New iPod Announcement is WEAK (iPod Hi-Fi)

[quote name='sarausagi']240 minutes, about 60 songs on one MD, at an approximate 112 - 160 KBPS quality: ATRAC3 is a variable bit encode. Maybe it's a bit of frugality, but I don't see the need for 60GB of music.

As for, can you even record to them? Considering one MD can go through an infinite number of rewrites and formats, yes, you can record to them, in various levels of quality. The most common ones used are uncompressed [Linear PCS 1.4MBPS, 28 minutes to a disc] SP2 [298 KBPS, 80 minutes] ] ATRAC3 [112-160 vbr, referred to as 132 KBPS/LP2, 240 mintes] and ATRAC3LP4 [66 KBPS, 10 hours on a disc, sucks for music but incredible for audiobooks and broadcasts]

It's too complicated to really explain in a post, let's just leave it at minidisc can support gapless playback, infinite song length. In recording circles, it's replaced DAT, blind tests always put it up above mp3/CD in terms of sound quality, and the science behind it just makes a lot more sense.

Some have also suggested, minidisc sounds a lot "warmer" than mp3 and CD..kind of like vinyl or multichannel formats..perhaps because of the nature of the format of itself [magneto-optic disc media, the bit allocation arrays are different, the way music is written is different, there's TONS of information online, sony Japan's website and minidisco being the best sources, though minidisco's info is very old][/quote]

4 hours? I admit not knowing much about minidisc (but you knew that already) but there's just no way it is practical when I can fit weeks of music on my iPod. I never have to swap music in or out (unless I get a new CD) and everything is always there no matter what I'm in the mood to listen to.

Even if the sound quality is better, it just doesn't matter to me - there's too much background noise in the subways or walking around midtown even with the iPod on full blast so I will never notice the improved audio quality of a minidisc. Also, at work I have to keep everything really low so no one else hears what I'm listening to. It's just not for me.
 
so is the success of the ipod slyly being blamed on the marketing or what? :lol:
I understand, it's just like the whole "the dreamcast is still the best system" thing ;)

the 30gb video ipod (which i never use for vid or pics) was only about a $100 more than a MD walkman after the student discount (and about $30 more than an MD Recorder w/out a mic)

I do agree-- there should be an option for click scrolling, rather than having to use the wheel all the time (though usually I just set it on random.)

It's just about the convenience-- the most time consuming part of using it is just ripping cds to my computer. other than that, plugging it in to charge and load songs takes a minute. the sound quality is much fuller than any discman that I've used and the equalizer settings are great-- they deliver clear, full, sound with a decent bass to the earbuds. but I'm fairly conservative with audio/visual quality...the difference between MD and 192kbs MP3 is about on par with the difference between 720p and 480p to me--i couldn't care less.

i've eyed alot of minidisc players and I'll be getting one for voice/field recording purposes someday, but right now, the main kicker with the ipod is that I have my whole collection with me at once, without having to switch a disc ever, along with about 10gb of random data files for school and personal stuff, and space to spare. it's like a swiss army knife for a student. it definitely saved my ass when my laptop overheated a few weeks back.

I mean, everyone says it's a fashion accessory on a campus (and who could blame them, everybody has one) but the functionality is what it's all about. not saying it's the only option though. if I had the luxury, I would start collecting vinyl!
 
[quote name='megashock5']iPod haters need to get a life. It's a good product that struck a chord with consumers and has caught fire. Why hate it for that? It just doesn't make any sense. At least Steve Jobs believes in his own products, I can't say the same for Gates.

