New Generation of MP3 Players, New Features

i4u writes "We got our hands on new Flash MP3 Players from two Korean Manufactures. Both players feature audio functions not seen in MP3 Player before, like SRS, WOW and TruBass. The Muzio JM-200 uses a two color OLED display. The Eratech EMP-100 is betting on small size with measurements of only 30x75x16mm." The larger (and stranger looking) JM-200 also lists ogg playback as a feature.

Comments

The US always the last to get cool stuff

[solarmist]

It's funny how a lot of the "cool" stuff takes forever to get to the states. I mean MP3's players like this have been standard since I got here in Jan and probably long before that. You'll see grandma's on the bus with these guys.

Why is it that when it comes to tech like this, or cell phones or cool laptops that we always have to wait years???

Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff

[WormholeFiend]

Not that I know anything about it, but it could be that the products have to be tested against US standards for EMI, etc. or redesigned so they are compatible with a different electricity distribution system.

Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff

[John Harrison]

Why is it that when it comes to tech like this, or cell phones or cool laptops that we always have to wait years???

Why is it that when we have tech like proportionally spaced fonts some people refuse to use it, even after it has been around for years?

Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff

[Wally Fenderson]

Maybe because they entice kids to steel copyrighted material.

Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff

[cspenn]

UL testing, among other things. I used to work at Sony Electronics, and about half of the Japan imports failed UL testing - the first run of VAIO laptops actually caught fire - as in flames like a Christmas hearth - when they were first brought to SEL Park Ridge back in 1997.

UL stress testing replicates a lot of the unimaginably stupid things users do to their devices.

Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

Because you aren't buying Apple equipment? I've had a 17" laptop for over a year, and we have two, soon to be three, iPods in the family.

Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff

[solarmist]

Yes, apple is nice, but I wouldn't consider it "cool."
In Japan there are some truely cool laptops, I just wish I had that import computer site still...

Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff

[guido1]

could be that the products have to be tested against US standards for EMI, etc.
It is my understanding that we have more restrictive standards for these types of devices than other countries... (While they have more restrictive ones for industrial control equipment (CENELEC, BASEFA, etc...))

or redesigned so they are compatible with a different electricity distribution system.
In the general case this is probably true, however in this particular instance the EMP-100 is recharged via USB...

Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff

[OS24Ever]

FYI - Japan is on the exact same power distribution method that the US is. The rest of the AP companies aren't, but Japan is.

Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you talking about Dynamism?

Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

Rest assured that it might take longer to get to the states than anywhere else in the world but at least it isnt twice the price it is everywhere else in the world like it is in britain.

Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff

[WormholeFiend]

A quick googling provides this information about Japan's electricity:
Electricity for domestic use is supplied at 100 volts, 60 cycles AC in west Japan (Osaka) and at 100 volts, 50 cycles AC in east Japan (Tokyo).

But those are Korean products we're talking about here.

Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff

[Durandal64]

Because coding with proportionally-spaced fonts sucks. :)

Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh you're just pissed that Haliburton wasn't awarded the sole-source contract for these things.

Of course if they had been, the portable MP3 players would be 12"x12"x6", weigh 56 pounds, have a capacity of 20Mb, and GW would've started a war with Japan to make sure there wasn't any (un)fair competition.

Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff

[John Harrison]

I code in fixed width fonts as well, but I don't post to /. using them unless I am posting code. I think that people the tt tag to make their otherwise unremarkable posts stand out from the crowd visually by making it harder to read.

Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff

[kryonD]

This is not entirely correct. A good chunk of Japan is running 100V at 60Hz which is close enough to US standards of 110V. Basically, anything that is not high powered works just fine and most electronics are designed to work with either. However, I believe the Tokyo region runs at 50Hz, which could damage any system that was built to depend on the power frequency for its operation.

Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff

[mpoulton]

"UL stress testing replicates a lot of the unimaginably stupid things users do to their devices."

Perhaps we need to reduce the rigorousness of our testing a bit and put the responsibility on users not to do so much stupid crap. Not everything needs to be drool-proof -- idiots deserve to be punished by having their newly purchased devices fail impressively when abused!

Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff

[chez69]

That would be terrible! If they steel the music, then nobody will be able to listen to it!

Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff

[tuba_dude]

I'd hate to have people steeling my material. I haven't been working out much lately and I doubt I could lift that much metal.

Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff

[Mysticalfruit]

We all know that the RIAA would come down on them with an IRON fist...

Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff

[dpbsmith]

The U. S. has had a good long run as global superpower, over half a century. The British Empire wasn't at its peak for that long.

"Waiting for the cool (technological) stuff" is one of a number of signs that the U. S. may be at about the peak of its power and influence, and a slight decline may have already started.

Computer technology is not a secret, and all the manufacturing is now being done overseas. We should not be surprised that the U.S. is no longer the dominant innovator.

The U. S. is no longer the dominant winner of Nobel prices in the sciences, either.

I am starting to see signs of Japanese cultural influence in the U. S. "Hello Kitty" merchandise, anime, etc. After years in which the rest of the world bought Jordache blue jeans and watched "I Love Lucy" and "Miami Vice," I think the tide is starting to turn there, too.

Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff

[ceswiedler]

The British Empire was most certainly as dominating a power as the US for at least a half-century. By definition, nothing is at its peak for more than a moment.

Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps we need to reduce the rigorousness of our testing a bit and put the responsibility on users not to do so much stupid crap. Not everything needs to be drool-proof -- idiots deserve to be punished by having their newly purchased devices fail impressively when abused!

Because when the aforementioned idiot does something stupid and hurts themself, the first thing they do is sue the manufacturer.

Of course now the manufacturers can say, "mpoulton (689851) said it was ok because idiots deserve to be punished," and they can sue you instead.

Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff

[Wally Fenderson]

Ah...I must have posted the first typo in slashdot history.

Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff

[IWantMyNickBack]

You mean an alarm clock or NTSC tv?

Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff

[Anonym0us Cow Herd]

Why is it that when it comes to tech like this, or cell phones or cool laptops that we always have to wait years???

Maybe the additional time is required to insure compatibility with the US legal system?

Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

"Hello Kitty" is a sign of the apocalypse, not just Japanese cultural influence.

Also, as an American, let me apologize for forcing the rest of the world to watch "Dallas" and "Miami Vice".

Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff

[Grimmtooth]

You probably don't realize it, but UL certification isn't a federal requirement. So ask Sony why they want the UL seal if it bothers you.

Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

UL stress testing replicates a lot of the unimaginably stupid things users do to their devices.

Read: Americans are stupid.

Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff

[downbad]

Hahahaha! Insightful?! Good lord!

Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell, I wrote the damn thing and insightful is the last thing I would've called it. But ya know, I takes what I gets.

Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff

[zakezuke]

But those are Korean products we're talking about here.

South Korea uses NTSC IIRC. And just goggled a site that is listing 110/220v 60hz.

But those are Korean products we're talking about here.

Yes, you would think that a region like the far east would decide on a standard for line voltage, but alas no.

Re: The US always the last to get cool stuff

[gidds]

Firstly, coding with proportional fonts does not suck -- it makes the code much easier to follow!

And secondly, are you implying that your comment was in code? Or just that you're incapable of changing fonts?

Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff

[PitaBred]

UL stands for "Underwriter's Labratories", as in insurance. I wouldn't want my product to be something that an insurance company wouldn't cover because of massive defects.

Re: The US always the last to get cool stuff

[Durandal64]

First of all, it wasn't my comment. Second of all, whoever wrote that comment must, by definition, be capable of changing fonts since the default posting font is a proportional-width font.

And lastly, coding in a proportional-width font makes for ugly code that no one wants to read. Mono-spaced fonts make for much neater-looking, more aesthetically-pleasing code. Code blocks are far easier to define, and outputs are far easier to construct. I prefer Courier (not Courier New) myself.

Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff

[TheoMurpse]

because proportionally spaced fonts pale in comparison to the mighty Courier New (i have no idear if that font is on non-windows machines, but it rocks)

proportionally spaced fonts are overrated

Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff

[babbage]

I am starting to see signs of Japanese cultural influence in the U. S.

I am starting to see signs of Italian cultural influence in the U. S. "Sopranos" merchandise, pizza, etc.

I am starting to see signs of Mexican cultural influence in the U. S. Latin pop music, tex-mex restaraunts, etc.

Etc.

The problem, of course, is that as a so-called melting pot -- how much things "melt" is debatable, and maybe "tossed salad" is a better metaphor, but whatever -- the U.S. exhibits lots of non-local cultural influences.

The thing is, these influences may or may not have any bearing on how dominant the amalgamated American culture is in other places.

A better indicator would be how American vs. [other] cultural artifacts are being adopted in other parts of the world. For examples, what movies were biggers hits in Jakarta, Nairobi, Lagos, Lima, Buenos Aires, etc: Lord of the Rings & Finding Nemo, or Shaolin Soccer & Spirited Away? What ethnic foods are more popular -- hamburgers or sushi? What languages are more popular in schools?

You'll learn far more about which culture is more popular by looking abroad than you will by looking at what is happening in the USA.

Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

You probably don't realize it, but UL certification isn't a federal requirement. So ask Sony why they want the UL seal if it bothers you.

Might not be a federal requirement, but can the manufacturer get insurance against being sued without UL approval?

Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff

[plutoiddiamonds]

I think that it is even worse for the midwest. I know lots of people that use cell phones, not digital.

Re: The US always the last to get cool stuff

[uhlume]

And lastly, coding in a proportional-width font makes for ugly code that no one wants to read.

Since when does any IDE retain font information in source code files?

Code in whatever the hell font you like; it makes no difference to anyone else reading your code.

Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff

[dammitallgoodnamesgo]

I mean MP3's players like this have been standard since I got here in Jan and probably long before that.

In Japan? All the MP3 players I've seen in Japan came out in the US/EU months before their Japanese release. Plus almost no-one owns them. Everyone has MD players instead.

Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff

[Dick Faze]

That sounds FEasible to me!

Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff

[Tiro]

Nah, you should read Emmanuel Todd's After the Empire. When foreign cultural influences decrease, that is the true sign of the decline of hegemony [witness the popularity of, say sitar music peaking in the 1970s in the West]. This shift marks a movement towards isolationism.

He doesn't quite fully explain himself though.

Re: The US always the last to get cool stuff

[Rosonowski]

If it's originally written in a proportional font, the formatting will be fucked when you go to look at it in a fixed width font.

Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff

[meringuoid]

I am starting to see signs of Japanese cultural influence in the U. S.

All together now...

You're new here, aren't you?

Re: The US always the last to get cool stuff

[gidds]

Why?

As goes indentation, you should use either tabs throughout (my preference), or spaced throughout. That way, the code looks good whatever font and tabsize is used.

But apart from that, I can't see why code should need spacing to correspond between lines (which is the only way you should be able to tell what font &c it was written with). Adding spaces so that the equals signs line up, or similar, is IMO a waste of time and highlights superficial structure at the expense of more important things.

Whatever language I code in, I space it pretty much how I'd space English: a single space after a comma or semicolon, none before; a single space outside a parenthesis, none inside; a single space around operators such as pluses and equals signs; and so on. It makes for code that's elegant, clear, and consistent, and looks great in a proportional font.

USB speeds?

[thesp]

These seem to be USB 1.1 devices. For all the snazzy features, high-speed data transfer should be a priority.

Re:USB speeds?

[meringuoid]

USB 2.0 probably wouldn't be such a big deal on a Flash player. Hard disk players need it, though.

TruBass not seen before on an MP3 player, though? I'm pretty sure I've got it on my (ogg-playing, DRM-unencumbered, fully Slashdot-politically-correct) iHP-140...

Re:USB speeds?

[benito27uk]

You have indeed, and you've got SRS and WOW as well on the really rather spiffy iHP-140

Re:USB speeds?

[El Pollo Loco]

No, it matters for a flash player as well. I have an old lyra, and it's ungodly slow copying files over. And that's only with 256 megs of memory. I gotta start it and leave. Which sucks when you're tryin' to change out some songs right before going snowboarding.

Re:USB speeds?

[meringuoid]

Quite so. Unfortunately when I had TruBass switched on I quickly discovered the inadequacies of my car's sound system...

I'm going to have to get hold of a copy of 'The Antisocial Urban Driver's Handbook on Making your Car into a Bloody Great Boom-Box' to make best use of this thing.

Note: I an entirely unaffiliated with iRiver, but they do make some damn fine mp3 players.

Re:USB speeds?

[iainl]

Serves you right for being able to do anything at home right before going snowboarding :(

OK, I'm just jealous because I won't be seeing powder for another 18 months or so. But then I'm still at the point where I'm far too busy paying attention to the slopes to listen to tunes at the same time, so it doesn't technically matter anyway.

Re:USB speeds?

[Durandal64]

TruBass is not an indicator of how good your car's stereo system is, to be frank. Effects like TruBass do DSP magic on the audio, and it's been my experience that such effects (ProLogic, TruBass, Circle-SRS) fuck the audio up royally. You should only use something like ProLogic or C-SRS if the stream was meant for it, like the Dolby Surround tracks on some DVDs (mostly TV shows), which were specifically encoded for ProLogic channel reproduction.

But using things like TruBass is basically worthless. Your car's stereo system is probably fine. The DSP that TruBass does just happens to introduce a ton of artifacts into the sound that may or may not be perceptible, depending on what kind of music it is. For example, try listening to piano music with TruBass or Circle-SRS. It'll sound awful.

Just stick with 2-channel stereo and mirror the front two channels to the back two in your car. You'll have a much fuller sound field, and you won't be fucking with the original sound any.

Re:USB speeds?

[El Pollo Loco]

Yeah, I know. Living in denver is great. 1 hour away from snow. A few hours from the really quality stuff. The tunes definitly help in the terrain parks.(Not that it matters for me, I suck hard at the vert stuff). 6 more months or so......

Re:USB speeds?

[Rezgod]

I have merely the 120... but I've had it for months! And yes... my car-stereo was entirely inadequate. Thanks to a family member working at StereoWest I am now the proud owner of a $3000 car stereo system, purchased for just under $1100... And I have zero regrets! They even wired the micro-plug into the dash for me. 20Gig Mp3 player with AWESOME battery life... $400 Stereo System to do credit to Mp3s stored on player... $1100 Mp3s... depends on if you count the cost of computer, online time, ISP fees, CD costs and ripping time Looking forward to the drive to work... Priceless!

Re:USB speeds?

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'm going to have to get hold of a copy of 'The Antisocial Urban Driver's Handbook on Making your Car into a Bloody Great Boom-Box' to make best use of this thing."

If you're going to do that please punch yourself in the head until that thought goes away. Thank you.

Re:USB speeds?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes but are you still waiting for firmware to fix the numerous bugs, glitches and feature requests demanded by users.

Re:USB speeds?

[mblase]

But it supports OGG! I thought that was all we were supposed to care about!

Re:USB speeds?

[Anonymous Coward]

On the contrary. If you do not use your player as an external drive, you copy a song to HD based player once. With flash player with 128/256 MB, you copy it whenever you want listen to something else....

Re:USB speeds?

[Wraithlyn]

Removable media is where its at for me.

I want a device that runs on AA's, and supports Compact Flash II. I finally found one: NEX ia Plus

Ordered it yesterday. (From Taiwan)

Re:USB speeds?

[Prof.Phreak]

the iFP-700/800 series from iriver has USB2.0 (as well as 1gig flash memory)

Re:USB speeds?

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you use most often mp3 or ogg ?

I never use ogg, because my friends can not use it :[
So I am a sad slave of mp3's monompoly.

Whatever you say. Gimp RulZ anyway

Re:USB speeds?

[harkabeeparolyn]

Removable media is where its at for me.

I want a device that runs on AA's, and supports Compact Flash II. I finally found one: NEX ia Plus [advancedmp3players.co.uk]

CO.UK... yeah right. That website gives the term "Queen's English" a whole new meaning. Don't forget to try their "price beat" policy.

Re:USB speeds?

[mobets]

I was dissapointed, a google search on that didn't turn up anything useful. Somone really should make one...

Although, I supose all it realy takes is three of these with one of these

WOW?

[sulli]

What's next, flutter?

Re:WOW?

[KeithH]

Sorry, nobody else here remembers wow and flutter specs from turntables. face it - we're old.

Re:WOW?

