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iRiver Announces 40G Player & Previews 2004 Line
slavitos writes: "Just as we've finished our discussions of OGG support in iRiver players, the company has announced it will soon release a 40G HD player. According to
this source, the new model will differ slightly from the previous 20G one - for example, the 40G player will be 3 mm thicker and 12 grams heavier. The cost of the device has not yet been determined." While we're on the topic of iRiver, thopo notes: "iRiver presented their new products coming spring 2004, here are pictures from the show, including pictures (and specs) of all new models. Especially noteworthy is the IHP-300 which comes with a 2" color TFT LCD and a very classy design. This thing got 'iPod Killer' written all over it." The page is in Korean, but most of the product descriptions in the pictures are in English.
At 40GB, why the heck doesn't this thing not only have ogg and mp3 support, but also a few RCA jacks and support a few video codecs? They're licensing WMA anyways, so they could at least use WMV, in addition to all the open MPEG and OGM formats.
40GB is roughly three weeks worth of MP3s, and most people outside of hardcore music enthusiasts will never accumulate nearly that many, and no one but semi-truckers would need to take that much with them. Video would be a very necessary complement to justify that much of an increase in storage space.
maybe when they have the marketing power of Apple, this thing will become an Ipod Killer. Until then, i wouldnt hold my breath.
iTunes claims "over" 500000 songs. Napster claims the same, MusicMatch advertises 360000, and BuyMusic says 327000. How this gives iTunes 10x as many songs as the other three combined is a mystery to me.
Does it require ID3 tags to play and navigate directories of MP3s like the iPOD? Or can I just copy over an artist/album/tracks sorted directory structure and navigate it that way?
You know when they will add Ogg Vorbis....when it supports DRM. I hate DRM as much as the next guy but until it does, then Apple won't touch it.
I would like to believe that Apple thinks the whole DRM is a joke but they play along because they wouldn't get any music company to support iTunes selling songs without it.
I like Ogg format but I am not going to hold my breath on this one.
No trees were harmed in the composition of this; however, numerous electrons were inconvenienced.
One of the things that Steve Jobs mentioned in his keynote yesterday before announcing the entirely overpriced iPod Mini is that about 60% of the market is flash players that cost up to $200. 31% of the market is iPods. Approximately 7% of the market is all other non-iPod hard-drive based MP3 players. Nobody knows what an iRiver is. Most people don't CARE what an iRiver is. The iPod name has mindshare right now, and it'll take a lot more than even a massively superior product to dethrone the iPod. If someone wants to make an iPod killer, they have to have iPod killing marketing. Right now, people are using the word 'iPod' like they use 'Xerox' or 'Kleenex', as in "I hear iRiver makes a pretty cool iPod."
/. :P
It doesn't matter what it costs, either. The only people following non-iPod HD-based MP3 players are the people here on
I like the way the iTMS works, but I don't buy much music there, as most of what I want is not on the Big Five. To me, the biggest iPod win is not .m4p (FairPlay burdened AAC) from the Music Store. The big win is the integration between iTunes the music jukebox/ripper/&c. and the iPod. It's seamless; they are really two parts of the same tool.
'jfb
To spur "enterprise Linux," Big Bang, the distributed two-phase commit.
How will this kill the Ipod without Itunes...
Itunes or not, even Apple have realized that the average Joe doesn't have anywhere near 40 gigs of music.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
As for creating "new categories of software"... well, when you get around to doing that let me know. Open source is largely driven by "This doesn't work for me, so I'll make something that does" feeling, and if you don't get that then you aren't really going to be able to judge it reasonably.
Yes, actually, I'm moderately familiar with the history of Ogg, if that means following it since it was covered in Linux Journal a few years back (I think it was the November or December 200 issue).
And yes, I understand the patent controversy surrounding MP3. But why exactly is it a patent uproar? Shouldn't people expect to be compensated for their work in creating something? Even if you reverse-engineered the file format to create your encoders and players, the desire to do so wouldn't exist without the original work.
