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The Chatterbox => Computing => Topic started by: Sqthreer! on May 28, 2008, 02:59:32 AM
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Since I lost my iPod a while back, I've been using a CD player, and it has reminded me why I got an mp3 player in the first place, so it's time to get a new one.
What I'm looking for is something that's NOT an iPod (I just was not all that satisfied with it, honestly) and has at least a 30 gig capacity. Video capability is a plus, too. I'm hoping to get suggestion from people with experience with them, but if you've heard good things about any particular one, let me know.
THANKS Y'ALL
I have gotten maself a Zune, and I am quite pleased. Thread is now a general mp3 player discussion.
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Hmmmmmmmmmmmm
After doing a little browsing, I came across this one here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16855102035
I know it only has a 16 gig capacity, but looking at my iTunes, the music I actually listen to in my library would easily fit. The fact that it has an FM radio is pretty awesome, too.
Anyone have experience with this thing?
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http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16855228017
I bought this little number, and I've been well satisfied with it. Costly, but if you plan on watching any sort of video/recording video, it's well worth it.
It also comes in a 30 GB version:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16855228016
Honestly, I just don't know where the hell the competition is against the iPod anymore. It's a shame, really. =\ Is it just me, or do people seem to like to use crappy things? (in before I'm a fanboy. If anyone wants reasons, I'd be happy to supply them.)
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And that one looks pretty good, IMO. I usually add the 5 eggs and 4 eggs and determine a letter grade off that percentage. (84%, B)
Small and portable, and if it can hold everything you got, then that's all the better. I'd like to use something like that, but I have way too much music, and I actually listen to most of my collection. (last.fm says otherwise because I tend to listen to different crap when I'm on the go than sitting in my chair on the computer....)
also, double double post.
lol cheeseburgers. double double is the name of a cheeseburger from in n out, for those of you that dont have them where you live.
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That one you posted looks good, but it's a little out of my price range :[
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yeah, well.. The one you're lookin' at is pretty good looking, too. I'd check out cnet and see if they have reviewed any mp3 players in your taste/price worth buying. (perhaps I'll go look myself.. hehe)
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My GF has a small Creative Zen mp3 player, and it's pretty good. I haven't found any real faults with it, aside from maybe the screen being small, but the one you're looking at seems good.
Personally, I'm gonna wait another year or 2 before getting one, so that I can get one with a decent size that doesn't cost a fortune. (Let's put it this way, I've got somewhere around 350-400 GB of music, and growing. I hate being limited by a couple GB.)
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I have about 60 gigs of music, but only actually listen to about 16 of it. I just like to collect different stuff.
EDIT:
So I checked out this review (http://reviews.cnet.com/portable-video-players-pvps/zune-second-generation-80gb/4505-6499_7-32638989.html) on Cnet, and the Zune actually looks kinda nice. It's pretty damn cheap for it's capacity, and seems to be nicely feature-rich.
One thing that worries me is the DRM thing. I haven't really been keeping up exactly on what that whole deal is with it, and this line on the Cnet review in particular is questionable: "does not support older WMA-DRM9 music files"
Anyone mind explaining this to me?
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Unless you're buying stuff from the Zune Marketplace, or happen to have some WMADRM files, the DRM will not likely mean anything to you.
It supports DRM files, but doesn't force you to DRM everything you stick on it.
Essentially, the Zune supports DRM so that any store that is compliant with the Windows Media Digital Rights Management specifications (the new versions anyway) should play on it (albeit if you ARE downloading DRM's content, make sure it's from someplace that will actually work on the thing, as it is not compliant with the "Plays For Sure" standard, and cannot play many DRM'd files from lots of different online stores).
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i use a 2 gig ZEN
does the job just fine for me
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Unless you're buying stuff from the Zune Marketplace, or happen to have some WMADRM files, the DRM will not likely mean anything to you.
It supports DRM files, but doesn't force you to DRM everything you stick on it.
