Neuros Gets (Beta) Linux Support

Jahf writes "/. reported awhile back that the folks at Digital Innovations (makers of the Neuros portable MP3 player) were teaming up with Xiph.org (makers of the Ogg Vorbis audio format) to release both native Linux support for synchronizing the Neuros and firmware support in the Neuros for Ogg Vorbis files. Today they announced in this forum posting that the native Linux client has reached beta. Nice to see this happen ... I can ditch my last Windows install (well, I'll keep it for a couple of games). It is a command-line utility, no amazing fancy UI, but I'm sure plenty of folks will work to remedy that in some fashion or another and I'm happier with a rock-solid command-line util than a buggy GUI app anyway since I already do all my ripping/encoding/freeDBing/etc from scripts in a shell (so I can just add this as the final step). Next on the list is Ogg Vorbis support ... not done yet but hopefully close. w00t!"

Comments

I keep hopin

[Gyorg_Lavode]

I keep hopin they finally get an ogg vorbis digital music player thats reasonably sized. I don't want one of the big, fancy players; I want a small, pocket sized one that doesn't have the kitchen sink. I want one I can put a 512mb memory stick or compact flash or whatever card in and throw in my pocket while I run, bike, fence, or whatever.

These players are great. If I wanted a nice big music player I'd chomp down on this fast, but 4.5x2.5x1.5 (not exact) is a bit big to just throw in my pocket considering the size of some of the players out there.

I'm happy that companies are starting to tune digital music players for the linux crowd and starting to get ogg support on them, but would it kill to have a small, no frills player that can play vorbis files?

Re:I keep hopin

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Now when I DO get a vorbis player, I'm going to have to spend about 300 hours re-ripping my entire collection.

Don't rip to vorbis, rip to FLAC and then never worry about having to re-rip to the format dejure again. Disk is cheap, go lossless for archival purposes and then whenever you need it in a lossy format, just use the FLAC version as your base source and convert on the fly. Makes it easy to support MP3, Vorbis, AAC, AARP, NCAA, etc.

Neuros Synchronization Manager

[RO7777]

positron

Ogg will have won...

[Anonymous Coward]

when these MP3 players get marketed as "portable Ogg Vorbis players" instead. (Yeah geeks have strange wet dreams I know.)

What xiph.org say

[Zayin]

Check out what xiph.org have to say about this:

Please do not run out and purchase this device immediately, assuming that Vorbis playback will be supported by Neuros. The firmware we write for them (codenamed 'NeuRosetta') will be documented in its creation, and we'll have a site up to document the progress. When that site says it's 'safe' to buy the unit, then it's safe.

Quality Ogg VS Mp3

[Kurt Russell]

License issue aside, which sounds better (VBR)ogg or (VBR)Mp3? I can't tell them apart.
This seems to be all the rage on UseNet.
That Neuros device looks pretty sweet.

is there really need for vorbis portable?

[Anonymous Coward]

you generally use your portable while you travel in bus or go jogging etc.
the ambient noises disort the sound anyway so you don't have to use full 192Kbps quality for your audio, besides the memory in the devices is limited and still bit expensive to expand.

how's your headphones? do you really carry around high end half open/closed headphones that cost $1000 when you go jogging?
no, you use the $10 button headphones that you got cheap from some junk shop --> no need for the extra quality

Currently you can get portable mp3 player with 128Mb memory for less than $100

how about getting one of those cheap mass produced mp3 players and whip up script that transcodes the ogg on your hard drive to 64-160kbps mp3 just before transferring it to the player

you could still enjoy the quality of oggs on your high end speaker system at home since the files are oggs on your hd

Ogg vorbis only on Neuros HD? not light versions?

[AceJohnny]

From the Neuros Forum thread pertaining to ogg Vorbis, from the head of the Neuros product development:

(...)we do wish to open up our system so that third parties can contribute to the product's development amd leverage our own efforts.
Good! another smart company who wants to help the user community rather that stop them!

