a question.
-- Charles Babbage
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