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Music Media Hardware

iRiver Adds Ogg To Audio Player Firmware 210

Posted by simoniker from the oi-oi-oi dept.
Sesse writes "iRiver has just released firmware updates for its iFP-300T and iFP-500T flash memory-based audio player series. According to a news story on their site, this update includes features 'supporting the Ogg file format', so it looks like iRiver can finally be added to the quickly growing list of Vorbis-capable hardware!"
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iRiver Adds Ogg To Audio Player Firmware More

iRiver Adds Ogg To Audio Player Firmware

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  • But (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @08:16PM (#7805862)
    Does it play ogg?

  • great (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    one more nail in the coffin of recording artists. not that i'm suprised. take a moment to think about the poor musicians freezing out in the street while you sit around the fire sipping eggnog and listening to pirated music on your new MP3 play this christmas you smug fucks.

    • Re:great (Score:2, Insightful)

      by ivern76 ( 665227 )
      What are you smoking, chief? I rip every CD I own to .ogg format, because lugging around a backpack full of CD's isn't an option. When will people understand that music files aren't just for pirates?

  • and just in time for christmas... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I wish I'd known about this only 2 or 3 hours ago, I could have picked something up for my special someone.

  • Looks good. (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Sheetrock ( 152993 )
    I like that they're committed enough to their consumers that they're willing to make new-feature changes to the firmware rather than release a new version and charge for it. That does say something for the company.

    One thing to note, though, is that if you encode your Ogg to reasonable quality (500Kbps) this patch isn't going to support you, so you will have to use a converter (they will soon provide for free) to actually downsample the music. I guess it's portable, so it isn't like I'm listening to the

    • Re:Looks good. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Josh Booth ( 588074 ) <joshbooth2000 AT yahoo DOT com> on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @08:45PM (#7805995)
      How is 500 kbps reasonable quality? It is damn close to the maximum it can go. As an example, I just encoded a pseudo-random song (okay, it was "Bring Me To Life" by Evanescence) and I only got 475 kbps anyway, using "oggenc -q 10" The WAV is 41.8 MB, the FLAC is 30.5 MB and the Ogg Vorbis is 14.1 MB (numbers truncated). I doubt that a portable player would even be able to output something with that kind of quality and not being in an quiet/acoustically perfect room, let alone using headphones/earbuds. Oh, and I use "oggenc -q 6"

    • Re:Looks good. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by verloren ( 523497 ) on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @08:48PM (#7806012)
      Putting aside the fact that on a portable device you generally don't need really high quality files because of the listening situations you're often in...

      500kbps is not 'reasonable quality' for Oggs. The encoder isn't tuned particularly well about about 200kbps, so anything higher is only giving marginal improvements and wasting a lot of space. Add to that the fact that above 160kbps Ogg becomes tricky to differentiate from the original, and certainly by 192 or thereabouts it's as close to perfect as it's likely to get.
      • The default encoder isn't well tuned for anything over around 150kbps even. My guess is these ~200kbps oggenc.exe GT3b2 files I am listening to right now sound better than the 500kbps ones this guy is listening to.
  • the IMP series (though not sure which models) is what I'm waiting for. If that wasn't promised, I'd try to find a reader in Korea who'd be willing to help me import a Samsung Yepp ogg-capable CD player.

    Shame about the 96kbs floor, though -- that's far more than I need for audiobooks. Still, CDs are cheap enough I should not complain.

    timothy

    • Why not just get a Karma? My Dad got one for my brother the other day and now I'm thinking about killing him so I can have it. It is so much nicer than my Neuros. The only thing I'd miss would be the ability to record and the FM broadcast, but we can't have everything we want. Anyway, I loaded all of my Vorbis stuff onto it and it plays great. I synced it with my stuff because my brother owns like half of the same music I do and the Windows box doesn't have enough disk space to be able to rip onto; my uncle

      • a) AA batteries :) I may be a loon, but I get annoyeder and annoyeder at custom-shape li-ion and other batteries that I can't replace cheaply. (Even though they're great technology and often admirably suited to certain tasks.) I want to be able (if necessary) to stick in AAs from the corner store and (generally) to stick in rechargeables.

        b) hard drives. Yes, a hard drive can hold a lot more than a CD, and I'm not generally going to be carrying 30 CDs of Ogg Vorbis files around, but I still like the flexibi
      • Why not just get a Karma?

        Beats me - I just did.