Essentially, the Zune supports DRM so that any store that is compliant with the Windows Media Digital Rights Management specifications (the new versions anyway) should play on it (albeit if you ARE downloading DRM's content, make sure it's from someplace that will actually work on the thing, as it is not compliant with the "Plays For Sure" standard, and cannot play many DRM'd files from lots of different online stores).
So I guess what I'm wondering is, will my music library (which is all in mp3 format) work without problems on the Zune?
i use a 2 gig ZEN
does the job just fine for me
I wouldn't even be able to fit my Aphex Twin collection on that :p
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Your music library will work perfectly fine in your zune. I have the first gen 30 GB model, and I've had no complaints. With the firmware/software updates they've done recently, it has made it alot better. M$ [or at least the zune team] doesn't want to leave the old gen people out. When new features come along, we get them first.
For example, wireless syncing. Have a wireless network? Let zune find it, get on it, connect to your pc, and get new songs that way. I've yet to perfect this, but to someone, this has got to be real useful. Something they did in a firmware update also helped with the battery life [i think this had to do with the FM transceiver being on ALL the time instead of just when you want radio.].
I've got a mass of music as well, and recently cleared my zune out from when I first got it and just dumped albums and albums and artists into it, taking a more scrutinized look at what went into my zune, because I was tired of skipping over things I didn't really listen to.
The zune charges via a usb cable [proprietary, of course], through your computer or even xbox 360, which obviously you can plug into and play your collection through your 360. I don't have any docks or anything, but some that I've seen are very nice and useful as well.
Zune? I recommend it. I had a 10GB zen micro or something like that before this, and I was happy with it. Now that I have the zune, I don't want anything else. I'm sticking to this mp3 player, possibly upgrading to next gen in the future.
Hope this helps
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That helps a lot, thanks :D I'm pretty convinced I'm getting one. And I heard a lot of people complaining about the proprietary USB thing.. what is it and why does it suck?
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Same thing for the ipod, you can't use any other USB cord to charge it. Either use zune's included, or a 3rd party knockoff. I just prefer my devices to have some kind of universal charger, but with the ipod and zune, it's not available. Not much of a problem though, just don't lose it :P
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Oh psh, is that what all the fuss is about? I understand the usefulness of a universal charger, but personally, I think I prefer having one that belongs only to one thing. Even if it was a universal one and I lost it, I'd still have to buy another. How many people have, and use, multiple mp3 players?
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Well with my sidekick lx, it has a mini-usb data port, to which it charges thru a wall charger and has a data cable mini-usb to usb to connect to my pc with. Any mini usb to usb would work, that's the kind of thing I'm talkin about. I don't see having a proprietary cable being an issue to anyone really..
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Yeah, I guess some people are just silly gooses.
Haha, awesome. I was kind of curious as to why Firefox didn't underline "gooses" for misspelling since the plural for "goose" is "geese" but it turns out it has a few definitions, one of which is "to pinch the buttocks." And the dictionary's example was, "he goosed the unsuspecting girl."
But ANYWAY this case is closed; I am going to the store tonight and getting a Zune because I can't take listening to these prehistoric music discs anymore. Thanks fo' all yo' help people.
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http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16855228017
HOLY FUCKING SHIT FAVORITED.
I've been looking for a good-looking player that supports OGGs and FLACs. Thanks! <3
Oh psh, is that what all the fuss is about? I understand the usefulness of a universal charger, but personally, I think I prefer having one that belongs only to one thing.
It's awesome for me, because I can carry a single mini-USB cable with my laptop that'll work with my BlackBerry, my Moto V3x, my USB card reader, my digital camera, my USB hub, my dad's digital camera, my mom's phone, my PSP, and, uh...do I really need to continue? :P I specifically look for mini-USB port support when I buy things like this for that reason alone. Granted, some of the things can't charge with the mini-USB (the cameras, obviously, the PSP, etc) but it still allows for a very consistent and very universal way of transmitting data and charging smaller devices.
