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Rip CDs Directly to Your iPod

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the get-ready-for-someone-to-toss-a-lawsuit dept.

Kevin writes "A company out of Taiwan has released a device that rips audio cds directly to your iPod. It converts them to MP3 and even does all the tagging for you." Zettabyte, the company producing the units, hopes to hit market within the year and while it could work for any MP3 player, it is being marketed exclusively for the iPod right now.

23 of 85 comments (clear)

  1. How Long by GmAz · · Score: 2, Insightful

    How long til the RIAA finds this out and makes them disappear from the face of the earth. Good idea, but I have a feeling it won't hit the market, and if it does, it won't be there long.

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    1. Re:How Long by GmAz · · Score: 2, Interesting

      And I didn't realize that the logo on the device uses the iPod logo with a "u" "l" "a" inserted into it. Talk about trademark infringement. These guys are brave.

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    2. Re:How Long by Otis2222222 · · Score: 3, Insightful
      I'd like to see them try. If you own a physical CD, ostensibly one that you bought legally, and you copy its contents to your iPod, no laws have been broken. If you got said CD from your neighbor there could be issues, but I'd say that a device like the one in question has, as they say, "substantial non infringing uses".

      After all, if it's well established that you can legally use an iPod in the first place, then what is the legal difference between putting a CD in your computer, ripping it, and copying it to your ipod versus eliminating the middleman and copying the CD to your iPod directly?

    3. Re:How Long by dividedsky319 · · Score: 3, Informative

      How long til the RIAA finds this out and makes them disappear from the face of the earth. Good idea, but I have a feeling it won't hit the market, and if it does, it won't be there long.

      Why do you say that? This isn't really any different than ripping to iTunes on a computer and transferring it to your iPod. You have the physical cd that you purchased (well, possibly... it obviously works with burned cds too), you're just putting it right onto your iPod.

      This just takes out the "computer" step.

      However, other problems come up too... If a CD is ripped to the iPod, what happens when you plug the iPod into a computer? iTunes doesn't support iPod > computer, so the CD you ripped won't show up and, if automatic sync is enabled, the cd would be deleted.

    4. Re:How Long by Dachannien · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This just takes out the "computer" step.

      One would think that the RIAA would be more supportive of this than it would be of CD-ripping in iTunes for that very reason.

  2. Now the big question: by Doctor+Memory · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Will it cost less than the iPod itself? I mean, yeah it's cumbersome dragging out the laptop and stuffing CDs in it, but I already have it. I'm not going to shell out US$200+ for yet another device to clutter up a desk drawer during the 98% of its life that I'm not using it...

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    1. Re:Now the big question: by wed128 · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's not marketted at you. It's for people with a) no computer, b) an old computer that they'd rather not replace, but does not support the ipod, or c) use an alternative operating system in which ipod support is abysmal.

    2. Re:Now the big question: by jedidiah · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Back in the day, I did my ripping just fine on a 486.

      A 486 with a CDrom drive is hardly an oppressive systems requirement for an ipod.

      I bet there's some sicko out there that could do this on an Amiga.

      --
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    3. Re:Now the big question: by Pope · · Score: 2, Informative

      It'll be slow as unholy fuck though. Encoding MP3s on my old 180MHz PPC 604e was 1.1x at best.

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      It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
  3. Automatic playlists? by jelloshotgun · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This device from Zettabyte will also save you from using all your ten fingers when changing or revising your playlist as everything is automatic.

    As much as it's dumb that iTunes is supposed to be the only interface to your iPod, I do like the ability to visually manage playlists and create smart playlists. I don't think this device will be able to automatically decide that I want $song on $playlist.

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  4. They are not the first by TheSkepticalOptimist · · Score: 2, Informative

    Another company beat them too it, called it iLoad.

    http://www.iload.com/index.html

    They could be vaporware, but they were hitting the news sites in January. It didn't take long for an Asian company to rip off the idea though. Hopefully iLoad got a few patents in place first.

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  5. More functions? by jtorkbob · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Notice the three (apparently) buttons? In, synchronize, out? Offering to burn CDs from your iPod, or back up music to an internal drive?

    Interesting. I wonder how much hardware this thing has. It looks big enough.

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  6. Auto-tagging? by Saige · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Oh great, more crappily-tagged songs. I don't think there's a CD tagging service out there currently that's not half-crappy. I sure as hell wouldn't want stuff on my iPod until I've been able to run it through MusicBrainz and get things cleaned up and presentable.

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  7. Small market... by XxtraLarGe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What is the actualy intersect of people who own digital music players but don't own a computer? It's hard to imagine too many iPod owners out that that don't have a computer...