    • If that wasn't promised, I'd try to find a reader in Korea who'd be willing to help me import a Samsung Yepp ogg-capable CD player.

      Hey, that sounds like a certain Nigerian scam!

      But with Koreans. And Ogg.

  • iRiver sure, but what about Apple? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by PipianJ ( 574459 ) on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @08:25PM (#7805907)
    If Apple is so pro-open source, when are they going to add Ogg Vorbis to the iPod?
    • Because Apple is only pro-open source to the extent that it makes them more profitable. Ogg doesn't do that.
      • Exactly. That's also why why you'll never see Quicktime for Linux. Where is the profit in making Linux a more viable option? Apple's nightmare is Adobe fully supporting Linux. Jobs would shit himself. Of the opensource Apple uses its only to save money on R&D and jump on the OpenSource bandwagon. Nothing to be upset about, but they are certain no ally to Linux and opensource.

    • Re:iRiver sure, but what about Apple? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Mwongozi ( 176765 ) <slashthree&davidglover,org> on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @08:30PM (#7805928) Homepage
      When there is enough demand. Currently, Linux geeks are pretty much the only people who have even heard of Vorbis.
      • Linux geeks? Well, then Apple wouldn't benefit from adding Ogg support, I mean, who ever heard of a Linux geek wanting a small, portable, music player + portable hard drive?

        No no no, Apple doesn't want their money. They can give it to iRiver or someone.

      • Pratchett (Score:4, Funny)

        by bstadil ( 7110 ) on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @08:40PM (#7805979) Homepage
        Linux geeks are pretty much the only people who have even heard of Vorbis.

        You do not have to use Linux to appreciate Vorbis [amazon.co.uk];-)

      • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @10:23PM (#7806281)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • Why would you want to flood the market with another audio standard when MP3 is the defacto standard everyone has come to know and love.

          It's worse than that. Apple could push a free, open, DRM-free standard if they wanted too. With Apple behind it, ogg could gain some traction in the marketplace.

          It's not going to happen.

          As far as I can tell, Apple doesn't really even like MP3. They'd like us to move over to thier own format, full of proprietary DRM goodness. Promoting or even supporting another open form
        • Why would you want to flood the market with another audio standard when MP3 is the defacto standard everyone has come to know and love?

          Because MP3 is proprietary. Ogg Vorbis is free, in every sense of the word. It's also technically better, which is nice.

          • "Why would you want to flood the market with another audio standard when MP3 is the defacto standard everyone has come to know and love?"


            Because MP3 is proprietary. Ogg Vorbis is free, in every sense of the word. It's also technically better, which is nice.


            Ok, rephrased; why would it make financial sense for a company to flood the market with another audio standard when MP3 is the defacto standard everyone has come to know and love?
      • Currently, Linux geeks are pretty much the only people who have even heard of Vorbis.

        I don't use Linux, but I prefer Vorbis because it sounds better for the same file size as an mp3, and I know that Fraunhofer will never be able to start charging royalties on Vorbis [en/de]coders.
      • How much demand was there for AC3 before the ipod.
        (Hint: none)

        Apple users will take whatever Jobs shovels at them, assuming the quality is acceptable and its "blessed" by Apple.

        The real asnwer is this: DRM.
        They wont offer unencumbered format support, aside from those with massive user demand (read MP3), if they dont have to.

        Think of the iPod as a tie in to iTunes music store, they certainly want to steer you towards the encumbered formats.

        If quality was the only concern, it would be ogg+vorbis support w
        • Ummm.

          (a) You're confusing AC-3 with AAC. Two totally different beasts. DVDs use AC-3, while the iPod uses AAC.

          (b) The 'l33t' audiophiles were using AAC long before Apple decided to add support to the iPod. Granted, it wasn't anywhere near as popular as MP3, or even Vorbis, but there was some demand. Actually, my RioVolt's (circa 1999 or so?) instruction manual has an entry about AAC in the glossary, heh.

          (c) Though the rest of your post may be fairly correct (especially the part about why they'll go wi

          • (a)- right, i mixed up those acronyms.

            (b)- I would imagine leet audiophiles think even CD's are already lossily encoded, much less accept more loss on top of that.

            (c)- vorbis and mp3 are competing for the compressed music niche, if you want high bitrates switch to flac or something.
        • > Think of the iPod as a tie in to iTunes music store, they certainly want to steer you towards...

          Lol. The iTMS doesn't make any money. You've got it backwards. The iTMS is a trojan horse to sell iPods, not the other way around. Supporting OGG or WMA on the iPod wouldn't hurt Apple (except in the pride department with WMA). On the other hand, what Apple won't ever do is offer WMA downloads from the iTMS, because the only reason iTMS exists is to sell iPods. Offering WMA files would allow people to use t
    • Probably the same time they add WMA support ;)

    • Re:iRiver sure, but what about Apple? (Score:5, Informative)

      by phoxix ( 161744 ) on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @09:22PM (#7806116)
      I can't believe people ask this question over and over again

      Apple's Ipod uses dedicated MP3 decoder and controller chip from PortalPlayer ...

      You can read all about the innards at: Inside The Apple Ipod Design Triumph [designchain.com]

      I'm not even an Ipod fan and I know this

      Sunny Dubey

      • Re:iRiver sure, but what about Apple? (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        That doesn't mean they can't support other formats. They implemented AAC without any insurmountable problems. And the iPodLinux [sourceforge.net] project got an ogg decoder running on it (albiet not quite in realtime, but close enough that it's pretty obvious it could be done with some optimisation work).
    • If Apple is so pro-open source, when are they going to add Ogg Vorbis to the iPod?

      In my opinion, never.

      The iPod can play MP3 files becuase without it, the iPod would be dead in the water. However, what Apple really want is for you to migrate over to iTunes and Apple's very own proprietary, DRM-encrusted format, where you don't really own the files and can't play them on your machine when you upgrade the motherboard, and suchlike drivel. Suprisingly, it seems to be working so far.

      Support for .ogg does n

  • yeah, but... (Score:3, Funny)

    by SuperBanana ( 662181 ) on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @08:26PM (#7805913)

    ...something tells me that hot redhead has no idea what an iRiver is, much less ogg-vorbis. I bet she knows what an iPod is!

    • ... which is why iPods are too lame for real geeks.

      I sold my iPod for an iRiver and never looked back. Better sound, better interface, AA batteries, excellent FM tuners and recorder.

      When everybody has an iPod, you know there's something better out there. Many iPod fans are simply too excited about the idea that they can afford it.
  • Just in time for Christmas!

    ...right?

  • How about adding AAC support? And making it work with iTunes?

  • We need more manufacturers supporting open formats (Score:5, Insightful)

    by karmawarrior ( 311177 ) on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @08:34PM (#7805953) Journal
    It's about time! The thing is, a standard and completely open compressed-audio file format is a critical component of creating a usable, civil, electronic audio distribution system. Right now, Ogg is the only player. MP3 is covered by patents - in fairness to Fraunhoffer, they never intended it to be used the way it is. AAC is likewise. Dolby's AC3 system, while good, is neither open nor good enough for basic music-based audio. Ogg is the only player.

    But producers of audio-playback devices are stuck with a problem: because the vast bulk of digital sound out there stored on PCs is in MP3 format, they have to support MP3, and both Microsoft and Apple are not helping by pushing users to their own particular patented formats, thus providing little incentive to support an open format. This causes problems: it encourages people to continue using the closed formats, and that in turn encourages manufacturers to only support the closed formats. This is wrong, seriously wrong, and serious issues of liberty - both personal and civil - are at stake here. For without an open format, the plug can be pulled.

    This quagmire of open formats dying because they need to dominate the market before they can dominate the market will not disappear by itself. Resources need to be devoted, and unless people are prepared to actually act, not just talk about it on Slashdot, nothing will ever get done. Apathy is not an option.

    You can help by getting off your rear and writing to your congressman [house.gov] or senator [senate.gov]. Tell them that free and open music is important to you. Tell them that you appreciate the work being done by the open source and free software communities to create an infrastructure that will support truly free - as in liberty - music, but that if the problem of lack of commercial support for open file formats is not resolved, you will be forced to use less and less secure and intelligently designed alternatives. Let them know that SMP may make or break whether you can efficiently deploy OpenBSD on your workstations and servers. Explain the concerns you have about freedom, openness, and choice, and how patented file formats harms all three. Let them know that this is an issue that effects YOU directly, that YOU vote, and that your vote will be influenced, indeed dependent, on their policies on open file formats.

    You CAN make a difference. Don't treat voting as a right, treat it as a duty. Keep informed, keep your political representatives informed on how you feel. And, most importantly of all, vote.

    • Remind me again how AAC, the audio codec from MPEG-4, is "their own patented format"? Explain also how AAC is somehow not "good enough for music[sic]-based audio"? How is it that Dolby labs, renown for their contributions to audio quality since the early 1970's (Dolby A, B, C, HX, etc. NR) are somehow not smart enough to help build a truly "audio-quality" codec?

      I'm obviously mistaking these guys as people who know something about audio. I suppose these are issues better settled by my congressman and/or sen

    • Re:We need more manufacturers supporting open form (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I hate to break it to you, but being patented and being open are not mutually exclusive.

      MP3 and ACC, like pretty much everything else that comes out of the MPEG, are pattented, but the formats are completely open and well documented complete with sample code.

      Their liscences are focused on getting money, for the algorythims they spent their time and money developing, from the people who make money off of their work: comercial software and streaming systems with thousands of clients. They generally don't c
    • What in the world does SMP on OpenBSD have to do with the rest of your long-winded comment?
    • MP3 is covered by patents - in fairness to Fraunhoffer, they never intended it to be used the way it is.
      How did they intend to use it? More to the point, what else is a lossy 10:1 compression scheme good for except to store/transmit files in places or on networks where size is a big issue? Like JPG, MP3 saves the common user from gigantic raw files by producing a very small, "good enough for most people" (quality-wise) file.

  • Expandable? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by abischof ( 255 ) * <alexNO@SPAMspamcop.net> on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @08:36PM (#7805961) Homepage

    It appears that these players only have internal flash memory. So, I'm guessing that they're not expandable?

    In any case, are these Mac compatible? If they can be setup as a universal-storage USB device (?), I would think so.

    • Re:Expandable? (Score:2, Informative)

      by ICA ( 237194 )
      Correct, these are not expandable.

      iRiver is great about releasing new firmware though, and it is very easy to upgrade. They release 2 different firmware actually, one which requires Windows software to interact with, the other of which makes the device appears as a USB Mass Storage Device (UMS). If you use the UMS firmware it will work perfectly in Linux, Mac, etc.

      (Note: This new firmware that supports ogg is only released in manager format, not UMS. The UMS version is coming soon according to the sit

  • Linux support more important than Ogg to me (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Ars-Fartsica ( 166957 ) on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @08:37PM (#7805964)
    I would like to see more direct support for linux for these players. The format issue to me is a non-issue - its well understood that mp3 is the de facto standard and regardless of comments here, it is how 99% of music files are encoded.

    Right now I am getting good use out of gnupod/gtkpod for my iPod, but would love to see more vendor support from day one for linux.

    • It seems like (unofficial) Linux support is coming along too. Many are USB mass storage devices, like the iRiver iHP-1[02]0 (but need special software to index by ID3/Ogg tags), Creative MuVo, and Archos thingies. The Rio Karma can be networked, although it may be a little limited. I'm sure there are others that are mass storage also, but almost all the other Creative offerings require special software.

      • The Rio Karma works well with GNU/Linux, but you have to install the actual Sun JDK (I guess Blackdown would probably work too, I don't use Java at all so I don't really know) to use it because the Java version of the software uses a few methods which haven't be implemented in GNU Classpath yet. You just bring it up on the network, set a network password, point your browser towards it, download the "Rio Manager Lite" software, unzip, and run.

        I'm thinking about getting one once GNU Classpath has better sup

      • like the iRiver iHP-1[02]0 (but need special software to index by ID3/Ogg tags)

        The IRiver IHP-120 does not need special software, you can index all files using the player itself.
  • so it looks like iRiver can finally be added to the quickly growing list of Vorbis-capable hardware!"

    Professor Voice: Good news everyone! Ogg Vorbis doubled their hardware list this year! There are now two compatible players. :)

    I kid, I kid. As an iPod owner and Windows/OS X user, MP3 and AAC meet my needs. I could get Vorbis players for my desktop and laptop computers, but I'd also miss out on tossing that odd MP3 file to a friend.

    I have a hard enough time trying to get my tech savvy friends to use an

  • Does this mean that iRiver has... (Score:3, Funny)

    by TimTheFoolMan ( 656432 ) on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @08:54PM (#7806032) Homepage Journal
    ...ogg on its face?