[isorox]

And reel to reel tape machines. Those things were built to last.

Re:WOW?

[WormholeFiend]

don't worry. a retro fad is sure to kick in sometimes in the near future, and you'll see people trading in their iPods for vintage first edition mint Sony Walkmans.

A sure sign of this is those yellow Sports Walkman retrofitted to house iPods.

Re:WOW?

[Kenshin]

A few years ago when I was in the market for a MiniDisc player, I was looking at the specs and saw "Wow and Flutter: immeasurable".

I thought it was just some marketing droid trying to be cute, saying it'll "amaze you". Didn't know it was an actual measure of something...

Re:WOW?

[Mignon]

those yellow Sports Walkman retrofitted to house iPods

I had one of those and found out that the rubber gasket around the edge really did make an airtight seal - I don't remember when I first opened it to put the tape in, but it was either a mile high in Colorado or in-flight; either way it was low pressure. When I landed at roughly sea level I had to pry the case open.

I could see a waterproof case being useful for an iPod, especially if you used it for, well, sports.

Re:WOW?

[Monkelectric]

You should see your doctor about early onset alzheimer's. Its flutter and "wah". :)

Re:WOW?

[WormholeFiend]

you can really buy them, I remember seeing a link somewhere on a blog, but I'm unable to remember which at the moment

Re:WOW?

[John Courtland]

CD Players have WOW and Flutter too...

Re:WOW?

[Kiryat Malachi]

Wow, not WOW. It isn't an acronym, just a description of the sound.

CD players have wow and flutter, yes, but its pretty much a meaningless spec.

Grandparent - I remember wow and flutter, and I'm not even 25, so don't feel too old now. If only there were still decent turntables for sale for less than $600...

Re:WOW?

[John Courtland]

I realized I parroted the subject line after I hit submit... I realize it isn't an acronym. And to great-grandparent - I'm 22 :p

Re:WOW?

[Anonymous Coward]

> CD players have wow and flutter, yes

CD players have wow and flutter, no. Wow and flutter are audio artifacts due to a slowly or rapidly varying turntable speed. The rate that samples are clocked out to the DAC in a CD player is not dependent on the disc rotation, so motor speed variations have no effect at all on the audio. What did you really mean?

Re:WOW?

[Kiryat Malachi]

CD players have wow and flutter. Their motors are imperfect, and as such suffer analog imperfections like wow and flutter. This almost never affects the audio (yes, it *can*, but it is very rare - essentially, since CDs are self-clocking, you need to see an incredibly large amount of wow or flutter for it to miss/screw up enough data that the error correction can't handle it).

CD players often do, in fact, include a wow/flutter spec. Its usually an unimportant spec due to the nature of the medium and the design of the output stream, but a bad wow or flutter can induce jitter into the digital bitstream, and that induced jitter can, if severe enough, affect the actual samples clocked into the DAC.

I meant exactly what I said.

flash MP3 players?

[jbellis]

how 1990s :)

seriously though anecdotal evidence suggests that the new HD-based devices are fine even for jogging. I guess the only niche left after that is if you need something even smaller than an IPod Mini...

Re:flash MP3 players?

[kneecarrot]

I completely agree. I can't see a single usage for a flash-based player. They are virtually indistinguishable on price and features (except for the low end) and in almost every case, the HD models have vastly more space.

Re:flash MP3 players?

[argent]

Yep, I need something smaller than an iPod Mini. In fact, I had something smaller than an iPod Mini, that cost $60, 128M, MP3 playback, looked like a disk drive to the computer, my daughter broke the USB connection too many times until I couldn't fix it... I've been looking for a replacement since.

Re:flash MP3 players?

[blackmonday]

I think there is a niche for a cheaper player than the mini with, say 2 gigs rather than the mini's 4. Sell it for 99 dollars and I'll buy it. Add line-in recording and I'll buy 2.

Re:flash MP3 players?

[truthsearch]

I own an iRiver flash MP3 player because it's tiny and light. I use it while jogging, so I wanted the lightest and least cumbersome player I could find. It also plays OGG, has an FM tuner, and is linux-friendly (thanks to the ifp-driver project). I think flash MP3 players are still a significant niche.

Re:flash MP3 players?

[khendron]

I'll second that. I also have an iRiver flash player, and it is perfect. Small, light, 20 hour battery life, and a lot cheaper than an iPod. And the FM tuner is a big plus. I spend just as much time listening to the radio as I do listening to mp3s.

Re:flash MP3 players?

[Lumpy]

nice troll.

My nex-II + a 256 meg card can hold enough for a run and I dont care if I break it/lose it or intentionally smash it.

Hell a total of $75.00 for a 256meg mp3 player with no DRM and easily swap to more music by swapping to another dirt cheap card.

Oh, and 12 months down the road I dont have to throw my mp3 player away like Ipod owners do because the battery died and CAN NOT be replaced.

a pair of AA batteries last me a week of daily use.

Re:flash MP3 players?

[Anonymous Coward]

No way, the real niche is for a 100GB player, smaller than the mini. sell it for $19.99, and I'll buy two! Add HDTV recording for, and I'll even go as high as $24.99!

I mean, as long as we're living a rich fantasy life, we might as well really dream.

Personally, I just want the little Toshiba SD card MP3 player, they discontinued it before I could buy one...

Re:flash MP3 players?

[jCaT]

I guess the only niche left after that is if you need something even smaller than an IPod Mini...

Yes, smaller, better battery life, more features... like this unit.

It's about the size of a pack of gum, can store 1gb, has great battery life, has a built-in FM tuner, can record and encode MP3's directly at up to 320kbps, and can play ogg's, too.

With a mic pre-amp hidden in an altoids tin and a pair of stealth binaural mics, it's a great setup for making bootlegs at concerts. :) Try the same with a hard-drive based player, and the constant spinning of the hard drive will eat the battery down in no time.

Re:flash MP3 players?

[Biogenesis]

Smaller than IPod Mini? What, like if you want it implanted in your head or something?

Re:flash MP3 players?

[Like2Byte]

Yep, I need something smaller than an iPod Mini. In fact, I had something smaller than an iPod Mini, that cost $60, 128M, MP3 playback, looked like a disk drive to the computer, my daughter broke the USB connection too many times until I couldn't fix it... I've been looking for a replacement since.

Good luck on finding your new daughter.

As an aside, my father used to tell me that he could 'take me out' and make another one that looks just like me.

Re:flash MP3 players?

[Rethcir]

That's a standard-issue dad line, mine certainly used it. Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe that the original World's Greatest Dad, Bill Cosby is the one who came up with it in his pre-original-Cosby Show stand up act. What a guy!

Re:flash MP3 players?

[fr0dicus]

I dont have to throw my mp3 player away like Ipod owners do because the battery died and CAN NOT be replaced.

Apart from for a reasonable price by your local Apple service centre you mean? Nice troll ;-)

Re:flash MP3 players?

[letxa2000]

I personally have been waiting to get an MP3 player until I find one that I like, and that is solid state. I have no concern about a hard drive in an MP3 player in terms of durability, but I just prefer to have no moving parts. It's one less thing that can break and generally will consume much less battery power.

Re:flash MP3 players?

[KingOfBLASH]

The question is not are the HD based devices fine for jogging, but are they fine for sprinting? I bought a mini disc player a few years back, that was supposed to be safe to jog with, and it skipped uncontrollably when I ran faster than a pace of 7:30 minutes / mile. Plus, I'd like to point out that jogging / running put an unbelievable amount of stress on devices. If you've got an mp3 player in your arms that you're swinging wildly, and are running at a good clip, I would speculate you could cause a lot of damage to a hard drive that causes it to fail prematurely.

Re:flash MP3 players?

[John Harrison]

I have a NexII as well and I used it all the time. The I recently bought a 512MB flash player that doubles as a usb drive. It was only $150 and can run for a long time on a single AAA battery. I don't know how long exactly since I haven't tried timing it, but it lasts through two five hours listening sessions on long flights with juice to spare. It is smaller and lighter than the NexII. The only downside is the lack of a screen, but I don't use a screen while jogging anyhow.

Re:flash MP3 players?

[argent]

You people are terrible, I couldn't use a line like that on my kids.

Re:flash MP3 players?

[Like2Byte]

I believe you are correct. When Bill Cosby did that comedy act it was probably one of the best comedy shows ever. I've watched it on TV years ago and it is classic, good comedy that doesn't have to demean it's audience in order to please.

Re:flash MP3 players?

[krouic]

I have a Rio PMP300 (yes the first portable MP3 player on the market) and have been using it for jogging about 40 km/week since January 1999, enduring heat, rain, freeze and sweat.

It has no moving parts, hence its still perfect condition. It is smaller and weights less than an iPod and uses a normal AA (replaceable) battery.

I do not think that a HD based player would have survived more than a year with the abuse my Rio has gone through.

Re:flash MP3 players?

[Tree131]

I can't see a single usage for a flash-based player. They are virtually indistinguishable on price and features

I disagree with you.

I bought my gf a Soul III (cd-based mp3 player) when it first came out. I owned a Soul II and was pretty happy with it. Little did I foresee that she would completely destroy it only after 6 months of (ab)use. The metallic cover had a slight dent in it, the cd-rotating mechanism would make loud noise, and the audio became very staticky.

My next purchase was a RioCali 256 Sport with rubber coated sides and NO moving parts. I think this one will last a lot longer. I hesitated to buy an iPod or a similar HDD based device because of moving parts. The only drawback to the Rio is that it's still USB 1.1, but based on amazon reviews it's virtually indestructible.

The point I'm trying to make is that people choose depending on their lifestyle and how much (ab)use they're going to give to their MP3 gadget, as well as how much use/life they want out of it.

Re:flash MP3 players?

[Cat_Byte]

"Was your HEAD with you all DAY???"
"I dunnooooo!"

I love that stand-up ;)

Re:flash MP3 players?

[Cecil]

So basically, you're a big wuss with no sense of humour and you're interested in passing that trait on to your kids? Bravo.

Kids aren't the stupid impressionable lumps of play-doh everyone makes them out to be. I should know, I was one.

Re:flash MP3 players?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was going to reply to him, too; But, I realized that his post was just being flamebait or outright trollish.

Re:flash MP3 players?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I bought the IFP-890 for the same reason. My only complaint is the lame belt clip. How do you carry your player? I haven't found a good way yet.

Re:flash MP3 players?

[argent]

Kids aren't all *anything*. And they're not all *anything* all the time. You can joke around with them without making threats, you know.

Re:flash MP3 players?

[anonicon]

"The I recently bought a 512MB flash player that doubles as a usb drive."

Too late now, but FWIW, you might check out the Muvo2 next time - 4GB, $199 flash-based player that also runs forever and doubles as a portable USB 2.0 hard drive. I used to own a NexII with 256mb until I gave it to Mom after ordering the Muvo2.

Re:flash MP3 players?

[shut_up_man]

Heh... I also have an iRiver flash player. I went with it over a hard drive player for these reasons:

• Price. My 256MB flash player - CAN$295. 15GB iPod (the cheapest hard drive player I can get here in Canada) is $450. These prices include huge Canadian sales taxes of course.
  
  
• Weight. My iRiver IFP-790T is 36 grams. The iPod mini (which I can't buy here yet anyway) is listed on Apple's spec page as 3.6 ounces, which is 99 grams.
  
  
• Non-skipping. The iPod has a 32MB memory buffer, which is about 25 minutes. I jog for longer than this (or at least I try to) so the iRiver is better in this regard.
  
  
• Battery. I've been running on the included AA battery off and on for 2 weeks now. It's only dropped one bar in the charge display, so I'm guessing it's going to last most of a month without me having to worry about power.

All that said, having to "load up" with music from my PC still annoys me. Having all my music on an iPod or such and just putting it on random play would be superb... the price and portability aspects was just more important to me right now.

Re:flash MP3 players?

[Like2Byte]

Jesus H. Christ, man.

When my father made his comments to us kids it was always with a smile on his face and we knew he was joking and we *never* felt threatened. I find it interesting that you judge everyone, knee-jerk style, as being 'terrible people.'

You're single-minded determination to pre-judge people as terrible heathens who abuse their kids tells me more about you than it does about myself or the people who share a similar sense of humor.

So, off to church you go, Flanders. Us terrible people are having a good time whether you happen to agree or not.

I'm going to theorize that you had a mentally-abusive father (who you feared) and an over-protective mother (who you sought protection from) who was too much of a sheep to stand up to your father; hence, you've finalized in your mind that all people who don't agree to your warped mindset are terrible and don't deserve a sense of humor that little kids need protection from.

It's not very fair for me to say so; but, "what's good for the goose is good for the gander."

Now, since you're being a troll, I'll feed you no more. Rant as much as you want - it still won't mean you've won your self-generated tournament to argue.

Re:flash MP3 players?

[darc]

Although HD models are great for alot of things, I wouldn't try to go skiing or snowboarding while using an HD model. A flash model though, makes perfect sense for such a situation. Besides, isn't it cool to go downhill with background music, ala james bond chase scenes?

Re:flash MP3 players?

[John Harrison]

Yeah, that wasn't out yet when I got mine. Also, I wish that mine was USB 2.0 as well, but the write speed wouldn't be that much greater since flash write speeds are the bottleneck.

Re:flash MP3 players?

[argent]

I find it interesting that you're responding to me in *exactly* the overly serious, humorless, and pop-psychological way you're complaining of.

What's good for the goose... oh, never mind. Rant as much as you like. :)

Re:flash MP3 players?

[Rethcir]

The context of the original poster, The Cos', and myself was entirely good-natured and sarcastic. Sorry if you took it the wrong way.

Re:flash MP3 players?

[EpsCylonB]

I completely agree. I can't see a single usage for a flash-based player. They are virtually indistinguishable on price and features (except for the low end) and in almost every case, the HD models have vastly more space.

Excuse me ?, my muvo nx (128 mb) cost me 80, an ipod costs 300.

It's smaller than an iPod and has moving parts, I use it to go jogging (as well as other more traditional uses), I don't want to carry several hundred pounds worth of tech just to listen to music.

Don't get me wrong, the idea of having my entire music collection accessible is appealing, but at the moment my flash based player does the job sufficiently that I don't feel the need to upgrade.

Re:flash MP3 players?

[aristotle-dude]

Um.. If it can survive a ride on a paint mixer, I think it will do just fine on a ski hill. If they were not appropriate for snow boarding, why is there a snow boarder jacket with an iPod pocket and built in controller on the sleave for sale on apple's site?

Re:flash MP3 players?

[Anonymous Coward]

2014:
HD Mp3 players? How 2000s..

When your "flash" mem will have 100 GB, no way I will want (at least for music) something such dirty like HDD, even if it would have 10 TB.

Re:flash MP3 players?

[argent]

Perhaps it's cultural. I sometimes thing Americans can be terribly aggressive about their humor, and yet treat light-hearted dry comments as terribly serious.

I feel like I'm in Terry Pratchett's Guild of Joculators, and I don't know the approved jokes.

Re:flash MP3 players?

[calethix]

Agreed. I still use my Rio (300 I think) that cost me about $40. It only has 64mb capacity but that's plenty of time for jogging or mowing the lawn so it meets my needs.
My biggest complaint is that it's a little slow adding new songs and I have to use a 3rd party app now for it to work with Windows XP.
The main benefits being that I don't cringe every time I drop it and I don't worry about it being stolen from my locker at the gym.

Re:flash MP3 players?

[darc]

> If it can survive a ride on a paint mixer, I think it will do just fine on a ski hill.

Clearly, you've never seen me ski.

*speeds downhill*

*wham*

Re:flash MP3 players?

[Moofie]

Can not be replaced, huh? Right.

Don't buy a iPod, that's fine. But why you gotta be a hata?

Re:flash MP3 players?

[Anonymous Coward]

exqueeze me? so joe schmoe can EASILY replace the ipod battery that fails in short order anyways??

I have a dead ipPod here, it costs almost as much to have apple replace the battery as buying a new ipod... yes the apple store here in NY.. fix the ipod or for a little more buy the new one... NOT. battery replacement should be 25% of the cost at the HIGH-END.

sorry but most people do not have the ability to open an ipod and replace it with that cheap $30.00 replacment.. I have no mechanical and electronic abilities (I'm management)

sheesh, the ravenous ipod fanatics
here are going nuts today..

