I originally bought the "AVS Gear HA-IR01SV Infrared Certified MCE VISTA Remote Control" remote & usb IR combo, from newegg.
In the mythbuntu control center, you configure this combination by selecting the "Windows Media Center Transceivers/Remotes" (MCEUSB2 in <mythbuntu 9.10) setting in the drop down list. It's that easy.
I didn't like the default key mappings for mythtv, so I edited ~/.lirc/mythtv until I had each button configured to a unique keypress. I then modified the key bindings for the frontend in mythweb until each button operated the way I wanted it to.
After a while I got my hands on the harmony 550 remote. During the programing of the harmony remote, I just selected "Windows media center remote" as the device I was controlling. The harmony remote sends the same IR commands as the AVS remote it replaced. I did tweak the logitech settings so that my LCD screen has buttons for "Recordings", "Music", "Videos", etc. and those mapped to the buttons at the top of the AVS remote.
Same here. A HTPC with Mythtv (mythbuntu) is sitting under my television. Most content I watch through Mythtv
recorded shows via Over the Air & Digital Cable
backed up DVDs
regular DVDs
Music
I use the mythnettv script/program to grab podcasts (i.e. revision3) which sticks them in with my mythtv recordings.
I just recently installed hulu desktop (as a menu item in mythtv), but I'm not happy with the full screen playback.
I control this all with a logitech harmony remote & USB ir reciever.
I also have a wireless BTC keyboard for launching firefox to surf the web (youtube, facebook, flicker, etc.)
I am also a netflix subscriber. Neflix instant streaming doesn't work on linux. Since I have a ps3, I use the netflix streaming disc. the ps3 is for blu-ray also.
Same here. I very rarely see movies in theaters, so I wait for the rental. What's waiting a few more weeks? Heck, push me a little more and I won't even bother watching it at all
Movie studio's need to wake up. Between (1)theater tickets costing too much, (2) movies sucking, (3)dvd's being phased our for blu-ray, (4)blu-ray costing way tooo much, (5) most movies I only want to see once & I'll never watch again (6) Blockbuster being overprice; the balance of cost vs. enjoyment is way out of line.
Redbox on the other hand gets that most movies are only worth about $1
I admit, I was instigating a little with my grandparent post. Although, my mother has a knack for calling during the middle of my favorite shows. Pausing live TV is very useful. If I was using a VCR, I'd have to wait until the show was finished recording before I could resume.
Even with my mythbox, I still watch shows live if I'm home. And when I do, I employ the same method of getting up and walking around (get a drink, use bathroom, etc.) during commercial breaks.
Yes, I have heard of Rockbox and Linux for iPod (Q: can you do a simple drag/drop with those?) Yes (at least with rockbox, I've never used ipodlinux) and then you can browse for you music by folders, or if you prefer the database, you can rescan your files right from the rockbox interface. No need for a computer app (such as iTunes) to build the database file.
One thing I am curious about, and that is how well they fare as far as battery use is concerned. I gather that Apple have gone to some trouble to optimise power usage with spinning up/down the hard drives, but I haven't seen any stats showing how usage with Rockbox or Linux compares, At it's current stage, rockbox isn't heavily optimized for the ipod series yet. So battery life is currently worse than with the ipod firmware. Give it time and chances are that battery life with rockbox will surpass the origional firmware, as it has with other targets.
I think the parent was suggesting that most slashdotters are using winamp 2.71(x)
He said winamp5
Winamp4 and 5 both play video files
There never was a winamp 4, then went straight to 5 (their thought process was 2+3=5)
and have about 2-3x the memory footprint
I don't recall how much memory Winamp 2.x used, but winamp 5 is running right now and it's only using 7.5Mb. That's pretty impressive for all the extra features in winamp 5.
the video files thing is annoying because I like to open directories which sometimes contain video files as well, it's distracting when a video window pops up during my music.
I have a very organized folder structure too.. but I find that with winamp 5 the media library allows me to get tot the music I want to listen to faster. For example, I can load up just 3 artists, create a smart playlist to listen to all the music of a specific genre from 1984, and it will also filter video files and maintain a separate list. You should really take a week and force yourself to try the library, if you don't like it at the end of the week, that's fine, but you may find that you like it.
Is it really that much extra effort for you to download a codec and just drop it in your '/Library/QuickTime/' folder???
