iPod Media Reader Slowness

gsfprez writes "According to an official statement by Belkin over at iPodlounge, the reason it takes 22 minutes to transfer a few pictures from your digital SLR's CF card to your iPod with their $99 iPod Media Reader is that, well, that's how they designed it. They wanted to 'address the needs of the largest percentage of owners of digital cameras and iPods,' because -- and let's be honest -- when you want to transfer 128 megs of pictures from your $200 digital camera, you think '$600 worth of iPod and media reader please!,' and not $14 flash readers." Belkin did say they are trying to work out a solution with Apple, perhaps in the iPod firmware, but it seems the problem may be with the design of the reader itself.

Comments

22 Minutes?!

[commodoresloat]

That's nothing; you should try copying a 17M file....

*ducks*

Son of a bitch...

[windex82]

..the "ive been copying files in/with "X" for 17 minutes" troll got his own story!

belkin and macs...

[irving47]

Belkin might make some spiffy hardware, but their commitment to Mac OS X is questionable. Ask anyone who's had a Belkin USB-DB9 Serial adapter for the last three YEARS and Belkin just won't get off their asses and release any drivers for it. They flat out lied to me on the Macworld show floor last January...

Whats the big deal?

[neverkevin]

I don't see what the big deal is? This add-on isn't a "pro" add-on. Transfering 128megs in 6 mins sounds reasonable to me, that was about how long it takes to transfer the data off via the USB on my camera. It is a $100 add-on, what did you expect?

Re:Whats the big deal?

[Johnny Mnemonic]

Ok, enough. I'm in the market for this, even after reading your muddled commentary. I spent $700 for my camera, because I like the features that that quality of camera added. Which means, incidentally, that I fill up my CF cards faster than a cheap camera, because my pics tend to be higher res, and therefore the pics take more memory.

So--when I travel to distant and exotic lands on vacations of a few weeks, I would still much rather take an iPod with this adapter and dump photos from a 256M card, than have to take an iBook and find places to charge it.

If it means that every 2-3 days, when I've filled up a 256M card, that it takes me 30 mins to upload to my iPod--yeah, I'm happy to do it. And I'll buy the adapter to do it with. I would still rather do that than carry my iBook through the hinterlands of Russia and Turkey.

So get over your damn self. Sorry the product didn't work for you. I still think it'll work for some people. Reporting the facts w/o sarcasm would have made for a better case. As it is, it seems like you're bent on convincing everyone else that this product will also suck for them, regardless if their needs are not your own.

that price comparison is unfair

[Snuffub]

The whole point of the belkin reader is that you dont need a computer (which the $14 flash reader requires) so if im shooting with my digital camera out somewhere where I dont have a laptop handy I dont have to stop taking pictures when my card fills up.

iPod woes

[nacturation]

I think the submitter had this in mind:

I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you iPod fanatics? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of an iPod (30GB) for about 22 minutes now while it attempts to copy a 17 Meg file from one folder on the hard drive to my iPod. 22 minutes. At home, on my Pentium Pro 200 running NT 4, which by all standards should be a lot slower than this iPod, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If that.

In addition, during this file transfer, songs will not play. And everything else has ground to a halt. Even the backlight is straining to keep up as I type this.

I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while working on this iPod, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen an iPod that has run faster than other music players, despite the iPod's faster chip architecture. My Vic 20 with 16KB of ram runs faster than this iPod at times. From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that the iPod is a "superior" music player.

iPod addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use an iPod over other faster, cheaper, more stable players.

How I plan to use it.

[node 3]

Assuming I buy one, this is how I plan to use it.

I'll have two cheap memory cards (either 128MB or 256MB), and when I fill one, I'll put it into the iPod adaptor and start the transfer while using the other card in my camera. That should be about 10 minutes to load a full 256MB card. I don't expect I will fill the other 256MB card that fast (if I do, then I *really* worry about how fast I'll fill my computer's HD at over 1GB/hour!).

The real benefit here is I can take my camera on vacation, or just out and about, and not have to carry around my notebook. This is a *huge* benefit. Couple that with only needing two memory cards (even two 128MB cards will be enough), and this is looking real handy *and* cost saving (I already have an iPod).