    Tim

  • Not a new thing for iRiver! (Score:4, Informative)

    by justinarthur ( 564449 ) on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @08:57PM (#7806040) Homepage
    Please note that iRiver has actually had a multimedia player capable of playing OGG Vorbis files for quite some time now. I refer to their iHP-120 [iriveramerica.com], their 20GB hard drive player. Nevertheless, it's nice to see OGG Vorbis support on their flash devices as well now.
  • This is not a company that's gone good all of a sudden, they're just doing this because they know that this will make you guys buy iRivers instead of iPods. Where were they when I wanted my Rio 500 firmwire update to the Mac? Nowhere. Rio didn't care jack about me who spent money on their product at all. Good luck guys...
    • This is not a company that's gone good all of a sudden, they're just doing this because they know that this will make you guys buy iRivers instead of iPods.

      Nothing's wrong with that. Making your product more desireable to customers is what makes capitalism work. I wish the RIAA understood that. If you sell people what they want for a price they are willing to pay then you are doing good.

      I started reripping my music collection to OggVorbis in anticipation of this release (which was announced a couple

  • Stupid iRiver. I love you so. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by NeGz ( 629279 ) <nicc&rk0n,org> on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @09:19PM (#7806110) Homepage Journal
    I bought myself a sexy iMP 350 about a year ago, and last night negotiated it's sale hoping to put the money towards a Creative Zen Xtra 30gb or MuVo2 1.5gb (anyone know somewhere in America that ships these internationally?) but now I'm having second thoughts.

    I love to put alot of research into products before I buy them, and the iRiver is one of the few products I've come across with *very* few negative reviews. It makes changing to a newer player kind of unnerving, especially with the kind of dedication the Firmware developers are putting in. Actually listening to customer requests.

    Incidentally, if any iRiver reps are listening, (IMO) you really need to redesign your HDD players, the features are so nice, but the design is so poor. Why an LCD on the main unit with the quality of iRiver remotes?

  • About Ogg support for their other devices (Score:5, Informative)

    by lintux ( 125434 ) <slashdot&wilmer,gaast,net> on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @09:26PM (#7806127) Homepage
    Here [iriver.com] you can see a list of all the devices they want to implement Ogg support for sooner or later. For some of the devices, it's never going to happen because of hardware limitations.

    As someone else here already said, the iMP-400 and iMP-550 (IIRC) will get Ogg support in January. I'm certainly looking forward to it. As soon as they release the firmware, I'm going to buy one of those devices, I guess.

    It looks like some things didn't really go as planned, with the iFP-300 support coming so quickly. But hey, isn't that good? :-)

  • Meh. (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Another company using a lower case "i" to iDentify iTself?
    The first time it was iNteresting.
    The second time it was iRritating
    Now it's just iDiotic.
  • Can someone help me understand these players? I'm confused by a few things about them...

    First off, why would anyone get a compactflash based player? CompactFlash is incredibly expensive.

    The second issue applies to (almost) any type of media.
    Sure, maybe now you don't have to bring a dozen CDs for your music, but you've only changed what you *do* have to carry around... Instead of carrying CDs, you have to carry tons of batteries, since the battery life on all solid-state digital players is terribly shor
    • Instead of carrying CDs, you have to carry tons of batteries, since the battery life on all solid-state digital players is terribly short.

      I can't speak for solid state, but my hard drive based, internal li-ion batteried Lyra gets 15 hours off a battery charge. 15 hours. That's almost as long as most people are awake during an average day. Listening to music the entire time.

      I'd guess that solid state devices use less power than ones with moving parts, so add to the 15 hours. I don't think carrying around
      • in my case it's not a dozen CDs. More like 1000 :)

        Well a dozen would hold more than enough to consume your entire battery-life.

        It's funny that you think 12Hr batterylife is good enough, but having 12 hours of music isn't... Hmm.

        But the situation remains. You are just swapping CDs with Batteries.
        • Slightly different issue. Well, entirely different.

          Come home, plug in mp3 player. Next day, it's charged. Every day, anything I want to listen to is at my fingertips.

          As opposed to, come home, try to decide what I want to listen to the next day, load it up, next day, hope I still want to listen to that.

          Night and day. Do people even think before they post anymore?
  • I use an i-Bead MP3/FM/Voice thingy to its full and record a lot of stuff on it (no ogg support yet though). I use it as a revision aid.

    For recording voice & FM it would be great to have a decent speech encoder instead of the inefficient ADPCM WAV available. If Vorbis only goes down to 96kbps on this thing then that is not suitable for voice. In fact, Vorbis is just about OK for voice at 8kbps (I tried it) but obviously Speex would be better.

    If the i-River had this facility I'd buy definitely buy it.

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