No it's not, for example I went out and got the flac & wavpack codec plugins for winamp. And I am aware of the Ogg Vorbis plugin for iTunes/quicktime (that's why I said out of the box) but it wasn't feasible because it didn't support reading the tag information, until just recently.
The codec issue was just one of the reasons that I don't like iTunes. I know that you can add other codec's, but the resistance to provide more features is a common theme with apple products, and it was the first to come to mind when typing. Other issues include: the ugly skin, the library isn't as tweak-able as winamp5's, the inability of the mini player to be a stick that sits at the top of my screen, the very large memory footprint (vs winamp5's 7.5Mb), and the lack of support for replay gain (not apple's version, I prefer the better functioning industry standard)
I commend apple on making a application that self contains the process of buying music, playing it, and loading it on an ipod. And if it works for you, that's great. I find it too artificially restricting, and I'd rather not live in the apple world.
Personally, I'm still not at all convinced that vorbis, or even AAC, is all that superior to plain old MP3 anyway.
at high bitrate's I would agree with you, but give me a mp3 encoded at 128kbps of a punk rock song with lots of cymbals, and with even a half decent set of headphones and I'll hear it. The cymbals will sound all tinny & raspy as if you were underwater. That same song encoded with ogg vorbis at 128kbps will sound much more pleasant, none of the compression artifacts in the high end and a fuller low end. aac is also a better codec than mp3, so I assume that you'll get similar results.
But the best thing about compressed music is that you can pick your own encoder/bitrate based on what sounds good to you. If you can't tell the difference, then that's all that matters. I find that I can't tell the difference above 160kbps with my equipment, so that's what's I use.
I can't stand to use anything but Winamp! Well, that's not true, but I won't go anywhere near the limited functionality that is iTunes. No ogg vorbis support out of the box, etc.
there is a plugin that allows it to sync with the iPod
The newest versions of winamp5 include an updated version of this plug-in by default.
Another great reason to use winamp5 with your ipod is that it'll transcode songs that the ipod firmware can't handle for you. (yes I know it's bad.. but I don't notice the difference when I'm jogging) So all those wma's & ogg vorbis files will at least be playable on your yet again limiting apple ipod.
if you really wanted to make your ipod useful, you should check out rockbox.org
the parent is unaware of how the ipod stores it's data, so to stop spreading misinformation:
"It's basically like two seperate partitions on the iPod, where the iPod can only use one, and Windows can only use the other."
the ipod's data & itunes transfered content all exist on the same partition. Itunes hides & obfuscates the songs so that the average user won't find them. All you music is inside the hidden folder "ipod control" (IIRC) and then the songs are give cryptic filenames and randomly distributed in folders which also have cryptic names. Getting the music off your ipod is as simple as drag & dropping those folders into your music collection. The problem with that is you now have messed up file names, so you would need a program like the Godfather to rebuild the filenames/folder structure from the mp3/aac tags. Another solution is to use the latest version of Winamp which has ipod support "out of the box" so you could also upload music to your ipod and download music back to your (or a friend's) computer.
Like I said, however, the simple workaround is just to put your friend's music folder onto your iPod as data, then copy it into your iTunes and put it right back on your iPod. It's just annoying"
Annoying is a common issue with itunes, but that's a rant for another thread. Winamp will allow you to load music freely at your buddy's computer. The downside is that iTunes will get pissy and trash all the music on your ipod if another program has uploaded music, the next time you try to sync with iTunes.
Also, if the iPod simply treated songs as files, the device would always be a backup of your library, in case something happens to your hard drive.
Again.. they are simple files, (see above), you just have to undo the obfuscating of folder/filenames that iTunes does as a small annoyance to deter piracy
I use a combination of programs because I find that as with most things in life, 1 big app that tries to do it all is not as effective as many focused individual apps.
RippingAudiograbber
Audiograbber is a very solid program that ensures quality rips & supports a plethora of encoders. It dumps all the rips into my music folder in an organized manner/music/[artist]/[album]/##-[track name].ogg
*CDex & EAC are also popular "good ripping" programs
ListeningWinamp
Winamp watches my music folder and keeps an up-to-date library. I can create smart playlists, quickly query my library to find my songs to make "dumb" playlists.
*winamp also supports ripping (with the purchase of a winamp pro liscense), and while there are plenty of plug-ins to support many different encoding formats, I find their audio extraction to be poor (i.e. doesn't handle errors well due to scratches & such, introduces a skipping/repeating second at the end of each song, etc.)