This market should have been Sony's (after creating the walkman), but they missed. They didn't have the right product. Apple did. Why diss them for that? There's no way Apple should have been expected to get the legal music download store working before anyone else, but they did it. Jobs went and met face to face with some of the artists to get it to happen and they have the best product of its kind on the market. But yeah, they suck. :|

I swear, Apple haters are even worse than Starbucks haters.[/quote]

I belive you are mistaken. There is very few people who HATE the ipod...there are a ton of people who dont like it as i am. I continue to say to people...."yeah the ipod is alright but it cost to much for what it does. You can find better products for a better deal if you just look." For some reason ipod lovers translate that into...."I HATE IPOD"

Now i still doubt a any company that has more than 3 version of the same product coming out in any given year. To me that screams..."we are not really working fixing bugs/improving we are just trying to get them out there as fast as we can so we because we know everyone will buy it." I also get extremely uncomfortable when i see that a product as 54893578975893845 attachments and upgrades...again that screams "WE ARE TRYING TO SUCK YOU DRY"

Ipod are alright...nothing super spectacular about them..as well as every other mp3 on the market. They are all just average. The thing that pisses me off about people who have ipods are 90% of them didnt even do any research at all before they bought it. I know a ton of ipod user who cant even list more than 4 or 5 features the damn thing has! My problem is more with how idiotic most americans are when purchasing just the "mainstream" without researching it.

I remeber i actually went to buy a ipod. I asked the sales clerk about what features set it aside from every other mp3 player.....that dumb fuck kept saying the same 3 things over and over. It works with itunes...i sell a ton of them each day..blah blah blah. At first i just wrote it off as him being a asshat but then damn near every person i talked to couldnt even name more than 4 features on it. Tisk Tisk Tisk.



I also agree with sarausagi....do you really need god damn 60G of music on you? How many songs do you really listen to? I mean i have about 40g of music on my comptuer...i only listen to about 25 gigs of it. Honestly....thats just a waste...i know you use it as a flash drive but its pointless because it only works with itunes and does not drag and drop so its a waste. I love when people are talking to me about their ipods.."i have a 90g hard drive" Umm cool how much music do you actually have on there? "About 10g." Hmmm your really pushing the limits on that thing huh....300 bucks well spent.
 
soodmeg-- yes, you can drag and drop any files. you only have use itunes for media. and 30gb doesn't equal 90gb...but there are some dumb trendy people out there who ruin it. it's just annoying for the people who like it for the right reasons to deal with people who simply dislike it because it's trendy--there's just no way to meet any consensus.

you make it sound like mp3 players are all made the same way. i really don't think they are all built equally, especially after using the dell, rio karma, and creative zen. i've borrowed the zen and dell jukeboxes, but I owned a karma for two years-- the thing was pitiful towards the end. it would freeze up and skip like crazy.
 
[quote name='Apossum']soodmeg-- yes, you can drag and drop any files. you only have use itunes for media. and 30gb doesn't equal 90gb...but there are some dumb trendy people out there who ruin it. it's just annoying for the people who like it for the right reasons to deal with people who simply dislike it because it's trendy--there's just no way to meet any consensus.

you make it sound like mp3 players are all made the same way. i really don't think they are all built equally, especially after using the dell, rio karma, and creative zen. i've borrowed the zen and dell jukeboxes, but I owned a karma for two years-- the thing was pitiful towards the end. it would freeze up and skip like crazy.[/quote]


What? 30g doesnt equal 90? What do you mean there?

Also..i know they are not all made the same...but i dont see a huge differnce in any of them. I havent looked at one yet that was the stand out knock down champ of mp3 players. They all do the same stuff.

But like i said....i think they are a good product just not the greastest thing on the planet that all i am saying. I view itunes like i view everything....meh. Its not that great its not that bad it does the same as every other media player. I prefer winamp because it you could always play video on it and you can skin it and add plugins.
 
[quote name='Soodmeg']What? 30g doesnt equal 90? What do you mean there?

Also..i know they are not all made the same...but i dont see a huge differnce in any of them. I havent looked at one yet that was the stand out knock down champ of mp3 players. They all do the same stuff.

But like i said....i think they are a good product just not the greastest thing on the planet that all i am saying. I view itunes like i view everything....meh. Its not that great its not that bad it does the same as every other media player. I prefer winamp because it you could always play video on it and you can skin it and add plugins.[/QUOTE]

Okay, as a media player, iTunes is about the same quality as some others. However, the music store piece of it is what separates it from the pack. They were the first ones to get the whole *legal* download and purchase model right. Competitors are still trying to catch them in this regard.

