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Company Solicits Feedback on Next-Gen Recorder
An anonymous reader writes "According to LinuxDevices.com a multimedia device vendor has asked the open-source community to help define its next product, a Linux-based handheld portable media player/recorder (PMP/R) featuring audiophile-quality sound. The new product is a successor to the popular Neuros 442 PMP/R. Neuros has published the specs for a development board it calls the first prototype, and has asked hackers, open-source software authors, and others to review and weigh in on the design, which is expected to be finalized in the near future."
on a similar note, anybody knows about a good voice recorder that would compress to an open codec, allow removable storage (ideally - cf, so that it is interchangebale with photocameras ;) ) and would not suck feature-wise ?
and, on a funny note - from the linked article :
"More details, including a downloadable 18-page Word document describing the current development board specification"
Rich
That ist the way to do it!
Crivens! I kicked meself in me own heid!
{disclaimer: i work for a pro digital audio company.}
/. thread ..
as a long-time linux hacker, musician, synthesist, and audio geek, this device screams out for one thing: MIDI.
yes, thats right, MIDI. give me a way to control it from a MIDI keyboard, give me a compiler onboard, stand back and watch the new softsynth plugin realm expand beyond that of VST et al..
course, i've got my own plans for such things too, but i'll save that for a future
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
You mean it costs five times as much, but sounds exactly the same to everybody who isn't trying to justify their ridiculously expensive hobby? :)
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
First of all it needs a nice fin or two on it to make it more aerodynamic, we don't want this thing to be dragging. Second it needs some more LEDs.
USB 2.0 port - full size please!
Infrared
Color!
4 GB hard disk
Flash card reader
Scratch resistant coating
Volume knob
Mini joystick similiar to gamepad
Make sure I can plug it in as a mass media drive without special drivers etc
Line in for audio
Rubber bumbers for shock protection
Rubber back for good grip
Built in modem for dial up when traveling
You can tell. It's warmer.
Main requirement for the UK is for this to be sold at a price that reflects the real dollar-pound exchange rate, instead of converting US$400 into 400 UK pounds like the blood-sucking middlemen typically do for gadgets.
How about supporting more formats? Musepack, FLAC, Monkey's Audio, Ogg Vorbis, etc. I hate having to always convert stuff to get it on a portable.
Is it just me or two the terms "Audiophile-quality" and "handheld" mutually exclusive?
;)
Although I guess if they can market it with wank words like 'oxygen impregnated battery interconnects to reduce the harmonics of the batteries natural resonance" and then charge $4000 for it, then I guess audiophiles might buy it
But on a serious note, I guess to get close to that sort of sound quality I would expect the latest and greated chip like the new creative xfi chip? I dunno. Audiophile I am not.
I would like it to have a 6.8GHz processor with 1TB non-volatile Quantum-Optical RAM and a 2TB solid state AtomChip® optoelectronics drive. Oh and it should cost less than $149.99 and include a cool leather case.
I'm agneglectic, too lazy to care if there is a God.
According to Specs, this device records to 704x240 asf. If this is as powerful as they claim it is, why not use XviD or another open source codec?
The 40GB HDD, USB2.0 and other features all look nice, but I still think it's supported formats aren't fantastic. It has no mention of supporting things like ogg or ac3.
Despite their claims of being open source, this device is still being marketed to Windows' users, and designed for them.
The specs site says it "supports Linux kernel and later".
PC Compatibility
Win 98/ME/2000/XP, Linux kernel and later, Mac OS X and later
I hope its at least kernel 2.2 - so i can put it on my webserver that has a six year uptime...
Victory shall be mine!
Put a volume knob that goes all the way to 11...!
Must run on an ethanol converter cell - so I can drink the battery when things get desperate. A side pocket for a lemon slice and an olive would be good, too.
So if I give some good feedback, and the company takes it, what do I get in return? A demo model? A discount? Credits in the fine print? At least with OSS, my free contributions go to a free product. There are some intellectual property issues here, methinks (or else Neuros isn't taking this seriously).