The drawbacks? It's not instantaneous and it takes batteries. Not a huge problem, and if it's something that can be done better, someone will. If not, I'm still better off than I was before.

I don't understand the sarcasm of the story's submitter. Sounds like the guy has issues. I bet he doesn't have an iPod or he'd see that Belkin has put to market something that can add to the utility of his iPod, if he wants it. If he doesn't want it, he's no worse off than he was before and he still has an iPod.

Re:How I plan to use it.

[node 3]

I took "Firewire speeds" to mean the speed the iPod will sync the photos to the computer. There's no flash memory fast enough to keep up with FireWire (that I'm aware of). Do you expect the USB 2.0 flash drives to transfer data at 480mbps?

There's no way the biggest audience is the pro user. The pool of potential buyers are iPod owners who also own digital cameras and have a Mac. The device has reduced battery life when used with a microdrive and doesn't even support MemoryStick Pro. It's clearly not targeted at the pro market, but the iLife consumer. Belkin is offering them, for $100, the ability to completely stop worrying about running out of flash memory at their friend's birthday party, at the beach, on the slopes, etc.

You have the tone of someone who never really considered buying one, but enjoys taking arms against Evil Corporations(tm). If you were a pro who thought this was a pro quality device, you'd just pass up on it after seeing its limitations and go buy another 3GB microdrive. If you were the target consumer, you'd not really complain because for it's lack of speed, it's still better than what you already have, and it might even be worth $100 to you. If you are a "prosumer", well you should be used to the frustration of prosumer digicam equipment which is rarely pro quality or consumer priced.

You didn't submit a review of the device giving it the thumbs down for speed, you spat venom at Belkin and did it in such a way that leaves the reader confused about almost everything except the fact that you seem to be upset.

Re:Is there a limit on the cards themselves?

[gsfprez]

no.

there are already CF Firewire adaptors out there.. CF can go really fast...

http://www.dpreview.com/articles/mediacompare/

this shows that moost cards can write around 2MB/sec and read almost twice that speed...

its an issue with the reader that its only going 300kb/sec... as even the cheapest cards can go about 2000kb/sec.

"My Issue" is bait and switch

[gsfprez]

This device is a "firewire device", yet it operates at slower than USB 1 speeds.

You wouldn't put up with that if it was a USB 2 device operating at 300 kbps, would you?

On the Apple Store's webpage, it clearly and openly says..

"Using software support that's built into your iPod (iPod software version 2.1 or later), transfer your pictures quickly via FireWire technology and you're ready to start shooting again. "

A reasonable person would assume that such a device would operate at such speeds. Or do we all quickly forget the 1st gen pre-Oxford 911 based IDE hard drive cases that were horribly slow and never mentioned that they couldn't possibly give you back even the the bandwidth of IDE, let alone Firewire. MacAlly got hammered in the press and by their customers over that whole debachle - as well they should have.

A reasonable person purchasing this product would assume that "transferring pictures quickly via Firewire" would not mean - "transfers slower than USB 1 devices".

"My issue" is that this $99 "Firewire technology" reader gets its ass handed to it by a $14 USB 1 device. That's unreasonable.

If they (Belkin and Apple on their store page) were to point out "while this uses Firewire, it does not transfer ANYWHERE near Firewire speeds, and in fact, its slower than USB 1", then there would be no "issue"

Your 'issue'

[thatguywhoiam]

This device is a "firewire device", yet it operates at slower than USB 1 speeds.... rant rant rant rant

Just chill out for a sec and listen.

Yes, the iPod,/i> is a FireWire device. The card-reader is NOT. The issue is not FireWire. It has nothing whatsoever to do with FireWire. It has to do with how Belkin has implemented this card-reading tech.

I mean, it sounds a tad slow to me too, but a 128MB card in 6 minutes.. on a portable device that has an 8-hour battery.. is not a big deal. It's still way more convenient than lugging around a laptop.

By the way, it sounds like you've got an axe to grind about FireWire though. I'll give you a bit of advice; its okay to hate a plug. The plug doesn't hate you. Move on to other plugs if you hate that one.