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iRiver Ships Linux Media Players

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the media-to-go dept.

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."

8 of 156 comments (clear)

  1. $500 and $600? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    $500 and $600? Lucky they're using Linux to keep the price down.

  2. abbreviation by biryokumaru · · Score: 5, Funny

    clearly the pmp stands for pimp

    --
    When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
  3. REAL question is.. by Manip · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

    1. Re:REAL question is.. by rixdaffy · · Score: 5, Insightful


      I don't see why they would need to release the source for their player.
      They probably should release any modifications they did to the kernel, but AFAIK they don't have to release any apps they make run on Linux. It's not like every company who makes commercial software which runs on Linux is obliged to release the source (would be great if they did though)

      Ricardo.

  4. Re:No OGG VORBIS???? by Gubbe · · Score: 5, Informative

    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)

  5. Re:Audio quality by TheReckoning · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  6. My portable music player by _aa_ · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  7. Re:What about the software? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.