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    1. Re:Small market... by FFON · · Score: 3, Funny

      computer? i'm typing this from my ipod right now!

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    2. Re:Small market... by oneiros27 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I don't know how large it is, but it does exist --

      one of my co-workers mentioned a friend w/ pre-teen daughters who requested iPods for christmas -- and their parents got them ... but they didn't have a computer, so they didn' have a way of loading music onto them.

      So, the problem isn't the typical yuppie, or college student, it's the families out there that don't have a massive income, and don't have a computer at home, but have kids who want iPods.

      Of course, this particular situation won't be helped by the device, as there doesn't seem to be a way to way to tag the files created manually (based on the images available), and they wouldn't have internet access for it to get the info, unless it were done from a library and/or school.

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  8. Borderline Useless by Y-Crate · · Score: 2, Informative

    I can't really see a situation where I would have a need for something like this.

    I can't think of more than a tiny handful of times in the past 6 years that I've wanted to rip a CD but haven't had a computer nearby. Furthermore, this thing looks heavy, or at least bulky, so what exactly are we supposed to do? Carry it around in a little pouch just in case someone has a CD we want to rip? You're probably going to need to keep it at home, which further negates the entire point of having one. iTunes - for all of the perplexing, intense rage people have towards it - is incredibly good at doing what this device does and it doesn't charge you a dime for the privilege.

    On top of all this, the industrial designer obviously put this together on his lunch break or something as it just looks incredibly shoddy.

  9. One thing by Mille+Mots · · Score: 4, Funny
    Why buy something to do something that you already have a computer to do it? This is not something that is completely portable either. Honestly I just don't see much use for it - "oh no, I don't want to have to use iTunes or [insert CDripper software] to make mp3s!

    Well, what if you're at a friend's house and (s)he, uh, sells you an old CD. Yeah, sells it to you. But, you don't want to take the actual CD with you, because you're afraid your car will get broken in to. So, you, you know, agree to leave the actual, physical CD at your friend's house, for, you know, safe keeping. You'll probably get it later, anyway. But, you'd really like to have those tracks on your iPod, like, now. So, you whip out your iUpload device, plug it into your iPod and blam!, now you have your newly purchased, perfectly legal music in your iPod.

    So, there you go, one reason why you would buy something to do something you already have a computer to do. And it's perfectly legal!

    Maybe.

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    Sig nificant

  10. What we need is...... by ericdano · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What we really need is a hardware device that can rip MOVIES to iPod video format quickly. Waiting hours to rip a DVD is just insane. Why can't they come out with a super fast way to rip them to an iPod??

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    1. Re:What we need is...... by GlassHeart · · Score: 3, Informative
      Why can't they come out with a super fast way to rip [movies] to an iPod?

      Firstly, because video compression is a very CPU-intensive process. While faster CPUs or custom hardware may improve its speed, neither is likely to be very cheap. It's not as if people are making it slow just for fun, you know. Secondly, ripping commercial DVDs is currently illegal in the US due to the DMCA, so you might understand the reluctance on the part of manufacturers.

    2. Re:What we need is...... by Kadin2048 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I wonder if you could produce a product that, out of the box, would only transcode DVDs that didn't have CSS applied (home movies on DVD-R, etc.) but was built using a system-on-a-chip that stored its programming in a way that would let it be re-flashed. So you could download a new image ("for use in Sweden only") and re-flash it so that it would do the De-CSSing in software. It seems like this would be at least technically feasible, especially if you used ASICs for MPEG-2 decoding and MPEG-4 encoding, both of which I'm pretty sure exist right now, the MPEG-2 decoders are in every DVD player around, and the MPEG-4 encoders are in lots of flash-based camcorders. That way the SoC would only have to do control functions, and DeCSS.

      I suppose a company would have to really have balls of steel (and an army of lawyers) to bring something like that out on the U.S. market. I bet it would be popular in Asia, though, and the Chinese don't have a whole lot of copyright laws last time I checked.

      It's going to be a sad day when Americans are smuggling technology out of China and into the US in order to use their own electronic devices, but I could definitely see it happening in the near future. Maybe we can set up a US/China technology exchange program -- 'I'll trade you one uncensored Wikipedia snapshot for an un-crippled DVD ripper.'

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  11. Whooosh! by 93,000 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Sorry, dude. Had to.

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    Sweet informative mod.
  12. Won't come to Australia by ross.w · · Score: 2, Informative

    There are absolutely no legal uses for a device like that here. The very job it is designed to do is completely illegal, even though most people still do it and no-one prosecutes anyone for it.

    The problem is that we don't have legal fair use here, making everyone who has an iPod and most people with a CD burner or a VCR a criminal.

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