Wanna make the ipod perfect? make it thicker and use a USER REPLACEABLE BATTERY PACK. Oh and the pack has to be reasonably priced not this $80.00 laptop cost crap.

Until apple acknowleges that the ipod batteries STINK and they screwed up on the headphone jacks I also will pan the ipod as not as near good as people make it out to be.

Re:flash MP3 players?

[PitaBred]

My father never threatened me like that, but my mother always reminded me that she brought me into this world, and she could damn well take me back out, too.

Re:flash MP3 players?

[Prof.Phreak]

I think the niche is that my flash based player plays music for ~40 hours on a single AA charge (NiMH), weights only ~60 grams (with battery) and is not much bigger than the battery itself (ie: smaller than ipod mini). Oh, and it has 1gig (ie: plenty of music for the day- or in my case a whole week).

(It also plays OGG, MP3, WMA, and comes with FM radio, line-in recording, mic recording, etc.)

Oh, and it servives falls without any issues (I wonder how many people would feel comfortable about dropping an ipod...)

I don't want to sound like an advertisement (heh!) but I'm talking about iFP-799 from iriver.

Re:flash MP3 players?

[Moofie]

Sell it on eBay to somebody who can operate a screwdriver.

Re:flash MP3 players?

[Anonymous Coward]

As an aside, my father used to tell me that he could 'take me out' and make another one that looks just like me.

Yeah, but today kids are so damn expensive that it's not a reasonable threat anymore.

Pity, because I think it would do some kids good to be afraid of being thrashed to within an inch of their life.

Re:flash MP3 players?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't sweat it - different people have different triggers - look at some of the light-hearted anti-US jokes that get modded to the basement faster than you can say "I'm a red-blooded patriot" :)

I myself have a rather dark sense of humour, but some of the stuff I see on Slashdot makes me wonder if some of these kids have any sense of empathy at all...

Rest assured though, for every poster questioning your opinion, there's at least one more who didn't respond, but agrees with you fully :^)

Now all they need to do...

[Throtex]

is integrate a cell phone! Oh, and a camera!! I'm a genius!

Re:Now all they need to do...

[solarmist]

They did in Korea and Japan. See my first post. Doesn't it suck we still don't have this in the states?

Re:Now all they need to do...

[Biogenesis]

...And mabye a clock.

Re:Now all they need to do...

[Anonymous Coward]

wow you are an idiot

Re:Now all they need to do...

[hal2814]

No, what they need is a shoe phone with integrated mp3 so CONTROL agents can listen to some tunes while on assignment.

Re:Now all they need to do...

[Wild Bill TX]

Don't forget the game cartridge slot!

Wait a second

[stratjakt]

... these aren't iPods ...

They don't even have apples DRM nor work with iTunes.

So why is this on slashdot?

Re:Wait a second

[argent]

Any flash player that looks like a disk drive to the computer works with iTunes.

Re:Wait a second

[stratjakt]

These can play Apple's DRM'ed stuff?

Or are you talking about jumping through all the legal grey area of using that PlayFair to crack and then reencoding them, or the hassle of burning to a CD, then re-ripping it?

Cuz frankly, fuck all that.

Re:Wait a second

[Mondongo]

They mention ogg. That's enough, I guess. :-)

j.

Re:Wait a second

[argent]

After Apple told me in so many words to burn audio tracks of all my iTunes downloads so that I could be sure of not losing access to them, after they reset all my "authorized" computers because I couldn't de-authorize a system disk that had died, I treat the AAC version as ephemeral. The only real copy I have of a download is the CD I burned... so ripping that is no more trouble than ripping any of the other CDs I buy.

And there's no need to use that kind of language.

Re:Wait a second

[jo_ham]

The iTunes DRM is keyed to your logic board, not the hard drive in your machine.

Re:Wait a second

[argent]

That's funny, because when I reinstalled the OS and iTunes it insisted that it wasn't authorised.

Perhaps it depends on the hardware? Not all computers have hardware IDs.

And we should get excited why...?

[gearmonger]

Unless the price of high-density flash RAM drops dramatically sometime really soon, hard drive-based MP3 players will continue to be the de facto standard for large-capacity players.

Besides, these "innovative" new features aren't really all that innovative. So there.

Re:And we should get excited why...?

[stratjakt]

Many people don't want a large-capacity player.

They want an affordable digital alternative to a walkman, that doesn't skip when they're jogging. They don't care if it can store 2 jillion hours of music. They just want their favorite workout tunes on it, or something to listen to riding the bus, etc.

That's an enormous market, and IMO Apple is positively stupid to ignore it. If they released an iPod that was under 100 bucks, that had say 64-256megs of flash, it'd sell like hotcakes and they'd increase the amount of iTunes customers 10 fold.

As a comparison, there is a niche market for those 100 disc DVD jukeboxes. But there's a much larger market for regular $50 DVD players for folks who maybe rent a movie a few times a month.

Re:And we should get excited why...?

[amliebsch]

The thing you described is a minidisc player.

Re:And we should get excited why...?

[gearmonger]

Nah, I don't buy it. As the volume of, say, 4 GB hard drives increases, its price drops dramatically. If most people were given a choice between an $80 512MB flash-based player and an $80 4GB HDD-based player, they'd choose the latter. And no, my iPod Mini has never skipped on me...ever, yet my flash-based MP3 player hiccups on even the slightest imperfection in the MP3 file. All in all, the flash-unit stays in the drawer a lot more often these days (and I don't even have the iPod filled up).

Re:And we should get excited why...?

[ilsie]

Nice troll, but I'll bite.

They want an affordable digital alternative to a walkman, that doesn't skip when they're jogging. They don't care if it can store 2 jillion hours of music. They just want their favorite workout tunes on it, or something to listen to riding the bus, etc.

I have an Ipod Mini- doesen't skip while I'm jogging (and I've taken it on a 50 minute run many times). Even though it has a 4 GB capacity, I only store around 400 MB of music on it, because that's all I care to listen to.

But why would I spend $220 on that 512 MB flash based player when the 4GB ipod mini is only $30 more?

If they released an iPod that was under 100 bucks, that had say 64-256megs of flash, it'd sell like hotcakes and they'd increase the amount of iTunes customers 10 fold.

Nope. The point of iTMS is to get people to buy the iPod, not the other way around.

Re:And we should get excited why...?

[zhiwenchong]

Whoa, let's not be presumptuous here. It's easy for the man on the street to think that Apple should do this or that... but you have to consider the economics.

Apple does not traditionally target the ultra low-end market for a couple of reasons. For one, they're not big enough. I believe this came up in a discussion comparing Dell and Apple, and cheap PCs. Dell has the manufacturing facilities and [vastly superior] distribution channels to handle a high-volume low-margin market. Apple does not. Just look at the problems they're having churning out enough $249 iPod Minis for the U.S. market (btw, because of production problems, us chaps in Canada still can't buy iPod minis; they're only coming out Jul 24 over here).

Second, Apple has a reputation of making innovative products. It charges a premium for it. It just doesn't do assembly like Dell does; it also does industrial design. That's why iPods are well-liked and perceived to be cool. When it comes down to it, it's just a digital music player with really good design. Someone had to pay for the industrial design and marketing (not free, you know).

In short, Apple just doesn't seem like that kind of company that thrives on products that just barely breaking even. It can't survive in that market.

p.s. Steve Jobs has said that they're working to make cheaper iPods. But don't expect any $100 ones any time soon.

Re:And we should get excited why...?

[robertjw]

If most people were given a choice between an $80 512MB flash-based player and an $80 4GB HDD-based player, they'd choose the latter.

But that's exactly the point, isn't it. Sure, if they had roughly the same size, price, weight, quality and reliability, of course I would buy the 4GB unit, regardless of the technology behind it.

Problem is that iPod Mini is $249. I just purchased a flash based MP3 player for $90. It (allegedly) takes up to a 1GB SD card, which is great because I can buy multiple cards and use them in both my Kodak digital camera, and my MP3 player. I haven't actually recieved my MP3 player yet, so I don't know if my plans for it will actually work out, but they did get my $90 - and Apple didn't.

Re:And we should get excited why...?

[Kenja]

"But why would I spend $220 on that 512 MB flash based player when the 4GB ipod mini is only $30 more?"

Because the iPod is $30 more, weighs more, is larger and has shorter battery life?

Lets go over this again. You claim to only need 400MB of storage. You COULD get a light weight power efficient and small flash MP3 player. OR you could spend more money on a larger, heavier iPod with shorter battery life. And you dont see a reason NOT to get the iPod? You sir are a sales drones wet dream.

Re:And we should get excited why...?

[aardvarkjoe]

Nice troll, but I'll bite.

Ad hominem attacks, while popular on slashdot, are not a good way to start a post if you want to be taken seriously by anyone.

But why would I spend $220 on that 512 MB flash based player when the 4GB ipod mini is only $30 more?

Beats me. Of course, the original poster mentioned that he was in the market for a sub-$100 player -- 64 or 128 meg players can be had at that price -- and even 64MB is plenty for a 50min jog. Your needs may be different than his, but it doesn't make him wrong.

The point of iTMS is to get people to buy the iPod, not the other way around.

That might be true, although I've never seen it stated officially (and as iTMS pulls a profit by itself, I can't see that being the sole reason.)

Re:And we should get excited why...?

[gearmonger]

LOL...have you checked the prices of 1 GB SD cards lately? They're almost as much as the iPod by themselves!

A lot of the iPod's price is brand inflation. A 1.5 GB HD-based player can be had for under $125. Regarding sharing your media cards in your camera and your MP3 player, why is that a good thing? Does your camera record MP3s? Chances are that you're going to find yourself never sharing the same media that much because when you need it for photos, it's filled with music, and vice versa.

Re:And we should get excited why...?

[stratjakt]

I never said the iPod skips when jogging. I said many people want a digital audio player that doesnt skip (ie; not a cd player, but that holds about as much content).

I suppose everyone who doesn't want or need an iPod is a troll on slashdot. Whatever.

Re:And we should get excited why...?

[Analise]

Regarding sharing your media cards in your camera and your MP3 player, why is that a good thing? Does your camera record MP3s? Chances are that you're going to find yourself never sharing the same media that much because when you need it for photos, it's filled with music, and vice versa.

Pretty sure what they meant was that they wouldn't have to buy two separate types of media cards, but could instead swap between them. This of course assumes they don't fill the card(s) with music or photos as you said.

Re:And we should get excited why...?

[robertjw]

have you checked the prices of 1 GB SD cards lately?

Yeah, but amazingly enough prices have a way of coming down. With the digital cameras changing so fast I think SD card prices will fall accordingly. What good is a 6 megapixel camera when your memory will only store three pictures.

Regarding sharing your media cards in your camera and your MP3 player, why is that a good thing?

If I buy multiple cards I can use them in the camera when I'm on vacation and want to take zillions of pictures, or load music on them when I want to go to the gym. Interchangeable media is ALWAYS a good thing.

Re:And we should get excited why...?

[Citizen of Earth]

If they released an iPod that was under 100 bucks, that had say 64-256megs of flash, it'd sell like hotcakes

Or, they could just sell hotcakes. But, I'd bet you that hotcakes wouldn't sell like hotcakes.

Re:And we should get excited why...?

[gearmonger]

Yeah, but amazingly enough prices have a way of coming down.

Ah, but this applies to both flash and tiny hard drives, and hard drive capacities seem to go up, and prices seem to go down, much faster than does flash.

Lawsuits against Cornice notwithstanding, my bet is that hard drives will prevail. I'd really, really LOVE to think that someday an option for notebook will be to have them entirely flash-based (see previous /. story for quippy comments), but I think those days are unlikely to happen for a variety of reasons.

Re:And we should get excited why...?

[Kiryat Malachi]

The iPod has a very nice UI; the poster might find things like making playlists on the fly, proper support for playlists, integration with iTunes and iTMS, and such things to be worth the tradeoffs.

Re:And we should get excited why...?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, there is probably a decent market for the joggers out there. But in time the joggers will become a niche market. Think about it. As mp3 players become more popular, people will begin to like the idea of storing their music digitally. As peoples music libraries increase in size, that puny FLASH player they spent $100+ dollars on will become inadequate. They will get tired of having to add and remove music to their player. Listening to the same 60 minutes of music day in and day out will get boring.

Take me and my friends. I purchased an IPod because I take a lot of road trips. I was going to buy an mp3 solution for the car. Then I realized I could get more use out of an mp3 player. The IPod has become music on the go. There are so many accessories for it. I use the IceLink in my car. I purchased the portable speakers for the office. Now my friend is considering purchasing an mp3 player. But his music library is over 80 gigs. (All legal believe it or not). His music listening is similar to mine (work, gym, car and home). Which would you propose he buy.

Pretty much the only reason to buy a flash player is that they are cheaper and won't skip when you jog. But just because they are cheaper doesn't mean they are a better buy. You have to take into account the time you will spend uploading and downloading music to them.

Those features

[91degrees]

I love the jargon they come up with to claim they have "features". Here's what they actually mean:

SRS - "Small rectangular sticker". This is a small sticker in a rectangular shape with the letters "SRS" on it.

WOW - "Works Over Water". this has been especially designed so that if you try to use it over a body of water it will still work.

TruBass - Much like TruCalling; If the bass dies it repeats the following day.

The moral - don't be fooled by marketing hype.

Re:Those features

[WoodstockJeff]

Error in your translation....

TruBass - that fishy smell isn't artificial!

Re:Those features

[AndroidCat]

Have they incorporated one of those Popeil Pocket Fisherman gadgets too?

Re:Those features

[Anonymous Coward]

TruBass? Pah, my MP3 player has LanceBass!

Erm... that's bad, isn't it...

Useless features?

[Turn-X Alphonse]

I find it strange that everyone needs all these "amazing new features" etc. etc. but 99% of the time it won't change how the music sounds at all. I don't see the point of buying a new VCR because mine still works, same goes for TV, GBA(not SP) and so on and so forth.

Why waste 300 on some new gadget which will work pretty much identical to the old ones when the global standard isn't changing much (global standard for MP3s will always just be the old MP3 untill replaced for example).

Re:Useless features?

[Biogenesis]

I take it you don't prescribe to The 6-Month Product Cycle, get with the times man!

Re:Useless features?

[Anonymous Coward]

Awwww, you should at least get the GBA SP. About half the size (truly pocketable, like these MP3 players), super long life rechargeable battery and the best of all LIGHTED SCREEN! The argument for upgrading can be the same for a new MP3 player, IF it does something better than your current MP3 player (ie- smaller, lighter, higher capacity, ease of use, etc).

I agree on the subject of useless features in these MP3 players though. Why the hell do you need bass enhancement when you're listening through little earbuds with little to no bass response at all!

Re:Useless features?

[Turn-X Alphonse]

Yea, sorry about that.. I have common sense...

last time I tried it my 2 year old mobile phone still worked fine, why update it so I can look at tiny pictures which I have this ancient technology called a "digital camera" for doing so? :P

Re:Useless features?

[Ubergrendle]

I recently bought a Korean import player at my local OEM computer shop. The Muro MR-100 is a standard flash based MP3 player -- 256mb ram, FM radio, variety of settings. But the whiz-bang feature that sold me on it was the FM transmitter built in!

For a 4 hour road trip on the long weekend I copied over my Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio plays and had a nice alternative to radio for the weekend. The transmitter worked flawlessly, and it saved me time and $ from burning my own CDs for the trip.

I agree that alot of the 'amazing new features' are totally bogus, but every once in awhile there is some real innovation between product generations (aside from increased capacity).

Re:Useless features?

[Biogenesis]

Yo, dude, sorry man it was meant to be like satirical or sarcastic or something...not literal anyway.

Re:Useless features?

[Null537]

I find it strange that everyone needs all these "amazing new features" etc. etc. but 99% of the time it won't change how the music sounds at all. I don't see the point of buying a new VCR because mine still works,

I agree, if somebody listens to Britney Spears it's still going to sound like trash, no matter how many "new features" are added, and porn doesn't need the best quality VCR to still look good.

Re:Useless features?

[beakerMeep]

Personally I am still waiting for a decent "in song" fast forward. maybe a variable speed. then maybe i would say wow.

Re:Useless features?

[Jeff DeMaagd]

SRS requires stereo. Even on a cheap TV's speakers, assuming it is stereo, SRS defintely changes how it sounds. It isn't remotely true surround but it does seem to expand the sound stage a fair bit.

