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Ogg Vorbis Portables On The Way
Emmettfish writes "According to this release on Xiph.org, it looks like the Neuros player will support Linux users, and also give them the ability to play back Vorbis files on the move, starting in late May. Go Ogg! Remember, donating a few bucks to Xiph may not make the world a better place, but it'll definitely help it
sound a lot better." For those of us craving a portable that plays from cheap CD-Rs rather than flash media or a hard drive, Emmett says by email that an agreement for development of firmware for a CD-based Ogg player is in the works, too.
Well this is obviously good for ogg, but even if this does gain some momentum a big name portable mp3 player manufacturer will simply put it in their player and way underprice these guys.
I am not saying it isn't a good idea at all, but don't you think they could get shut out of business really quick?
make sure the players support upgradeable firmware for future codec upgrades and I'm set - tho the specification does claim that all future Ogg Vorbis files will be decodable by the current decoder, it may miss out on improvements and enhancements.
The CD-based player is a good idea for those of us with massive disc collections but just cannot be bothered to transfer the songs - much easier with a change of disc.
Speaking of which - one of Ogg Vorbis' strongest selling points is bitrate peeling - you can "peel" a 192 kbps file to 128 kbps and the resulting file will sound just as good as if it were encoded directly off the original CD/wave file.
But there is no tool yet. When can we expect to see one?
Thanks for all the great work.
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
Does it play Ogg? Oh! it does. I'm going back to sleep.
"Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them."
Nice, but I already have a portable Ogg Vorbis player: tkcPlayer
I find the fact that Ogg Vorbis is an open format more important than the small gain in audio quality.
-- Cheers!
the MyFi feature of Neuros is very fun, useful and innovative!
MyFi allows you to broadcast the music on your Neuros through any FM radio. Like the one in your car. Or your kitchen. Or your coworker's boombox. MyFi automatically scans the FM radio dial for an available frequency and broadcasts using all digital stereo encoding, just like broadcast towers used by professional radio stations.
I don't think RIAA will like this, but this feature is really a killer-app amha.
An MP3 file at 32 kbit/second sounds muffled - high frequencies largely removed - while an Ogg at 23 kbit/second (16 kbit nominal) has a much better tonal balance. The Ogg stream is not pristine quality, but much better than the MP3.
If you're interested in packing many hours of low bitrate material, Ogg is the way to go.
I'm in a Unix state of mind.
I have my doubts about this unit. In my opinion, the days of the flash-based MP3 (ogg, etc.) players are numbered for one simple reason: they don't hold enough music. Even if it's relatively simple to sync the device with the computer, it's still a pain to have to do that every time you want to listen to new music. I own the 15GB Archos Jukebox Recorder, which I got on sale for $150 (including rebate) a couple of months ago. I was able to put all of the songs I'd downloaded from my desktop and laptop - about 10GB worth of music - on it, and a bunch of my CDs as well. Now I don't have to take a bunch of CDs around with me, as the player can hook up to my home stereo, car stereo (it's a newer stereo that has an MP3 port and I use a cable to connect the player to the port - with the Neuros you could broadcast over the stereo's FM frequency), and also at work (I hook my computer's speakers up to the player). For me, it's a much better option than the flash-based players because I can fit so much more music on it. My only complaint is that there is so much music on it that it is sometimes hard to navigate around the HD to find exactly what you're looking for, especially if you don't take the time to really organize your music by folder, track number, etc., before you upload it to your player. I have heard that the user interface for the iPod solves some of these problems, so I am hoping that Archos comes out with a software fix soon. Anyway, the bottom line is that I would go with the 20GB option here - I guess my only concern about that in this instance is that the 20GB "backpack" looks huge, and might add a lot of weight to the unit and make it bulky. The Archos I have is a little heavier than I would prefer, but really not that bad. I am still able to jog with it, which is key. I carry it in my left arm now and for the first time in years, my left arm is the same size as my right arm. Just kidding.
What this means for me is that I can play my oggs in my friend's car without the aid of any doohickey cable or any other crap like that. All he needs is an FM receiver. A truly useful [and I do not use the word lightly here] innovation. Wonder why no one ever thought of it before...
I really wouldn't worry about the RIAA here - more likely is the FCC who dictates frequency spectrum allocation, but the transmitting range should be short enough to satisfy their requirements.
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
FYI, Frontier Labs expects to have ogg support ready for their Nex II player in Q2 2003.
I have built the plugin for the Qtopia media player on the Sharp Zaurus SL5500 myself a few weeks ago. You can also find someone else's build as an IPKG on http://www.killefiz.de/.
And the Zaurus could accomodate a CF harddisk (1gig)... I'm not saying that it would run off the battery for long tho.
Also, I heard that the integer only decoder (Tremor) used less power than the built-in MP3 one, so battery life as affected by that is supposed to be longer (10 percent I read someplace).
It has a *very* limited range. Like you, and maybe the car next to you, if you both have your windows open and the other driver has a good antenna. Hell of a lot cleaner than a tape adapter, and easier than pulling your stereo out to add an RF modulator so that you can plug the thing directly in.
I was thinking - this is pretty cool. Then I saw it connects to your computer via usb 1.1. Who in their right mind would develop a new product with a 20GB harddrive and stick a measly USB 1.1 connection on it? There's no way that's going to work without frustrating every user
SonicBlue's Pearl plays Ogg. It was demoed at CES this year, so it should be on the streets by this fall. A SonicBlue employee reported on RioWorld that it supports Ogg. It also has an ethernet base, which is unusual and forward thinking.