iRiver Announces A New Ogg/MP3 Player

An anonymous reader writes "CD Freaks and Mobile mag are reporting that iRiver has unveiled a new Ogg-capable mp3 player. Featuring 20 GB of HD space and USB 2.0 connectivity, the iHP-120 might just be the answer to the question all us Apple-fearing geeks have been asking... Although the new product has yet to show up on their website, the older model iHP-100 is similar in design but with half the storage space (10gb). New software will be released in October to update it and other players from iRiver with ogg compatibility as well."

Comments

rio karma too

[asv108]

As mentioned before on /., the Rio Karma is another hard drive based player with MP3, WMA, OGG, and FLAC support. I like the Karma because its smaller than the ipod, doesn't look like an ipod clone, and it has an ethernet port too. The karma will come in 20 and 40GB versions.

Re:Ogg?

[Ignorant Aardvark]

what the f&*^#$ is ogg? Some stupid linux invention?

From their site: "Ogg Vorbis is a completely open, patent-free, professional audio encoding and streaming technology with all the benefits of Open Source." In other words, it has better compression than mp3, and since it's open source, you don't have to pay licensing fees on players that decode Ogg like you would with mp3.

More details...

[Spikeman56]

This is kinda old news... it was announced like a week ago and it is on the website last time I checked... Anyway iRiver announced that they will be supporting OGG on their other players... imp-250/350, and ifp-3XX - selective format support either mp3&wma and mp3&ogg imp-400/550, and ifp-5XX - All in one format support for MP3, WMA, and OGG iHP-1XX - All in one format support for MP3, WMA, WAV and OGG PLayers ogg are not supported on... iMP-50/100/150 and iFP-1XX ~spikeman56

Very cool.

[Nucleon500]

iRiver was one of the first to work with Xiph.org, and there was something about demo boards, and some agreement, but nothing concrete for a long time. It's nice to see this come to fruition. I personally am very glad, because this is one more choice when I get a portable player for college. I have a huge Vorbis collection.

There's a Wiki list of (hopefully) all portable Vorbis players at http://wiki.xiph.org/VorbisHardware. That page has a link to some detailed information from iRiver about which of their players will support Vorbis.

OGG File Format

[Kujah]

Finally a mobile player that supports the OGG Vorbis file format! I own a creative jukebox, but I don't use it that often mainly because it doesn't support ogg files (which most of my music is now encoded as) Ever since I found out about the OGG file format i've been encoding my music to it. I sensed immediately that I got better sound quality with it - and I was right. http://ekei.com/audio/ has links to various comparisons, and in general the OGG encoder handles the mid range much better than, say, lame mp3. This is great because afaik headphones don't have the greatest highs...

Re:recording?

[Chaltek]

Yes it can record WAV files, via the optical input or external microphone jack. Check the CD-Freaks article for the official product description blurb.

What is missing, and would be really great, is for the device too encode OGG files as well!

Re:Updating older players?

[Chaltek]

Yes, the 350 will support Ogg. Details from iRiver
However, due to its limited (8mb) flash rom you'll have to select between MP3 and Ogg support.

Re:Not necessarily a godsend

[Sven The Space Monke]

Crippled functionality is not something to worry about with iRiver. Their design philosophy seems to be "end user experience = GOD, screw what the RIAA wants". Every flash/hard drive based player they have works as a USB drive. This one also has built-in mp3 recording off analog/optical audio in (with bit rates up to 320kbps). iRiver also has a great menu system rivaling the iPod (preference is up to the user, though). Their North American site seems to be ./'ed, but European site is working fine. Has all the same info about the same products. It's about time these guys start to get the recognition the deserve - I've been in love with them for over a year. I just wish I could afford one of these, but alas, I am but a lowly student.

The Nordic Site...

[tgrasl]

...has got the player on it:

http://www.irivernordic.com/products.php?pid=21

Re:Only WIN98SE/ME/2000/XP?

[CvD]

I believe that most of iRiver's products which use USB use the USB mass storage protocol, so there's no problem then is there? I think they also have their own proprietory protocol which has about double the speed or so. But you are not required to use this. So yeah, iRiver products are FreeBSD compatible (assuming FreeBSD has USB mass storage supported).

Cheers,

Costyn.

Neuros flameout

[nightsweat]

Make damn sure it supports .ogg out of the box. I spent $400 on a Neuros back in June and sure, it can play ogg files, but it can't sort them, create playlists, read playlists that reference ogg files, and NSM (the primary package for synching in Windows) does not support ogg yet.

They plan to support ogg in NSM in "September" but there hasn't been a release yet and I doubt they will release in the next 15 hours. Support's coming, I'm sure, but so is Christmas and if iRiver delivers, Santa will deliver a lot of their players to my friends this holiday.