Usually people don't change their TVs when a new model is out, just as well because that's wasteful.

I'm not sure why people are jumping on plasma TV so much though. While the sleek cabinets are very nice, most of the ones I see look pretty grainy unless I'm ten feet away, and the smaller ones are only 480p anyway.

Re:Useless features?

[Durandal64]

I find it strange that everyone needs all these "amazing new features" etc. etc. but 99% of the time it won't change how the music sounds at all.

On the contrary, it will change how the music sounds. It'll sound worse.

Re:Useless features?

[karnal]

"I'm not sure why people are jumping on plasma TV so much though. While the sleek cabinets are very nice, most of the ones I see look pretty grainy unless I'm ten feet away, and the smaller ones are only 480p anyway."

Seems to me that the people who would buy a plasma TV have enough income to afford a room to sit and watch their TV from 10 feet away.

Of course, I don't have that kind of money, so I bought a second hand DLP projector and made an 84 inch screen. :)

Re:Useless features?

[p0rnking]

But unlike TVs and VCRs, most households don't have a portable MP3 player.
So while the market is still young, companies are going to try and make their's stick out more, by providing "features" that the other players don't have ... which looks great to the non techie g33k.

Re:Useless features?

[drinkypoo]

Also, these sound functions are pretty well known and they (or effects like them) are available in low-cost, low-power silicon. The only reason they haven't commonly been added to assorted mp3 players before is that they are worthless. The only thing you need is a simple bass expansion system to make it sound like your headphones are capable of putting out bass, and you need to be able to turn it off so when you hook the unit up to a larger stereo it doesn't sound like complete crap.

This looks like an advert to me.

Re:Useless features?

[toddestan]

That's an interesting looking little player. My only question is, how do you charge the battery? It looks like it comes with a non-standard battery with a charger that's only going to work in Korea.

Re:Useless features?

[Ubergrendle]

The mp3 player came with a battery charger. The unfortunate aspect to the player is that you need to take the NiHM battery out to place it in the charger; I gather the device is too small to incoporate a native plug-in-and-charge outlet.

the NiHM battery appears to be standard; a speciality electronics retailer should have it in stock. I was planning on buying a backup that I could charge as a hot-swap replacement, but haven't got around to it yet.

yuk

[twodiabolo]

The jm-200 looks more like a wurlitzer than an mp3 player!

Re:yuk

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you mean like this?

Re:yuk

[twodiabolo]

Heh, I hadn't seen those before! I was thinking of the old fashioned ones. The new ones look quite a bit easier on the eye!

Apple on Top..

[artlu]

Unless I can get a flash player for $50 that is the size of a AAA battery, flash players are dead to me. Nothing can stop the iPod!

Re:Apple on Top..

[Biogenesis]

If it's only as big as a AAA what are you going to power it with? Your own sence of self satisfaction?

Re:Apple on Top..

[argent]

How about $68?

Eratech's older model is pretty close, and pretty cheap.

Re:Apple on Top..

[Null537]

Nothing can stop the iPod!

Makes me want to get a purple one and name it 'Grimace'.

Re:Apple on Top..

[psoriac]

If it's only as big as a AAA what are you going to power it with? Your own sence of self satisfaction?

Why, with a AAAA of course.

Re:Apple on Top..

[Anonymous Coward]

No, his perpetual sense of self delusion.

Re:Apple on Top..

[pixel-fodder]

Unless I can get a flash player for $50 that is the size of a AAA battery, flash players are dead to me. Nothing can stop the iPod!

Err, try going snowboarding with you iPod - mine didn't last the day; my replacement iRiver flash player (512Mb) so far seems pretty indistructible - it's even fallen off my mountain bike with me. Also the battery life is a bit better. I guess for the slashdot crowd - taking your player out into nature isn't really a requirement anyway. - pixel

I just see crappy iPod interfaces

[TheOtherAgentM]

People seem to understand that iPod got it right with their circular controls, but all the other MP3 plays I've seen implement it ths far shrink it so much. I'm no giant of a man, but my fingers are still fat enough to mash a few buttons at once. Smaller is not always better. I never understood the benefit of OGG either. Could someone explain that? When I have 15GB does it really matter how great my compression is on the songs?

Re:I just see crappy iPod interfaces

[stratjakt]

I can explain it!

Apple PATENTED it.

Not everyone needs or wants 15gigs. My cellphone plays mp3s, and a 128meg SD card is more than enough for me. It'll get me through a 3 hour plane flight, which is about the only situation I'd be in where I'd want to listen to music with headphones.

Re:I just see crappy iPod interfaces

[Anonymous Coward]

*looks at own 500+ sized cd collection*

That's one you're gonna have to work out for yourself...

Re:I just see crappy iPod interfaces

[JJahn]

"I never understood the benefit of OGG either. Could someone explain that? When I have 15GB does it really matter how great my compression is on the songs?"

Sir, you have offended the honor of OGG. I challenge you to a duel, lossy compression formats at dawn, tomorrow. Either accept, or never show your face on Slashdot again.

Re:I just see crappy iPod interfaces

[Azrael Newtype]

If the compression/quality ratio doesn't matter to you, there's really not much anyone could say to sway you. However, mp3 is actually a licensed technology, which is bad, and there is a movement to add DRM to it as a standard, which is worse. OGG (Ogg Vorbis to be correct)is free, and certainly isn't about to add draconian DRM to its code. Also, I should mention that I have upwards of 40GB of music on my PC hard drives, so really, a smaller ogg of nearly equal quality to a large mp3 would go a long way to putting more of my music into my device, and I don't think I'm all alone out here with not wanting to stick 256/320kbps MP3s on if 128/192kbps ogg vorbis files are pretty much just as good.

Re:I just see crappy iPod interfaces

[Biogenesis]

Ogg is simply free/open source. Better encoding quality is purely accidental.

Re:I just see crappy iPod interfaces

[Unknown Lamer]

I have an 80G portable so I can compress my music however I'd like to...

Some of us use Ogg (note that it is not an acronym) Vorbis for our music collections on our computer and don't want to re-encode everything for our portables (especially when you start getting into the 300+ disc range as I have).

Re:I just see crappy iPod interfaces

[Anonymous Coward]

I never understood the benefit of OGG either.

hint: it has to do with freedom.

its name is Ogg, not OGG

Re:I just see crappy iPod interfaces

[Anonymous Coward]

I never understood the benefit of OGG either. Could someone explain that? When I have 15GB does it really matter how great my compression is on the songs?

I have 14GB of songs in Vorbis format, so I'd like to be able to play them without recompressing hundreds of CDs. I have 14GB of songs in Vorbis format because it's a better format (technically) and the artifacts are nicer.

Since all my songs are in Vorbis, I have no use for an "mp3" player.

So in short, vorbis support is a must to get my money. See, that wasn't so hard, was it?

Re:I just see crappy iPod interfaces

[Malc]

On my iHP-120 (20GB), OGG allows me to get an extra 50 or more CDs on to it. Unfortunately it cuts the battery life from over 16 hours (MP3) to nine (almost as bad as an iPod).

Re:I just see crappy iPod interfaces

[Gulik]

Some of us use Ogg (note that it is not an acronym) Vorbis for our music collections on our computer and don't want to re-encode everything for our portables (especially when you start getting into the 300+ disc range as I have).

With current hard drive prices, I've taken to ripping everything to FLAC and, if I need it in some other format, convert it on the fly. I prefer Ogg, but my current player doesn't support it. So, for now, I convert to MP3. When I get a new player, I can convert to Ogg. All without ever having to dig around in my physical CD collection.

Of course, I've only got something like 250 CDs, so I can see how this plan isn't really feasible for everyone.

Re:I just see crappy iPod interfaces

[Durandal64]

Granted, I'm not one of those /.ers who cries about having Ogg support in everything under the sun, but Ogg does have a couple advantages. The first is that it's royalty-free. This isn't a big deal, since the end user doesn't know the difference between a licensed MP3 encoder and a non-licensed one.

The other, big one though, is the ability to take a 256 kbps track and convert it to a 128 kbps track without re-encoding. The 128 kbps track created from the 256 kbps one will sound exactly as though it were encoded from the original source. Ogg allows you to go from high-bitrate encodes to lower-bitrate ones painlessly. This is a big advantage for portable players. I usually encode my songs at 192 kbps AAC, and it sounds excellent. I encode at a higher bitrate because I have a set of Logitech z-680s hooked up to my machine. 192 kbps AAC gives me a file that sounds almost indistinguishable from the original at a low bitrate compared to AAC lossless or FLAC.

But on my iPod, I don't need a bitrate that high. On your average pair of headphones, you won't notice the difference. In fact, higher bitrates have a big disadvantage on portable players. They're larger, so they eat up a larger chunk of the buffer RAM. This means that it takes more battery power to play one, so you get less battery life out of your player. Playing songs at 192 kbps on my iPod destroys the "8 hours" of advertised battery life. I get more like 4 or 5 hours from a full charge, depending on usage. I'd love it if I could encode my music at 192 kbps Ogg and then, upon sync, automatically have iTunes convert them to 128 kbps or even 96 kbps Oggs before sending them to the iPod. More battery life, no noticeable difference in sound quality. Sure, it'd take a little longer to sync up, but I think it's worth it.

Re:I just see crappy iPod interfaces

[glenstar]

NetMusic has imported a number of different players from Asian manufacturers, and the HD-800 is a 20GB player that supports OGG/WMA/MP3/WAV, FM Radio, and the best part, in my opinion, is that it uses 1.8" drives so that it is end-user upgradable.

</End Blatant Self Promotion>

Re:I just see crappy iPod interfaces

[christopher240240]

**christopher 240240 spits coffee from his mouth and nose all over his desk.**

I hate you, sir.

Re:I just see crappy iPod interfaces

[Unknown Lamer]

I'd love to use Ogg FLAC for music on my computer but I have a small problem ... money. $250 for a 300G hard drive is a lot when you need to replace your transmission and front end suspension and are sort of in between jobs at the moment...

I use abcde to rip my CDs and it lets me encode to more than one format at encode time; when I finally get a new hard drive for music (after the above car work is done...) I am planning to re-rip my entire music collection so that I can retag all of it properly (I used to not care about title casing and stuff so I have about 150 or so albums with improper title casing). I'll be putting the FLAC stuff in /music/ripped/flac/ and the Vorbis stuff in /music/ripped/vorbis/ and setting my Neuros to sync with the Vorbis dir.

Re:I just see crappy iPod interfaces

[aristotle-dude]

That's nice but I already got "free as in beer" MP3/ACC/Apple Lossless (based on LPAC) encoders with my mac in Quicktime and now I have the "freedom" to encode any CD I own or any song I create in those formats to my heart's content.

I've got a hint for you, freedom is never "free as in beer". Someone either had to pay or die for it.

Re:I just see crappy iPod interfaces

[srcosmo]

What bitrate are you using?

I would think that powering the hard disk is what sucks up most of the battery life. So if OGG has a better size/quality ratio than MP3, can't it actually extend the battery life, since it allows you to encode everything at low bitrates and not have to spin up the disk as much?

Or does the extra processing power required to decode OGG cancel out that benefit..?

Re:I just see crappy iPod interfaces

[Patik]

Forget Ogg, if you have an iPod you should be using AAC. After determining that 160kbps AAC sounds exactly the same as 192kbps MP3, I reencoded my collection and shaved off a few GB.

Re:I just see crappy iPod interfaces

[Citizen of Earth]

Ogg is simply free/open source. Better encoding quality is purely accidental.

"Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect." -- Linus Torvalds (2003-09-28)

Well, I can believe Linus, anyway.

Re:I just see crappy iPod interfaces

[Malc]

I use -q 5 (~160kbs I think) for OGGs, and VBR @ ~190kbs for MP3. These seem similar from an audio quality perspective. The OGGs sound the same or slightly better except for a few corner cases. Everything I've read about OGG indicates it sucks batteries more quickly. It must be the CPU load it requires or something. I too would have thought the disk time would be the problem... unless of course it needs some of the RAM it caches the files in for decoding and thus ends up hitting the disk more (I haven't looked in to this thought before).

Re:I just see crappy iPod interfaces

[Ziviyr]

Vorbis bitrate-peeling was a cool idea. I haven't seen any decent implimentations of it yet though.

It seems the encoder needs more work.

Geez...

[Last_Available_Usern]

"...with measurements of only 30x75x16mm"

Great...I already can't find my keys half the time as it is.

Iaudio 4!!

[ibmman85]

cowon IAudio 4- sexy, multicolor backlight, really good sound. too bad I cant afford one. really want it though ill take it over the ipod any day, even though its almost as expensive. and it has all the srs and other junk anyway, not that youd need it since it sounds good without it

What I'd like to see in MP3 players

[Zorilla]

I haven't had too much experience with devices that play back mp3s, but it always seems like it cuts the first and last 1/2 second of the song off (usually mp3 cd-rw players). Hopefully, that's not a problem for most players, so manufacturers can move on to other things.

I'd really like to see an option to eliminate silence from the beginning and end of tracks (for mp3s ripped from a CD that transition from track to track seamlessly), since mp3s round off to the nearest frame instead of an exact song length, adding extra milliseconds of blank space. The feature to eliminate that is one of my favorite features of Winamp.

Re:What I'd like to see in MP3 players

[lucas teh geek]

I'd really like to see an option to eliminate silence from the beginning and end of tracks (for mp3s ripped from a CD that transition from track to track seamlessly), since mp3s round off to the nearest frame instead of an exact song length, adding extra milliseconds of blank space. The feature to eliminate that is one of my favorite features of Winamp.

That, and crossfading options are the things I really want in an mp3 player

Re:What I'd like to see in MP3 players

[genixia]

Gap Killing?

Comes as standard on the Rio Karma.

Re:What I'd like to see in MP3 players

[genixia]

Crossfading?

Also comes as standard on the Rio Karma.

Wha?

[Anonymous Coward]

SRS, WOW, TruBass? Never seen before? Maybe you should take your head out of your ipod's user manual and check out the iriver iHP, which has all these features, plus optical input/output and a built-in radio tuner.

Re:Wha?

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad it blows. I can't understand why people bash ATRAC as being so inferior, but then add so much distortion with garbage like SRS and WOW and Trubass.... It just seems that people can't be happy with anything for long, they HAVE to find a 'problem', so they can buy new toys.
You haven't heard any bass with headphones until you try a MD player with Koss Portapros. I bought an iRiver iHP-120 and the sound on the headphones is really inferior. Now, I'm not talking optical out here. Headphones.

As a walkman, the iriver doesn't make the grade. Battery life is very poor. I don't know why mine never lasts more than a few hours on a full charge. If you have 20G of music, isn't it normal to skip around a lot? If so, why not just settle for a 1G MD and take the one you want for that day on the bus? At least the battery will last! I don't like having to listen to a bunch of music linearly just so I can get the claimed battery life.
Headphone volume is adequate, bass is poor. A claimed 20mW output that is less loud than the 5mW claimed by my MD unit. Strange.
And for a unit that goes for twice the price as my MD unit, you'd think they could include a leather case that doesn't yank the joystick when you remove/insert it. And what's up with that joystick? Useless. Compare it to the somewhat inferior to the iPod MD scroll wheel.
Or include a build-in microphone that records the hard drive sound spinning up and down. Yay.
Anyways, I'm returning the iRiver. For the price, it lacks polish, and the sound, well, it's not enough.

Ogg support

[Gordonjcp]

You can't encode MP3s above 56kbps without paying a licence fee to Fraunhofer-IIS. You don't need to pay a licence fee for Ogg.

Re:Ogg support

[Anonymous Coward]

i don't remember paying to download itunes

Re:Ogg support

[OS24Ever]

My iPod costs the same amount whether or not I use MP3 or Vorbis. It's not like there is a 'license fee free' version out there that supports only vorbis...

Re:Ogg support

[Azrael Newtype]

Your iPod may cost the same, but you should really be paying for each and every one of the mp3s you put onto it that's encoded above 56kbps, assuming the mp3s are legal in the first place. It's not up to the player to charge you, it's really up to the encoder, so yes there is a 'license fee free' version out there that supports only vorbis, because the fee doesn't go to the people releasing the versions. By the way, when did the iPod start supporting vorbis AT ALL, much less exclusively?

