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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."
Seriously though, looks pretty nice, it's no iPod but it has a lot more functionality anyway, if I was in the market I'd consider it.
in bed.
The iPod is very slick looking, but I have issues with the functionality. So far, the best I have seen in the more complex players is the Rio Karma...by a mile. Now, that is a slick looking player.
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
What??? No DVD support? How many more devices are going to be made that do a little of everything but still don't do it all?
Ok, since my Archos broke down, I've been looking for a replacement.
So, some questions.
What kind of hard drive does it take, and how easy is it to replace the drive with a larger one. (Yeah, I know the size is 20GB -- what kind. I need 60GB, and I'd like it to fit the 60GB lap-top drive I bought for the Archos.
What's IRiver's reputation for quality? The Archos used decent parts, but they were put together shoddily. Thus the break down. (Yeah, I also replaced the drive with a 60GB, but I'm not at all the only one to have an Archos fall apart on me.)
That and Archos's crappy software and unwillingness to embrace a far better open source replacement, means I'll never buy from Archos again.
But reason I liked the Archos was that its crappy software could be replaced with the open source Rockbox. Just how hackable is iRiver's offering? Does the fact that it's linux based mean that iRiver intends to make the source available? If I can't hack it, I won't buy it: that's why I don't own an iPod or other MP3 players
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
I have a few friends with mp3 players, and most of them have an iRiver. They like their players a lot, and I'm impressed with the feature list. One thing prevents me from getting one, though. I subscribe to audible.com, and iRiver doesn't have an arrangement to support their DRM. Are there other audible subscribers out there who feel upset about the limitations in what devices they are able to use to play the books they buy? Does anyone know what it takes to get audible support in a new device? Audible and iRiver haven't been too forthcoming with information in response to my queries.
Though I think that comparing things to the iPod is a bit overdone as well, I would'nt go as far as to say that nobody cares about looks either. If nobody really cared about looks, then why is it that the iPod is popular? As "crazy" as this sounds, for many people, features and price are not the paramount issues when selecting which product to buy.
This is an excellent device in terms of features, I agree, but on a personal note I would have to agree with the poster of the article and say that IMO, its looks could use some improvement. The control panels on both sides with the screen sandwiched in-between looks somewhat awkward.
Who's going to buy them?
People who travel a lot on planes, trains or coaches?
I know several people that use laptops for DVD playing on the move, but they're heavy and the battery life sucks. If you have the cash, this sounds like a good place to rip music and films for travel, holidays, anywhere you want media without having to carry a ton of stuff.
It's also got a preview setup for digital cameras, which means you could use it again as a laptop lite to dump your memory cards to and check quality in the field on a bigger screen than on the camera.
Hell, I can even see a use for it in place of a tablet PC. Carry around network diagrams or cabling routes for when out digging up the road or fault tracing in big cable runs. Bigger display than a PDA, lighter, cheaper and simpler than a tablet.
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
1) Why do people seem to think that GNU/Linux is superior for embedded media devices than *BSD? This is an honest question because it seems that a company would rather be subject to BSD licensing than GPL so there must be some other reason
2) Couldn't they come up with a better sounding acronym than PMP reads like PiMP
No I am not trolling I really do want to know why GNU/Linux is preferable to *BSD for these kinds of devices.
Bad Panda! No Bamboo for you! In matters of importance ACs will not be responded to. Want to say something critical,OK
Yes, it IS ugly.
and why the hell should I carry around a color-TFT-screen while LISTENING to music? I'm not gonna look at a visualizer, I'm gonna select a playlist, push play and put it into my pocket.
Yes, an iPod has fewer features. But it has all you need to listen to music, and a damn good user interface, too. The iPods design is not only good because it looks good, it's good because its well thought out.
okay, you can watch movies on that one. but for me, I'm not really interested in watching a movie on a 3.5" screen. if you do watch movies on that one, you only do, because you can do, not because it's fun.
this sig is useless
That's a funny name! pimp my playa'
I could give a fuck if you think it's "really,really ugly". People buy ipods now simply because it's socially sexy to do so. The fact is, this company is breaking ground with an embedded linux solution for the masses that supports OGG and MP3 - something everyone up here has been pissing and moaning for, ever since the Neuros came out. I say good for them. iRiver is cool for taking this step. We need more companies to do the same.
