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USB Key-Sized MP3 Player With LCD Display
nhahmada writes "The Muvo MP3 player/storage device from Creative has been out for awhile, but some have complained of its lack of a display or equalizer. Well, now Innogear has released the 128MB Duex mp302 with a backlit LCD supporting ID3 tags, a "multi-category" equalizer and a timer (Why?). The mp302 also has the ability to record/playback voice via its built-in microphone. It can be used for storing any type of file and plays MP3/WMA/WAV. Both the Muvo and mp302 run on one AAA, giving 12 hours of continuous playback. Running at $179, it's a little more expensive than the $169.99 128MB Muvo, but I am willing to shell out ten bucks for an LCD. Go here for a better look at the display."
LCD = Liquid Crystal Display. So that's Liquid Crystal Display Display.
From the department of redundancy department.
Now that could be a great device if it could have mobile phone built in. Or at least a connection to phone.
The most annoying thing about players today is that you can't hear when your mobile rings.
It's playing Jenifer Lopez? .. wtf. i'm not getting one
I still think I'm going to hold out for the Creative Nomad Zen. A little more expensive. Lets see 20GB.... 128MB. Hmmmmmmmm.
olbigatory comment about not decoding ogg files.
yeesus, is it that hard to decode ogg files? all you have to do is implement it!
If you had nuts on your chin, would they be chin nuts?
What I want is an FM radio with MP3 recorder and programmable recording.
So I can record, say, Talk of the Nation on NPR in the morning and listen to it in the afternoon.
Why doesn't anybody make this yet???
Tivo for NPR. It would be great for saving stuff to listen to while driving, for those times when I want to actually use the time to learn something.
I wonder how much damage that LCD can take before it's trashed. Something that small would go everywhere with me. Anyone have any experence with anything like that?
this will push down the price of the Muvo. Sorrry, but it only holds 128MB. I think I can pretty well remember what MP3's I put on a 128MB player, so the LCD is pretty pointless (and probably actually shortens battery life). The equalizer might be nice, though.
See for example this car adapter: "Did you know you can use your MP3 Player in your car to enjoy through your car speakers? Play your portable CD players, Mini Disc and MP3 players through any audio cassette player! It is fully compatible with ALL our MP3 Players. This device is fully compatible with all our MP3 CD Players!" - has anyone actually used this or similar product? Does the thing have a dramatic effect on sound quality?
a timer (Why?).
Because when you're working out, you often want to know how long you've been going. "OK, good, i did my 5 minutes of hard running, time for a smoke!", etc. Joggers, treadmill junkies, and other people-who-move are a target audience for these things (remember anti-skip CD players? "Perfect for Runners!")
It'd surprise me if this didn't come with an armband of some sort, either out of the box or as an option.
LCD Display means Lopez Can't Dance..... Display.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Another cool use for things like this would be Bugs. You know - the cloak and dagger type.
I love these devices (usb key-chain storage)
I think they are fantastic - and cant wait till they get even more features backed into that little package...
if I cant read/write to it like I do my REX-II.... I.E. no drivers needed just place the files in a FAT-16 filesystem..... then it is junk.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
This really doesn't seem like enough room for any kind of serious travel. I don't want to have to load it up with new songs every time I go out, and this won't hold more than what, an hour? I really see these "little" MP3 players going away fast and the IPod like players coming in. I don't want to bring along A CD, I want to bring my whole jukebox!
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
while your idea is fine, i just think that would be too expensive and most people wouldn't buy it when they can "get by" with using a computer. that's what's holding your idea back.
If you had nuts on your chin, would they be chin nuts?
They've had these things for years, you can get em for 10 bucks at radio shack. The sound quality is crap, as can be expected. They'll work with anything you can plug a headphone jack into.
A discman that plays MP3 CDs, has a SW/FM/AM, LCD TV, decodes OGG, downloads with Wireless Ethernet or IEEE1394, and runs off a Hydrogen Fuel Cell. Until this device is available, I refuse to support the crappy home electronics industry.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
This must be intended for that "active-geek" demographic coveted by marketers world wide (what is that....like 10 people?)
When tap into the "sedintary-geek" market and remove that pesky timer...thats when the big will start comin' in!
I run, sail, ski, and do other things. It would be great to have something like this with more memory (I rather not have my music on a hd when running or skiing- crash disk is no fun), 512 would be fairly good.
I would love to see one of these things also able to accept Winamp plugins (ogg, adx, etc).
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
Holy crap, dude! This is amazing. The Muvo looks like that thing Spock used to have sticking out of his ear when he was at his science station on the bridge. Was he really working, or just listening to his Jimmy Eat World tracks?
This could be a great device with some clever client-side software. I'm assuming that it currently appears to the host computer as a standard usb mass storage device... Great device, as an mp3 player. But imagine how much flexibility you would get if it appeared to the host as a usb hub, to which is connected a usb mass storage device, a usb audio input device (standard microphone driver), and a usb->serial port bridge to which a standard serial lcd is connected. All the hardware is there, it's just a matter of appearances... with these features, it would be just as great (indeed, identical) as an mp3 player, but you could also use it as a portable microphone (the microphones on both my ibook and picturebook suck), and you could use it as an additional display device when plugged in. I just can't see any downside (besides development time) to allowing this.
I've had this sig for three days.
Ohh, they are those things. Somehow that "old" invention put together with new stuff got me misleaded. Thanks :)
P.S. Of course the device is fully compatible with any player with standard output, not just THEIR MP3 CD players.
MSDOS: 20+ years without remote hole in the default install
USB Key-Sized MP3 Player With LCD Display
Keypsized player? Gee that is smart. So it makes it so much easier now to lose it. When I want a player (walkman, mp3, etc), I want something big enough to fit in my hand and easly change the songs without looking at the buttons. Something made to fit in your had and where your finger end, should have the buttons.
And don't even get me going with the title. Does it come with two displays? I can brag to my friend then. "Hey guys, I got my new MP3 Liquid Crystal Display display. In the words of Dennis Leary what the fuck, get an education.
Ok I feel better now.
NO! NO! Please don't mod me, I'm too young to die a troll. *click* Oh the pain, the pain...
How can this comment be redundant when it was the first Vorbis post?
If you want to test your sound card you can get this program to see how your sound card stacks up to the muvo. muvo specs here You'll need to run a cable from your speaker out to your stereo input on your soundcard...
But if your headphones suck, it really won't matter will it :D
Feel free to mod my previous post down - it seems the "interesting product" I referred to is just the dull old cassette adapter trick. Sorry :)
Yes. They are. As pointed out a few months ago, ./ is now taking for-pay "stories." I wouldn't mind this, except for the fact that they don't mark them as such. I mean, even crappy magazines with no journalistic integrity at all (ok, maxim) at least states what's advertising and not. I think ./ seriously compromises its integrity by trying to camouflage them.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Gaaahh! How could you forget DVD, cell phone and digital camera! Oh and a GPS! ;)
An optimist believes we live in the best world possible; a pessimist fears this is true.
Does anyone know what type of batteries do these things take? Are they the small watch-battery kind? Is it a recharable Li-Ion battery? An interesting concept would be for it to be able to recharge while plugged into a USB socket...
I SURVIVED THE GREAT SLASHDOT BLACKOUT OF 2002!
My problem is having too much stuff to carry. I'm not a fan of having 4 things in my pockets and 4 more strapped to my belt, so I don't do it. This product is great, because it's small (I recently replaced my phone with a Treo, since I had stopped carrying my beloved Visor due to space constraints).
My problem is headphones. Even earbuds are fairly large, and easily broken in your pocket. Carrying my music with me everywhere is of no use if I can't listen to it. Are there any good solutions for carrying around headphones in a safe but non-huge way?
Similarly, there needs to be a stereo hands-free kit for my phone (I much prefer hands free) with a 1/8 jack which doubles as headphones for this thing (yes, stereo is useless for the cell). Does such a thing exist?
I guess the truth is I'm just another person waiting for convergence, when I can have my phone, mp3/ogg player, networked PDA, digital wallet, etc. all embedded in one false tooth and hooked wirelessly to the other relevant parts of my head. I guess the problems there start happening when people see me talking to myself in the street, or I accidentally answer the phone by piping Eminem into it at high volume.
Thus endeth the rambling.
-Puk
Same reason my blender has a clock.
People who disagree with you are not automatically evil, greedy, or stupid.