Re:Ogg support

[isorox]

Can't, or arent legally allowed to?

Re:Ogg support

[hankwang]

You can't encode MP3s above 56kbps without paying a licence fee to Fraunhofer-IIS.

Unless FHG changed the rules in the past couple of months, the license-fee structure is something like this:

• Selling encoded music: 3% (or so) of what you charge for the music
• Selling an encoder: a fee per software license if you *sell* it. The lame encoder can be used legally for free because you don't have to pay for it. There are issues with distributing a compiled version, though.
• Selling a decoder: a fee per decoder ($1 or so).

There is a minimum amount of money you have to pay in license fees (a 5-digit number), but only a company that sells for more than $50,000 or so per year needs to pay any fees at all.

You as a private person are perfectly allowed to encode MP3s. You can even legally sell the MP3s as long as you stay below the treshold (provided you don't violate copyright issues with the music itself, of course :-) ).

Re:Ogg support

[pavon]

You are right - it doesn't really make any difference for hardware devices if you have to licence the codec or not - peanuts in the overall cost. Same with proprietary software - the licencing costs won't add much to the cost of the product, so no big deal.

But open source software is a problem. It is illegal to distribute an mp3 encoder without paying the licence fees, which makes it impossible to have a legal open source mp3 encoder (or DVD players, or anything else that is patented) because to be open the licence must allow anyone to redistribute it without restriction. The way that LAME gets around that issue is that "LAME Ain't an MP3 Encoder" - it is a reference implementation for educational use only. This doesn't really solve the problem, it just makes the users criminals instead of the developers and distributers.

So we don't like patented formats for that reason - because it is illegal for us to use those formats on our open source systems, and if we are restricted to use open formats on our computer, it would be really nice to use them on our handheld music players as well, which fortunately is a very viable option, contrary to what the whiners here say, and thanks to some cool hardware companies.

Re:Ogg support

[OS24Ever]

There are days I hate the flamebait mod. You have a point I didn't consider - encoding. I was only thinking of the player side of the equation.

the reference to iPod and Vorbis was a 'point' not a 'fact'. My point being that I don't notice the diff when I buy an iPod because the encoder is iTunes and I have choices of AAC, Apple Lossless and MP3 of various caliber. It makes no mention of 'hey you paid to do this' and as a consumer who wants it to 'just work' I don't care.

Since iTunes doesn't charge me for every MP3 I encode I'm not sure how that license fee for the free software I got from a download link gets charged when I want to encode an MP3 either.

LAME didn't cost me a dime the first time I ripped everything to MP3 but I know have learned since that I was doing this for 'educational' purposes instead of 'real' purposes which was a surprise to me. At the time RH 7.2 I was using made no mention when I used GRIP that I was for educational purposes only.

But it boils down to as a consumer vs. a programmer iTunes works and doesn't make any mention of 'we're this much more expensive because of MP3 support' so I go on my merry way. I have of course since my original CD consolidation project re-ripped everything into apple lossless and trashed the MP3s. For what I carry on my iPod I put it in 224K AAC instead.

Cool laptops

[SpinyManiac]

Cool laptops? You can't get those anywhere.
Only bollock burner specials these days.

Elitists will use those features...

[TheOtherAgentM]

I'm sure we all know someone that insists on keeping all his music in .ogg or perhaps someone that ripped all their CDs again when iTunes and iPod started supporting .m4a files. Does it really make a difference when you're toting 15GB or more around? Probably not, but everyone has their own desires. It's similar to people switching cell phones all the time. Apparently, there is a market for it...just not a cheap ass like me.

iPod

[blackmonday]

Look, I'm an unabashed Apple fanboy, but I'd like to know why I should choose this over an iPod. None of these features matter to me. Tru-Bass? the iPod has a huge EQ selection, and you can assign an EQ to each individual song in iTunes and it carries over to the iPod.

If these gadgets aren't half the price of an iPod mini, I have no reason to consider them. There's no mention of disk space on the JM-200, but I want GB's, not MB's.

Re:iPod

[stratjakt]

That's fine for you then.

Myself, I couldn't imagine there's 20gigs of compressed music out there that I'd want to listen to. I'm a creature of habit, when I listen to recorded music, it's the same dozen punk and metal albums. Y'know, the ones with about 10 2 minute songs.

I don't enjoy recorded music, it's merely a distraction while I'm on the plane. In the car, I'd rather listen to the radio. I prefer live music, I'd rather listen to some local band jamming at the bar on friday than stay up late buying songs on iTunes to fill up a big HDD with RIAA horseshit. I'd rather hear some small band doing Rolling Stones covers for free beer, because they enjoy playing, than to own the entire Stones' discography.

To each their own. There's a huge market made up of people just like me. Not everyone has, or aspires to have, a 90000000 CD collection.

So, how about a compromise. You buy what you want to buy, I'll buy what I want to buy.

Re:iPod

[radish]

I find it hard to believe that these devices (heck - any devices) would be priced in the same league as the iPods. So you're an Apple guy, so I won't try to persuade you to open your eyes - but every time you buy one of those pretty white boxes Steve is laughing all the way to the bank.

Re:iPod

[Anonymous Coward]

Because then you wouldn't have to associate with the bunch of smug, self satisfied little shits that seem to flock towards everything with an Apple logo in much the same way that flies are attracted to shit?

Just a thought - you did ask.

Re:iPod

[EnVisiCrypt]

Wow. I've finally met you.

Everytime I'm at a bar, and some caterwauling douchebag with a Heineken, Leathers, and a Michael Bolton haircut steps onto the "stage" and says, "thank you! we're 'turbo brush fire!'", I sigh to myself, die a little inside and wonder, "Who actually enjoys this shit?"

Now I know. God bless you. ;)

--Don't take it personally. Tis but a joke. Back to my nsync cd's. ;)

Re:iPod

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like you need to go visit audiolunchbox.com

Re:iPod

[Anonymous Coward]

The ironic thing is that guy goes out to see live music because he likes it, you seem to go to live music and hate it. Do you also eat food you hate just for the satisfaction of complaining about it?

Re:iPod

[Vlion]

Exactly.
I've got about 5 or so hours of mp3s on my computer that I listen to regularly.
I'll probably try and get a few more soon, because I've kinda worn these out, but hey, I don't need $GAZILLION mp3s. I'm content with a few hours worth.

Y'know ?

Re:iPod

[emorphien]

Compared to the regular iPod (not mini) the iRiver iHP (now H series) spanks it silly in sound quality and battery life, not to mention audio features and connectivity. Same size too.

Re:iPod

[blackmonday]

I guess I hear what you're saying, and as a band member (you like punk, we just played with Fear and Agent Orange) but I can't help notice the irony that you're posting on an article about portable MP3 players, yet you don't enjoy recorded music. You mentioned that you like radio (for recorded music?), at least one of these gadgets has a radio built-in, and I do wish the iPod had that.

Re:iPod

[Niello]

"There's a huge market made up of people just like me. Not everyone has, or aspires to have, a 90000000 CD collection."

A huge market made up of people who don't buy music? Incredible! Electronic manufacturers should jump all over this niche!

Re:iPod

[xigxag]

Obviously YMMV but the #1 reason why I'm not about to ditch my SD/Flash based MPIO player is that it takes standard AAA batteries. I like knowing that I can listen to my music all day long if I so choose without worrying about bringing a cradle or USB cord along with me. Not to mention that the MPIO is much smaller than even an iPod Mini. Although I'd consider the latter if it had a version that worked with standard batteries.

Re:iPod

[jalsk]

Maybe you should consider the iRiver iHP-120 or iHP-140. They have a built-in FM Tuner as well as either a 20 or 40 gb hard drive respectively.

Re:iPod

[aeryn_sunn]

You are probably right, there is not 10,000 pre-recorded songs out that any person could fill an iPod with...but, with my iPod, Half of the 30GBs is filled with Recorded music from the BBC's shows such as the Essential Selection, Judge Jules, etc...and 5 hour Hed Kandi sets from JazzFM 102...and lots of other live band or DJ sets, i.e. Essential Mixs...not to mention, recording large blocks of BBC radio 1 during the week to listen to in the car when I am on the road for long trips...so, I guess my point is that there probably are many, many people out there who do use 20GBs or more of their iPod or other MP3 players for music other than pre-recorded music and most of those people probably at most own a few hundred CDs...

So there is a huge market for people who will use the space for a variety of reasons other than just CDs

I am curious, what do most people put on their iPods or MP3s? What do they listen to the most?

Re:iPod

[EnVisiCrypt]

I was actually talking about those performers who happen to be performing when you're not really expecting it. Like when you're at your favorite bar on, say, a wednesday night and they decide to have an open mic, or allow a local band to play a gig.

Oh, and that wouldn't be irony, even if it were true.

Re:iPod

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, and that wouldn't be irony, even if it were true.

Ah, but if you always avoided bars and eateries that had live bands, to go to a bar where you were expecting some peace, only to find it had an open mic night... now that's irony :)

I think most people who use the term ironic as the grandparent did, tend to assume extra details not explicitly stated. Just a case of empathy gone bad, as the poster put themselves in your shoes and assumed you constantly had bad luck avoiding music in bars but constantly finding it... in that light, it actually does become an allowable use of the word.

Ogg Vorbis Support

[Anonymous Coward]

It's nice to see these new players support open source audio formats like Ogg Vorbis. It's even nicer to see services like Audio Lunchbox and others offer Oggs for download.

Re:Ogg Vorbis Support

[Anonymous Coward]

If there are any of you out there who HAVE NOT tried out Oggs, Audio Lunchbox offers some free full-length samples for download. You can get them HERE

Actually.....

[arcangelo]

for Christmas of last year I did buy a Samsung Yepp' MP3 player (model YP-55 - 192Mb of storage). Mind you, it's not to be compared to any uber-fancy MP3 players that go for hundreds of $$$ but, it certainly does have features like WOW, SRS and TruBass .... and did I mention I got it in Canada? ;)

Re:Actually.....

[kidgenius]

I'd like to add that my iriver iHP-120, which has been out since November, has all of those as well. I picked mine up from NewEgg. Obviously, the writers of the article haven't done their homework.

whoopidy doo, they aren't in the states!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, so I know /. isn't just for the Americans out there, but this site's fanbase IS mostly American, so if these arent' coming out in the States anytime soon, then what's the point of getting me excited?

I still want to know (besides the iPod mini), what is a really good, small, mp3 player. doesn't have to be HD based... in fact, I want something small like these korean models, so it SHOULDN'T be HD based...

Big deal...

[Anonymous Coward]

My iRiver has SRS and WOW, nothing new. I think this article is more of advertisement than news.

Clapping

[pjt33]

Maybe that'll be the next thing in mp3 players: control it by clapping, like some keyring-locator systems.

Info

[guido1]

Googled up some info on these players, as I4U seems to be dead.

The EPM-100 has 512M flash, a very small 3-line display, and is about the size of a thumbdrive. I found it selling for $220.

The JM200 has 256M flash (unknown if upgradeable via cards), includes a FM tuner, and looks downright funky. It doesn't seem to be available for purchase yet.

Playing catch-up with the market leader

[DrPizza]

(in terms of product quality, not sales :p ) This doesn't seem to be anything above and beyond what iriver (who make the best, though perhaps least attractive, personal MP3 players available) have been doing for months.

Re:Playing catch-up with the market leader

[genixia]

LOL. iRiver certainly make some nice players. But we all know that 'the software makes the player'.

The true quality winner is actually the Rio Karma. :p

Re:Playing catch-up with the market leader

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, until you press a button and mash it all the way through the player. We all know 'the hardware makes the player'.

Neuros is great.

[Freidenker]

http://www.neurosaudio.com

Has Ogg, Linux, wonderfull features and a great community.

FDK

Sig on holiday.

Re:Neuros is great.

[Petronius]

how do you carry that tank in your pocket?

Re:Neuros is great.

[Freidenker]

You have 2 possible backpacks, one with the HD, one without, so it works with inbuild flash memory, new models have 128-256MB.

Regards

FDK

It Might Just Be Me

[The-Bus]

The website was running a bit slow. Were they hosting this off one the mp3 players perchance? Tip: When shilling for your own website, make sure it can handle the hits.

Might just be me though... Excuse the troll.

Not seen before?

[Dryth]

Both players feature audio functions not seen in MP3 Player before, like SRS, WOW and TruBass.

At last check, my iRiver iHP-120 supports SRS, WOW, and TruBass in amongst its EQ settings. Don't know about their Flash-based players, but it would be surprising if some of them didn't.

Re:Not seen before?

[kikensei]

Yar, there's a big SRS/WOW graphic logo stamped on the back of my iHP-120. Guess iRiver is ahead of its time.

Re:Not seen before?

[Simulant]

I finally upgraded to an iRiver iHP-120 from an old Archos and am very pleased. Highly recommended.

My main requirements were:

- Automatically detected (no additional drivers required) as a USB 2.0 Drive when plugged into a Win2k or XP machine.

- Drag and drop mp3s. No software needed.

- Autoresume.

- Smaller than the Archos. (though I must admit that those blue rubber bumpers saved my ass on many occasion)

- Reasonably good interface.

iRiver satisfies all of these.

I did try out the Rio Karma player but brought it back almost immediately. It took the Rio software two hours to index my 20,000 or so mp3s and then it tried to do it again for no apparent reason.
Not to mention the square shape just sucked.

iRiver does have SRS, WOW and Trubass but it's unlikely you'd ever want turn them on. All I got out of it was less volume. Just a gimmick if you ask me.

Re:Not seen before?

[LordStraun]

Should also mention that the iRiver play MP3,ASF,WMA,WAV, and OGG, which was the selling feature for me.

It's also got optical AND analogue line in/out, and built-in mic which records straight to MP3.
Oh, and you can read text files with it too, and it has a built-in FM tuner.

It's got USB ultra-high speed connectivity, so copying 10GB of music took very little time at all, and doubles as a portable hard-drive.

I've had my iRiver iHP-120 for a month now, and I LOVES IT.

Re:Not seen before?

[swb]

Are SRS, WOW and TruBass real "features"?

Different from the "Bass" and "Treble" controls I remember growing up? After a while they were replaced with various flavors of "Bass Boost" and some generic "EQ" settings that variously made the music sound fairly awful.

Re:Not seen before?

[cens0r]

I want the iRiver player very badly. Only one thing is stopping me though. Support for FLAC. I have all my music in FLAC right now, and I'd like a portable that supports it. Other than that, it has every feature I would want and I've been very happy with my other iRiver player.

Re:Not seen before?

[cens0r]

Do you know if they have plans to add FLAC to it? That's the one feature it doesn't have that I need. If worse comes to worse, I'll probably buy one and just transcode everything on my HD into MP3.

Re:Not seen before?

[Dryth]

Do you know if they have plans to add FLAC to it?

Speaking strictly as an iRiver consumer...

The advantages of FLAC and other lossless formats are diminished somewhat by the power considerations of HD-based players. The two most battery-intensive activities with the player seem to be transfering files to and from my computer, and loading data off the hard drive for playback. iRiver itself estimates the battery life based on the bitrate of the file being played (128kbps MP3 ~= 16 hours), which I'd venture is guided more by the time to read data off the drive than actual processing power required.

FLAC is my own preferred lossless codec, and while its compression is fantastic given the quality it retains, I'd personally much rather save the battery life. Particularly with the occasional fears surrounding HD-based mp3 player battery life. Replaceable? Probably. A bother? Definitely.

Besides, ~160kbps OGG sounds perfect to my ears. At least with transcoding from FLAC to OGG you're still only encoding lossy once. Of course, I'm hardly a purist, and I know a lot of iPod owners condemn iRiver's parallels for their lack of AAC, for example. Everyone has their own preference.

Mind you, the unit does support WAV playback, so FLAC would still be a nice addition, if only for completeness. The WAV playback itself, I'd venture, exists both due to fact it's still the generic lossless format, and that some users probably want at least one lossless option to go with the recording features. That in mind, FLAC markets itself as asymmetric in favor of decoding, meaning that it may not make for an ideal recording format if iRiver's hardware can't keep up, so I wouldn't count on it to replace the WAV format in this area.

I suppose that's my two cents.

Re:Not seen before?

[cens0r]

I'm not to conserned with battery life. I'd take a shorter amount of life to get my FLAC files on there. Of course the majority of my listening is done on the bus, which is only a 30 minute trip. So I'm not really too worried about battery life. In fact, I've been using a nomad IIc with 192 MB of storage and it's been working fine as it has more than enough music to get me through a day.

I'm not actually wanting FLAC for the quality. In the kind of enviornments I normally listen to portable audio in, I really can't hear much improvement in anything greater than LAME alt-preset standard. I only use FLAC on my HD because I like to have a pristine backup.

If the player doesn't support FLAC I've really only got 2 options. The first is transcode as I transfer, which slows things down a little bit. Of course, I'm not exactly sure how often I'd have to transfer files. I've got 200 albums currently in FLAC, so I could probably fit everything I have on there in mp3. So the slow transfer would be a one time hit. The other option would be to keep a mp3 copy and a FLAC copy both on my HD. This would take up extra room but would keep the transfer speed fast.

The iRiver is the player I want though. I have a slimX 350 that I've had for almost 2 years and it works flawlessly. They've really won me over.

Re:Not seen before?

[Simulant]

Then again, there's this: (www.theinquirer.net) The absolute best thing about Archos is RockBox/A> "MP3 PLAYER-MAKING COMPANY iRiver is taking the mick, according to its own message board's users. iRiver has been promising upgrades and firmware releases since last year, when the 40GB iHP-140 - pretty much an iPod clone - was launched. However, the company has released nothing yet. Originally, iRiver said the new features - including on-the-fly file deletion, real shuffle mode, on-the-fly playlist and gapless playback - would be released in May and June. The company offered an apology at the end of May and promised to sort things out as soon as possible. Still nothing. Thanks to such huge delay, the message board users are up in arms over the lack of updates. User "jotwee" says, "If they don't change their behaviour I will never buy an iRiver product again". This thread is full of angry iRiver customers. And, as a side note, your blue-haired logo-lady looks like she's suffering from horrible acne"

Re:Not seen before?

[Simulant]

oops

Re:Not seen before?

[Anonymous Coward]

my iBead-100 (256 MB flash) also supports these features, and it is not a recent product

http://www.ism-technologie.com/en/ibead.php

Re:Not seen before?

[NNKK]

SRS, WOW, and TruBass are, in fact, real features. They do actual signal processing, not just blind boosting of certain frequencies, and it does make a big difference.

Looks like both /.'d

[grunt107]

Try for the Muzio and for the eratech (much Kanji, though).

Re:Looks like both /.'d

[grunt107]

Damn, missed a spot. I meant Muzio AND Eratech

Re:Looks like both /.'d

[Anonymous Coward]

These are not kanjis, these are korean characters (it's a phonetic system, really different from the japanese character system, or kanjis). try this if you prefer the Shakespeare ones.

More details of the Eratech

[earthloop]

http://www.eratech.co.kr/eng/prod/pro3_1.htm

Grab it while you can.

This is timely for me

[ThePlague]

I've been looking to get an MP3 player as a gift for someone for a few weeks now, and I just can't seem to find one model that has the features I want:

Flash-based: she's a runner, so I don't believe the HD based ones could last

FM Tuner

USB 2.0

Voice Recording

256 MB internal, with the ability to expand via a card slot (SD preferable, but others would be considered)

Act as pen drive (in Windows) without additional drivers or the need for a cable.

It seems like relatively simple and low-end requirements, but I can't seem to find a device that fulfills all these. If you know of one specifically, I would appreciate feedback.

Re:This is timely for me

[orangenormal]

Try the Samsung YP-T5V. With the exception of the SD slot, it has all those features (including the "new?" features, SRS, WOW, and Trubass.) I love the thing to death, personally.

Re:This is timely for me

[ThePlague]

I appreciate your input for this, but it appears that the Samsung YP-T5V lacks the ability to expand memory, and it only has USB 1.1. I could live with the USB 1.1, I suppose, but I really would like for the thing to have the ability to expand memory. I assume it acts as a pendrive sans drivers, though the brief search I did on it did not indicate this.

It just baffles me that what seems to me obvious features, and relatively lowend, don't seem to be incorporated into a single player.

Re:This is timely for me

[Anonymous Coward]

This little Gem (Diva Gem 4000) http://www.technipeal.com/product.asp?3=29
has been covered before. Only USB 1.1, but all other requirements are fulfilled.

Re:SRS? WOW?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, you can play World Of Warcraft on your MP3 player and it'll remove your parts for you in the process as you won't be using those anytime soon if you're playing WOW on a music device.

Coolest feature about these MP3 players:

[torpor]

... the fact that, in quantity, these key-chain USB/MP3 players can be had for as little as $10 per item.

Why is this great, "in quantity"? Well, I know plenty of unsigned artists whose mp3's are floating around the internet, promoting them, who can now offer "Albums" on these MP3 devices, custom-like, to their loyal fans.

Mark my words: CD's are dead. Static MP3's are dead.

Long-live the value-added MP3-player-bundled-with-new-tracks website freelance musician upsell!

Re:Coolest feature about these MP3 players:

[mbourgon]

Mind linking us to where we can buy mp3 players for $10 each? I'd love to buy a bunch, at that price.

Re:Coolest feature about these MP3 players:

[wfberg]

Mind linking us to where we can buy mp3 players for $10 each? I'd love to buy a bunch, at that price.

Call the Taiwanese embassy and have them send you their trade catalogue. Select mp3 gadget manufacturer, e-mail them for a quote on 10.000 devices, arrange shipping by container, pay duties, and you're set!

Re:Coolest feature about these MP3 players:

[poot_rootbeer]

I know plenty of unsigned artists whose mp3's are floating around the internet, promoting them, who can now offer "Albums" on these MP3 devices, custom-like, to their loyal fans.

Last I checked, getting CDs made costs a lot less than $10 per piece. Apart from the gimmick factor, what would be the advantage to an unsigned band of selling music in tiny MP3 player form?

Re:Coolest feature about these MP3 players:

[torpor]

Easy:

1. Nobody buys CD's.
2. I'd buy an MP3 player if it were branded by my favourite musician. I'd much rather have a "Pink" mp3 gadget, than a "Sony" one ...

Re:Coolest feature about these MP3 players:

[Chanc_Gorkon]

Your wrong. People DO buy CD's. Joe Sixpack buys them as well. Not everyone downloads. Some people actualy DO agree with me that it is wrong.

Re:Coolest feature about these MP3 players:

[Anonymous Coward]

You think downloading is wrong even from the musician's own website?

Re:Coolest feature about these MP3 players:

[Chanc_Gorkon]

If they offer MP3's, then fine. But, let's be honest, most people are not like you who like obscure music that is only available on the internet. Most people want that supafly Beyonce CD or that hot Jarule or Jessica Simpson CD...ie the same BS you hear on Top 40 stations. It's not called Top 40 because noone likes it! :D

Re:Coolest feature about these MP3 players:

[ubrkl]

Great, so we'll have new value-added MP3-player based landfill. The last thing I want is to have 20 cheap music players from my favourite bands scattered around the appartment.

Audiobook Player

[Anonymous Coward]

I have the Rio Karma, 20GB, which is pretty good all things considered, I really like it.

But the one feature I've never been able to find in an MP3 player that would be perfect for listening to audiobooks is variable speed playback.

Many audiobooks you could speed up the playback by 20% - 50% and still understand it and comprehend it. In many cases you retain more because your mind doesn't have time to drift off.

Very useful, but I haven't been able to find a player (or even software on a PC) that will do it on the fly, so each file has to be transcoded, which is time consuming.

Re:Audiobook Player

[gphinch]

and all the characters sound like alvin and the chipmonks

Re:Audiobook Player

[Anonymous Coward]

If you like chipmunks, alsaplayer has nice speed variation features.

Re:Audiobook Player

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a 20gb Nomad Zen and it allows you to speed up or slow down audio playback on the fly, in increments of 25% (50% 75% 100% 125% 150%). It also adjusts the pitch up or down as necessary so the audio doesn't sound like the chipmunks or barry white...it's quite handy.

Re:Audiobook Player

[Unknown Lamer]

the new beta firmware for the Neuros has a "DJ" menu that lets you speed up or slow down the audio (and set A/B loop points). It doesn't do pitch correction and only works when the headphones are connected (the FM Modulation stuff for MyFi is expensive and decoding high bit rate Vorbis + resample + FM Modulation is probably too much for the thing to handle; or it may just be that they didn't see a need for it over FM Radio and it could be enabled once the firmware makes it out of beta). Still, if you don't mind everyone's voices being a step or two higher, it works well for audio books.

Re:Audiobook Player

[xgamer04]

I think I remember a plug-in for WinAmp that did that, but I might be thinking of some other player...

wager?

[gosand]

You can't encode MP3s above 56kbps without paying a licence fee to Fraunhofer-IIS.

That sounds like a wager to me.

One that I have already won.

Re:SRS? WOW?

[Bricklets]

SRS? Sex Reassignment Surgery?

Considering the average slashdotter's fascination with the opposite sex, you may be onto something. Or if could just be you.

Yep.

[NNKK]

First thought that went through my head was "What rock have these guys been living under?"

Incidentally, anyone in the market for an HDD player, look seriously at the iRivers. They're great.

Are there any Mp3 players w/ Memory Card Support?

[dan5691]

well are there?

TruBass?

[mopslik]

Bah, I've had a music player with TruBass for ages now.

Uh...

[Anonymous Coward]

Both players feature audio functions not seen in MP3 Player before, like SRS, WOW and TruBass.

I would like to point out that iRiver has featured all of those for a long time on it's newer players (as well as ogg support).

SRS & WOW: iRiver

[joyof]

Both players feature audio functions not seen in MP3 Player before, like SRS, WOW and TruBass.

I'm not sure what this person was thinking, but I have an iRiver H120 which has SRS, WOW, and TruBass. This product line has been out for quite a while, too.

iRiver home

Re:SRS & WOW: iRiver

[ender-]

Nope, not just you. My IGP-100 has those features, in addition to the FM Tuner and .ogg support.

Man I love this player! :) Of course, my wife's cousin just picked up the H120, and I had to help him set it up and show him how to rip CD's.
That H120 was pretty sweet. Too bad I probably couldn't convince my wife to let me upgrade to the H140... :(

Ender-d

Re:SRS & WOW: iRiver

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry to see you get smacked there with the -1 moderation. I completely disagree with it but oh well.

I have the iHP-120 (now the H120) and agree, best 20 gigger on the planet that's the same size as the iPods.

Kenwood In-car MP3 has had this...

[chiark]

...for what is technically known as "an age", especially in the terms of technology!

My KDC-PSW9524 (trips off the tongue that, thanks kenwood) has Trubass, SRS-WOW, you name it. It's been in my car for coming on for 18 months now. Perhaps it was a prototype unit that fell through a wormhole?

However all the effects, without exception, make the unit sound bloody awful on a decent amp and speaker setup with well encoded MP3s. They're crap gadgets that should be nowhere near your audio path. Of course, the truly anal would argue that using MP3 is akin to worshipping satan, but they just need to get out more.

Cheers,
nick.

Examples?

[chendo]

Like, jacking off over the laptop while watching porn? Or maybe worse, sticking your penis into one of the optical drives? Man, what the HELL do you guys do in there?

I was really impressed untill...

[TubeSteak]

I saw these two things:

1. powered by a built-in Li-polymer battery
2. Both players still feature only a USB 1.1 interface

I went to the Korean website and peeked at the specs page (it's in Korean, but #s are still #s) and found out the battery is 3.7 Volts. Anyways, even though it's a lithium polymer, it's still only got ~3yrs of lifespan before it's kaput. And USB 1.1! It's not horribly slow, but with all the stuff packed in their you'd think we could get our 400Mbps worth.

The USB 1.1 isn't a deal breaker, but if i can't easily get to that li-polymer battery... It'd be the whole iPod story again. This time with an overseas manufacturer.

Re:I was really impressed untill...

[Prof.Phreak]

iriver ifp players (ifp-700/800) have all the features in the article (similar size too), run for 40 hours on a single AA (NiMH) battery and feature USB2 :-)

Re:I was really impressed untill...

[TubeSteak]

i did take a look at those a while back and kindof dismissed them. Smaller, for me, is not necessarily better. I tend to buy my electronics for durability. I'd link to a pic of my cd-player, but i can't find it at the moment, so i can only imagine how long it'd take to lose something smaller than a cell phone. That and the onboard memory. 128 will cost you $180, then add $50, $100, $120 for every 128MB extra (though the last one, which is the price point for 1GB, is strangely out of sync).

Sell me player and let me put my own damn storage in it. You can get a 512MB SD card for $95 or the same size MMC for $80. Storage is cheap, yet for some reason, onboard storage is expensive

And you STILL get 2 bit ear plugs

[Anonymous Coward]

And you STILL get 2 bit ear plugs that are made for losers.

1GB + USB 1.1. Eh

[TubeSteak]

with 512MB to 1GB sizes, lemme tell you that 12Mbps is slooow. you will never get the rated 1.5MB transfer speeds. It's more like 450K ~ 700K ~ 900K. Why the three numbers? Because your mileage will vary.

I think you need to speed up the silences...

[N Monkey]

But the one feature I've never been able to find in an MP3 player that would be perfect for listening to audiobooks is variable speed playback.

Many audiobooks you could speed up the playback by 20% - 50% and still understand it and comprehend it. In many cases you retain more because your mind doesn't have time to drift off.

Apparently a better thing to do is to reduce the length of silences between words etc. I remember seeing research (perhaps 20years ago!) into a variable speed tape recorder/player which would reduce silences in speech but leave the words at the normal rate.

That way you don't have to listen to mickey mouse or the chipmunks yet still save time and maintain comprehension.

Re:I think you need to speed up the silences...

[skiflyer]

That's a lovely idea, it's how I watch seasons of shows like 24... cause lets face it, there's no acting genious in any of that stuff, but I still want to know what happens.

I've found I can trim about 7 hours off each season by watching it at a faster bit rate, and really the only thing I ever lose are dramatic pauses.

Would love to see this feature added to my iRiver, slow as they are, it's nice they actually do update firmware on occassion so maybe I'll get lucky.

In the meantime, does anyone know if there's any software solution to the above suggestion? By which I don't mean re-recording my audio stream while playing it back faster, but one which would just re-encode an MP3 or OGG file with time compression?

Re:I think you need to speed up the silences...

[TubeSteak]

2xAV by Enounce "lets you change the playback rate of Video and Audio from 1/3 to 2.5 normal."

I don't know of any tools that aren't broadcast quality that cut out or compress the gaps/silences/whatever in our normal speech. What I'm thinking of is called "Cash" and I only remember it because some radio stations used it on Rush Limbaugh's talk show and he got pissy about it.

Re:I think you need to speed up the silences...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think I've found a program to do just that:
http://www.dandans.com/EasyAudioEditor/func tions.h tm

It's not done downloading it, so I don't know how it works.

Ideally I'd like to be able to replace any silences that are .25+ seconds with a .2 second silence (or whatever sounds best).

If it just plain removes the silence so that all the words run together, that will be of no use whatsoever...

I know how to do this with regular expressions, I'm just not sure of how to pipe the audio file through my perl/php program... :}

Re:I think you need to speed up the silences...

[Larry Lightbulb]

One of the Cabaret Voltaire albums used this; you knew something wasn't 'right' but you couldn't be sure what it was.

Re:I think you need to speed up the silences...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just bought the MURO MR-100

It has: 256 mb
USB Drive
FM Radio
FM Broadcasting
Variable Speed controls.

$200 Canadian -- So far so good.

Re:I think you need to speed up the silences...

[Anonymous Coward]

The MP-130 from JensOfSweden can change the playback rate of any MP3 (max 150%, I think).

Compact Flash Damnit!!!!

[NullStream]

Dear MP3 player manufacturers,

Lots of people have compact flash media why not make a model of your wonder device that supports compact flash? The semi-competant guys at Frontier Labs do (albeit the firmware from there products is less than perfect).

SD/MMC cards are useless because they are too fragile (physically and electromagically) so much so you can't just put one in your wallet and just carry it around for a week without the card dying.

Please support CF in your future products OK PLZ TKS.

--
Null

Re:Compact Flash Damnit!!!!

[SpammersAreScum]

If you want to play MP3s on a CF card, why not use a PDA that takes CF cards? My Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 does, so I play MP3s that way. Price is comparable with an iPod mini, and you get a real PDA and Linux platform in the bargain.

Re:Compact Flash Damnit!!!!

[peter_gzowski]

The price of the Zaurus is about the same as an iPod mini (~ $250), but much more than the cost of an mp3 player that takes CF (nex iia = ~ $70).

Jm-200 look like a real skined player

[denisbergeron]

Google is my friend and give me this link : http://www.gizmodo.com/archives/muzio-jm200-flash- player-with-twocolor-oled-017186.php
i want one. Period. here the texts :
A new Muzio from Korean manufacturer Jungsoft (promoting the hot new band, "Man and His Cymbals"), this one called the JM-200. Besides being sort of ugly, which is probably not a bullet-point feature, the Muzio supports USB Host functionality, SRS (some sort of surround sound magic?), OGG Vorbis support, FM radio, aluminum body, and recharging via USB. Plus, it has a two-color OLED screen, which probably isn't too much to get worked up over, but there you have it. I4U has some information, and apparently a test model, so expect a proper review in the next few days.

Fraud

[Zeroth_darkos]

Wow. There's endless possibilities to fool people with this. And the average Joe really trusts the info he gets from the Caller ID.

Re:Fraud

[Synic]

Posted in the wrong topic, smart guy.

Re:Fraud

[Zeroth_darkos]

Heh yep. Sometimes having several tabs with slashdot in your browser can be confusing :(

My solution

[CastrTroy]

I've always been an advocate of the Minidisc player, ever since they came out with NetMD, so you could hook it up to USB. These things have amazing battery life, unlimited storage capacity (switching disks), and are quite small. They never skip, are quite cheap, very durable, and as one poster was searching for, they allow you to fast forward while listening.

Also, for me, it just feels a lot more like a music player, then those memory stick or built in hard drive players. Something about putting disks into it just make it seem more fun.

Re:My solution

[Anonymous Coward]

bought 2, both broke in record time, sent back to sony, both went back numerous times to sony each time coming back slightly more fubar than before.

wont be buying more sony stuff. iPod, 1 year on, no problems.

Re:My solution

[Kiryat Malachi]

There are non-Sony MD players.

I have mine pretty much solely for quick and dirty remote recording of performances (legally, since they're nearly always mine or by request). I hate Sony for not enabling a MD-to-PC USB upload, because realtime transfer sucks.

Here's the real answer

[TubeSteak]

It's because the major tech manufacturing/fabrication centers are in China, Korea, Japan. Usually the parent company is there too, so we've got major corporations, convienent manufacturing capabilities and a market place of over 1 Billion people. That more than anything is why we don't get this stuff for years. What they do is create a flurry of hi-tech gadgets and use their 1 Billion+ peoples as a test market. The best features make it into the U.S. and European markets, but waaaay after they were first introduced overseas.

We ooh and ahh over our camera phones and neato-toys while the asian people I know have these wild phones that do decent videos and have respectably sized LED displays. Wafer thin laptops with split screens you can rotate, last year they were selling cellphones with 3D displays, teeny tiny Sony Viao laptops. They just can't afford to throw expensive toys into large scale production without gauging reliability and purchasability. That and the frequently have to redesign their products for meaty American fingers.

Re:Here's the real answer

[Threni]

> ...use their 1 Billion+ peoples as a test market.
> just can't afford to throw expensive toys into large scale production without
> gauging reliability and purchasability

So..you're saying they first sell their products to their local, huge market to see if it's worth trying to sell them to America's much smaller (max 250,000,000 people) market? And you're also saying that the thousands of cool products which don't eventually make it over to the States aren't distributed because they all have design faults? Yeah, right.

Re:Here's the real answer

[TubeSteak]

No, they market the gadgets in large cities like Soel or Chiba or Singapore or Shanghai or Tokyo or Hong Kong or Yokohama or Bangkok or Beijing... thats 9 cities & covers at least 55+ Million people. I might have under estimated since the numbers I found were a bit old.

Here's a quote from an article dated Oct. 2003.

Samsung can also use South Korea as a test market. Some 70% of the country's homes are wired for broadband. Twenty percent of the population buys a new cell phone every seven months.

Samsung already sells a phone in Korea that allows users to download and view up to 30 minutes of video and watch live tv for a fixed monthly fee. Samsung is selling 100,000 video-on-demand phones a month in Korea at $583 each. Verizon plans to introduce them in three US cities this fall

*Does some quick math*
That's $58.3 million per month. You think 100,000/month in the U.S. will spend almost $600 for one of those? The United States doesn't even have the freakin' infrastructure to send out live video & tv to a cell phone. Their current network gets swamped as it is "Network Busy".

Every company sets up a limited release of their product in various test markets to guage how well it'll be recieved. Pepsi used to have a product called Pepsi Kona. Now guess why we aren't drinking it today? Because it didn't shine in the test market. The End.

Oh, and no it's not because of design faults, its because most of their tech is expensive. If they roll out something new in a city of 10 million people and it doesn't catch on, you think they're going to send it overseas and try again?

The other part is that U.S. consumers want it cheap. New != cheap. Cell phone companies here practically give away the phone so that they can lock you into a service contract. My phone was about $20 after an instant rebate and the store sending in the mfg rebate to knock off another $120 at the register. I haven't seen it anywhere for less than $260 & CompUSA sells it for $350. Ouch.

Re:Here's the real answer

[siriuskase]

The other part is that U.S. consumers want it cheap. New != cheap.

That means that Americans aren't the early adopters anymore. Traditionally, the early adopters don't care about cost, they just want to be first on the block at any cost. For decades, these are the guys that the manufacturers used to work out the bugs. Now it's the folks in Japan.

Re:Here's the real answer

[TubeSteak]

That means that Americans aren't the early adopters anymore

yes, but no. the yes first: I personally think (because i don't have facts to prove it handy) that Americans lost their leading edge in certain fields of electronics a long time ago. I'm going to limit that statement to stuff like cd/dvd players, MD players, laptops, cell phones, cameras and so on, because i don't know about the rest. The reason American's aren't the early adopters for those things is because all(?) the brainwork, design & manufacturing is being done overseas. It just isn't available in the U.S.. Maybe it's that Asian companies test in Asia, while American companies test in America

The reason i can say that American's are still early adopters is because there are hordes of people always salivating over the latest and newest tech. It's just that Sony, Samsung, Toshiba, etc take their sweet time about selling it in the U.S. All that aside, Americans are still trendsetters/EA's in a cultural sense. Things that are fad's will spread like wildfire across borders. Our EA's just don't have electronic gadgets that are half as cool.

Keep Modding Him Down

[Anonymous Coward]

he's still an evil troll

Umm those are new features???

[FruitCak]

since when, the iriver i picked up a couple of months ago has all those features

OSS/3D for Linux does the same as SRS.

[4front]

Check out the OSS/3D plugin for XMMS (look under sound enhancing plugins) - WoW is the same as our Fidelity Enhance and TruBass is the same as our Bass/Virtual Subwoofer plugins.

If someone wants to license our OSS/3D and turn it into a DSP image, by all means call us. We also have Circle Surround compatible DSPs called Surroundizer and TheatreFX
(http://www.oss3d.com/usite/tech.html)

Best regards
Dev Mazumdar

The perfect mp3 player

[pcx]

The ideal mp3 player would be...

1] A cell phone with bluetooth capability.
2] A bluetooth enabled headset.
3] All major music formats including ogg.
4] A "bookmark" feature (useful for book on tape or book on mp3).
5] Stopwatch with lap timing and counters. (For those of us who exercise)
6] FM tuner.
7] XM or Syrius Tuner.
8] Uses standard flash ram cards for expansion.
9] USB 2.0 at minimum.
10] Rechargable battery and docking station.
11] Garage door opener (for those who exercise and need a way to get into the house without lugging your keys around) :)

That's my wish list. To date, nobody has even come close.

Re:The perfect mp3 player

[Anonymous Coward]

Replace rechargable battery w/ CANDU reactor and I think I can make one that will weigh less than 20 lbs. and it will run for more than 4 hours.

Re:The perfect mp3 player

[Insipid Trunculance]

Have you considered Sony Ericsson P 900?Apart from size i Guess it's allright.

nobody has come close...

[Run4yourlives]

because right now that would be the size of a laptop. :-)

Plain old sound quality?

[Shillo]

... is all I ask.

This means sufficient output power to drive really good earphones (we're still talking 50-100mW... most mp3 players only do 5 or so, and when they spend 200mW to begin with, the difference doesn't affect battery life /that/ much), and some love&care when selecting the output amplifier. And no, well-encoded mp3s at a good bitrate don't sound bad even on a good pair of phones.

Now my experience with MegaBass, WoW and all such toys is that on a good pair of phones, they turn bass from perfect to overwhelming, and on earbuds, they turn bassless music into bassless noise.

Any suggestions for a player that sounds good (with all bells and whistles irrelevant to the comparison)?

Caveat: what I tend to consider good earphones is not something you'd want to jog with. Form factor is not that high on my list of priorities.

--

Re:Plain old sound quality?

[Anonymous Coward]

Try the Benq joybee 120 - 256 Mb + FM radio
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,156760 2,00.as p

Sounds great with Grado SR60's
http://www.gradolabs.com/product_pages/sr6 0.htm

I 2nd that notion

[TubeSteak]

I've been wanting an mp3 player with features and two empty compact flash slots. Why empty you ask? Because I have 512MB CF cards, I already own multiple 256MB cards. Do I really want to spend more money to buy a player with 256MB built-in?

Last time i bothered to do research, the players I looked at had limits on total memory you could put and were very skimpy on the feature set. Please give me something i can put 2x512MB's worth of Compact Flash into. (2x1GB might be too much to ask). If this was a bank of america commercial, I'd say I want this all for free, but i doubt they'd go along with that.

Please support CF in your future products OK PLZ TKS.

Flash players work better for the Korean market

[Sangbin]

I'm here in Korea and the people seem to use the players mostly in the subways and the buses.

In the States where the people use it in the car or perhaps in their work places, the capacity of the storage is a big deal since they may use it for up to 8 hours continuously.

That's certainly not the case for the people here. The average time spent in a bus or the subways is around 30min~1hr, and you don't need anything over a gig for that.

When you don't need the storage, wouldn't you want a flash player that you can put in your pocket along with your cellphone?

I think the US slashdotters would understand the reason behind the development of the new mp3 players when they understand the culture here better.

Re:Flash players work better for the Korean market

[Kiryat Malachi]

Speaking for myself, during 15 minute drives, I may go through 50 or 60 songs, because I just set my player on random and hit skip until I hear a song I want to listen to. During a 1 hour drive, it's not unusual for me to cycle through 300 songs (out of a ~3000 song library), again due to skipping.

I need the storage even for short trips, personally. I'm aware I'm an odd one, but still - don't assume.

What these do:

[Otto]

Essentially, these all mess with the audio in some way. These are all by SRS Labs, BTW.

This is all my opinion, more or less. Quotes from SRS are found here: http://www.srslabs.com/ConsumerTechMonoStereo.asp

SRS - Sound Retrieval System
Claims to be able to "retrieve the spatial information that is lost during ordinary audio compression from any stereo recording and restores the original three-dimensional sound field." Also claims to be able to eliminate the "sweet spot" and "isolate and restore the spatial cues and place them in the proper space relative to the direct sounds, such as a soloist or dialogue."

What it really does, as far as I can tell: It uses an algorithim to isolate the audio into various sets of frequencies, which it then amplifies on various speakers and introduces a slight time delay. The effect of this is to give a slight emphasis to various parts of the sound. In a 5.1 surround system, this will make it seem as if the various chunks of frequencies are coming from more specific parts of the room. This is a neat effect, but the truth of the matter is that you can't restore what isn't there. Not really. It's a trick that lets there appear to be spatial orientation on the sound, but the spatial orientation it gives is entirely made up. It's not really what it is supposed to sound like, and it's not "much closer to what the artist originally intended" as they claim. You think artists don't listen to their own work and talk to their sound engineers? The original source material you have in the player is what the artist intended because it's what you actually got from them. SRS is a neat trick, but not actually any better. It'll work on headphones, but works best in a 5.1 surround situation. On a 2 speaker scenario, the artifical delays it introduces really hurt the sound noticably.

WOW
WOW claims to "dramatically improves the quality, dynamics, image field size and bass tones of digitally compressed audio file formats including WMA, WAV, MP3 files."

What it really does, as far as I can tell: It enhances a small band on the high end of the frequency spectrum, compresses the low end, then sticks the whole thing through a phaser to make it sound kinda deep and slightly echo-y (a phaser, for those not into audio, basically eliminates very specific frequencies.. whatever ones you have it set to... you can do all sorts of weird things with a programmable one, but it creates a pretty distinctive type of sound). On cheap ass speakers, this sort of thing can make it sound like your speakers are bigger, but the actual bass output suffers horribly on good speakers, and the echo type of effect is annoying as hell once you notice it.

TruBass
TruBass claims to "produce the perception of lower bass tones and deeper, richer bass from products that contain small, medium or large size speakers."

What it really does, as far as I can tell: Basically it increases the Bass. What? You have a bass control? Well, TruBass does it better. Oh wait, no, it doesn't. It's using some kind of tricky harmonics deal to enhance the low end of the audio to make it seem louder without actually making it louder. In other words, TruBass will increase the *perception* of the bass without actually increasing the amount of bass there. The human ear is better at certain frequencies than others, and TruBass adds harmonics to the bass that increase those frequency ranges, increasing the amount of bass you hear. But it will not increase the amount of bass that you *feel*, which to me, is kinda the whole point of bass. TruBass will work best on small crappy speakers, in other words, where you don't expect to feel any bass anyway. And the distortion on the bass is pretty severe, if you have a song with good bass to begin with.

Re:What these do:

[Barnoid]

It'll work on headphones, but works best in a 5.1 surround situation. On a 2 speaker scenario, the artifical delays it introduces really hurt the sound noticably.

Why does it work on headphones, but sound terrible on 2 speakers? Aren't 2 headphones just "two small speakers"?

Re:What these do:

[Otto]

hy does it work on headphones, but sound terrible on 2 speakers? Aren't 2 headphones just "two small speakers"?

Yes, but that's exactly what I said. It'll work on headphones, but it hurts the sound noticably. Was it confusing in some way?

Re:What these do:

[Anonymous Coward]

You totally rule! Thank you for this excellent roundup of the terms and their interpretations.

(posting AC because brown-nosing someone like this embarrasses me, plus I know I'll get deservedly modded down as offtopic... :)

Hymn-Project

[Otto]

www.hymn-project.org

Removes the DRM on the Protected AAC so that use of the file, outside of iTunes proprietary crap, is possible. Lets you back it up without the loss encurred by putting it on an audio CD.

Re:Hymn-Project

[argent]

Ah, so I avoid the DRM on the protected AAC so I don't need to buy an iPod to listen to my iTMS purchases... by buying an iPod. Um...

Re:Hymn-Project

[Otto]

Ah, so I avoid the DRM on the protected AAC so I don't need to buy an iPod to listen to my iTMS purchases... by buying an iPod. Um...

Umm... you lost me there. You don't need an iPod to use Hymn.

Re:Hymn-Project

[argent]

That's the cheap option.

I suppose I could buy a box to run Windows on, and a copy of Windows, and ... naeh, it'd cost more and do less for me than an iPod, and it sure wouldn't have the eBay value.

Re:Hymn-Project

[Otto]

I suppose I could buy a box to run Windows on, and a copy of Windows, and ... naeh, it'd cost more and do less for me than an iPod, and it sure wouldn't have the eBay value.

So, I assume you have a Mac? Well, that's your own problem then. But are you telling me that you don't have access to a Windows computer anywhere, at work, at home, at a friend's place... Frankly, I don't buy it.

Re:Hymn-Project

[argent]

I don't think whether I have a Mac, a Linux box, a box running FreeBSD, BeOS, or OpenStep, or even an Amiga... or one of more of the above... is really relevant.

I have access to a Windows box at work, but I don't think that stripping DRM from Apple's AAC files is something I should be doing on a work computer.

Going over to a friends place is sure a lot more convenient than burning a CD, yep, yep...

Re:Hymn-Project

[commodoresloat]

I don't think that stripping DRM from Apple's AAC files is something I should be doing on a work computer.

