Blogging Ottinger (tim)

I guess it’s time.

I was copying files to my old Zaurus 5500 and playing them there, which was nice because it plays ogg and mp3, so it’s compatible with all my music. It has a display, and is rechargeable, but its player makes me play songs only from the beginning. Fine for music, but when you have to stop in the middle of a multi-hour Linux Linc Tech Show and then have to restart from the beginning, it’s very annoying. I think it’s going to have to be used for music. It also stinks for video. It’s not really powerful enough to avoid serious video lag. I think its day is done.

So I have this 512MB Creative Muvo with no display. It’s small and it doesn’t do ogg files, but it’s very portable and has the ability to resume a program. Still 512M is not very much. I’ve written some code to generate playlists and to copy playlists to the device, but a drive to Evanston would use up all the storage for me.

I have been using my laptop as a portable media player, sort-of. I’m running XUbuntu and there are a variety of media players. I always have it near, so I can hear my music or watch my DVDs or google videos (or PD movies from http://publicdomaintorrents.com) It holds more songs and movies than my poor 512MB. Amarok does a nice job (as do VLC and XMMS) and I can watch DVDs and the like. It is nice that I can turn it on and leave it between the seats in the van (or in the passenger seat of the car) and the built-in speakers will work well enough for Old Time Radio programs and talk. It’s not a hi-fi system. It is also not as compact and inconspicuous as I’d like, and only has about 5 or 6 hours of battery. That’s great for a laptop, lousy for an mp3 player.

So now I’m looking at current media players. I am going to pass on the iPods because I like being non-mainstream, and would like to put my money into linux-based devices if at all possible. I will consider getting a used/refurbished ipod to run RockBox on.

Whatever I get, I want it to be largish, and to play mp3, ogg, and avi files. I think that watching the latest “Radar Men from the Moon” or B monster movie on a handheld might be cool on some cross-country flight.
I think that I want at least 20GB storage, and a screen I can see. So the next trick is to look for a model that might work.

ZDNet has a ratherextensive listing of players. Xiph has a rather focused listing of ogg players also. A cool rundown of PMP is at PVP 4 U.

• Zune I don’t think so. No ogg, and apparently DRM-ed to the hilt. Wireless capability is appealing, though. If they get it worked out, I might want to get one eventually. I own some microsoft keyboards and don’t feel bad about it. A good product is a good product. Still, even Engadget (MS fanboys that they are) weren’t overwhelmed with the Zune. I’ve heard more bad than good, even from sites that aren’t Apple-happle. I mean “happy”.
• Archos has models that I’m definitely interested in. My friend Sam had one a few years back, and really liked it at the time. The 504 is not cheap, but where else do you find one with 160GB storage? Archos has the Linux advantage, as I believe all their players are running on a linux kernel. Kinda extra sheen of geeky cool for me.
• GoDot has a few players I’m perusing.
• The Digital Cube T43 PMP is another linux-powered marvel. It has a less exciting, slick form factor. It looks like a tiny television set.
• The Wolverine ESP has quite a lot of storage, but we’re still looking at the high end of the price spectrum, I think. How much should I be willing to pay for a portable entertainment device?
• Gamepark Holding’s GP2X is rather exciting to me. It’s linux based, does divx video, ogg, mp3, all the usual suspects. But it’s not a PMP, it’s a handheld game console. I found a US dealer and was a little surprised with the low price. Why haven’t we heard of this before? This bears further investigation
• Samsung Yepp has a few models I’m interested in. I’ll drop a few here (eventually):
  • Samsung Yepp-920GS Napster 20GB MP3 Player looks pretty good, doesn’t do video. Ogg and Audible formats are supported. I’m not keen on the Napster name, it means too many bad things.
• iRiver has many models, and I hear that they tend to work very well with linux.
  • iHP-120 has 20GB, ogg, no avi. Still in the running. Also can run RockBox.
  • The H320 is supposed to be great, but a little on the pricey side. Also reported good Linux support.
  • the H300 is described on a wikipedia page. This seems to fill the bill.
• Winner of the “most likely to be sued for a name change” category is the Innopod, which is only 4GB and only audio, but for all that seems quite nice.
• The Creative Zen Vision is another 30GB monster that looks pretty promising
• iAudio M5 (20GB) got pretty good reviews. No video, but all the music features I was wanting. Hmmm.
• JetAudio also has something called iAudio — hmmm… It has features common to this genre.
• Coby
• MVix
• Meizu has the coolest 2GB player I’ve ever seen. I am talking iPod cool, but with ogg and the like. I won’t have a 2GB player because I want to put a lot of music on, but it’s quite the cool little device.
• Cowon has a large number of low-cost devices. The music players are very affordable. I was impressed with that, but also with how common it was for them to support 0gg. They’re pretty nice-looking devices.
  • I like iAUDIO X5L as an mp3 player with pretty good storage (20GB) for $250.00. Apparently can do some video formats, too. I’ve seen good reviews for the device, and can consider it in the running.
  • The A2 (20GB) looks pretty good too, but it’s really not very cheap.
• Rio has the Karma, which has a kind of functional cool rather than the aesthetic cool you see in some other models. It includes an ethernet port (hmmm) and usb. It has 20GB and a/v out built in as well. The screen size is pretty decent, too.

I don’t know which of these I’d choose right now, or even what I’ll be willing to spend for them (when I get around to buying one) but I think that they’re mighty exciting. I will eventually settle on one.