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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."
The awesome thing about the iPod is that is a huge chunk of mobile storage that happens to have a nice LCD navigation screen and the capability to play mp3s. If this new Ogg/Mp3 Player is castrated by the industry, i.e. you can only store and delete, not download from it, then it won't stand a chance at replacing the iPod. I hate when dumb copyright-protection schemes get in the way of a good product, but it's happened before, and I'm afraid to say, it will likely happen again.
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
I love the timing on the topic right before this: "Few Takers For RIAA's 'Clean Slate'".
If you 'fear' Apple then you've got a lot more problems than just finding an Ogg-enabled music player....
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.
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.
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
Or, maybe, this time again, it means some of us will need to do some reverse-engineering of one more of those primitive tools all these player manufacturers supply...
but how's the GUI? It can have all the cool features and abilities, but if usability sucks, you might as well not bother. It's amazing how many companies get this wrong.
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
An ogg in the face for apple.
Desi Noise, Live!
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...
Bloody hell, it's different alright. It looks different, it has a remote control doovy with a screen on the headphone band, it has a different UI... IT'S DIFFERENT!
Apple didn't create everything for god's sake, there were hard-drive based MP3 players around before the iPod...
let me refresh your memory
Look at the cost of filling up these HD-based players with legally purchased music, say 20gb of AAC from iTMS (bad example for this player, but anyway). I'm quite sure that some of the biggest purchasers of legal music are also some of the biggest pirates - simply because they have a profound interest for music, but not that kind of money, even if they are willing to pay for music. Rank in order from biggest to smallest offender:
1. Person downloading 20gb of pirated music, 0gb legal.
2. Person downloading 15gb of pirated music, 5gb legal.
3. Person downloading 10gb of pirated music, 0gb legal.
Legally, it's 1-2-3. Morally, I'd disagree with that order. And I doubt #2 is willing to sign any "amnesty", even if he's a good customer of the recording companies. In fact, by any standard I see among my friends, I'd say he'd be a premium customer. Only the RIAA play it blind - they only see what's being pirated, and so they are just as likely to drive him into the ground as the other two.
The RIAA can dream about their magic customer #4, that never pirates anything and purchases everything legally. Judging by friends, family, class mates, co-workers and people I meet on the Internet, they'll be very few. Even old dogs seem to be learning new tricks. Strike down all but those and you'll also strike down the majority of the market. And the market doesn't like being treated like criminals - even if they by the letter of the law are.
Kjella
P.S. Regrading the use of the word criminal, since the US has defined "sharing for getting other works in return" as commercial gain, I think most sharing would fall under criminal statutes, not civil. The difference lies more in evidence, compuer logs don't establish who was in front of the machine. While it's probably enough for a civil case, I doubt it'd hold in a criminal case...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings