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iRiver Ships Linux Media Players
prostoalex writes "The Register talks about new Linux-based portable media players available from iRiver. PMP-120 and PMP-140 feature 3.5'' color screen and 20 and 40 GB drives. The price tag is $500 and $600 respectively. The players support MP3, WMA, WAV and ASF music formats as well as MPEG, ASF, AVI and DivX video formats."
Another /. toy I can't afford :-(
Kenny P.
Visualize Whirled P.'s
Aaargh! Although it is nice and well, this isn't what the average free software Joe is crying out for. We want Ogg Vorbis capable players!
$500 and $600? Lucky they're using Linux to keep the price down.
clearly the pmp stands for pimp
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
No Ogg? No Way!
Put identity in the browser.
The real question is, did IRiver release the source code for their new Linux players?
If they did, have they made it easy for people to change the software on the player?
Do they support open-source software for their player?
Yet, at the bottom, there's the following:
About iRiver
iRiver is the leading innovator in delivering portable digital media devices. iRiver provides consumers with the viewing, listening and recording flexibility to accommodate their active lifestyles by manufacturing award-winning hybrid products supporting existing and emerging formats, including MP3, OGG, ASF, WMA and WMA-DRM. Milpitas-based iRiver America, Inc. can be found on the Web at www.iRiverAmerica.com.
(emphasis of 'OGG' mine)
Although it looks really neat it is way too expensive. I mean, the iPod is pretty overpriced and I thought Archos players to be on the upper edge but this beats them both. I mean isn't the whole purpose of using Linux on such a device to bring the costs down? I hope they are very successful with this device so it might get affordable in the near future but right now this is way out of reach for the average geek.
;-)
Slightly offtopic: In case you are looking for a feature laden, flashbased player you might find the VaioX miniXen interesting. It is pretty cheap and can do everything you might ever want from such a small device. It plays nice with your Linux OS too, of course. I was comparing prices and features of these players for half a year now and finally settled on the Vaiox. I am very happy with it, although I am not sure where to get it in the US!
Now i've heard some manufacturers say that they don't try support for certain formats because the cpu power on the units is too low.
Being a new unit, and the price, I really think that's BS now.
Of course, the format is ogg. I would consider one (though NOT at that price!) if it had it... Sigh.
-- Note: If you don't agree with me, don't bother replying. I won't read it.
Actually, I seriously looked at one these players around a month ago and I'm positive they were selling in the UK then, because online merchants (including Amazon) were saying they had stock. But in the end, I went for the smaller H340 music only player as these looked a little too big. Plus I'd spend all my life converting .avi's into the 320x160 (I think) format required for optimal viewing...
Thanks for clearing that up.Now if only if I could, I'd mod myself down now.
The human ear can only detect sounds between 20Hz and about 20kHz (some people can hear higer, some cannot hear frequencies that high).
Audio is typically sampled at 44kHz to eliminate aliasing distortion. Google for "Nyquist" and "aliasing distortion" for more than you could ever possibly want to know.
Go here for UK availability on the PMP-140 .... and prices... and a photo it looks a bit like a pre-gameboy era electronic game gadget... and it's gold are they all gold I wonder/
The pmp120 looks more like it belongs in with the "now"...
UK Laptops
Now it can't compete on storage space, I admit, but my palmone treo 600 has been my exclusive portable music player for about 6 months now. Combined with the pocket-tunes software and a sd memory card, the treo 600 becomes a rather fancy mp3, wma, wav, and ogg player. In addition to that, it's also a cell phone, plays games, browses webs, etc. You can buy a 1gb sd card for about $80, and the pocket-tunes software is $30. The phone itself is only $350 with a contract from the evil phone company of your choice. If you get their unlimited data plans, then you can stream your favorite shoutcast streams straight to your phone.
Ever since I bought this phone, my archos jukebox 6000 has been sitting on the shelf collecting dust.
If you don't want the phone you could always get the tungsten t5. Also be sure to check out the yet unreleased treo 650.
It's very close to being enough to get me to buy one save for the lack of software adaptability (Can I hack it and add features?) and lack of wireless connectivity.
I mean, it'll play ASF... right? So ASF will accept mms: and other sorts of streaming filenames as well. Give this damn thing wireless connectivity and you've got a portable "internet tuner" - a device capable of playing all your favorite streams anywhere you're near a wap.
With all the features this thing has (and the price!) I wouldn't expect such a glaring oversight. Gimme this thing with wireless (get rid of the useless FM tuner if you have to - and provide at least a modicum of user-customizationability) and I'm there.
What the hell are you smoking?
They work with any OS (and I have tried mine with OSX, Linux and Windows), and need no configuration. They do show up as removable storage.
There is a program called "iripdb" which you can use in place of the iriver's database ripper. It's open source so you can theoretically compile it for any platform.
They do support ogg. It just didn't register with the submitter of the story (or the editor who approved it) that .ogg was a music format popular in geek crowds.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
it's awsome. Neuros, plays mp3, ogg, it can record with onboard mic, broadcast FM to your car stereo, and much much more. :)
it's grrrreeeeaaaat!
music - http://www.subatomicglue.com
the neuros plays oggs, and connects as a standard USB hard drive. I didn't need any software to plug it into Win2k or WinXP
music - http://www.subatomicglue.com
I've heard rumors that the iRiver was planning to support gapless playback, but their latest update doesn't work at all. Until they do, I'll just stick with my CDs when I want to listen to music on the go.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
There was a display model at a Best Buy near me (I think, it was one of those stores). I found it difficult to navigate through the menus and such and it took me about 5 minutes before I could get a song to play. There were no video files on the device so I couldn't test the video quality. All I know is that at the price they wanted, this player was too much of a hassle to use. And now that I'm reading about the lack of OGG support, that almost defeats the purpose of buying an iRiver.