Nice device, but would it have been all that hard for them to replace the AAA battery with a rechargeable one and let it recharge from the +5V on the USB connector?
11*43+456^2
The MPIO-DMK is a better alternative for people wanting someone small and durable. While I agree having the built in USB port is nice, it also means that you have a removeable piece: the cover. And I guarantee over time and use, you're going to lose, break, bend, or damage the cover to the point of worthlessness, and once you don't have a cover, your USB port is going to get trashed.
Check out the MPIO-DMK
Creative is dancing to MS' jingle, so most likely it's loaded with DRM software. Perhaps it will be
featured together with their other products on the hall of shame.
Imagine a beowulf cluster of those..
in your pocket !
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
OTOH, the feature I need is FM Out, so it can work with the marine Radio/CD player in the boat. Radio Shack has these as a separate device, which is Ok, but ideal would be an integrated very low power FM transmitter.
Cause its smaller, cheaper, has a better battery life, holds what I need, and has NO MOVING PARTS. Contrary to all the Baywatch episodes I've watched, having stuff bounce around in not always a good thing.
Well, you could try to find an adapter that lets you change the side the wire comes out on, so you can flip over the tape. I used to have one like this, back before I got a cd player for my car.
You might also look at the fm broadcast type adapters (like this), although in my experience (about 5 years ago), they don't work very well. Maybe they've improved since then.
Ed Wedig
Graphic design services
docbrown.net
remember anti-skip CD players? "Perfect for Runners!")
The newer ones with longer antiskip anyhow. My older player has Anti-Skip, it still chirps and clips when I'm blading.
Memory-based players are nice because they don't skip and also have no (powered) moving parts to break or drain battery.
The timer is also useful for track-times, to see if you can get around a little faster next time (i.e. if your fitness is "improving"). I prefer to set my pace to a particular song though, fast upbeat music for harder work, and shorter songs for trying to make a sprint
I remember when my NomadII MG was the cat's ass... *sigh
That was helpful info. I don't have an fm card but I do have a constant connection, and will be trying this tonight.
So what is the deal with Bluetooth, anyway?
Rumour and innuendo suggests it's problems might be:
- hardware's too expensive
- standard is too complicated (but more secure)
- standard came too late
is any of this true?"Provided by the management for your protection."
MP3 player + PalmOS PDA + phone.
Coming soon - Rumor has it that "soon" could be Nov. 15. A few people have gotten their hands on beta units and it's schweet.
http://www.kyocera.com/
If you're worried about the phone/PDA integration - I have the 7135's predecessor, the 6035. It rocks. The integration is wonderfully done.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Hell, I mixed up those sentences. I can't do anything right.
Does anyone knows? Does it look like as a usd-hdd from the os's point of view?
thx
Szo
Red Leader Standing By!
Now I can have an expensive player that has too-small-to-push-with-out-searching-for-them buttons and memory to hold all of 3 medium quality CDs worth of music. Jeez, get an iPod.
Karma: Bizzare (mostly affected by varying internal caffeine levels.)
God damn.. how big are your keys?
Just pick up a USB extension cable, and leave it plugged in to the back of your machine. You also could get a USB hub and put it on your desktop.
Twostep
There are 10 different types of people in this world... those who understand binary, and those who don't.
"Both the Muvo and mp302 run on one AAA, giving 12 hours of continuous playback."
"Innogear has released the 128MB Duex mp302"
I don't get it. Sure you get 12 hours of playback, but even at the mediocre MP3 quality of 128kbps, audio is a megabyte a minute. So at 128MB, you just get to hear the same 2 albums over and over again for 12 hours, and if you want to listen to other albums, you have to upload them. The price for these memory units/sticks/cards/whatever-a particular-device-uses is just inexorably stupid to settle for as a consumer. I couldn't be happier with my $119.00 CD-Based MP3 Player . It has never skipped on me (it loads 8 minutes of track [longer than 99% of tracks] straight to memory, then the disc stops spinning.) and with it , I get over ten hours of 128kbps music per disc and carry as many discs as I want, and because the disc only spins to read, I get 10-12 hours of listening time per battery set, and the unit I have has a built-in recharger.
