MP3 Players. Why?????

Bearded but no genius

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So after the iPod Classic, just about every player is going to be 'flash' based, instead of Hard Drive based?

What the feck does that mean, and why does it cost $299 for a 'flash' player with 16g capacity and $50 more for the 160g Classic?

Double-Eww-Tee-Eff?

I hope someone can explain to me what the hell is going on and why it seems the technology is going backwards just for the sake of being a little thinner.
 
Spoils?

Have iPods suddenly become vegetables?

Serious question here - why? Even if my iPod crashed somehow, the whole of the 70 gig worth of crap on it is sitting on the HD waiting to be synched back up.

To be fair though, I haven't been on a jog since mullets were fashionable.
 
Just switched from my 20Gb Archos harddrive player to a 32Gb Creative flash player. I would have stuck with an Archos HD player but they're not marketed in Singapore and not wanting either an i-pod or i-tunes anywhere near my computer limited my choice.

Happy with the new Zen though and think the push towards flash based players is led by size (the Zen's no bigger than a credit card and only 5mm thick), battery life (30 hours+ vs 6-7 which had dropped to around 3-4 over the 4 years I've had the Archos) and the elimination of skipping, jogging and the potential damage to hard drives (my Archos was becoming a lot more susceptible to skipping even at walking pace).

They are more expensive but the prices will drop rapidly in the same way they did with the HD players.
 
jasonrh said:
Spoils?

Have iPods suddenly become vegetables?

Serious question here - why? Even if my iPod crashed somehow, the whole of the 70 gig worth of crap on it is sitting on the HD waiting to be synched back up.

To be fair though, I haven't been on a jog since mullets were fashionable.
Click to expand...

Hard disks are mechanical, and as such are more prone to failure and broken parts. The risk is thus significantly greater in portable products, which is why I use my old 512mb flash based Creative Muvo when I jog.
 
jasonrh said:
What the feck does that mean, and why does it cost $299 for a 'flash' player with 16g capacity and $50 more for the 160g Classic?
Click to expand...

Flash drives are solid state, hard disks are mechanical and have moving parts. Flash drives get nowhere near the performance of a hard disk, but then they don't need to for something like MP3 streams.

As for the price, 16Gb USB sticks can be bought for around 30 pounds sterling, and no you cannot do a direct currency conversion to get the US price. I reckon you could get one new for around $50. Hard disks are not very expensive. Yes, obviously, the mini-hard disk units in the iPod would be more so than a computer drive, but you can pick up a 2.5" 500Gb drive for around 120 pounds sterling or less. A flash drive that size would cost silly amounts.

Anyway, it means that you are paying $50 for the memory and $250 for the device.
 
Well I agreed with the title of the thread. Went a bit downhill from there.
 
sincher said:
Well I agreed with the title of the thread. Went a bit downhill from there.
Click to expand...

:lol:

I need the space that the HD ones use, and I don't bang mine around at all.

I had a Zen (as did Julissa), but I've given her mine now I've got the 180g one.

Shit, I've got 60+ gigs on it already and that's just me in a Frank Sinatra phase (bootlegs are your friend, children).

I could never in a million years fit what I wanted on a 1g portable thingy.

My mobility is limited sometimes, and my music room is a cluster-feck, so it is very convenient to me. The worst thing that happens to it is me falling asleep with it on and it ending up under the pillow.
 
WeasteDevil said:
Flash drives are solid state, hard disks are mechanical and have moving parts. Flash drives get nowhere near the performance of a hard disk, but then they don't need to for something like MP3 streams.

As for the price, 16Gb USB sticks can be bought for around 30 pounds sterling, and no you cannot do a direct currency conversion to get the US price. I reckon you could get one new for around $50. Hard disks are not very expensive. Yes, obviously, the mini-hard disk units in the iPod would be more so than a computer drive, but you can pick up a 2.5" 500Gb drive for around 120 pounds sterling or less. A flash drive that size would cost silly amounts.

Anyway, it means that you are paying $50 for the memory and $250 for the device.
Click to expand...

If I'm not mistaken SSDs are a lot faster than HDDs. HDDs are actually the limiting factor now and SSDs will come for the rescue.
 
jasonrh said:
:lol:

I need the space that the HD ones use, and I don't bang mine around at all.

I had a Zen (as did Julissa), but I've given her mine now I've got the 180g one.

Shit, I've got 60+ gigs on it already and that's just me in a Frank Sinatra phase (bootlegs are your friend, children).

I could never in a million years fit what I wanted on a 1g portable thingy.

My mobility is limited sometimes, and my music room is a cluster-feck, so it is very convenient to me. The worst thing that happens to it is me falling asleep with it on and it ending up under the pillow.
Click to expand...

I have the solution for you! :D

What you do is buy a PS3. Then you buy a PSP. You store your most commonly used tracks on the PSP for the situations where you have no connection to the Internet. When you get into a WiFi zone, you then use your PSP to connect to the PS3 where your entire music collection is stored on a 500GB HDD.

Quite simple and problem solved.
 
sonymobby said:
If I'm not mistaken SSDs are a lot faster than HDDs. HDDs are actually the limiting factor now and SSDs will come for the rescue.
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You are mistaken, we are not talking here of having a high end card plugged into a PC and what theoretical speeds you can get off them (and the power required to do so). "Come" to the rescue is correct, but it's not here yet. High end hard disk units have absolutely no competition in this regard.
 
WeasteDevil said:
You are mistaken, we are not talking here of having a high end card plugged into a PC and what theoretical speeds you can get off them (and the power required to do so). "Come" to the rescue is correct, but it's not here yet. High end hard disk units have absolutely no competition in this regard.
Click to expand...

But we are also talking about 4200 rpm HDDs, nless the flash drives in the mp3s are really low level.

Actually, I'm not mistaken, I talked about SSD vs HDD in general! :p
 
sonymobby said:
But we are also talking about 4200 rpm HDDs, nless the flash drives in the mp3s are really low level.

Actually, I'm not mistaken, I talked about SSD vs HDD in general! :p
Click to expand...

I'm not saying that solid state drives are slower than the mini-hds in the older mp3 players. Yes, the smaller the drive, the less speed it will have. But MP3s don't need much speed. Even still however, find me a cost effective 160GB flash drive....

BTW, the rpm doesn't really matter on its own, it also depends upon the density of the disk. For example, Blu-ray vs DVD, because of the density of the disc, a BD does not have to spin anywhere near as fast to pull off the same amount of information - reason being is that it's packed into a much smaller area.
 
I talk generally about the speed of a high-end flash drive used in a PC vs an HDD. That's all I'm saying.
 
A decent HDD and HDD controller would chew up any Flash drive and shit it out and still be far more cost effective in terms of capacity to cost. SDDs have the advantage in latency and seek (on reading). This will not change for at least 5 years. I can pick up a 1TB hard disk for my PC for around 150 quid or so. It's a no brainer! SDD in portable devices is the best option at the moment because of power, nothing more.
 
I am totally lost at this juncture.

All I want to know is by the time this fecker conks out will the fancy-pants non-stick flash-drive solid-state teflon players be available in those kind of sizes?
 
jasonrh said:
I am totally lost at this juncture.

All I want to know is by the time this fecker conks out will the fancy-pants non-stick flash-drive solid-state teflon players be available in those kind of sizes?
Click to expand...

Just get one with a removable flash drive (you know, like your digital camera has?). My phone has one - a mini-sd that is 1GB. As long as you can take it out and replace it in the future if you want more space there is no problem, just buy another memory card. MP3s (fecking aberration they are) are not going to get any larger in any case.
 
I'll take a picture for you, both cards are 1GB in size. The larger one came with my camera and was bought in 2004 I think. The other came with my phone which was bought last year..... wait a mo!
 
So you suggest I walk around the house with a little baggie full of memory cards to plug and play what I want?

Doesn't that rather defeat the purpose of being able to hold your music in the palm of your hand?

Sounds just like the days when I had to heft around one of those huge tape-case things every time I went to visit my gran.
 
WeasteDevil said:
I'll take a picture for you, both cards are 1GB in size. The larger one came with my camera and was bought in 2004 I think. The other came with my phone which was bought last year..... wait a mo!
Click to expand...

So they get smaller as time goes on, and hold more space?
 
jasonrh said:
So they get smaller as time goes on, and hold more space?
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Yes...

msds.jpg


Lets just say that the smaller one is smaller than a fingernail.
 
Oh, and as for MP3s, considering the fact that for the first 13 years of Sinatra's career the music was recorded with a lathe onto a wax disc and then made into a low-fi 78rpm, I don't think I'm missing much by not being able to hear the data that I can't hear anyway.
 
jasonrh said:
Oh, and as for MP3s, considering the fact that for the first 13 years of Sinatra's career the music was recorded with a lathe onto a wax disc and then made into a low-fi 78rpm, I don't think I'm missing much by not being able to hear the data that I can't hear anyway.
Click to expand...

:lol:

In that case, no! Some might disagree however. At least that wax disc did not go through digital compression.
 