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
This: "Make sure I can plug it in as a mass media drive without special drivers etc"
I hope this means be able to attach to a video or regular digital camera and offload pictures/video.
For the love of god include MIDI
Well, you'll also need them to make it UK-legal as well. I don't know if this one has FM-broadcast capabilities or not, but if it does, we won't get it without import tax. Mind you, mine was still worth it.
Nope. Handheld DAT's have been around for a while. And now this:
4 96-main.html
http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/MicroTrack2
And this:
http://www.core-sound.com/pdaudio_system/1.php
Not many mediaplayers sold here in NL support Ogg Vorbis. So support for that format in this new device would make it something for me to look at. :)
80 CC D8 AF AE D3 AB 54 B7 2E CE 67 C7
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Jobs, eat yer hart out!
The glass is half-full. With poison. And there are cracks in the glass. The dirty, dirty glass.
The problem with all these portable devices is the rate of change
in hardware. Next year we will have 5 in' 800x600 res screens,
6Gb flash, faster/lower powered processors, better custom logic
for audio/video...
This device is a great recipe with today's hardware and at
a really good price point. The thing I really want is a design
that will keep it being useful for several years. In the past
those devices that last are the ones that develop well
defined open interfaces. The IBM PC with it's ISA/PCI/PCMCIA
bus's, peripherals with RS-232/USB/ethernet connectivity.
Most portable devices drop this concept in favour of tighter
integration. They keep it for external interfaces. What I
would like to see is someone develop a modular portable
system. For example a system comprised of
display interface,
power interface,
storage interface,
controls interface
I/O interface,
computation interface.
Then build various modules that can be assembled
by the end users to suit individual needs.
One possibility that comes to mind is:
Splitting the device into layers
The layers being joined by U shaped end connetors
that carry a bus. Each layer could be composed of
multiple modules connected together.
The simplest use of this kind of approach would be
to have layers:
1 - Screen/Controls/Processor/I/O modules
2 - Power and storage modules
I would put a CF in layer 1 I/O module.
Then I could swap the layer 2 storage module(disk) for
a long duration power module. This would let me morf
the device between:
12+hr portable pda mode(some A/V content)
Docked mega-media capture/player (home/work)
I would put the interface bus on each side of the module
so the modules can be layed out in any geometry. Think
tiles on a board, or "characters" layed out by typesetters
doing page layout. That way a person could upgrade
the screen size, perhaps using filler(connection) tiles
to create the desired device shape.
Other manufacturers could make I/O, control modules
as needed. That spreads development costs and risks
and allows for niche market development.
"Well basically, I just copied the plant we have now. Then, I added some fins to lower wind resistance. And this racing stripe here I feel is pretty sharp." -- Homer
Please alter my pants as fashion dictates.
Wow. I've never actually seen anyone use a Digital Audio Tape for playing audio ;)
But I can also imagine that a real audiophile would never use tape. Or digital. It would have to be vinyl so you can hear the 'warmth' and 'feeling' that digital does not give you... and a valve amp. And wooden knobs. And gold plated power leads alligned with relation to the earths magnetic fields and only played when the suns gama rays are at the correct level.
given that it runs linux and has a colour display it should be usable as pda with opie or kindof
There are many hard disk and flash mp3 players that plays and records FM radio. There are no AM/FM mp3 at a REASONABLE price. The 512M pogo AM/FM mp3 is more expensive than a 4G Nano iPod. I know it would be expensive to shield the mp3 electronics from the AM radio receiver.
How about an Ethernet plug, too? A web interface to tell my Neuros to start downloading various podcasts, schedule future recording of favorite program X on FM station 101.1 from 2:00am - 3:00am tomorrow, etc.
I've held off buying an MP3 player for a long time, waiting for just the right feature set. The Neuros II and III looked pretty good at the time they came out.
FM record and playback feature would be essential; I live far enough out of town where reception gets bad that I'd like to be able to broadcast low power into my car's existing FM receiver when the airwaves have nothing but country music.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
No pony?
