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.

Comments

Ipod killer

[stanmann]

How will this kill the Ipod without Itunes... IIRC Itunes only supports the Ipod.. Or does the Iriver have RTunes?

Re:Ipod killer

[haystor]

My wife was looking through iTunes and on first glance everything seemed pretty cool. But then she started pulling up old albums and I started hearing complaints:

xxx isn't on here. Ok, I can understand they haven't signed everything in the world.

Then she found someone she liked that had a bunch of albums on there. Except for the good song from each album. She cited several examples after looking for a mere 30 minutes where the popular song from an album was the only song not available from it.

Is this a common experience with iTunes?

$1 a song isn't bad unless it's $1 for each of the crappy songs in which case it's worse than buying the whole cd.

Re:Ipod killer

[evilviper]

How will this kill the Ipod without Itunes... IIRC Itunes only supports the Ipod..

All the more reason to support the DRM cracking efforts. Once you've stripped the DRM, you've got a file that will work on any device.

Of course, you don't really need to break the DRM, just get iTunes to think you are recording to a (virtual) CD, and then encode those wav files to whatever you want (Ogg, MP3). But it'll need to be easy to do for it to catch-on.

Ogg is nice on iRiver, but what about my iPod?

[Anonymous Coward]

If Apple is so pro-open source, when are they going to add Ogg Vorbis to the iPod?

Re:Ogg is nice on iRiver, but what about my iPod?

[NanoGator]

"If Apple is so pro-open source, when are they going to add Ogg Vorbis to the iPod? "

Does the iPod have the processing power to do it? It is my understanding that OGG requires more operations to decode. Corrections invited.

In any case, what's the point of cramming it in there if the general populace isn't even aware of its existence? It's one more thing to support, and doesn't guarantee a whole lot more people are going to buy iPods. From a business point of view, it's pretty cleary why they're not jumping on it.

Re:Ogg is nice on iRiver, but what about my iPod?

[Darren Winsper]

Quite some time ago, when Linux was first put onto the iPod, an early version of Tremor (An integer-only Vorbis decoder) was running at around 80% realtime. Seeing as there have been various performance and memory optimisations during that time, it's possible they may be able to get it to work.

Oh, the general populace isn't aware of AAC's existance either and there's still plenty of room on the iPod's firmware, so why not?

Classy design?

[Patik]

I don't know, I thought the PMP-100 and the PMC-100 looked much cooler. The first appears to have a bigger screen and less wasted space than the IHP-300.

0GB version?

[magarity]

Be nice if there was a no-HDD included version; standard size 2.5 inch disks can be had mailorder for cheaper than the difference in the various models' prices. All mp3 makers are guilty of this. Of course, that would cut into their nice margins on the high capacity models so we won't see it. sigh

Different Class of device than iPod

[piznut]

Its cheaper, but not quite as good looking or easy to use as the iPod...as an mp3 player

The killer feature for the new iRiver devices is the recording ability. iPod and a handful of other devices can record voice at a low bitrate.

The iRiver (IHP-120 and i am assuming the new models) can record from a digital input or microphone into a high quality mp3 or wav file.

So in addition to being a decent mp3 platform, it could also stand to replace portable MD and DAT recorders. This is a great thing for musicians and bootleggers. While the onboard mic-preamp isn't the best in the world, it appears to be from what Ive read, suitable for most applications.

looks ugly

[oohp]

Why are they so ugly? The flash memory based models from iRiver look way better. As does the iPod but that's another story.

Re:ipod killer?

[Fjord]

Isn't that kind of like the charisma of Al Gore?

No, it's much worse. Al Gore was at least able to get more that half the voting populace to vote for him (even if the electoral division made this moot).

Not that common...

[SuperKendall]

I've noticed that problem with a few bands, but most of the music I've looked at is complete. One artist I like (Barenaked Ladies) you could even buy the full CD of songs a week before the real CD was released in stores!

I would submit a request for that particular song to the iTunes request section, they really do pay attention to that as whole artists and songs I've asked for have appeared.

Re:iTunes != iTMS

[the_2nd_coming]

which is what makes the iPod so much better than the competitors....it transcends hardware and software.....it is sof-rdware, one cohesive tool that works like magic where as the other players out there require crappy organizer software or only use explorer.

Re:I'm looking very closely...

[Darren Winsper]

"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?"
I just don't think you should be allowed to to patent maths.

"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."
How do you know? Lossy audio encoding's not something that sprang up because of MP3.

"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. "
And now suppose Faunhofer had decided to charge through the roof? Let's see, without Ogg Vorbis, what would the options be? WMA, which currently has to be decoded using Windows DLLs on Linux. Or, perhaps, AAC? Oh, wait, that's even more expensive.

"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)?"
You are aware that MP3 got its foothold when people could get free MP3 encoders and decoders here, there and everywhere, aren't you? I doubt I would have gone for MP3 if I had to pay for an encoder.

"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."
And there we have it, Fortunato_NC demonstrating that tolerance of the opinions of others is not something he holds in high regard.

"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!"
Tell that to Epic. Tell that to iRiver. Tell that to Rio. Tell that to Neuros. If "(almost) NO ONE CARES ABOUT IT", then why do manufacturers support it?