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I just got an iRiver iHP-140 with 40Gb of storage. I just finished ripping my CD collection, which compared to many of my friends is not a huge CD collection. I reached 15Gb or so even missing out those I don't think I'd listen to. If you're really doubting please let me have your email address and I'll send you a photo of my CDs. That only comes out to 2750 songs ripped to 192Kb/s oggs.. I figure that even someone with the kind of burger flipping job you have could quite easily fill up 20Gb legally and still be able to eat.
Try NetBSD... safe,straightforward,useful.
The first flaw I see is that it is only 19GB at best. At the bottom, in the small print, there is that well known fraud "**1MB equals 1,000,000 bytes". That is incorrect. Whether you are running Linux or Windows (I don't have a Mac) 1 GB is 2^10 MB or 1048576.
It would be like inventing a 'metric pint' and rounding it down to the nearest hundred ml.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
I have a few points.
1. I would like to see it include VP3 and Theora support... Theora has now ( FINALLY ) reached bitstream freeze, so including it would be safe. It wouldn't hurt to have VP6 support as well, but I'd be happy with just VP3/Theora...
2. Nothing is wrong with the design, despite what some may say.
3. The screen needs to be bigger (preferably 16:9 widescreen, since everything is going that way), and the battery-life needs to be increased. If they don't do that, it had better be less than $400, or everyone would just be better off buying a extra Notebook...
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Both are beastly and just big enough to be uncomfortable in your pocket.
Everyone has a different taste for looks ... but I think these things should be designed much slimmer so they can be truely portable. Anything over 1" thick seems a little bulky especially wioth that much surface area. My PDA has a big screen and is only .4 inches think.
Why the hell should you carry around a colour TFT screen whilst listening to music?
No one's suggesting that you need to. The iPod and a miriad of memory and HD based music players will already do that job for you without the need for a large colour display. What sets this apart from music players is that it's a video player. Obviously if that's not what you want, you'd be wasting your money here and an iPod will do just fine. But for those who want portable video, the iPod doesn't cut the mustard.
It seems a little unfair to criticise this device with respect to the iPod, when they are essentially different types of device. It's like complaining about a new model of television because you only want to listen to the radio. I'm sure plenty of people would find enjoyment in an episode or two of the Simpsons or Futurama during an otherwise uneventful commuter trip, or even just whilst lounging about in the garden or on the beach
And before you say "you can compile that support in yourself", let me say to you: get lost! I'm sick to death of having to locate some retard's package of some frigging codec just to watch a movie in sub-standard quality than I can get with Windows Media Player (on my dual boot machine).
You don't have to install extra codecs to watch XviD, DivX 3,4, and 5 and mpeg2 on windows media player? All of those should be supported by default by any non crippled xine or mplayer install.
I mean, how bloody difficult could it be? But NOOOO, I have to go ALT-TAB'ing to find that other window.
I think the idea is that if one is playing full screen he won't want the view interupdted by buttons and that keyboard/joystick/remotecontroll use is going to be preferred.
Everything will be taken away from you.
The picture on the news story is a heck of a lot uglier. It also says the next one they are working on is Windows CE based, so it looks like they're just using Linux for an interim solution. There goes the hope for a line of Linux players.
How can you all go on an bitch about how this thing does not look like an iPod? I simply don't get it.
iRiver is producing high quality geek toys in supreme quality, supporting you favourite nerdy thingy software pet projects like Linux and Ogg Vorbis with a clear commitment to continue doing so and all you can do is complain that it does no look like an iPod? C'mon, what sort of geek are you? Those who build Mini-Itx clusters or those who read read glossy future magazines?
If you want an iPod, then the heck go and buy one and try watching videos on it, but please shut up.
-silence
Dyslectics of the world, untie!