*also, alot of people like foobar 2000, but I found it needed to be too greatly configured before I could use it the way I wanted.
Syncronization with portableSyncback
It takes a minute to setup, but it allows me to keep my music & playlists up to date on my Rockboxed iRiver ihp-120. I can also set filters to ignore some of my music that I don't want transfered to my player.
Again, all of this is not as simple as iTunes, but in the end, I have much more control, and once it is all set up, it's full steam ahead.
A "wealth of codecs" is only really important when you are pirating your music from fellow people who cannot decide on a single standard and you don't want to have to be bothered to convert your booty before it goes to your player.
What a narrow minded statement. What about the poor guy who ripped all his music to WMA in Windows Media Player just because he didn't know better? Those WMA's may have played okay on his $40 Flash based digital audio player. Maybe in the future he wanted to buy an iPod, but found that it's not compatible with all the music he's already ripped? With the iPod firmware, his only choices are to re-rip or transcode, both are unpleasant options.
Now, I'll admit that rockbox doesn't play WMA "YET". But it's currently being worked on & pretty far along. And regardless, being locked into a certain format can also apply to someone who ripped all their music to AAC and then wanted to purchase a "play for sure" compatible player, or someone who used atrac and wants to move to something other than a sony product.
Rockbox's "Multiple codecs" is good in that it provides flexibility for all of the users that are drawn to rockbox, who come to the table with different music formats. Hell, some people need to use a lossless format to retain as much music fidelity as possible.. supporting flac/wvpack allows them use their rockboxed device for that purpose.
Your connection between "non-standard" formats and pirating is weak. Everything that I've seen in my college days was traded in MP3, which is the popular "standard" formats supported by today's players. Whereas my personal collection of music is a mixture of mp3, ogg and the occasional flac. None of which is pirated. Ogg & flac may not be popular by your standards, but I find them supperior & less encumbered than other formats, and I choose to support hardware & software manufactures that include support for those formats.
People don't like itunes because it's essentially a gateway to the itunes store.
So, because I've been using iTunes for years without ever buying anything from the iTunes music store means I'm somehow using it wrong?
I don't think that was the point of the poster's comment. Instead I think the comment pertains to the purpose to the development of iTunes.
Apple loves control the entire experience of their products. iTunes is merely a carrier to interface the store to the iPod in order to provide a seemless experience, and because it's an intermediate step, it rips & plays music on your computer too.
The "beef" everyone has with iTunes is that there are much better alternatives out there for playing music on your computer. They are less bloated, have better media library capabilities, better smart playlists, greater format support, and better plug-ins.
If you guys want to use iTunes, that's your call, but for me, it's sub-standard.
Rockbox on the iPod is a work in progress. If you want to install rockbox, you must understand that at this point it's pretty much beta or pre-beta firmware.
Rockbox as a firmware has been running in released and stable versions on many other players for quite some time now. So even before the proper drivers were written to support the iPod hardware, rockbox has been functioning as a powerful firmware replacement for many people. When all the bugs are worked out and a stable version is released for the iPod, expect it to put the iTunes firmware to shame. (It currently does, but there are bugs to contend with)
If you want to see screen shots, take a look at the http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/WpsGall eryWPS Gallery (pics of people's "While Playing Screens") Due to the computer geek friendly nature of rockbox, anything is possible.
http://www.rockbox.org/ is currently being ported to the iAudio X5, which makes this solid player even more attractive
Rockbox supports mp3, ogg vorbis, MPC, AAC (MP4), A/52 (AC3), WAV, AIFF, FLAC, ALAC, Wavepack, shorten. Some of these decoders need to be optimized, but they're working on it, and future formats are possible.
So stop worring about these format wars, pick which format suits YOU best and demand the hardware manufacturers support those formats. As you can see with rockbox, it's not hard.
Who is with me in asking for an amendment limiting all laws to one topic, 200 words or less, and only can pass with a signature of the President and a signature of a random person with a 3rd grade education who agrees that even they understand the law?
Wouldn't that exclude the current president?
Based upon the 3rd grade education - YES
but don't forget that there is, unfortunately, another category he could fit in.
seeing as how I have my hosts file block know ad websites and I have various extensions for firefox that block ads, and frankly, I'm not alone. I don't think people want to be subject to as many ads as they are now.. so why would they welcome more.
But if these ads reduce the cost of windows to the the tune of $20, I would be tempted to purchase a copy, but not until someone figures out how to turn off the ads completely.
