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More Linux Portable Media Players On The Way
An anonymous reader writes "According to LinuxDevices.com, Taiwanese motherboard maker FIC will unveil a Linux-based portable media player (PMP) at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. FIC's 'Vassili' includes a 3.6-inch color LCD screen and a 20GB hard drive, and supports files in MPEG 1-4, MP3, WMA, WAV, ASF, AVI, and JPEG format. Speaking of Linux-based PMPs, Archos will also showcase its lastest PMP, the Pocket Media Assistant PMA400 at CES, and other Linux-based PMPs have recently been announced by iRiver, Veritouch, and Zupera."
The Neuros has open firmware, hardware, and software. You currently have to download a trial version of TI's compiler for their DSP, but last I knew there was an effort underway to get a gcc target written for it.
Start here to find out more about its open-sourceness.
The rockbox people are now working on firmware for the iriver H series. It looks like it's still quite a way off.I nfo
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/Iriver
Seeing as you're lazy, I'll click those little hyperlinks for you. Maybe I'll get like modded up or something for my efforts:
The FIC Vassili is limited to MPEG4, MP3, WMA, WAV, ASF, AVI, and JPEG.
The iRiver PMP-120 does not currently support it, but they promise it will soon, I think.
The VeriTouch iVue doesn't mention which formats it supports.
Zupera Technology's one is limited to MP3, WMA, WAV, CD and AC-3.
So none of them support it.
- Jax
Neuros supports it and it's a damn fine player too.
Actually, This says that the iRiver supports OGG out of the box.
So iRiver does.
iRiver seem to make great players in any case. When I get a new MP3 player, I'll get an iRiver. Especially if Rockbox is ported to it!
- Jax
Probably because while USB has a higher theoretical speed than firewire, the constant sustained transfer rate of firewire is usually much higher than that of USB. (ever wonder why most cameras go with it?) http://www.usb-ware.com/firewire-vs-usb.htm --more info if you want.
Valid question.
-Firewire is freely licensed by Apple.
-USB is not. At least last I heard.
-Firewire does not require a CPU, ie a PC, to mediate file transfers.
-USB requires a PC. And originally, Windows, tho that changed eventually.
-Firewire 400 is faster than USB.
-Firewire 800 is faster than USB2. Note that contention on the inferior bus and the mediation of the CPU are two big factors that retard USB and USB2.
-Firewire, six-pin, has a superior ability to power peripherals compared to USB.
-(Bone to pick) Firewire and USB were introduced by Apple and Intel, respectively. Intel used its influence in mobo design and OEM to promote its own, inferior, standard over Apple's. (And Apple waived the licensing fees - $1 per mobo, I believe, early, so that was not a factor). As a result, to this day Firewire still hasn't hit the magic numbers to drop the cost down to parity with USB. Microsoft had no small role in retarding the introduction of Firewire in Windows. MS/Intel swing a lot of weight. They did not exactly like Apple making a new standard.
So we're stuck with a slower data transfer rate in real life and a lousy peripheral power option because Intel wanted to rool over all.
well, if you have a *hardware* mpeg encoder card, it will record a *.nuv file that is actually a mpeg2 file (or is supposed to be at least), but if you transcode it down, you can end up with a *.nuv file that isn't an mpeg2 file.
There are many TV cards that aren't mpeg2 hardware encoders.
My point is/was that Linux and mplayer provide extremely good codec and format coverage.
Along similar lines, I find that the cheapie DVD players can play any VCD, DVD, DVD+R DVD-R, DVCD, KVCD, XVCD or whatever file format I can throw at them, whereas the name brand players choke on far too many of the "somewhat unusual" formats.
Lucky you! aA solution!
Open firmware for a popular PMP!
WTPOUAWYHTTOTWPA
What's the point of using acronyms when you have to type out the whole phrase anyways?
I use plenty of hardware with third-party, hacked drivers and such, but if I'm shelling out US$300 or US$400 for an MP3 player, it would be nice to have support for at least some decent OS.
To understand recursion, you must first understand recursion.
Go get mpeg2enc part of mjpegtools (google is your friend) and | to it. Oh I know I'm wasting my time ;).
PenGun
Do What Now ??? ... Standards and Practices !