And if by charging through the roof, you mean $0.75/unit for decoders, yes, I can see where Fraunhofer was being so harsh. In a $250-$500 player, that royalty can make or break a company. Besides, of the royalty free nature of Ogg is so great, then why does every Ogg player on the market also support MP3 (presumably paying Fraunhofer to do so)?
The fact of the matter is that 0.01% of Ogg users use it because they're convinced it's superior way to encode music. The rest of them do because they are contrary, self-important egomaniacs. Ogg as a technology is unimportant, no matter how many soon-to-be out of business Korean electronics manufacturers support it, because (almost) NO ONE CARES ABOUT IT!
Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut. As soon as I hit Submit on my previous, I thought of Perl as my personal favorite piece of open source software, and Perl definitely fits in the "original" category of software. But that's the beauty of Slashdot - you can shoot off at the mouth in front of the whole world!
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True. Apple doesn't have access to everyone yet. A lot of musicians don't want to sell their music on a per track basis. They want to be able to sell whole albums. (buy the good track, and be forced to by the crappy ones) However, although those musicians don't have their music on the ITMS, they also don't have their music on any of the other music services.
;)
Supposedly Apple has the largest collection of purchasable popular music. Some music stores beef up there numbers by posting music from unknowns, or only allowing certain albums to be accessible via a subscription. But Apple doesn't do that.
All in all, if the ITMS keeps growing like it does, and iPods keep selling like they do, other musicians will be forced to sell their music on the ITMS whether they want to or not. I'm already being to find popular artists and labels that wanted nothing to do with the service 6 months ago.
But hey, download iTunes and browse the music store for yourself. It's free. If you don't see anything you like, screw it
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
I am no huge propenant of "why can't we all get along", but whenever i see another compnay come out with any sort of decent product, my first thought is not "oh this will knock xyz product from the top spot" but "oh good, now xyz product is also going to have to improve".
This is how our market works (overly simplified, yes). If there was no competition, you would have no reason to improve your product, whatever you came out with would be the only choice.
So instead of constantly assuming something is going to "kill" another product. Just buy the one you like, that has the features you need, make the trade off for the features the other has that the one you are buying doesn't. Most importantly, realize, that once a product has a significant market share, and backing by the company that makes it (a nod to netscape here) it is not going away.
Just keep hoping that there IS someone to compete with apple for the hard drive mp3 market, because if not, then Apple will truly become the "microsoft of music" with all the problems attached to that.
If you are one in a million, then there are six thousand people who are just like you.
I dunno, dude. "Self-important egomanic" is pretty harsh. Take me for example. I can't hear the difference between a 160 kbps and 128 kbps encoded file, much less the difference between ogg and mp3. Yet I encode everything to ogg (except for the time when I had my ripper set up wrong by mistake, and too lazy to re-rip :P). I think supporting Free (as in speech) Software ala RMS is a noble cause. Am I a strict adherent to the gospel according to St. Stallman? Hardly. sheeit, I use winXP :P But if a nice, Free, alternative (ogg) to proprietary/non-Free software (mp3) exists, operates seamlessly with my existing setup (Winamp + cheap ass computer speakers), then why not support it by using it? It's not like I don't try to force other ppl to use ogg, or anything like that. it simply fits my needs. I'd hardly classify myself as a self-important egomanic, as you so bluntly put.
I think ogg is a great example of Free Software. Aside from the file extension, to me (the end user) it really is no different than mp3. If only other Free Software were so easy to use (operating systems, productivity software, etc.), I would support it by using it as well.
NO CARRIER
Its cheaper, but not quite as good looking or easy to use as the iPod...as an mp3 player
I disagree. I think this thing is better looking than the ipod and much easier to use. One thing that really bothers me about the ipod is the lack of tactile feedback. To me, this is just another example of Apple's "form over function" mentality...like the "hockey puck" mouse. Maybe some people thought those looked good, but I think my logitech mouse is both nicer looking, AND it actually fits my hand.
I agree the the recording ability is great though. Another thing the iriver has is the nicest wired remote I've seen on any portable music player, period. I was also shocked by the number of extras that came in the box: line in cable, external mic, headphone extension, leather case and of course earbuds, usb cable and power supply.
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