iRiver Preps Linux-based Media Player

Mr_Silver writes "Infosync is reporting that iRiver is soon to release the Linux based PMP-120 media player which through its colour screen can support MP3, ASF, Ogg Vorbis, JPEG, BMP, AVI, MP4, DivX 3.x, 4.x, 5.x, XviD, MPEG4 SP, Advanced SP and MPEG1. Technically very cool (even more so if it is hackable), but really really ugly. iRiver really should learn how to design nice looking hardware from the experts."

Comments

Enough already!

[jargoone]

I'm so fucking sick and tired of people saying that things are ugly compared to the iPod. Yes, the iPod looks pretty decent, but who cares? I don't look, I listen! If you want to talk about size and ease-of-use, those are factors, but so are features and price. Not everyone needs a "good looking" mp3 player to validate themselves.

Not to mention the fact that this unit isn't even ugly. I think it looks pretty damn nice, and probably will cost about as much as an iPod with FAR fewer features.

Re:Enough already!

[wooby]

Absolutely dead on. Function is beauty when it comes to something that feature filled. The only problem I can see with the unit, that is related to aesthetics, is the usability factor. I can't tell from the pictures how intuitive its interface will be. Even slight interface problems can really be annoying with devices that have few human inputs.

Re:Enough already!

[Jugalator]

I actually don't like Apple's designs, but it seems like people like me are in minority... :-P

Sure, I found Apple's anonymous white boxes being cool for to their innovative minimalism but now I'm so fed up with this design in everything Apple makes.

Same goes for Aqua btw. It's about as exciting as Windows XP's Luna is to me now. Of course not as candy-like and colorful, but still just as overexposed. Still just as boring and dull. Get rid of the fucking jelly buttons already! Oh well, I guess I just like new things every now and then and Apple don't. Probably to preserve their brand...

I personally think that iRiver thing is perfectly fine for use amongst people without getting ashamed of it. And then the visual requirements are satisfied for me, and I proceed to look at the features. *gasp*

Re:Enough already!

[senzafine]

Because everyone isn't a computer geek. Look and feel matters. That's part of the reason why the Ipod is so popular despite it's price tag. Marketing helps as well...and so does a good user interface. Simply put, there's a reason why the Ipod is still the leader when it comes to portable music devices. Samsung, Dell, iRiver, and Creative all have comprable products. But the buyers determine the market and the buyers want Ipods.

Ugly? you're wrong!

[Quebec]

You find the iRiver ugly???
I'm sorry not to agree with you, cheap plastic design "A La Apple" is definitivly not the norm in my book, actually the iRiver looks nicer than anything that was made by Apple. (Did my french head got the right "than" this time?).

P.S.: can't wait to be able to buy one myself!

I don't think it looks all that bad.

[scootr1]

I'm more concerned about the functionality and ease of use of it than the form.

Design from the experts ? PMC-100

[Animaether]

"iRiver really should learn how to design nice looking hardware from the experts"

I don't think they need to. The PMC-100 looks really, really slick to me.
Random linky for image

And even this PMP-120 isn't all that ugly imho. likes/dislikes is always subjective, of course.

I second that

[teko_teko]

I think iRiver design is pretty slick, and I'd prefer to use that over something that's already too mainstream or too widely used.

It's almost the same case as phpBB, I don't like to use it because almost every phpBB forums out there uses the same look and colors (the subsilver), and I'm tired of it :P.

Functionality Looks

[LaserLyte]

Ugh...looks like it's designed for two-handed use...like some sort of gameboy-clone. I guess that makes it more suitable as a movie player or image viewer than an MP3 player. However, it looks a lot better (IMO) than the plasticy-toy type style of the iPod

Maybe iRiver could learn something about ergonomic design from Apple, but hey, at least it's got a replaceable battery. And it's sounds like going to be more "open" than an iPod. It's always nice to see "hackable" stuff (as the article writer noted), rather than consumer-orientated "appliances"

iPod Appearance

[harlows_monkeys]

I find the white iPods ugly. White clashes with just about everything else I own.

Re:iPod Appearance

[Bricklets]

White clashes with just about everything else I own.

Exactly. That was probably the point. When you see someone with white earphones, it's instant product recognition. Not to mention some extra free marketing. The same idea holds for iBooks and PowerBooks. Apple obviously wants to make sure that when someone uses an Apple product, anyone and everyone around that person knows it. And what was that old marketing slogan of theirs again?

Think Different?

Not for me

[Jahf]

Sorry, but I don't see a reason to carry around a portable video player unless I can see stuff from my TiVo and/or a DVD on it without having to take a few hours prep'ing/converting the files.

I realize that is a long way off, I'm not expecting it tomorrow. I'm just trying to figure out the mass market applications for this other than to have a box that does a ton of things (that it often isn't used for) while listening to my music.

Part of the reason I use a portable player (Neuros, not iPod) is to have a device that is small enough to be convenient (ok, the Neuros isn't as good an example of that as the iPod) -and- is fairly rugged. As in doesn't have a screen that I am worried about cracking or scratching.

Now if it plugged in to a DVD reader of some sort, even if over a network share to my PC, and allowed me to rip content to it for travel ... HELL yes, I would go for it. But not the current generations of machines.

michael, I just gotta emphasise this.