On their site, Digital Innovations say the NeuRosetta (ogg vorbis for neuros) should soon (sometime in June?) be available for the Neuros HD... I was really hyped up by the Neuros 128MB / 20GB Upgrade Bundle (tho does the upgrade bundle include the Neuros 128? If not, the price tag is beyond my limited student resources...) But will NeuRosetta work on other versions of the Neuros than the Neuros HD? Coz an HD mp3 player is maybe a bit big for all my uses...

Encoding - C�rrent Best Practice

[Anonymous Coward]

You should not use --r3mix. It is old and deprecated - its removal from LAME has been considered. You should use LAME 3.90.2 with --alt-preset standard (aka "APS", ~ 192kbps VBR) or possibly --alt-preset extreme ("APX", ~ 256kbps VBR) for trickier encodes (classical, jazz, rock, experimental). Those without space concerns still wishing to use mp3 can try --alt-preset insane ("API", 320kbps CBR).

The --alt-presets are optimisations for quality and have been very thoroughly tested by hydrogenaudio. They represent the current state-of-the-art in mp3 compression.

For a scale, quality (normally transparent up to lossless) and size (50-80MB up to 300-700MB) go roughly (Qx represents Vorbis 1.0 quality number): APS < Q6 < APX < Q7 < Q8 < API < Q9 < Q10 < FLAC

A music sharing network for people who care about quality exists. Because the bad guys read /. too, I'll leave it to you to find üs, but the rules are:

Rip with Exact Audio Copy 0.9b4 (secure mode, accurate stream, NO C2, no normalisation, no read or sync errors, only complete discs with no missing audio tracks, save a log file) and encode to MP3s (LAME 3.90.2 or 3.92), Oggs (Vorbis 1.0) or FLACs. Tag correctly - for mp3 ONLY use id3 v1.1 and id3 v2.3.0 - with year and ideally genre from allmusic, name scheme "%A - %C\%A - %C - %N - %T" normal, various artists discs - name tracks "Artist / Title" and use name scheme "%C\%C - %N - %A - %T", add " (OST)" to album name for soundtracks. Move log into directory, rename to directory name + .log, add an .md5 md5sum for the log and audio files to complete the rip.

FLAC does matter

[Jucius Maximus]

"And whoah, fanboy. If I was gonna go lossless, I'd go with with a RIFF wav-- those are compatible with every imaginable program."

Yeah, you say that now. But with FLAC, the files are compressed losslessly, and in my experience, I generally get about a 33% size reduction. And with subtle music with a lot of will placed percussion (e.g. my jazz albums) FLAC does give a noticeable improvement over ogg vorbis encoded at 9.1 quality.

So assuming you'd get about 74 minutes of audio on the standard CD, you'd get 747 MiB of wave files per disc.

Note: CD Audio encoding is different than regular data encoding. You cannot fit 747 MiB of wave files on a CD-R in a regular file 74 or 80 minute system because of redundant error correction data that does not exist in the CD Audio format.

So with a 20 GiB Neuros Audio Player you would be able to fit 27.4 CDs on one player. With FLAC, assuming a 33% file size reduction, you would be able to get 40.9 CDs onto the player.

Lossless support in the Neuros player IS a big deal because it allows you to put a significantly larger quantity of non-lossy music on it. And furthermore, if you want, you can just convert the FLAC back to RIFF wave format whenever you want because, one again, the conversion is lossless in both directions.

Re:Why not USB-storage?

[volsung]

The README, which you probably didn't see because the submitter didn't include a link to the actual release page, explains this briefly:

As far as your computer is concerned, a Neuros is just an external USB 1 hard disk, following the USB Mass Storage standard. You can copy any sort of file, music or otherwise, onto the Neuros. However, only files that are listed in a special database stored on the Neuros will be playable. This is where positron is needed. It will both physically copy files and update the Neuros database so those files are playable.