Also, Apple isn't the one touting the iPod as the greatest thing on earth - it's the consumers/users. That's the big difference between it and a lot of products. Sure, they bring out new models frequently, but the old ones work just fine. The people who constantly pay the price to uprade to the latest model are the reason they update so often. Apple released the product, the consumers fell in love with it. The marketing campaign does nothing other than alert you to a new model or occasionally an artist or song being available. What made the iPod sell in the numbers it has wasn't Apple's marketing, it was word of mouth.

To people who don't love or hate it - that's cool. But there are tons of people who hate anything that becomes trendy or popular or for whatever reason need to begrudge a company's success so they come off as anti-establishment or whatever. That's a fine game for kids, but at some point you have to grow up.
 
I guess growing up also means losing that idealistic part of your brain. You know, the part that believes the best products should be the most successful. ;)
 
[quote name='sblymnlcrymnl']I guess growing up also means losing that idealistic part of your brain. You know, the part that believes the best products should be the most successful. ;)[/QUOTE]

Haha, well played! You're right, and I don't believe that usually happens. I think this was just one of those rare times. Also, "best" needs to be qualified here. Most durable? Most robust? I don't know, maybe. Something cool that people 'had to have?' They hit that one. :)

Yeah, I'm a bit of an Apple zealot - but in my field (graphic design - and I know there are others on these boards) that's what is used. I have a Mac and a PC in my office, but in my mind there's no comparison. But again, I think they appeal to a certain type of person, not everyone.
 
Not that I'm terribly technically saavy but how bad would a 16:9 screen look on an iPod nano or a normal iPod? You'd either have to place it sideways compared to the normal screens or shrink an already small LCD.

I don't see what the need wold be.

The iPod works because it's small, increasing size or layout to make it more video friendly isn't something I'd really want.
 
[quote name='Three Dollar Hooker']Not that I'm terribly technically saavy but how bad would a 16:9 screen look on an iPod nano or a normal iPod? You'd either have to place it sideways compared to the normal screens or shrink an already small LCD.

I don't see what the need wold be.

The iPod works because it's small, increasing size or layout to make it more video friendly isn't something I'd really want.[/quote]

Well, it's still going to be small but the next video iPod is rumored to have a 4" 16:9 screen - the same size as the PSP - without the unit getting any bigger than the existing iPods. The whole thing will be a screen with a 1/4" border and everything will be watched sideways now...
 
[quote name='javeryh']Well, it's still going to be small but the next video iPod is rumored to have a 4" 16:9 screen - the same size as the PSP - without the unit getting any bigger than the existing iPods. The whole thing will be a screen with a 1/4" border and everything will be watched sideways now...[/QUOTE]That sounds very nice, but without improved codec support (at the very least) I won't be interested. There's no way I'm re-ripping over 30gb worth of CDs. Again. :lol:
 
Okay, so if they do that and it's no bigger what do they do with the scroll wheel/click control?

The only logical thing to me if you're going to go the 4" screen route is to make it touch screen controlled. Either way it seems to me you destroy the user interface that has made the iPod such a runaway success.
 
[quote name='sblymnlcrymnl']That sounds very nice, but without improved codec support (at the very least) I won't be interested. There's no way I'm re-ripping over 30gb worth of CDs. Again. :lol:[/quote]

Why would you need to rerip them? If they are on your computer already then iTunes will recognize them.
 
[quote name='Three Dollar Hooker']Okay, so if they do that and it's no bigger what do they do with the scroll wheel/click control?

The only logical thing to me if you're going to go the 4" screen route is to make it touch screen controlled. Either way it seems to me you destroy the user interface that has made the iPod such a runaway success.[/quote]

You are right - it will be a touch screen and the wheel will appear when you touch the screen and control just like it always did. Not sure how they are going to solve the whole fingerprint thing though - I'll be interested to see how they handle it.
 
