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Pine Introduces New Portable MP3 device
TheTomcat writes "Big deal. Another MP3 player, huh? Not quite. This story at news.com talks about a new MP3 device that plays MP3 CD's, audio CDs and comes with a built-in FM tuner. While it has no capabilities to store songs (like the Empeg or the Diamond Rio), this would be IDEAL for my car. Hook it up to a decent power supply, an amp, and voila, out goes my current CD deck. It even comes with 10 seconds of anti-skip for Construction season (aka Summer), a remote control, and a built-in EQ. I'm drooling. [scheduled release: November]"
This is cool. Now, let's see a 10 Disc DVD changer version for the car. That way you'd get around 4 months of continuous, unrepeated music. (It sucks when you start to hear the same music after less than a month of continuous listening...)
I hope the batteries will last long enough. Does anyone have an idea how much power an mp3 decoder unit might draw in addition to the regular CD parts (laser)?
:)
Cant wait until they ship the first units over here.
Pine makes more than just this new device, according to there web site, though i have never heard of it until now.
http://www.pine-dmusic.com/
the important stuff is right here, however. http://www.pine-dmusic.com/specs/specs.htm
according to this site, the thing will last up to 8hrs...with FOUR AA's! it's gonne be big and heavy!
Portable MP3 / Audio CD Player Specifications
CD digital audio MPEG type
Analog volume control
Built-in charger
FSTN LCD ( Title display)
Dimension : 130(W)x138(D)x31(H)(mm)
Output 1: headphone
Output 2: Audio line
Battery : 4 x AA (Rechargeable or
Alkaline) (8 hrs with Alkaline)
Voltage 5 V
This is one of those things that you think of the moment you hear of the pre-cursor technology.. you think to yourself "aha! Now they just need to make this and it'll be killer!". And it's so obvious to you that you just can't imagine no-one jumping all over it.
:)
And then the free market system goes and ignores it for two years, evenutally producing some other less powerfull stuff (but more widely appealing for the regular lUsers and induvidhuals) that doesn't come near to satisfying your original thoughts.
The Rio's nice, but 32Mb? Through a serial connection? For _how_ much? Ok, if there's nothing else... Or if I'm an audiophile and my cassette deck just doesn't cut it.
From the day I saw mp3 way back when, I dreamed of 12 hours of music in my pocket!!
Ok. Quiz time. What's the killer service to accompany products like this?
1) Rip-n-burn services (requiring you to bring/send in your original CDs, you know, fair use and all).
2) K-Tel records (or whoever else has the guts) producing their big anthologies, all the 70's on one cd. All the 80's on one CD. The top 150 songs of 1992!
3) "Buy-your-CDs-from-us and we'll burn for free" services.
Ok, there's one huge problem with all of this. The RIAA will freak out and sue everyone to death, (in spite of fair use) and that threat alone will prevent anyone except us CDR/CDRW owners from being able to use this stuff. Now this will cost us more denero due to the economies of scale being massively reduced. Guess that means less money to buy CDs with
(Attn RIAA: Thanks for nothing you boners.)
... car trips
... the architecture studio
... the party
On average, a CD will last me about 80 miles. Get one of these, plug it in, and I could drive for over 700 miles without having to change the music. It's still not enough to get me out of Texas, but it's close.
As it is now, CDs allow the time to pass. Put in a CD, listen, work, the next thing you know an hour's gone by. Put in one of these babies, listen, work, the next thing you know, four projects are done and you're still dancin'.
As it is now, even with a 5-disc changer, my party runs out of music 5 hours into the dang thing and something's gotta be changed. Put one CD in one of these babies and voila! You've got yourself ten hours of non-stop partying. Given my current rate of being completely smashed about eight hours into such an event, and I'm all set.
Given the anticipated popularity of this device, I only hope that they a) take advance orders and b) can handle production so I have one of these for the drive home over Christmas.