AAC is currently being work on & runs in real time. It will probably be included in a daily build of rockbox soon.
If you really wanted to make your point you should have picked WMA instead of AAC.. do to legal reasons it can never be legally added. But the greatness of rockbox is that anyone could add support themselves if they can code it.
While it is true that AAC does come in a non-DRM flavor, AAC is not supported by any portable player that is not branded by apple. (exception: Rockbox almost has it working on the iRiver H-1x0s)
While Apple does have a huge chunk of the market share of portable players, there are still a ton of other players out there. There are alot of players that play ogg vorbis files. But the most popular non-apple players are cheap flash based devices or in-dash Car CD units that only play mp3s. The common demoinator here seems to be that all players that play mp3 but not all play ogg or aac. Therefore saying aac is more compatible than ogg simply because on companies product line supports it is a little far reaching.
Secondly, most players that support the "open" ogg format are far from inferior compared to the ipod/apple product line. It is a proven fact that the sound quality on the iRiver h-100/300 series is superior to the apple ipod.. not to mention that battery life was significantly longer compared to the generation of ipod released at same time.
Simple.. do your research to live in a DRM free environment
Digital Audio Player
I researched around for an non-cripled (no DRM) player that would mount as a hard drive, allowing access to the music files without the use of any software.
Result:iRiver iHP-120 (which has better audio fidelity, plays more formats, and has many more options than the iPod [digital optical out/input, FM radio, etc.]) Not to mention I'm running rockbox on it so it's a wonderful experience
Music purchases
I buy CDs! I can rip everything in the FORMAT & BITRATE that I choose, and if, God forbid, I lose or destroy my DAP (& the duplicates on my computer) I can re-rip something. Also, if you search around, you can get CD's online for cheap & without tax.
Rockbox was originaly started as an opensource replacement to a lacking firmware on the Archos series of MP3 players.
The rockbox team then got their hands on the Iriver h-120 & 140 and decided to port rockbox to these players (what I currently own).
iRiver h-120 owners will never hesitate to tell you that the iriver is far superior to an iPod in audio quality and features, but the included firmware was severly lacking. Rockbox filled this void.
Rockbox has not had an offical release yet for the iriver, but it is a great example of how open source project can create a great product or fill a void. (All of us are running very stable beta versions)
But, many of us have been waiting patiently as development has been slow. All of the developers do this work in their spare time, therefore this isn't the best business model. And as most of you have probably never heard of Rockbox, this business model obviously is not going to be a iPod killer.
Rockbox made my digital audio player complete.. so complete that I would never consider purchasing a ipoo.
Slashdot Mirror
I originally bought the "AVS Gear HA-IR01SV Infrared Certified MCE VISTA Remote Control" remote & usb IR combo, from newegg.
In the mythbuntu control center, you configure this combination by selecting the "Windows Media Center Transceivers/Remotes" (MCEUSB2 in <mythbuntu 9.10) setting in the drop down list. It's that easy.
I didn't like the default key mappings for mythtv, so I edited ~/.lirc/mythtv until I had each button configured to a unique keypress. I then modified the key bindings for the frontend in mythweb until each button operated the way I wanted it to.
After a while I got my hands on the harmony 550 remote. During the programing of the harmony remote, I just selected "Windows media center remote" as the device I was controlling. The harmony remote sends the same IR commands as the AVS remote it replaced. I did tweak the logitech settings so that my LCD screen has buttons for "Recordings", "Music", "Videos", etc. and those mapped to the buttons at the top of the AVS remote.
I control this all with a logitech harmony remote & USB ir reciever.
I also have a wireless BTC keyboard for launching firefox to surf the web (youtube, facebook, flicker, etc.)
I am also a netflix subscriber. Neflix instant streaming doesn't work on linux. Since I have a ps3, I use the netflix streaming disc. the ps3 is for blu-ray also.
-phil
Same here. I very rarely see movies in theaters, so I wait for the rental. What's waiting a few more weeks? Heck, push me a little more and I won't even bother watching it at all
Movie studio's need to wake up. Between (1)theater tickets costing too much, (2) movies sucking, (3)dvd's being phased our for blu-ray, (4)blu-ray costing way tooo much, (5) most movies I only want to see once & I'll never watch again (6) Blockbuster being overprice; the balance of cost vs. enjoyment is way out of line.