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OH MY GOD the Zune has pretty much EVERYTHING that I thought the iPod was missing and much more. It's fucking awesome only after about ten minutes of using it. I can't explain how happy I am with my purchase. The headphones are great, too. THEY HAVE A MAGNET IN THEM SO THEY STICK TOGETHER.
Also I suppose if you have a bunch of awesome electronic devices having one cord is good. But all I have is my Zune (which I named Greg.)
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:3 TOLD YA LOLOL
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<3s Sneaky all over his face.
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So which did ya get? 30GB first or the 80GB new one?
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The 80GB one, which is perfect, because it holds ALL my music, and then I have about 15GB of extra room for videos and such.
I can't believe how much more intuitive the interface is than the pre-iPod Touch iPods are. You can actually have access to certain settings (like shuffle and repeat) without going all the way back to the main menu and into settings, then going back. Also, since I got it, I considered the wheel or whatever it's called on the iPod to be kind of stupid and unnecessarily confusing if it's not upright and right in front of you. The new Zune (I think this is an upgrade from the previous version anyway) has a similar slide navigation feature, except it's actually UP AND DOWN instead left, right, up or down, depending on which part of the iPod's wheel you started on >:|
I could go on about how much better it is, but I fear I might get carpal tunnel syndrome.
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I messed with TimJing's Zune a bit...I think his is a first-generation one. It seems like a pretty cool player to me.
Then again, I've also used pyroko's iPod a fair amount and it felt pretty intuitive for the most part, aside from some little niggles.
I dunno. I didn't get to mess either of those enough to really get a feel for them. All I know is that the old Rio 600 that I had long ago is a piece of shit, but I doubt you'd see any of those barring someone on eBay who's desperate to get rid of theirs. Meh, don't mind me, I'm just a little bitter.
I've been considering getting a Zune, but I'm starting to lean toward what Z has, simply for the better format support. I dunno, we'll see. It all kind of depends on stuff.
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I'm starting to lean toward what Z has, simply for the better format support. I dunno, we'll see. It all kind of depends on stuff.
Not to derail the thread.. but:
Video
Video Playback Formats AVI/WMV/ASF/MP4/MKV/MPG/MPEG/VOB/DAT/MTV/OGM
Video Recording ASF
Images / Text Viewer
Images Formats BMP/JPEG/GIF/TIFF/PNG/RAW
Text Formats TXT
Digital Audio
Supported Audio Formats MP3/ASF/WMA/FLAC/OGG/M4A/MKA/TTA/APE/MPC/WV/WAV
No DRM, no special program needed, works like a USB 2.0 hard drive when plugged in. Copy/paste. RECORDS FUCKING TV, RADIO, VOICE, LINE-IN.
/cum
Also, I like zunes. gotta cupple buddies that gottum. one of em gooses me around a little bit sumtiems, but 's ok. Great choice sq3r.
I need to make product suggestions (as in requests for suggestions) in s.net more often. fuck.
Edits, smilies, and parentheses:
I forgot to mention that my shit can connect to a digital camera/zune/iPod/pretty much any USB device and copy files (music, pictures, whatever) from/onto it.
"Oh shit, you have that album?! May I copy it to mine?"
"Can I save that picture onto my mp3 player?"
Pretty much fucking awesome. Ok seriously, bedtime. bye guys. Oh, and I'm sorry. Mine gets me fucking happy, but it's a shitload of moolah for 60 gb. Idk, it makes me really happy and I can't help but share. (vlad's tv)
one more edit: i can convert pdf's into this extension called csv, cvs, vsc, or some shit and view them that way. apparently adobe is like. "no, my formats!"
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Scary, I've been an iPod guy for years, now I might actually have to get a Zune if/when I have the money for it...
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That one Zakamiro linked to looks super-awesome, but has a lot more than I need at the moment. I was just looking for something that could hold most, if not all of my music collection (yay for 80GB) and a few videos. Also, I don't have that much money to spend right now.
Oh yeah, I turned this thread into general mp3 player discussion since that seems to be what it has evolved into.
Does anyone here own an iPod Touch?
