Tag: ogg

New Portable Ogg Players from iRiver

Ashley Bischoff9 Comments

Reading over the hardware section of the [Ogg] Vorbis wiki, I’ve discovered that iRiver is due to release some new portable Ogg players this month. Sure, there are other Ogg players available, but I haven’t found any with native OSX support — until now. In addition to the Mac support, these new portables have some other nifty features:

  • Uses 1 AA battery, for 40 hrs claimed battery life
  • FM radio with timer-based recordings
  • Firmware upgradable

So, why am I jazzed about Oggs? Well, in addition to their higher sound quality at a given bitrate, Oggs also have the advantage of being patent-free — patent-encumbered mp3s could have their license changed at any time. And, since none of my own music is digitized yet, I’m not locked into a format for music already on my hard drive.

So far, the Craft 2 (as they call it) looks like a decent player. But, I’m a bit torn by its flash-based storage. Though the product isn’t widely available at online retailers yet, it is listed in iRiver’s online store and the 1 GB model has a list price of $400 (gulp). For that price I could get a 20 GB iPod!

Maybe I wouldn’t mind paying such a premium for flash if there were distinct benefits over a hard drive-based player. Normally, flash-based players would be less prone to skipping (since they can’t skip) but, from what I’ve heard, hard drive-based players are rugged enough that they hardly skip in the first place. Really, it looks like battery life would be its main benefit. And I’m just not sure whether that's enough to justify its price. Or… are there any other flash benefits of which I’m not aware?

MP3/Ogg Player for Palm Tungsten T

Ashley Bischoff1 Comment

Palm InfoCenter reports that Aerodrome Software has released AeroPlayer v1.0, which can play both MP3 and Ogg files:

Aeroplayer only runs on the Palm Tungsten T and requires at least 150k of free memory. Audio files can be transferred through hotsync or with an external card reader. The app is $16 shareware. […]

It’s too bad that it’s not free, but it may be one of the few shareware programs worth paying for (not that I steal shareware — if I find an app too expensive, I simply don’t use the program).

What’s especially nice is the device-convergence angle: with a Tungten T and this app, you wouldn't need to carry around both a PDA and an MP3/Ogg player.

Pleasantly, Palm has also dropped the price on the Tungsten T by $100, to a list price of $399. Not that I can afford one either way ;), but at least I can more easily buy one once my job prospects improve.

Quintessential Player

Ashley BischoffLeave a comment

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it previously, but my current CD/Ogg/MP3 player of choice is Quintessential Player. I was never much a fan of Winamp — if only because its fixed-pixel interface becomes concerningly small at 1600x1200. But, don’t worry, Quintessential Player still supports skinz.

I used to use FreeAmp, but its interface always had little quirks to it. And, at the moment, I can’t even get its webpage to resolve (I hope it”s not dead).

Of course, I prefer the sound quality of CDs for everyday listening, but Quintessential Player suits my needs when I have an Ogg to play. And, it’s also freeware (I don't deal with shareware anymore, these days).

Ogg Vorbis goes gold

Ashley BischoffLeave a comment

As mentioned at The Register, “Ogg Vorbis goes gold” today.

For music fans the hope is that major hardware vendors will back the format, which is promoted as offering higher quality playback in less space than MP3. [...]

However, the code isn’t quite ready for download by the masses:

News of the release came to us in an email from Reg reader Douglas Gore, who told us: “Ogg Vorbis officially become version 1.0 today as announced on the developers mailing list, they haven't announced this officially yet as they are preparing it for full release, but the code is in the CVS and already people have compiles of the final code floating around in the Internet.” [...]

The big-win for me is that Ogg isn’t encumbered by patents, unlike mp3.