WeasteDevil said:
Yes...
Click to expand...

So, say it is 4 years from now and my player goes Tubby-Bye-Bye.

Will I need to be stocking up on little memory sticks to shove into a Flash player, or will they have matched the capacity of the iPod Classic, which as far as I can see is a fecking masterpiece.

It seems to have an eternal battery life on just music, quite a long time on video, and somewhere in-between when I bring up the album art as a full sized picture and set the backlight to stay on constantly.

I love it, especially since so much of this music has been buried in the Music Room, and some of it was even not unpacked since the move in 2005.
 
Jason you say that you need a lot of space, right? Just get a zune or an ipod classic or a creative one with an hdd. 80 or 160 GB, enough for you mobile music needs. If you to exercise then get a flash one. Mobile phones don't have the same audio quality compared to the mp3 players.
 
WeasteDevil said:
:lol:

In that case, no! Some might disagree however. At least that wax disc did not go through digital compression.
Click to expand...

Yes, but the wax disc doesn't even exist now, and the 'master' is a tape dub from a copy of the 78 in a lot of cases!

And a hearty houllier to whoever decided that no one would ever want to hear 'Night And Day' or 'I Get a Kick Out Of You' again and threw them out. Shades of the order to throw out all of the BBC's pre-1975 output because no one would be interested in old black-and-white shows.

The only stupider example of binning things would be noodle and his beer.
 
jasonrh said:
So, say it is 4 years from now and my player goes Tubby-Bye-Bye.

Will I need to be stocking up on little memory sticks to shove into a Flash player, or will they have matched the capacity of the iPod Classic, which as far as I can see is a fecking masterpiece.

It seems to have an eternal battery life on just music, quite a long time on video, and somewhere in-between when I bring up the album art as a full sized picture and set the backlight to stay on constantly.

I love it, especially since so much of this music has been buried in the Music Room, and some of it was even not unpacked since the move in 2005.
Click to expand...

Well, I doubt that iPod classics will exist in 5 years in any case when they go Tubby-Bye-Bye. Do you watch the Telly Tubbies on a regular basis as well?

In 5 years, memory sticks will have matched what is currently the storage capacity of an iPod classic, there is no doubt.

However, do you want to place every song you have ever owned onto a single device? Things are moving, and it will not be long before the solution I gave with PS3 and PSP is common amongst all of the CE manufacturers. In my house, I do not have anything stored on my PS3 (apart from games and game demos), not a thing, however, my Hi-Fi and TV is connected to the PS3 in the living room and it pulls all video and audio off the PC hard disk over a wireless network connection. With a PSP I could be in Japan and view any media stored on my PC. In the not too distant future, you will be able to pick up a network connection the same way you can nowadays pick up an over the air TV signal. Storage on the local device will not be an issue.
 
sonymobby said:
Jason you say that you need a lot of space, right? Just get a zune or an ipod classic or a creative one with an hdd. 80 or 160 GB, enough for you mobile music needs. If you to exercise then get a flash one. Mobile phones don't have the same audio quality compared to the mp3 players.
Click to expand...

I don't move about nearly at all, and am a stay-at-home husband.

I don't care so much about fragility, as it isn't going to be tossed around or anything.

I've got the 180g iPod Classic which we bought because I wanted all of my stuff from one of the artists I am OCD about on one device.

I've got easily 5000 CDs, so there isn't really one player that will ever hold my collection.

What I am puzzled by is that the move to Flash players (which do seem to have their advantages) is happening before they are 'ready for prime-time' if that makes sense. The iPod Classic seems to be the only player with more than a 32g capacity on the market right now.

When will Flash catch up? Is there something in the nature of Flash players that will prevent them from getting to those capacities?
 
sonymobby said:
Jason you say that you need a lot of space, right? Just get a zune or an ipod classic or a creative one with an hdd. 80 or 160 GB, enough for you mobile music needs. If you to exercise then get a flash one. Mobile phones don't have the same audio quality compared to the mp3 players.
Click to expand...

No, no, no!

The part in italics (I mean red) has nothing to do with what we are talking about! You been on the juice? ;)
 
WeasteDevil said:
Well, I doubt that iPod classics will exist in 5 years in any case when they go Tuby-Bye-Bye. Do you watch the Telly Tubbies on a regular basis as well?

In 5 years, memory sticks will have matched what is currently the storage capacity of an iPod classic, there is no doubt.
Click to expand...

See, that would be wonderful.

The idea of it all being on a wifi connection at some point would be brilliant as well. How would one listen to them, though? A little remote control the size of a Credit Card or something?