[James A. S. Joyce]

"Linux-based" does not, I'm afraid, imply the use of open source software/firmware. I enjoy open source software as much as the next Slashdot user, but given the past track record of hardware media players, it's not likely to be "open" or "hackable", much as you and I would enjoy this. Nonetheless, this does sound like a really cool product. Now all we need is a software media player that handles all those formats and actually works without segfaulting a la mplayer.

--
GNAA

Re:The last time i-River tried to do that...

[manWorkSucks]

definitely apple's idea too. nothing like a jog/shuttle dial on VCR.

Samba...

[guycouch]

It would be great if along with USB2, they'd equip it with an ethernet port and include samba on this beast.... delicious.

Re:Samba...

[unclefungus]

maybe use TCP/IP over USB? Windows could do it!

PiMPed Out

[aka-ed]

Of course it's ugly...it looks like one of those late-90s-era dedicated email devices, what did they call em? Net appliance, yeh! A lot of burned early adopters might prefer a different look.

I definately agree!

[cbreaker]

It doesn't look bad at all. It's pretty minimal - Screen, some buttons on the sides.

I'm not sure where all these folks are coming from about the iPods. I have a Sony Minidisc player that is extremely small and very easy to use with only a few buttons. I know it's only good for Minidiscs, but the design is quite on the money. I guess my point is that Apple didn't really do anything special if you ask me, and there's plenty of setups and looks that are great even if they don't have the name "iPod" on them.

I'm bored with Apple's cutsie names for everything, too.

Re:Questions

[orthogonal]

Most of the Iriver players (I own an H120) require no software required at all.

Actually, I'm interested in the software that runs the MP3 player; it's that which I want to be able to hack -- to deal with arbitrary filename lengths, for instance.

As far as downloading files to the player, I want to be able to treat the mp3 player as a removable usb drive -- so that any method of copying files works. The last thing I want is a proprietary interface: I want to be able to do a "cp -r mp3s/ /cygdrive/mp3player" from cygwin, or do drag-and-drop from MS Windows Explorer.

But your comment about the file tree intrigues me: do you mean that the iRiver database can be dispensed with, and one can simply play files (and hopefully directories?) in a standard hierarchical directory system?

Re:Questions

[orthogonal]

Any limitations on name length are (I suspect) a "feature" of the ID3 spec rather than iRiver's fault, but I have no evidence for that - as I say, I haven't installed the index yet.

I actually did a very small bit of coding on the Rockbox open source Archos firmware replacement, and as it happens, it was on the ID3 tags, so I know a little about this.

ID3 version 1 is limited to thirty (30) characters per tag field (Artists, Album, etc.), but since the iRiver is limited to -- what is it -- 56 characters, this doesn't seem to be the same limit. ID3 v1, also, I think specifies a total size of 120 characters or something, so why not just set aside the 120 needed?

ID3 version 2 tag filed length isn't limited.

(Although Rockbox last I worked on it, was limited to ~300 characters (300 less null terminators) over all tags. I was careful to make sure that reading more than 300 characters was handled by (silently) truncating -- Rockbox doesn't use any dynamic memory allocation, so static structures and fixed sized were all I had.).

Incidentally, MS Windows users looking for a really good and full-featured tagging program (with automatic abbreviation if you want it, various other forms of smart tagging, and regular expressions for converting tags), should look no farther than the free and open source mp3bookhelper.

Re:Not enough space

[Amarok.Org]

The fact is, the *majority* of people don't rip at 192K... they rip at whatever their software defaults to, which is usually 128K. Yes, there are a large number (though not *percentage*) of people who can hear the difference between 128K and 192K and care enough to rip at their preferred bitrate. The majority of people will be quite happy at 128K (or lower, I'd imagine).

I've got a decent sized (by normal standards, not geek standards) music collection of over 3500 songs of varying lengths/genres, most of which are ripped at 128k - and that's only 12gb. 40gb is overkill for the *average* consumer who wants to rip their 100-200 CDs.

Re:Game controller?

[strider_starslayer]

you must not have picked up a controller i the last- 10 years....

I can't think of a controller save for the orriginal nintendo, or the turbo graphix 16, that I felt was 'too small', specifically I think X-box controller are TOO BIG.

I can do a quick comparison- the button seperation on a keyboard (which you infer is comfortable by saying that a keyboard and mouse are a good way to play games), is roughly 2cm (from middel of button to middel of button); On a gamecube, button seperation is never less then 2.5cm (from middel of button to middel of button), PS2 has it's L/Rs seperated by 1.5cm, but there thumb buttons are all 3cm apart. X-box controllers, despite being huge, actually have buttonst aht are only spaced by ~3.5 cm. (working from memory on Xbox)

The span of my hands in a 'game arch' (word I just made up: let you hands go to naturally curved positions and put them together to form an 'M' with thumbs overtop) is literally half of the width of the PS2 controller, and Gamecube controller, and about 1/3 that of the Xbox controller (damn that thing is HUGE!)

So this leaves me to believe that:
either you just like to complain,
or you don't know how to hold a controller
Or you having held one since the early nintendo days