MIDI can be added to this device as long as usb-midi.o is onboard, or at least as long as the ability to load modules supporting devices plugged into the USB Host port is not crippled in some way.
.. and thats really my point.
i've already got a Virus TI being run by my Zaurus.. it wouldn't take much more to add such devices to Archos, as long as they were open enough about peripheral support
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Splitting the device into layers
That's what Neuros did with their first two audio players. The logic was in one device, which snapped into another device, which contained the battery and the hard drive. You could get additional cradle-device-things if you needed more storage.
I don't think it worked out all that great. I loved my original Neuros, 'til some bastard in Cleveland stole it. If you are reading this, Bastard, I hope you choke to death on an onion.
The problem with this approach is this:
This device is a great recipe with today's hardware and at a really good price point.
Damn straight it is. I love my 442. The video is great, and at 5 hour battery life for video, it works well for long plane flights or car trips. 9-hour audio isn't fantastic, but it's good.
If it were split into layers, the price-point would suffer. I'm glad they took the approach they did. It's a good device, and it'll last me quite a few years, I think, unless some bastard in Cleveland steals it.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
The 442 is still a work in progress. Don't count it out for vorbis (or other free formats) just yet.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Analog audio generally produces distortion, and tube amps also produce noticeable distortion. If you want to accurately reproduce the sound that was recorded you're going to want a transistor amplifier, and a digital source. Using vinyl and a tube amp will make the sound warmer, but the sound will no be what the artists intended you to hear. That warm sound that you get from a tube amp is just that, small amounts of distortion. I personally wouldn't ever want to use a tube amp to listen to anything - the sound simply isn't right.
For recording, on the other hand, tubes are absolutely amazing. I use several tube amps when recording, mostly for guitar and bass distortion, but also occasionally for keys and vocals to warm up the sound. There are some cases when transistor amps are nice for guitar - when you want a really biting harsh sound. As for vocals and keyboard, when you record straight in to a digital device without a tube preamp the resulting sound is very dry and dull.
When it comes to listening to what I've recorded, reproducing exactly what I recorded in an flat form is what I want to be able to do, and that isn't possible with a tube amp.
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo!
Ha! Now, for once, if they don't include your precious ogg support, it'll be your own fault for not pushing it enough!
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one " -Albert Einstein
This whole topic shows that there are very few audio geeks in here.
a p:Neuros_III
First, here is the link to the Neuros wiki about the project:
http://www.theneuros.com/index.php/Category_Roadm
This link should have been in the article itself, but the editors here are not the brightest.
Most audio geeks who do field recording (what this device will primarily used for on the recording side) is:
-direct to FLAC encoding
-high quality A/D (better than sony dat or a nomad JB3)
-digital input (many of us have better/expensive potable A/D boxes that would outclass anything consumer grade
-24 bit 96 kHz recording
and a few other things.
What it should be like:
1) Decent hardware.
2) Full documentation for hardware.
3) ALL the source code.
4) A free cross-platform dev environment that is easy to install and setup. Gcc/linux/cygwin maybe?
And finally port and extend the rockbox firmware. http://www.rockbox.org/
Neuros III won't be out until next year. It's a significant departure from previous models
(I'm assuming parent meant Neuros I and II)
Size and weight are not real concerns, since these things have already gotten very small. Main concern would be how easy the controls are to find and manipulate, particularly in the dark (bear in mind, this will be used by many for live recording). As far as a color screen with video/picture viewing...whatever. I'd prefer an uncluttered interface on a readable screen of any type.
Look to the best parts of the Karma (gapless, flat signal-out, good databasing) and the iRiver IHP series (HDD recording, USB mass-storage) and combine those qualities, and build it. They will come...
THE GOOD HUMOR MAN CAN ONLY BE PUSHED SO FAR
Bart Simpson on chalkboard in episode 2F18
Maybe this is a no-brainer that is already planned, but just in case:
:P
If you want to record anything live, you HAVE to have input level meters, and fully functional (real-time adjustible while watching the meters) "trim" control. Nothing worse than recording a live performance to discover your trim/gain/whatever was way too low. Except discovering it was way too high!