Redbox on the other hand gets that most movies are only worth about $1
I admit, I was instigating a little with my grandparent post. Although, my mother has a knack for calling during the middle of my favorite shows. Pausing live TV is very useful. If I was using a VCR, I'd have to wait until the show was finished recording before I could resume.
Even with my mythbox, I still watch shows live if I'm home. And when I do, I employ the same method of getting up and walking around (get a drink, use bathroom, etc.) during commercial breaks.
How's pausing live TV working for you?
I have no problem with my IMAP account along with my 2 pop accounts. Maybe you've got a bad install.
Well, if it had those features, they would be in the "pros" list instead of a overwhelming in the "cons" list.
One thing I am curious about, and that is how well they fare as far as battery use is concerned. I gather that Apple have gone to some trouble to optimise power usage with spinning up/down the hard drives, but I haven't seen any stats showing how usage with Rockbox or Linux compares, At it's current stage, rockbox isn't heavily optimized for the ipod series yet. So battery life is currently worse than with the ipod firmware. Give it time and chances are that battery life with rockbox will surpass the origional firmware, as it has with other targets.
I think the parent was suggesting that most slashdotters are using winamp 2.71(x)
He said winamp5
Winamp4 and 5 both play video files
There never was a winamp 4, then went straight to 5 (their thought process was 2+3=5)
and have about 2-3x the memory footprint
I don't recall how much memory Winamp 2.x used, but winamp 5 is running right now and it's only using 7.5Mb. That's pretty impressive for all the extra features in winamp 5.
the video files thing is annoying because I like to open directories which sometimes contain video files as well, it's distracting when a video window pops up during my music.
I have a very organized folder structure too.. but I find that with winamp 5 the media library allows me to get tot the music I want to listen to faster. For example, I can load up just 3 artists, create a smart playlist to listen to all the music of a specific genre from 1984, and it will also filter video files and maintain a separate list. You should really take a week and force yourself to try the library, if you don't like it at the end of the week, that's fine, but you may find that you like it.
Is it really that much extra effort for you to download a codec and just drop it in your '/Library/QuickTime/' folder???
No it's not, for example I went out and got the flac & wavpack codec plugins for winamp. And I am aware of the Ogg Vorbis plugin for iTunes/quicktime (that's why I said out of the box) but it wasn't feasible because it didn't support reading the tag information, until just recently.
The codec issue was just one of the reasons that I don't like iTunes. I know that you can add other codec's, but the resistance to provide more features is a common theme with apple products, and it was the first to come to mind when typing. Other issues include: the ugly skin, the library isn't as tweak-able as winamp5's, the inability of the mini player to be a stick that sits at the top of my screen, the very large memory footprint (vs winamp5's 7.5Mb), and the lack of support for replay gain (not apple's version, I prefer the better functioning industry standard)
I commend apple on making a application that self contains the process of buying music, playing it, and loading it on an ipod. And if it works for you, that's great. I find it too artificially restricting, and I'd rather not live in the apple world.
Personally, I'm still not at all convinced that vorbis, or even AAC, is all that superior to plain old MP3 anyway.
at high bitrate's I would agree with you, but give me a mp3 encoded at 128kbps of a punk rock song with lots of cymbals, and with even a half decent set of headphones and I'll hear it. The cymbals will sound all tinny & raspy as if you were underwater. That same song encoded with ogg vorbis at 128kbps will sound much more pleasant, none of the compression artifacts in the high end and a fuller low end. aac is also a better codec than mp3, so I assume that you'll get similar results.
But the best thing about compressed music is that you can pick your own encoder/bitrate based on what sounds good to you. If you can't tell the difference, then that's all that matters. I find that I can't tell the difference above 160kbps with my equipment, so that's what's I use.
"but if you can stand to use Winamp5"
I can't stand to use anything but Winamp! Well, that's not true, but I won't go anywhere near the limited functionality that is iTunes. No ogg vorbis support out of the box, etc.
there is a plugin that allows it to sync with the iPod
The newest versions of winamp5 include an updated version of this plug-in by default.
