This MP3 lark

[greencreeper]

Originally Posted by nffc

You'll get more than that- at 192 Kb/s (a decent bitrate and manageable size), a CD is about 100 MB...

Oh that's good. Smashing

[Halcyon]

To answer your question about ITunes.
Yes, most Ipods come with it on the CD.
But you are probably best to download it and get the most up to date version.

NOTE: I dont know if it has been sorted out in the latest Ipods, but older ones will pause briefly between tracks to rebuffer the memory.
This is annoying if you listen to DJ mix CD's or a CD that goes from one track to another without a pause. The Ipod will put a small tiny half second pause between tracks.

[nffc]

Originally Posted by Halcyon

To answer your question about ITunes.
Yes, most Ipods come with it on the CD.
But you are probably best to download it and get the most up to date version.

NOTE: I dont know if it has been sorted out in the latest Ipods, but older ones will pause briefly between tracks to rebuffer the memory.
This is annoying if you listen to DJ mix CD's or a CD that goes from one track to another without a pause. The Ipod will put a small tiny half second pause between tracks.

My CD-R reading MP3/WMA/ATRAC/everyf*ckerelse walkman does, I ended up editing tracks together that were supposed to run together with Audacity...

[SMHarman]

Originally Posted by Halcyon

To answer your question about ITunes.
Yes, most Ipods come with it on the CD.
But you are probably best to download it and get the most up to date version.

When you install the version off the CD it checks with the interwotsit whether there is a newer one to download and asks if you want to do so.

Originally Posted by Halcyon

NOTE: I dont know if it has been sorted out in the latest Ipods, but older ones will pause briefly between tracks to rebuffer the memory.
This is annoying if you listen to DJ mix CD's or a CD that goes from one track to another without a pause. The Ipod will put a small tiny half second pause between tracks.

No and it is not likely to be, it is the machine reading the header information from the file so it can decode it properly.

[Lew]

One thing, iTunes will not run on Windows 98. It requires Windows 2000 or XP. IIRC, this is due to the requirement for Unicode support, which the 9x versions of Windows don't have.

[greencreeper]

Ta for the input so far - informative and useful. Reps will follow as usual.

I'm debating whether to go with Creative or Sony

I'm pretty certain there's a conspiracy. You want a pod thing, but no - need USB 2. So you have to buy a upgrade. Or, as in my case, you have to buy a whole new PC. It doesn't seem that long ago that things lasted and just worked - no complex compatability issues.

[nffc]

Just get one like mine- it reads CDs with MP3s on them, it also reads normal CDs so if I nip to buy a CD I can play it on my walkman without needing two.

And in all fairness, you'll get about 7 CDs on one blank CDR at 192 kb/s so that should be enough for any manageable visit, all your PC needs is a CD Writer, and no faffing around with iTunes/USB/owt else.

Mine also has a radio... it's a Sony so it takes ATRAC as well.

[cookie_365]

Originally Posted by greencreeper

Ta for the input so far - informative and useful. Reps will follow as usual.

I'm debating whether to go with Creative or Sony

I'm pretty certain there's a conspiracy. You want a pod thing, but no - need USB 2. So you have to buy a upgrade. Or, as in my case, you have to buy a whole new PC. It doesn't seem that long ago that things lasted and just worked - no complex compatability issues.

Which Sony? My Sony's (the 1GB flash player from about a year ago) gorgeous but the software's rubbish. It will work on Win 98se though, according to the blurb.

Don't know if they've recognised the existence of mp3s yet .. they try to make you use their ATRAC format (which of course, no-one else on the planet does )

[greencreeper]

Originally Posted by cookie_365

Which Sony? My Sony's (the 1GB flash player from about a year ago) gorgeous but the software's rubbish. It will work on Win 98se though, according to the blurb.

Don't know if they've recognised the existence of mp3s yet .. they try to make you use their ATRAC format (which of course, no-one else on the planet does )

This one - I like the shape: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...085415-2234274

The Creative ones have a radio though.

I'd probably only use it around the house and at work at the weekends, when it's quiet. I don't want anything bulky I have to lug round with me.