The device would be essentially useless without this feature.
It'd be neat if rather than separate "mic" and "line" inputs, the same input would work for both. (Like a channel strip in a basic mixer... trim hot signals, boost weak ones, or just leave it centered for line-level.)
If input levels are adjustible within software, maybe have a few presets (set to basic "mic" and basic "line in" levels) and a couple slots for users to save their own level adjustments with a name. "Rehearsal Space", "SuperDuper Room Mic", "Joe's Mixer", "ScumRock Theater Board", "Taping Rig".
Absolutely kick-ass would be a sort of "auto" input level monitoring and adjustment. Tricky... maybe it could be helped along with an "about this loud" button. Something you push to tell it "this is about how loud the signal is gonna be for the most part", and it ajusts the trim to put the level meters in a good spot for it... with plenty of signal, but enough headroom that a mild volume increase (or louder "impact") isn't going to send it into the red. And have it "spring to" that setting.
What I mean by that is to follow the signal up & down a bit, but ignore very large changes from the "spring to" point. (Such as a quiet spot/break in a song, or space between songs/track. And in the other direction... I dunno... pyro going off, or something else unforseen that is much louder than the average level.
Maybe all of that is a pipe dream, but it'd be really cool for those that deal mostly with live music. Both at shows/concerts, and in rehearsal/composing type settings.
Oh, yeah... speaking of that... how about a remote for stopping/starting recording? Sometimes the primo spot for the device to get a recording is not where the operator needs to be. ("Delete last take" from a remote would also be bad-ass.)
Maybe superbright multicolor status LED... green for "on/ready", red for "recording", and some other color (or blinking) for "doing something else you just told me to do". (Check out the status lights on a Tivo for a good example.) Something you can see easily from across a room and tell what it is doing.
Also handy... a space/slot for running a small security cable. Like for a lanyard, but maybe a little bigger and more solid. Not "theft proof" neccessarily, but enough to stop or slow down the casual "pick up/put in pocket/walk away nonchalantly" type stickyfingered character.
Heh... they asked for ideas, right?
just figure out a way that I can beam my songs/playlists/movies from my player to my friend's iPud. - iPud? A non-union Mexican equivalent?
You can't handle the truth.
Sometimes asking for a wish list of features ends up like that Simpsons episode where Homer is invited to design a car. The most important thing is for the company to choose the "philosophy" of their device and then the feature list should fall out easily from that -- is it really for audiophiles? then everything should be optimized around sound quality.
Given that Neuros worked with Xiph.org to make their 442 the first non-Linux player to support Ogg Vorbis and Linux desktops, back in 2003, I'm sure they could support Ogg if they wanted to. The question, now, is why, with VBR MP3s, and amazing MP3 encoders such as lame around, why would they want to?
Wishlist:
24/96 minimum, preferably 24/192 (yes I'm insane about audio quality, and remember audio data could be consumed not just by humans, but also by machines, and every bit of quality helps)
wave recording as an option
solid state hardware, no moving disks to make noise
no ACG, or at least ability to turn it off
all files named by date/time/second by default: yyyymmdd@hhmmssnn.wav
ability to edit metadata of files
changing the external name of a file also changes the internal (metadata) name
built-in stereo microphones
XLR mic jacks
phantom power
stereo mini-plug mic jack
line in, including optical in
line out, including optical out
USB2/firewire
separate reference tone track
separate timing signal track
ability to set left and right levels separately
sensitive mode for quiet environments and environmental recording (please do not make it suitable only for loud rock concerts)
ability to use rechargable AA batteries, 1.2 volts each
store to SD card
store to CF card
hard drive, if any (preferably none) removable and user-upgradable
important: if it has a hard drive, it should be able to still function without the hard drive, writing to other media
both a stereo 1/4 inch headphone jack and a stereo mini headphone jack
ability to manage power smartly, so for example device isn't paying the expense of phantom power or hard disk when these aren't being used.