No doubt. You should be using that computer to post to slashdot.

Re:Hymn-Project

[Otto]

Going over to a friends place is sure a lot more convenient than burning a CD, yep, yep...

If you want to take the time and quality loss associated with burning a CD, feel free. I was just trying to relay a lossless way of doing things.

Considering the source is available, you're also quite free to make a version for your Mac that will work without an iPod. Assuming you can figure out how to get access to the DRM key on the Mac, which should be possible somehow considering iTunes can do it.

Re:Hymn-Project

[argent]

OK, we seem to be talking about two different things.

The OP was complaining that it was too much work to burn a CDROM. I pointed out that I burn to a CDROM anyway as suggested by Apple so it's not any more trouble. that's the context I saw your message in... that this was an easier solution than burning a CD.

Losslessness isn't an issue, since if I don't have an iPod I'd have to re-encode it to MP3 anyway, to use a flash player. Yesno?

Re:Hymn-Project

[Otto]

Losslessness isn't an issue, since if I don't have an iPod I'd have to re-encode it to MP3 anyway, to use a flash player. Yesno?

Yes, with reservations. The AAC format (sans DRM) is supposed by several software applications (Winamp, foobar 2000, Realplayer, etc, etc), although you're correct in that I know of no current hardware players that support it. However, I suspect that some more hardware players may support it soon.

Everybody's Favourite New Feature

[Anonymous Coward]

"New Generation of MP3 Players, New Features"
Including the best feature of them all! DRM!

Re:Are there any Mp3 players w/ Memory Card Suppor

[bairy]

Yes. There are certain usb memory card readers that will play mp3/wma (Here's some (UK Site)), and there are some portable usb drives that will play mp3/wma

Wot?

[slashusrslashbin]

Wot, no use of the phrase "iPod Killer"?

Quick someone, address the imbalance!!

Re:Wot?

[Anonymous Coward]

The iPod has already been killed, people just won't let go of it.

My MD player doesnt do this

[nurb432]

If you rip from a real cd ( we are all doing that, correct? ) the recorded version transitions just like the original..

WOW.. apparently.

[bairy]

Both players feature audio functions not seen in MP3 Player before, like SRS, WOW and TruBass. The Muzio JM-200 uses a two color OLED display.

Well isn't that grand. A play with 2 entire colours on it's LED. Not exactly cutting edge of excitability really, though a reasonable novelty.

Instead of integrating all these relatively old "technologies" (SRS etc), wouldn't it be better to create players that could use custom DSPs, like Winamp does?

New Features?

[Zarnce]

I have an IRiver iHP-120. My player already has all those "new" features. Whats the big deal?
My player is just slightly larger than an ipod. It lasts twice as long. It handles the Ogg format. I could keep going but I should get back to work.

Zarnce

This is totally offtopic, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool username. Sounds like a font...

OLED lifetime issue?

[Cheerio Boy]

uses a two color OLED display

Don't OLEDs still have a shorter lifespan than standard LCDs?

Considering how often an mp3 player is using the display when running, song info - etc., would the shorter lifespan of the OLEDs make a difference?

Re:OLED lifetime issue?

[jmorris42]

> Don't OLEDs still have a shorter lifespan than standard LCDs?

Who cares, it will outlast the Li-Ion battery that is non-replaceable. It is a piece of disposable consumer electronics.

ok found it

[WormholeFiend]

it's www.retropod.com

Grammar nitpick: Nothing is wrong

[GuidoZ]

There's nothing wrong at all with "Rainbows End"

Consider this:

'Parties End'

You have a plural, and a verb instead of a possessive. To make it clearer, you can put it into a context:

'At some point all parties end'

New Features?

[NickeB]

I've got a Jens of Sweden MP-100 MP3-player (bought in april 2003) with SRS, WOW and TB... what's new with these features?

Dear God

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone has insulted the iPod. Mod him down, fast!

Bought the Sanyo Yepp YP-T5 256mb...

[thievery1017]

...couple weeks ago. super small. wow, srs, etc. fm-tuner, voice recorder, multi-color backlight on the display. looks very similar to the eratech emp100. available at bestbuy and circuit city for $150 ($120 for 128mb). http://www.circuitcity.com/detail.jsp?c=1&b=g&u=c& catoid=-8721&qp=0&oid=90570&m=0 size is the biggest selling point for me. other than that, the controls are confusing, battery life (AAA about 10hrs) disappointing, playlist options weak, and though it's loud enough -- i don't like the fact that i generally have to keep it at the maximum volume or close to -- would like some volume to spare.

Is that a Muzio in your pocket?

[feloneous cat]

Or are you just happy to see me?

Dolby Headphone

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm still waiting (for several years now) for
Dolby Headphone to be available on portable audio
devices. All these SRS, WOW, Truebass etc thingies
sound horrible with high quality headphones but
Dolby Headphone does not seem to significantly
deteriorate sound quality (IMO) while leading to
significant improvements in natural sound presentation
and avoiding those channel over-separation problems
typical for listening via headphones. I think there
was a MD-player with Dolby Headphone some while ago
but that's about it. I'm pretty sure if people got
used to the advantages of Dolby Headphone they
would no longer consider portable audio without it.
Why does it not take off? Technical problems?
Too restrictive licensing conditions? There is
such a huge market, and the technology has been around
for years now. Strange...

This isn't that new

[Obey Gravity!]

features like his have been available for quite some time in north america, I live in canada and have owned since last year a yepp which i believe is made by sony and has all these audio feaures and frankly they are not all that interesting, just little things like slightly more bass or a slightly clearer sound and while it is nice to have i hardly think it is slshdot worthy

My flash-based wishlist

[NoData]

One of the links in the post (i4u.com) asked people to send in a description of their dream mp3 player. Here's the (admittedly long-winded) email I sent them If someone knows a player that meets this description, I'd love to here about it.

(To be fair, flash cards are not essential. If they designed a 2 GB fixed flash player, I'd probably be happy with that as well. But HD is still too heavy and not rugged enough for serious exercise).

----

Hi. I'm writing to answer the question posed in your June 24 article regarding what would be included in my "dream" portable music player. Here's my version.

I primarily use my mp3 player to work-out. So the popular hard drive-based players are either too bulky, too heavy, or, most importantly, just too skip- and damage-prone for rigorous fitness activities. Thus, I want to design the ideal flash-based player for active use. However, the flash-based players currently out there geared for fitness lack several key features.

The first problem is memory format. Most flash-based players (like the Nike PSA) have a fixed amount of flash memory. With flash card technology, that's just an unnecessary limitation. Why would I want fixed storage when virtually unlimited storage is possible with just the addition of a card port? However, even among card-based players there is an incredible paucity of those that support CompactFlash. Even though this is the flash format of choice for the immensely popular Canon camera line, and is the cheapest flash format per MB, very, very few players (with the exception of the hard-to-find Nex line) support it. This puzzles me quite a bit. I own a Canon camera, and I want a flash MP3 player. Why would I want to invest in two different flash card formats? It seems that a manufacturer that shrewdly marketed the lower cost and ubiquity of CF for existing cams could take advantage of this.

CF is larger than other card formats, but it's still so small and light that its form factor really does not add bulk. Plus, it is now available in higher capacities (like 1 GB) than any other flash format, rivaling some hard drive players.

The second feature I would want in my player is playlist support. Especially when I'm listening to music for exercise, the songs I pick hugely impact my level of motivation and performance. I want to be able to choose on the fly the subset of tunes that fit the mood of the moment. No flash-based player I know of support m3u or other playlist formats. This is a HUGE drawback. On my Nex II player, I have to create new folders with songs dropped in the order I want to hear them every time I go work out. It's a pain. Plus, with flash capacities growing, I want to maintain a set organizational strategy for my music (like folders by artist and album) and not reorganize music every time I listen. The built-in song-flagging pseudo-playlist feature some of these players have is not a substitute for a standard, reusable playlist. This is a must.

The third feature I want my player to have is a quality digital FM tuner. Most gyms have TVs set up in front of exercise equipment (like stationary bikes, treadmills, etc.), broadcasting the audio portion on local FM bands. I want to be able enjoy this feature of my gym, as well listen to local stations from time to time. Another must for any gymrat.

Finally, the player must be ergonomically designed for use by someone who is exercising while using the player. That is, it should, foremost, come with a comfortable, washable, neoprene *armband* case that holds the player snugly. Tunebelt makes some great generic versions of such a case, but they are not tailored for particular players (iPod being an exception). Second, the player itself must have *large* controls, clearly discriminable by touch, and inuitively positioned so one can reach them on their arm while working out. A tiny stick-like player is useless while working out, as is something bouncing around on a lanyard around your nec

Re:My flash-based wishlist

[truthsearch]

iRiver players have the FM tuner and armband. The one thing I'd add to your list is a simple clock. When I'm jogging it would be nice to have the time handy since I never wear a watch.

Re:My flash-based wishlist

[NoData]

Thanks. Do you know if the iRiver players support playlists?

Re:My flash-based wishlist

[truthsearch]

It doesn't seem to support "external" playlists (i.e. I don't see any way to upload one), but the player itself has a playlist feature. Aside from using playlists you can break out the songs into directories and the player has options for playing only that directory. Also, if you don't set it on shuffle it'll play the songs in exactly the order uploaded, if that helps any. So I don't think it has the playlist support you're looking for, but I haven't come across any flash player that does.

Re:My flash-based wishlist

[Chris Ashton 84]

The newest (890 I believe was the model I was looking at) have a clock built in, supposedly with an alarm. I don't know about a timer. I have no idea about m3u support, but a built in playlist is enough for me. I've got a laptop, so if I'd ever need more than the 256 MB player can hold I could always hook up to that.

Thanks guys for your comments on the iRiver :)
You've convinced me to get one... Sigh, it almost seems like $200 down the drain, but I don't have one yet, and it's Vorbis support is a very nice feature. Line-in recording, fm tuner, voice recording, and the clock basically settled it though :P Really, this sounds like just about what I could possibly need.

Note: though clock isn't listed on iRiver's site,http://www.iriveramerica.com/products/iFP-890 .aspx#
other review sites such as http://www.digimania.be/en/prod_det.asp?ProductID= 494 do mention it. Guess it also has a timer :D Score! They're doing a good job of keeping a poor college student poor :/

Loading up music

[truthsearch]

All that said, having to "load up" with music from my PC still annoys me.

Agreed, that is the part I like the least. I use the ifp-driver, so I think the best way, if you want to switch up music often, is to write a simple script to take off every file and upload a random set from a hard disk directory. That way you just plug it in and run one script. Of course having it all on the player would be most convenient, but a script might not be so bad.

Re:Loading up music

[shut_up_man]

This is exactly what I plan on doing when iRiver release UMS firmware for my IFP-790T. That will make it visible as a removable drive under Windows, instead of forcing me to use the nasty "copy a single file at a time by dragging and dropping" manager they bundle with the unit.

Pretty funny though, a actual example of where Linux's driver support is superior to Windows when using a just-released multimedia gadget!

Re:Loading up music

[truthsearch]

I was considering the UMS firmware also, but there are 2 things I don't like: once it's used I can no longer easily use the Linux driver to update the firmware again (I think some special command may be available on the device to get around it), but the bigger problem is that it won't play OGG files with that firmware last time I checked. I'm glad they at least provide the option for UMS.

Am I alone in thinking the iriver is attractive?

[Anonymous Coward]

As well as ogg support, I chose it over a number of other players cause I liked the look of the thing!

The ipod looks like a lunchbox, and that thumb wheel thing is far too fiddly.

But...

[KillaKen187]

Will it Play in my BMW? I dunno if I can buy that if I can't get one with my BMW

Re:But...

[The MESMERIC]

Yeah I am equally worried about my Rolls Royce. I find it ridiculous how they have no qualms in charging me a fortune for both my Rolls Royces (one is for Judy and the children) but when I ask a simple thing like adding a better adaptor for my iPods I simply get a "We will work on that one". I mean what sort of reply is this? Its friggin Rolls Royce ffs!! Not VolksWagen. That is it! I am sure I kept all my receipts safe somewhere and WILL demand my money back. There is a limit to mediocrity you know - there is a limit.

i don't really get the ipod fanboys

[ProfBooty]

ive had an iriver for a couple of months to replace my 7 year old md unit. Its tiny, has a really cool interface, and is great for jogging, biycling, working out and motorcycling.

old news?

[Halueth]

SRS, TruBass, OLED display, ogg etc...I have it all on my mp3 player. Bought it 2 months ago. You sure this is news? Mine is on the market pretty long if you'd asked me (at least in NL that is...) btw, it's a Korean IOPS. Sold in Scandinavia and the US under the name of "Jens of Sweden".

Hmm.... Nuclear Bomb

[superpulpsicle]

I am convinced Japanese markets are grudged up against Americans for the nuclear bombing of WWII. Every good thing from Japan will be purposely delayed to piss Americans off.

Flamebait me go ahead. You can't tell me Japan being the hardest working country on the planet can build a video game from scratch in 1 year. Yet somehow managed to take 2 years to make it available to the U.S.

Re:Hmm.... Nuclear Bomb

[Anonymous Coward]

This has nothing to do with the bomb, it has something to do with the fact that we americans are fucking assholes and do a really good job of pissing the world off.

I found a good solution to this...

[commodoresloat]

Don't run, unless you're being chased. :P

Re:I found a good solution to this...

[KingOfBLASH]

Some of us run for fun and to stay fit :-P My goal is to break a 6 minute mile...

Oh, how lovely

[TwistedSpring]

Right, so now there are MP3 players out there boasting SRS and WOW and a lot of other Bass/audio management effects. All these things had EQs on them before anyway, and I absolutely hate all this "TruBass" and "MegaBass" nonsense. If you want decent bass you should:

1. Buy a decent MP3 player with a good amp and decompressors in it (read: not an iPod. They look the part but the sound quality is not brilliant)
2. Buy some decent headphones

If you need to add artificial bass and effects to make things sound good, something's wrong somewhere in your set-up. I much prefer my music unadulterated by gimmics.

WTF are WOW and SRS?

[benedict]

I'm thinking of Windows-On-Windows and Sender Rewriting
Scheme, but those can't be right.

Rio Karma

[dargon]

I've got a Rio Karma, It may or may not have the fancy SRS settings etc, but it has a couple things that the players reviewed don't have including the iPod.

Support for MP3, WMA, Ogg, and FLAC audio files (I don't consider WMA a selling feature to compare against other players since the iPod supports apples format but the Karma doesn't)

Ethernet connectivity. I could leave my Karma at home and access it from work, streaming mp3's over the internet.

Also, the battery is good for up to 15 hours of play (depends on various settings, such as backlighting, etc), almost double the iPod's 8.

*USA is dying

[Atario]

Netcraft confirms it, huh?

Listen, if tacking on a lot of crappy gimmicks makes you technologically superior, I'd say the US auto market was eviscerating the Japanese one in the mid 1970s.

Frontier Labs: CF+2xAAA+USB2.0

[Divlje Jagode]

Frontier Labs (flash anims included) makes such players. One in particular, the nex cube seems really interesting: It's a cheap no frill player which uses CF memory, 2xAAA and has USB 2.0 (see the animations on the Frontier Labs website).
Some users seem to hint that the sound quality is below average, though... I don't know what the deal is, there aren't that many reviews on the net. Maybe better earphones will improve the sound. It's a cheap player, so get what you pay for.

Another site with a bigger photo here.

There's another company doing CF players: Maxtech. They went for more conventional designs with LCDs and loads of dials and buttons which is unfortunate because the player also has to accomodate space for the CF memory. Looking at the piccies, they are much bigger than the iriver players. Amyway, specs of the SSP-100 here. No idea if you can find it in the US, but some retailers in Europe seem to have it.

Utter BullSh!t...

[extrandall]

Both players feature audio functions not seen in MP3 Player before, like SRS, WOW and TruBass.

I bought a Korean made 128 MB JNC SSF-70 in Sydney,Aus almost two years now, and my MP3 player has SRS, WOW and TruBass. (So it's not a new "feature" by any stretch of the imagination) It also has a built in radio, and comes with voice and radio recording options. What's more is, that it also doubles as a USB Key!. And it's been around for ages!

What's happening with the stories now-a-days?! - This one is total BullSh!t.