Another great reason to use winamp5 with your ipod is that it'll transcode songs that the ipod firmware can't handle for you. (yes I know it's bad.. but I don't notice the difference when I'm jogging) So all those wma's & ogg vorbis files will at least be playable on your yet again limiting apple ipod.
if you really wanted to make your ipod useful, you should check out rockbox.org
the parent is unaware of how the ipod stores it's data, so to stop spreading misinformation:
"It's basically like two seperate partitions on the iPod, where the iPod can only use one, and Windows can only use the other."
the ipod's data & itunes transfered content all exist on the same partition. Itunes hides & obfuscates the songs so that the average user won't find them. All you music is inside the hidden folder "ipod control" (IIRC) and then the songs are give cryptic filenames and randomly distributed in folders which also have cryptic names. Getting the music off your ipod is as simple as drag & dropping those folders into your music collection. The problem with that is you now have messed up file names, so you would need a program like the Godfather to rebuild the filenames/folder structure from the mp3/aac tags. Another solution is to use the latest version of Winamp which has ipod support "out of the box" so you could also upload music to your ipod and download music back to your (or a friend's) computer.
Like I said, however, the simple workaround is just to put your friend's music folder onto your iPod as data, then copy it into your iTunes and put it right back on your iPod. It's just annoying"
Annoying is a common issue with itunes, but that's a rant for another thread. Winamp will allow you to load music freely at your buddy's computer. The downside is that iTunes will get pissy and trash all the music on your ipod if another program has uploaded music, the next time you try to sync with iTunes.
Also, if the iPod simply treated songs as files, the device would always be a backup of your library, in case something happens to your hard drive.
Again.. they are simple files, (see above), you just have to undo the obfuscating of folder/filenames that iTunes does as a small annoyance to deter piracy
Ripping Audiograbber /music/[artist]/[album]/##-[track name].ogg
Audiograbber is a very solid program that ensures quality rips & supports a plethora of encoders. It dumps all the rips into my music folder in an organized manner
*CDex & EAC are also popular "good ripping" programs
Listening Winamp
Winamp watches my music folder and keeps an up-to-date library. I can create smart playlists, quickly query my library to find my songs to make "dumb" playlists.
*winamp also supports ripping (with the purchase of a winamp pro liscense), and while there are plenty of plug-ins to support many different encoding formats, I find their audio extraction to be poor (i.e. doesn't handle errors well due to scratches & such, introduces a skipping/repeating second at the end of each song, etc.)
*also, alot of people like foobar 2000, but I found it needed to be too greatly configured before I could use it the way I wanted.
Syncronization with portable Syncback
It takes a minute to setup, but it allows me to keep my music & playlists up to date on my Rockboxed iRiver ihp-120. I can also set filters to ignore some of my music that I don't want transfered to my player.
Again, all of this is not as simple as iTunes, but in the end, I have much more control, and once it is all set up, it's full steam ahead.
What a narrow minded statement. What about the poor guy who ripped all his music to WMA in Windows Media Player just because he didn't know better? Those WMA's may have played okay on his $40 Flash based digital audio player. Maybe in the future he wanted to buy an iPod, but found that it's not compatible with all the music he's already ripped? With the iPod firmware, his only choices are to re-rip or transcode, both are unpleasant options.
Now, I'll admit that rockbox doesn't play WMA "YET". But it's currently being worked on & pretty far along. And regardless, being locked into a certain format can also apply to someone who ripped all their music to AAC and then wanted to purchase a "play for sure" compatible player, or someone who used atrac and wants to move to something other than a sony product.
Rockbox's "Multiple codecs" is good in that it provides flexibility for all of the users that are drawn to rockbox, who come to the table with different music formats. Hell, some people need to use a lossless format to retain as much music fidelity as possible.. supporting flac/wvpack allows them use their rockboxed device for that purpose.
Your connection between "non-standard" formats and pirating is weak. Everything that I've seen in my college days was traded in MP3, which is the popular "standard" formats supported by today's players. Whereas my personal collection of music is a mixture of mp3, ogg and the occasional flac. None of which is pirated. Ogg & flac may not be popular by your standards, but I find them supperior & less encumbered than other formats, and I choose to support hardware & software manufactures that include support for those formats.
People don't like itunes because it's essentially a gateway to the itunes store.
So, because I've been using iTunes for years without ever buying anything from the iTunes music store means I'm somehow using it wrong?
I don't think that was the point of the poster's comment. Instead I think the comment pertains to the purpose to the development of iTunes.
Apple loves control the entire experience of their products. iTunes is merely a carrier to interface the store to the iPod in order to provide a seemless experience, and because it's an intermediate step, it rips & plays music on your computer too.
The "beef" everyone has with iTunes is that there are much better alternatives out there for playing music on your computer. They are less bloated, have better media library capabilities, better smart playlists, greater format support, and better plug-ins.