>How about the ability to exchange files from player to player? No PC needed! Do it over USB, infrared, WiFi, Bluetooth, ...
Then they could call it WarezPod!
Yeah but what about the guy who want's a 60/10/100 gig drive,
...
or someone who already had a 20 gig drive... People want to
mod these devices, look at TiVo. Creating an aftermarket
gives critical mass for the product. I think you want to
allow for companies that do things like:
IR dongles for remote control of TV...
Custom data loggers
Robotic interface via serial devices at ttl levels
Motion activated camera logger for security
There are a whole slew of niche product markets that
would benefit from a morf'able device. Just make it open
and easy to add on hardware.
FM record and play
Replaceable battery that gets 8+ hours (ie a whole day at work)
encode/decode Ogg Vorbis and FLAC
line in and line out jacks
USB port doesn't suck the battery dry, especially if you have the unit plugged into a wall outlet.
power unit to wall outlet doesn't use some crazy voltage/wattage/polarity combo. Should be able to buy a power unit from Radio Shack.
Yes, I second this. MIDI-in, or any other kind of "pro" features, would only be worth anything if they came after having a high quality and easy to access audio inputs.
For me that screams balanced inputs. What would really be nice would be dual XLR (D3F) connectors with switchable phantom power, but I understand that probably drives up the price a lot and isn't useful to a lot of average consumers. (Essentially what you'd have then is this device, which costs a bundle and for good reason.) So I would settle easily for just having balanced line-level inputs, no ALC/AGC and defeatable compression, and use outboard mic pres if I ever wanted a totally portable setup.
If you could have those inputs, you'd really have a useful portable studio tool that you could start adding goodies onto (like MIDI) to do cool stuff with.
But if the only input is through one 1/8" unbalanced stereo jack, count me out.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Mod this mofo up! I've long wanted to be able to answer "What are you listening to?" or "Did you record Friday's class?" with "Here!"
Did you just hear a whooshing sound above your head, by any chance?
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Personally I would have left color screen off, since I think it's unnecessary. It's an audio recorder: why the heck does it need a color screen?
And more to the point, what more interesting/useful things can you do with the money that you'd save by going to a monochrome display, for the same overall cost? A lot, I bet, since those screens aren't exactly a dime a dozen right now.
I would much rather have them give me a B&W screen and a bunch of external LED-based peak-reading levels displays, instead of a color one and trying to cram the level meters on-screen somewhere.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
This made me think of a project I heard of a few years back, to make a "bit bucket" type of digital recorder. Basically it was going to be a device that would record the incoming data stream from a FireWire input, up to a maximum sustained rate of 30Mb/s or something. I think it was actually going to use SVHS tape as a storage medium, with some sort of modified helical scan recording system. (I think this was a DVHS prototype, now that I think about it.)
Anyway, I always thought it was a neat idea. There's no reason why a storage medium ought to care about what you're recording, whether it's audio or video or encrypted plans for the secret submarine, whatever. They're just bits. Assuming they're in some sort of standardized stream, and not coming in too fast for the physical device you want to store them on, you ought to be able to write them down and then play them back out again.
DVHS never really took off and now looks basically moribund (good riddance to DTheater or whatever their DRM format was), but the whole concept of a content-agnostic storage device still seems like a good one. To a computer it would seem like an old-style linear access tape drive (no problem to Linux, although I'm not sure what Windows thinks of devices like that). It would obviously be a natural choice for video or audio.
Given the size of today's hard drives, it wouldn't even have to be a tape-based solution: use a single disk for compressed video streams, or connect it to a RAID array if you want to capture higher data rates.
Anyway, it seems like there's a definite market for a general purpose storage device of sorts. Something that you could connect to a datastream and would just sense the rate and start recording, without caring too much if it's video or audio or whatever. Unfortunately the market doesn't look like it's going to fill that demand (at least with anything that i've seen reasonably priced) anytime soon.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Sigh. I oughtn't post stupid questions without first checking out TFA...