[ntl customer]

I'm pretty certain there's a conspiracy. You want a pod thing, but no - need USB 2. So you have to buy a upgrade. Or, as in my case, you have to buy a whole new PC. It doesn't seem that long ago that things lasted and just worked - no complex compatability issues.

You can usually get a PCI card with USB2 sockets on reasonably cheaply these days. I don't know whether the iPod will just not function on USB1, or whether it will just complain but work slowly.

Last time I know someone tried plugging in their iPod to a computer that has USB1 they kept on getting messages on screen saying that they needed Hi-Speed USB or something similar.

Don't know if they've recognised the existence of mp3s yet .. they try to make you use their ATRAC format

ATRAC is the proprietary compression scheme they use on Minidiscs. I believe the Minidisc was a Sony invention, but they've obviously licensed the technology out to other companies to make Minidisc products - i.e. Denon.

I suppose they feel that it's in some way superior to other compression technologies such as MP4 (AAC) and MP3. Betamax, anyone?

[SMHarman]

Originally Posted by ntl customer

ATRAC is the proprietary compression scheme they use on Minidiscs. I believe the Minidisc was a Sony invention, but they've obviously licensed the technology out to other companies to make Minidisc products - i.e. Denon.

I suppose they feel that it's in some way superior to other compression technologies such as MP4 (AAC) and MP3. Betamax, anyone?

Well Apples AAC encoding is also proprietary, so Sony is not exactly acting any different to Apple in this regard.
Sony have provided the ATRAC licences far more widely than Apple have the AAC licence. So far only Dell (who have since given up I belive) have created a AAC decoding player.

IMHO ATRAC is a superior compression technology, it is at least equal to AAC.

[cookie_365]

Originally Posted by greencreeper

This one - I like the shape: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...085415-2234274

The Creative ones have a radio though.

I'd probably only use it around the house and at work at the weekends, when it's quiet. I don't want anything bulky I have to lug round with me.

I like that one too; very cute And the Sony website implies it works directly with mp3s (my 1 year old NW-E99 can, sort of, using a really crappy file manager (imagine the one on windows 3.1 but less easy to use and with only a tenth of the features) though it turns up its nose to some mp3s so I have to convert them to ATRAC instead )
__________________

Originally Posted by SMHarman

Well Apples AAC encoding is also proprietary, so Sony is not exactly acting any different to Apple in this regard.
Sony have provided the ATRAC licences far more widely than Apple have the AAC licence. So far only Dell (who have since given up I belive) have created a AAC decoding player.

IMHO ATRAC is a superior compression technology, it is at least equal to AAC.

Yes, ATRAC is good if you rip directly from CD to ATRAC, but no-one does this. What people actually do is convert mp3s. And when you convert from mp3 you lose some of the quality, and you end up with an mp3 version and an ATRAC version of the same track clogging up HD space.
__________________

Originally Posted by ntl customer

ATRAC is the proprietary compression scheme they use on Minidiscs. I believe the Minidisc was a Sony invention, but they've obviously licensed the technology out to other companies to make Minidisc products - i.e. Denon.

I suppose they feel that it's in some way superior to other compression technologies such as MP4 (AAC) and MP3. Betamax, anyone?

And it's what you get if you download from Sony's Connect site - DRM and all

[SMHarman]

Originally Posted by cookie_365

What people actually do is convert mp3s. And when you convert from mp3 you lose some of the quality, and you end up with an mp3 version and an ATRAC version of the same track clogging up HD space.

But it (and the apple play MP3s so why (apart from the problem you mention).
So converting MP3 (a poorer relation to ATRAC) to ATRAC highlights faults in the resampling process or highlights that you have converted a lossy sound into a less lossy sound and can hear the difference, same as converting an MP3 to a AAC.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by cookie_365

Which Sony? My Sony's (the 1GB flash player from about a year ago) gorgeous but the software's rubbish. It will work on Win 98se though, according to the blurb.

Don't know if they've recognised the existence of mp3s yet .. they try to make you use their ATRAC format (which of course, no-one else on the planet does )

The sony NW-HD5 (don't know about the other Sonys) does handle MP3s directly. Still has to convert WMAs though .

[SMHarman]

Originally Posted by Stuart C

The sony NW-HD5 (don't know about the other Sonys) does handle MP3s directly. Still has to convert WMAs though .

As does an iPod.