If you guys want to use iTunes, that's your call, but for me, it's sub-standard.
Rockbox on the iPod is a work in progress. If you want to install rockbox, you must understand that at this point it's pretty much beta or pre-beta firmware.
l eryWPS Gallery (pics of people's "While Playing Screens") Due to the computer geek friendly nature of rockbox, anything is possible.
Rockbox as a firmware has been running in released and stable versions on many other players for quite some time now. So even before the proper drivers were written to support the iPod hardware, rockbox has been functioning as a powerful firmware replacement for many people. When all the bugs are worked out and a stable version is released for the iPod, expect it to put the iTunes firmware to shame. (It currently does, but there are bugs to contend with)
If you want to see screen shots, take a look at the http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/WpsGal
http://www.rockbox.org/ is currently being ported to the iAudio X5, which makes this solid player even more attractive
Rockbox supports mp3, ogg vorbis, MPC, AAC (MP4), A/52 (AC3), WAV, AIFF, FLAC, ALAC, Wavepack, shorten. Some of these decoders need to be optimized, but they're working on it, and future formats are possible.
So stop worring about these format wars, pick which format suits YOU best and demand the hardware manufacturers support those formats. As you can see with rockbox, it's not hard.
Based upon the 3rd grade education - YES
but don't forget that there is, unfortunately, another category he could fit in.
podjacking, hyjacking.. they're all wrong
disrupting a vegan podcast..
that's "doing you a favor"
30 pieces of tape for 30 cd's or 1 computer with autorun disabled.. hmm... which option is less excessive?
seeing as how I have my hosts file block know ad websites and I have various extensions for firefox that block ads, and frankly, I'm not alone. I don't think people want to be subject to as many ads as they are now.. so why would they welcome more. But if these ads reduce the cost of windows to the the tune of $20, I would be tempted to purchase a copy, but not until someone figures out how to turn off the ads completely.
AAC is currently being work on & runs in real time. It will probably be included in a daily build of rockbox soon.
If you really wanted to make your point you should have picked WMA instead of AAC.. do to legal reasons it can never be legally added. But the greatness of rockbox is that anyone could add support themselves if they can code it.
While it is true that AAC does come in a non-DRM flavor, AAC is not supported by any portable player that is not branded by apple. (exception: Rockbox almost has it working on the iRiver H-1x0s)
While Apple does have a huge chunk of the market share of portable players, there are still a ton of other players out there. There are alot of players that play ogg vorbis files. But the most popular non-apple players are cheap flash based devices or in-dash Car CD units that only play mp3s. The common demoinator here seems to be that all players that play mp3 but not all play ogg or aac. Therefore saying aac is more compatible than ogg simply because on companies product line supports it is a little far reaching.
Secondly, most players that support the "open" ogg format are far from inferior compared to the ipod/apple product line. It is a proven fact that the sound quality on the iRiver h-100/300 series is superior to the apple ipod.. not to mention that battery life was significantly longer compared to the generation of ipod released at same time.
Simple.. do your research to live in a DRM free environment
Digital Audio Player
I researched around for an non-cripled (no DRM) player that would mount as a hard drive, allowing access to the music files without the use of any software.
Result:iRiver iHP-120 (which has better audio fidelity, plays more formats, and has many more options than the iPod [digital optical out/input, FM radio, etc.]) Not to mention I'm running rockbox on it so it's a wonderful experience
Music purchases
I buy CDs! I can rip everything in the FORMAT & BITRATE that I choose, and if, God forbid, I lose or destroy my DAP (& the duplicates on my computer) I can re-rip something. Also, if you search around, you can get CD's online for cheap & without tax.
Rockbox was originaly started as an opensource replacement to a lacking firmware on the Archos series of MP3 players.
The rockbox team then got their hands on the Iriver h-120 & 140 and decided to port rockbox to these players (what I currently own). iRiver h-120 owners will never hesitate to tell you that the iriver is far superior to an iPod in audio quality and features, but the included firmware was severly lacking. Rockbox filled this void.
Rockbox has not had an offical release yet for the iriver, but it is a great example of how open source project can create a great product or fill a void. (All of us are running very stable beta versions)
But, many of us have been waiting patiently as development has been slow. All of the developers do this work in their spare time, therefore this isn't the best business model. And as most of you have probably never heard of Rockbox, this business model obviously is not going to be a iPod killer.
Rockbox made my digital audio player complete.. so complete that I would never consider purchasing a ipoo.