[quote name='javeryh']Why would you need to rerip them? If they are on your computer already then iTunes will recognize them.[/QUOTE]All my stuff is in ogg vorbis, which the ipod does not yet support.
 
[quote name='sblymnlcrymnl']All my stuff is in ogg vorbis, which the ipod does not yet support.[/quote]

Is that even a real word or did you just make that up? :D
 
I guess every message board has to have a techno geek that does things different than any other just so they can appear to be smarter than the rest of us. I never heard of ogg vorbis either.

Yet you've put your entire playlists in a format no one heard of? :lol:

I'm sorry, I just find that incredibly funny. What the hell do you play it on??? If iPod doesn't support it I assume iTunes doesn't either. Since those were released I stopped paying attention to any other music programs so I really don't know.

Are you also one of those people that have to have Linux running on your PSP or DS to feel complete? :rofl: IKIK
 
I have an iRiver h320. As it supports vorbis I re-ripped all of my stuff when I got it. Before that, I had 40GB+ of 320cbr mp3s. :lol:

Oh yeah, and winamp plays them just fine.
 
[quote name='Three Dollar Hooker']I guess every message board has to have a techno geek that does things different than any other just so they can appear to be smarter than the rest of us. I never heard of ogg vorbis either.

Yet you've put your entire playlists in a format no one heard of? :lol:

I'm sorry, I just find that incredibly funny. What the hell do you play it on??? If iPod doesn't support it I assume iTunes doesn't either. Since those were released I stopped paying attention to any other music programs so I really don't know.

Are you also one of those people that have to have Linux running on your PSP or DS to feel complete? :rofl: IKIK[/quote]
I've heard of the .ogg format. It's the open source answer to mp3s. Video games are going to that so that the developers don't have to pay licensing fees.

Back on topic, I just wanted to chime in that I agree with the above poster on the MD format. It's a beautiful format, and a shame America didn't latch onto it like overseas. I love my MD, simple because of the elegance of design. Sure it doesn't hold as much as the iPod, but I don't have to buy it again in a year when the rechargable battery dies. My single AA battery lasts weeks.
 
ogg is actually a pretty popular file format, along with FLAC. And there certainly are players and programs that play these files. Cowon's X5 for example.
The ipod can handle flac via linux, but ogg has remained elusive. If interested, there are a number of sites working on solving this.
 
[quote name='megashock5']Okay, as a media player, iTunes is about the same quality as some others. However, the music store piece of it is what separates it from the pack. They were the first ones to get the whole *legal* download and purchase model right. Competitors are still trying to catch them in this regard.

Also, Apple isn't the one touting the iPod as the greatest thing on earth - it's the consumers/users. That's the big difference between it and a lot of products. Sure, they bring out new models frequently, but the old ones work just fine. The people who constantly pay the price to uprade to the latest model are the reason they update so often. Apple released the product, the consumers fell in love with it. The marketing campaign does nothing other than alert you to a new model or occasionally an artist or song being available. What made the iPod sell in the numbers it has wasn't Apple's marketing, it was word of mouth.

To people who don't love or hate it - that's cool. But there are tons of people who hate anything that becomes trendy or popular or for whatever reason need to begrudge a company's success so they come off as anti-establishment or whatever. That's a fine game for kids, but at some point you have to grow up.[/quote]


Well said.
 
[quote name='Soodmeg']What? 30g doesnt equal 90? What do you mean there?

[/QUOTE]


ha! guess you edited the part where you wrote 90 instead of 60 or 30.

oh god no... looks like we're getting into the realm of file formats now.

yeah, most of my .ogg files didn't play right on my rio karma and flac files are too big. meh. :p
 
Yeah, I switched over to vorbis pretty much on a whim, and now I'm stuck with it. I'm not really complaining, it's a great format. But my player choices are rather limited at the moment. Luckily for me, all the best players already support it. :lol:
 
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