"Provided by the management for your protection."
The iRiver H300 series let you do this (they can function as a USB2.0 mass storage device or a USB1.1 host to other devices).
Their first effort (Neuros Audio Computer) was a piece of garbge - they shipped hundreds or thousands of them that locked up and never worked right. When it became apparent that the product was never going to work right, they came up with some lame finger pointing excuse that one of their suppliers gave them substandard parts, and just walked away from the product and associated development efforts for the firmware. Too bad for the users that bought the thing.
These guys make a lot of noise about supporting OSS, but they make junk which they don't stand behind.
Fuck them and anyone stupid enough to buy their shit.
Seriously, there are huge differences between what passes for decent audio today and what is possible using available tech. I recently did some A/B testing between some mp3's that i had which i also had on vinyl. Played back through a relativley crappy early eighties home stereo component setup. The mp3 versions were remarkably different. Although in a subtle way. Here's my subjective results: -The upper harmonics of bass sounds (in a DnB/Electro track) are totally absent in the mp3 version. This amounts to a certain sense of blurring of the details in the sound. -The dynamic range between the softest sounds anf the loudest is diminished. resulting in a more static rendition of the recording, not much different form regular analog compression but certainely altering what the original recording artist and engineers had intended. these factors seem to me to combine to create recordings which lack much of the subtle detail that exists in the vinyl or well mastered (digital) recordings. the net result for me are tracks which do closely resemble the originals but are somehow less detailed and hence less interesting. As a result the mp3 versions don't stand as well the test of time ie. repeated listening. I think that the popular lack of ability to distinguish high quality recordings from those that download in seconds is largely due to a widespread popular lack of education as well as non-standardization in scientific or technical quantification of the subjective qualities of sound. People are familar with the differences in graphical resolution, probably largley due to video games. But sound is one of those hazy realms where popular understanding and buzzwords indicating quality are not in common parlance. It seems that sound as opposed to graphics is still a largley uncharted territory in the study of the spectrum and variations of human perception. recently i had the oppurtunity to play with some samples that where made at 24 bits 96kHz, the differences were really amazing, mostly in how well the frequencies held up when scaled to different pitches. theres no reason to think that most humans can percieve past 20kHz (less for most, myself included having been exposed to probably more than my share of loud amplified concerts in my role as a sound tech), that being as it may be, the difference between a 48kHz sample and 96kHz sample standing alone was apparent to these less than golden ears. Is there something more to digitaly sampled audio than that which have been hearing all these these years?
Um. I've never heard from anyone who had a faulty Neuros which wasn't replaced. Mine worked fine for three years until the battery died recently (which happens to all li-based batteries; it's an inescapable consequence of the chemistry. They have a replacement program.) Care to back up your allegations with any kind of testimony?
No kidding, MIDI implemted on this thing *could* be really amazing, the Neuros II (which i own and am very happy with) has provisions for a DJ mode which allows basic sample freq. shifted over a reasonable range for beat matching, not terribly usefull if you've only got a single track output at a time but kinda neat, esp, if used alongside some decks. Now theres a bunch of DJ style MIDI controllers out there that are intended to interface with your PC and appropriate software to allow DJing MP3 tracks in tractor or some such. If the Neuros III could edge in on that market i think that it might get the attn. of many more people. But why stop there. with an open OS and MIDI softsynths (not just sample based stuff that hogs lots of RAM) but true in-your-pocket synthesis that can be succintly implemented using surprisingly little (in todays terms) computational resources. (Check out MIT Press: Foundations Of Compter Music a la' soft-synths circa 1985 to see what i'm talking about). Then again there's talk of ethernet on board, so for the really cutting edge shizznit why not go with... http://www.missinglynxsystems.com/kaboodle.html
Please ensure adequate thermal shielding around the valves (tubes) so that my pocket doesn't get hot.
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.