And I don't watch the Tellytubbies. The cats do.

Also, is there a way to make smoother MP4s than the programs that are common out there do?

I get a lot of problems with transitions and fast movements, and some titles just studder and stop all over the place even at several attempts to make the file with different programs.

I've tried handbrake, Videora, and ImToo DVD Ripper.

At this point, I would just love to throw the DVDs themselves on for some of the problem titles, but that obviously isn't an option.

How can I get the best possible quality out of a DVD in MP4?
 
WeasteDevil said:
No, no, no!

The part in italics (I mean red) has nothing to do with what we are talking about! You been on the juice? ;)
Click to expand...

No, you were the one who talked about mobile phones and swapping memory cards and I disagreed about that option.;)
 
Here's another question.

My computer is a couple of years old, so it is a bit pissed off at me for having 70g of crap on it for the ipod, and designs on filling the fecker.

Are there external drives or something where I can store the crap? I like having it on my computer and my player, so I don't want to just not have the player sync with iTunes.
 
jasonrh said:
Yes, but the wax disc doesn't even exist now, and the 'master' is a tape dub from a copy of the 78 in a lot of cases!

And a hearty houllier to whoever decided that no one would ever want to hear 'Night And Day' or 'I Get a Kick Out Of You' again and threw them out. Shades of the order to throw out all of the BBC's pre-1975 output because no one would be interested in old black-and-white shows.

The only stupider example of binning things would be noodle and his beer.
Click to expand...

This is how shit goes though. The BBC however didn't chuck out everything, they have one of the largest libraries in the world. A lot of their stuff was broadcast live, including Dr Who, and nobody at that time really thought about necessarily preserving any recordings of it. The mentality at the time was that it was just like a theatre show.
 
sonymobby said:
No, you were the one who talked about mobile phones and swapping memory cards and I disagreed about that option.;)
Click to expand...

I didn't say anything other than my mobile phone had a small 1GB card in it. So I don't know what the hell you are trying to disagree with.

As per usual you are trying to disagree with something when you actually have no hold on what was said in the first place. You just disagree for the sake of it without actually thinking about what you are doing. Who the feck said anything about the musical quality of a mobile phone? You did similar things with trying to argue that Xenos was so much better that RSX (which for some reason you knew what it was).
 
jasonrh said:
See, that would be wonderful.

The idea of it all being on a wifi connection at some point would be brilliant as well. How would one listen to them, though? A little remote control the size of a Credit Card or something?
Click to expand...

The WiFi bit works now. You have a PSP, it connects to your PS3 and you control it remotely and can use almost everything on the PS3 from the PSP. I don't have a PSP, but a work colleague does and we tried it. I registered his PSP with my PS3 at home, and the next day using the office WiFi we could access everything, even play games (although that didn't work the best) and now live TV. I suspect that the likes of Apple are looking at this and saying Woooooo! Connect the iPhone or iPod back to your iTV and job done. Trouble is at the minute is that it's not always easy to find a wireless connection. It could be done over 3G phone networks however.

jasonrh said:
SAlso, is there a way to make smoother MP4s than the programs that are common out there do?

I get a lot of problems with transitions and fast movements, and some titles just studder and stop all over the place even at several attempts to make the file with different programs.
Click to expand...

This is down to decent codecs and the machine trying to decode it.

jasonrh said:
How can I get the best possible quality out of a DVD in MP4?
Click to expand...

Use Divx.
 
WeasteDevil said:
This is how shit goes though. The BBC however didn't chuck out everything, they have one of the largest libraries in the world. A lot of their stuff was broadcast live, including Dr Who, and nobody at that time really thought about necessarily preserving any recordings of it. The mentality at the time was that it was just like a theatre show.
Click to expand...

Who was taped 'as live', but always broadcast from Videotape.

Every episode bar one had a film print made for BBC Enterprises. The VTs would then be wiped for other programs.

A woman named Pamela Nash ordered the destruction of these films - including tons of BBC programs not just Who, because "they were just old black and white shows".

Humanity lost not just over 100 eps of Who, but also Steptoe and Son (a bunch of eps were recovered in horrid shape from a primitive home video machine, though), and most of 'Not Only But Also' amongst quadzillions others.

The reason that old Blue Peters survive is that the producer kicked up a huge fuss and demanded they all be saved.

They do have the largest archive in the world, but it should be a hell of a lot larger.

ITV on the other hand kept the vast majority of their post-1963 output.

Of course, stuff that went out live is gone forever unless there was a telecine made of it at the time, which was rare.
 
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