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I've got friends (twins, actually) who were given iPod Touch's as a gift from their boss. Those things are pretty fucking badass.
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HAY GUESS WHAT!!!!
My Zune won't turn on. I haven't dropped it or gotten it wet or let any harm come to it, but not matter what I do, it won't turn on. The hold isn't on, reset doesn't work, my computer doesn't detect it, turning it on with the play/pause button doesn't work. Nothing is on the screen, and there's nothing I can think of to do.
Why the god damn fuck does this stuff always happen to me? Why can't technology just WORK? What the hell am I supposed to do?
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I'd google that. Same sort of thing happened to my iPods before, and it usually involved using some reset mechanism they had included and that would fix it for a while.
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My Zune won't turn on. I haven't dropped it or gotten it wet or let any harm come to it, but not matter what I do, it won't turn on. The hold isn't on, reset doesn't work, my computer doesn't detect it, turning it on with the play/pause button doesn't work. Nothing is on the screen, and there's nothing I can think of to do.
This page (http://zuneinsider.com/archive/2007/02/07/how-to-reset-your-zune.aspx) recommends holding back and the up button on the d-pad. If that's what you when you say "reset," then...uh.
Aside from that, try taking it back to the store for a replacement. It could just be a bad unit.
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Yeah I spent about twenty minutes looking through Google results and nothing helped. It seems quite a few other people have the same problem...
God damn.
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Well I got myself a new Zune, so I'm glad that's over with.
I should note that the Zune software is kind of shitty. It's really slow and unresponsive a lot of times. Even if you turn all the fancy screen animations off. It takes forever to sync the damn thing, too. You can't use any other software to manage the content on it, which is annoying. There are third-party programs people have made that supposedly allows you to use Winamp and something else with it, but not iTunes. Also, I haven't managed to get the wireless sync to work.
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Here's some info about a program that'll let you use WMP11:
http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/21/zalternator-opens-up-your-zune-to-wmp11-itunes-sync/ (http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/21/zalternator-opens-up-your-zune-to-wmp11-itunes-sync/)
From what I've used of the Zune software (i.e. enabling media sharing with the Xbox 360 before I realized that WMP11 does it better), WMP11 is considerably better.
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Well the thing is, I have my iTunes very organized, and to transfer all that to WMP11 would take too much time and effort.
Relating to that, I have found something about the Zune I am not liking, and that is how you can't edit song information ON the device, as opposed to in the software.
When I want to find some music to listen to, I always browse by artist, and then album, but when it lists ALL the artists in the meta data (is this right term?) of each song on the thing, it gets really annoying. If you don't get what I mean, take Aphex Twin for example. I know that he has a lot of other aliases, but I only want ONE artist labeled "Aphex Twin" and not "Aphex Twin (aka AFX)" and "Aphex Twin (aka GAK)" and "Aphex Twin (aka Q-Chastic)" etc. to avoid clutter. But unlike with the iPod, you can't edit the music info IN the Zune, and it doesn't sync to the Zune if you do it in the software. I spent about ten minutes going through all my music and consolidating all the random artists (what's particular painful is working with mixes that has an artist for each song in the mix) and then I start syncing and find that I have a list of all these random artists that only have one or two songs to it.
Also, another example would be that I have a bunch of classical piano, which is organized by year, and the genius who put the thing together put the year the song was composed at the beginning of the title, so I have like, fifty "artists" that start with fuckin' years.
IT SUCKS
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I don't know of a single MP3 player that allows you to edit song information on the device itself. I know you can't do that on the iPod (you can't even make playlists on the iPod). I dunno, maybe you can on the Touch, but I wouldn't pay a hefty premium just so I could edit metadata on a touchscreen keyboard (oh, and browse the Internet...because that's...useful).
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Oh no I mean through the Zune software interface. With the iPod, having it plugged in, you can change song info through iTunes for the songs ON the iPod, right? Well you can't do that with the Zune software. The only options you have in the "device" tab for music (or anything) are to copy it to your computer or delete it.