I was under the impression that the wmv family of formats was proprietary to Microsoft. I'd be shocked into next Tuesday if MS licensed those codecs to be used for a Linux-based player.
I hope you're sitting down: any company is allowed to license WMA/WMV for any platform. Microsoft hates Linux, but they won't sacrifice Windows Media world domination just to spite Linux.
It's not really a crazy format. If I remember correctly, It's an information wrapper around some other media format (MPEG2, MPEG4, etc.) You can then export it to various other standard formats via nuvexport.
--
Given enough personal experience, all stereotypes are shallow.
Your argument is equivalent to this:
I like SCSI. It's far superior to IDE. But it's twice as expensive because it's a much more complicated schema. Oh noes!!11one! Oh whys did anyone adopt IDE standards? A vastly inferior - but curiously affordable - tecmology! It must be Microsoft's fault!
For fuck's sake - stop being so god-damned dramatic. It's not a massive "TEH WORLD VERSUS APPLE!" fight as you imagine it was. Even Sony likes / liked Firewire enough that they even had their own name for it: "iLink". My generic, completely standard no-brand 2-year-old PC has a Firewire port on the back (right next to the 6 USB ports) - as does my Apple Powerbook (right next to it's 2 USB ports). However, I have absolutely no Firewire perhiperals.
It turns out that the Firewire protocol was overengineered for devices like keyboard and mice. I have never seen a Firewire mouse, for example. Possibly because you don't need 400Mbps to move a mouse pointer. But USB (universal serial bus) was good for keyboards and mice because it's design goal was to replace the PC's serial and parallel ports. Slow speed USB 1.0 runs at 1.5Mbps - plenty of bandwidth for the task and very inexpensive. USB 2.0 (at 450Mbps, faster than Firewire 400) also happens to be "good enough" for most heavyweight external periperals like mass storage and multimedia (ie: video). AND USB 2.0 devices are backwards compatible with USB 1.1 (running at 12.5Mbps). So, it turns out that USB is a plenty good enough solution for the masses.
Oh, but: Firewire 800 BROKE PHYSICAL COMPATIBILITY with Firewire 400 by having a different connector. Ooops. Sucks to have chosen Firewire equipment, now you have to buy new cables and convertors to use 400 equipment with a 800 port.
As the saying goes:
"The good enough is the enemy of the excellent."
But even you must, surely, admit that you don't need 400Mbps data transfer rate FOR A MOUSE AND KEYBOARD.
As a result, to this day Firewire still hasn't hit the magic numbers to drop the cost down to parity with USB.
Agreed - it's probably still more expensive to make Firewire devices. But blame this on them for making a standard that's too complicated. Again - where's my Firewire mouse and keyboard? Exactly - USB was cheaper, so that's what people are going to buy, so that's what they make.
If they'd managed to make firewire mice and keyboards, I'm sure the price would have dropped by now. I have eleven USB devices (various keyboards, mice, joysticks, MP3 players, USB storage devices). I have no Firewire devices. Given those volumes, take a guess at which is going to be cheaper to manufacture?
Microsoft had no small role in retarding the introduction of Firewire in Windows. MS/Intel swing a lot of weight. They did not exactly like Apple making a new standard.
Absolute bullshit, you filthy, filthy liar. Sony is a big Microsoft customer (with their VAIO line) - and they happily introduced Firewire into their range. Of course, their motivation was interoperability with their digital camcorders - but USB 2.0 hadn't launched at that point. So please show me some hard evidence that Microsoft squashed Firewire - not just your insane ramblings that point to Microsoft being the root of all fabricated evil.
So reply if you know: what hard-drive based mp3 players have hackable source or open source firmware replacements
Neuros comes in flash and/or harddrive versions up to 80GB. It supports MP3 and Ogg Vorbis. It can listen and capture FM radio, and it can broadcast FM radio.
The source for the firmware is OSS. So is the source for the Synch Manager, the DB manipulator -- even the schematics.
And it is affordable.
The Gmini400 is based on AVOS, an OS written from scratch at Archos. The same is true for the AV400.
The PMA400 is the first Archos device powered by Linux.
I think an advantage to the consumer is an external drive that behaves as closely as possible to an internal one. It seems that firewire performs better:e /
http://www.digit-life.com/articles/usb20vsfirewir
Given the option I'd get an HD with both interfaces and use firewire as much as i can.
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