Until these trinkets come with 512MB of memory, there's no way they can compete with my 25 cent 700MB storage units for the same quality experience. Sure, if you dont want to stick a CD-player in your pocket to jog (which I do with no problems), then the little guys are fine. But if you're just gonna use it to jog, get an earbud radio for $25 bucks.
The only people who buy these trinket MP3 players seem to me to be the people who get them as some sort of status symbol. I can really see no other good popular reasons.
It's not as dumb a question as it sounds, I already have a MP3 player that I can only download to, and that the software restricts to MP3 files. If this is a MP3 player and 128 megs of memory available for file transfer, then it would be pretty handy. That and, of course, the timer.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Not just "does it appear as a USB Mass Storage device with a convenient filesystem format", but also:
Is the recorded audio (e.g. voice recordings) in a format easily accessible using Open Source tools?
If the answer to both of those was yes then I'd probably buy one without hestitation. Does anyone have one they're willing to post a review of?
Because I can't do direct digital copies of the discs without expensive gear.
No, spdif to spdif is not a pure digital copy.. the data is decompressed/recompressed.
The disc is proprietary, I can't stick it in my computer.
They were out for a long time and were really expensive.
The list goes on.
It's bigger than all my keys put together. It's kinda cool, but why not describe things accurately?
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
...teacher to cry out over dat one!
The CBC (cbc.ca) has some great science and culture shows, and they're all ready to go in mp3 format and usually archived. Apply your favorite tool (e.g. wget) and off you go. Our politics aren't really as entertaining though. :-)
As another poster mentioned, a fm card or a sound card connected to a normal radio is another way to go, as well. It's all about cron. I've done this with TV as well, I drive a lot.
128mb rio == one whola hella pile of radio talk shows @ 64kbit.
..don't panic
Another gaget that's small enough for me to lose
My good sig is in the laundry
That notebook looks like a Vaio Picturebook or one of those little Toshibas. Anyways, it looks like it is about 5-6 keyboard keys long and only a little wider than a usb port. About the same size as the Muvo.
:)
Anybody want to buy a Rio600?
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
I think you're right, the iPod would not stand up to contact sports (wife making contact with the ground). These things definitely seem like a step up from the Sony device. I didn't see one on the Duex but the MuVo has a little loop so you can tie it to your coat zipper or something.
I was wondering the same thing about Mac compatibility. I think these USB flash key devices would use Apple's generic USB mass storage driver, just like a USB hard drive. They're probably FAT32 formatted but so what?
And guess what I just found you can do? You can highlight tracks in iTunes, drag them on to a folder (or drive icon) and Finder will *copy* them into the folder! At least it does in OS X (10.2). I bet it works in OS 9 too though. What an excellent way of loading it up, just make a playlist (or a smart playlist which picks 3 hours worth of random songs) and drag them in! Sure, it's only at USB speeds but 128MB still shouldn't take more than a few minutes.
I did the NetMD experience, due precisely to the logic you describe. Even started reverse engineering the USB protocol used to get music into it (hint: It's possible).
Returned the sucker -- and watched it get put into a pile of other returns -- when I realized achieving 4x upload times w/o the USB hack required using this miserable copy protection system that sucked up massive amounts of hard drive, but without it, I'd have to spend one hour uploading for every hour of music -- and I'd have no track boundries.
So, the short answer: Minidisc takes *forever* to write.
--Dan
Why on earth would you buy this thing? Who wants to pay 200 bucks to listen to the same 2 (maybe 3) CDs over and over for 12 hours? If this thing was $50 I might deem it cool, but it's not.
For another $100 bucks you can snag a 5gig FireWire iPod half the size of a deck of cards, which doubles as an external harddisk, address book, calender, device to play Break-Out on, etc.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
It's nontrivial to decode, but whatever crypto is there exists on a per-file, not a per-link basis. I was able to verify that munging bits in the stored format does indeed munge bits on the wire, so replay techniques should be fruitful.
There doesn't appear to be any way to do accelerated *downloads* off the NetMD, however. It was sad -- I went on a trip with my NetMD, and really enjoyed the thing, but I just wasn't willing to go back to 1x or 4x transfers. Even MMC, which is ungodly slow in its own right, does MP3 at 12x realtime!
What can I say? The technical chops of the NetMD just don't make it worth it to hack on.
--Dan