Seriously! Oh, look at us we managed to make a player that runs Linux and still isn't Linux-friendly. How stupid can you get?
It's like some marketing guy came in and said "You know what's hot? Li-nux!" and then no one ever bothered to figure out why or how or with who.
adam b.
Until these players are gapless I am simply not interested. Too many of my albums are continuous movements. There's nothing more frustrating than a two-second moment of silence during the music.
The other thing these players seem to be missing is a simple text reader. My #1 use for my PDA is an e-book reader. It would be really sweet if the PMP could double-up as an e-book reader.
iRiver delivers another great product. The features on this thing are awsome. The design, quite futuristic. The price, well...but it does do video.
I've always felt that iRiver really knew how to make a great product. I've got one of their SlimX CD players and was troughly impressed with the ability to upgrade the firmware and the number of options that I had when it came to keeping the device powered (rechargable, alkalines, and good old wall socket.)
The only drawback to their products is the amount of plastic. The iPod is a good example of case design. They are almost completely closed. iRiver products just don't seem as hardy.
Anyone else feel the same or am I just being a Troll?
"Give me taste, give me funk, give me fury, gimme some more."
I never meant to insinuate that the product supports OGG Vorbis. I posted that excerpt to point out the discrepancy between their company policy and their actual product.
Nevertheless, omitting OGG Vorbis from the specifications does not necessarily mean that Vorbis isn't supported on the product now or in the future, especially considering how it apparently is important enough to include in their 'About' blurb.
I suggest we either ask iRiver directly or wait and see what the final product can actually do before performing anything knee-jerk related.
Uncompressed audio is so big that even a 40% reduction in size can make a difference. Especially if you're hauling 3 hour Dead shows around on your portable. Or downloading them for free at archive.org
There's also the embedded checksums and the support for vorbiscomments that make it real nice to use. If I weren't a poor grad student I'd definately buy one of these.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
This seems strange, since iRiver does make players which support ogg.
You would think this "linux versions" would support it by default or something.
I won one of these beasts PMP 120 and I have not yet received it. I may have the option to exchange it against something of similar value.
:)
I was wondering if anyone had feedback. In particular, I would like to know:
- if they think I can switch hard disk easily. I have had so many hard disk failures that I don't trust them anymore. I also have a 60Go spare disk, and I could use it there
- if they think that there is a better alternative, such as an Archos player
- if it will be hacker friendly. The fact that it is using Linux proves nothing. I would love to have an open firmware, but I don't see this coming from iRiver.
Any other input appreciated.
Sneak teach kids Algebra using a game
$600!? That more than I paid to build this computer. Wow.
Speak truth to power.
"No FireWire, no sale.
And someone has to provide Mac support.
And AAC. At least unprotected. I'll never use the iTunes Music Store."
Yes, SIR! We'll get right on it. Firewire, OGG support, and AAC support. No copy protection, and no need for iTunes - we'll simply put all of your favorite music on it from the factory.
Oh, and for YOU - it will be free, of course. And a blowjob, with our compliments.
Ce n'est pas un vrai mouvement de robot!
I've often wondered: was the rather unusual sampling frequency of 44.1kHz chosen to be an exact multiple of concert pitch, where A is 441Hz?
The Karma has the HonestToGoodnessZeroSecondOneTrackPlaysIntoTheNex
In case the frequency of "What about ogg" posts on this story didn't clue you in, the format is indeed popular within the geek crowd.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
You can't play two arbitrary MP3s "back to back" without the potential for silent gaps. It doesn't mean anything to ask for this, and so when you do, what you get is a cross fade.
MPEG audio layer 3 was not intended for ripping your CDs onto a flash memory device and walking around listening to the music. It was conceived as the high performance variant in a family of algorithms for use in streaming media. When you change TV channels or radio channels it isn't "seamless" so this wasn't a requirement. As a result the last block of audio in an MP3 must be a fullsize block, so the encoder fills the remaining fraction of a second with silence or something equally uninteresting. During playback there is no reliable mechanism to determine where in the last block this filler material begins.
(You may see a similar phenomenon if you try to skip to a particular track in a "seamless" CD album. CDs are also stored as individuals blocks, and a track can only begin and end with a whole block, so tracks actually don't start and stop exactly where you'd like them to. In fact with Red Book Audio as written there has to be a short silent gap between tracks. Customers don't much like this, so the CDs you buy in the shops don't always obey this restriction, they simply put the track start/ stop markers as close to the real start and end of the track as is possible)
Ogg Vorbis includes the necessary tweaks to make gapless playback possible in theory. So a CD track can be stored as an Ogg without tagging any silence on the end as filler. Of course the player still has to do the necessary buffering to smoothly transition from one track to the next without a pause of any kind. But it's at least possible to really do gapless playback instead of silly cross-fading tricks.
Who said anything about MP3s? I know the MP3 format does not support gapless playback. Thats one reason I have my music collection ripped into ogg vorbis files (this is slashdot you know, people here are familiar with the format). Thus I can listen to them with no gaps. What I'm looking for is a portable player which can also do this. I've heard the Karma supports it, though it has its own problems.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
yes, Nyquist theory says that you must sample a signal at twice its frequency to accuractely reproduce it.