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Music Media Portables Hardware

New Generation of MP3 Players, New Features 406

Posted by timothy from the does-one-of-them-play-ogg dept.
i4u writes "We got our hands on new Flash MP3 Players from two Korean Manufactures. Both players feature audio functions not seen in MP3 Player before, like SRS, WOW and TruBass. The Muzio JM-200 uses a two color OLED display. The Eratech EMP-100 is betting on small size with measurements of only 30x75x16mm." The larger (and stranger looking) JM-200 also lists ogg playback as a feature.
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New Generation of MP3 Players, New Features More

New Generation of MP3 Players, New Features

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  • The US always the last to get cool stuff (Score:5, Insightful)

    by solarmist ( 313127 ) * <(joshua.olson) (at) (gmail.com)> on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @10:41AM (#9631842)
    It's funny how a lot of the "cool" stuff takes forever to get to the states. I mean MP3's players like this have been standard since I got here in Jan and probably long before that. You'll see grandma's on the bus with these guys.

    Why is it that when it comes to tech like this, or cell phones or cool laptops that we always have to wait years???
    • Not that I know anything about it, but it could be that the products have to be tested against US standards for EMI, etc. or redesigned so they are compatible with a different electricity distribution system.
    • Why is it that when it comes to tech like this, or cell phones or cool laptops that we always have to wait years???

      Why is it that when we have tech like proportionally spaced fonts some people refuse to use it, even after it has been around for years?

    • UL testing, among other things. I used to work at Sony Electronics, and about half of the Japan imports failed UL testing - the first run of VAIO laptops actually caught fire - as in flames like a Christmas hearth - when they were first brought to SEL Park Ridge back in 1997.

      UL stress testing replicates a lot of the unimaginably stupid things users do to their devices.
    • Cool laptops? You can't get those anywhere.
      Only bollock burner specials these days.
    • It's because the major tech manufacturing/fabrication centers are in China, Korea, Japan. Usually the parent company is there too, so we've got major corporations, convienent manufacturing capabilities and a market place of over 1 Billion people. That more than anything is why we don't get this stuff for years. What they do is create a flurry of hi-tech gadgets and use their 1 Billion+ peoples as a test market. The best features make it into the U.S. and European markets, but waaaay after they were first in

    • Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff (Score:4, Interesting)

      by dpbsmith ( 263124 ) on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @12:16PM (#9632874) Homepage
      The U. S. has had a good long run as global superpower, over half a century. The British Empire wasn't at its peak for that long.

      "Waiting for the cool (technological) stuff" is one of a number of signs that the U. S. may be at about the peak of its power and influence, and a slight decline may have already started.

      Computer technology is not a secret, and all the manufacturing is now being done overseas. We should not be surprised that the U.S. is no longer the dominant innovator.

      The U. S. is no longer the dominant winner of Nobel prices in the sciences, either.

      I am starting to see signs of Japanese cultural influence in the U. S. "Hello Kitty" merchandise, anime, etc. After years in which the rest of the world bought Jordache blue jeans and watched "I Love Lucy" and "Miami Vice," I think the tide is starting to turn there, too.

      • Re:The US always the last to get cool stuff (Score:4, Informative)

        by ceswiedler ( 165311 ) * <chris@swiedler.org> on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @12:23PM (#9632945)
        The British Empire was most certainly as dominating a power as the US for at least a half-century. By definition, nothing is at its peak for more than a moment.
      • I am starting to see signs of Japanese cultural influence in the U. S.

        I am starting to see signs of Italian cultural influence in the U. S. "Sopranos" merchandise, pizza, etc.

        I am starting to see signs of Mexican cultural influence in the U. S. Latin pop music, tex-mex restaraunts, etc.

        Etc.

        The problem, of course, is that as a so-called melting pot -- how much things "melt" is debatable, and maybe "tossed salad" is a better metaphor, but whatever -- the U.S. exhibits lots of non-local cultural influences.

        The thing is, these influences may or may not have any bearing on how dominant the amalgamated American culture is in other places.

        A better indicator would be how American vs. [other] cultural artifacts are being adopted in other parts of the world. For examples, what movies were biggers hits in Jakarta, Nairobi, Lagos, Lima, Buenos Aires, etc: Lord of the Rings & Finding Nemo, or Shaolin Soccer & Spirited Away? What ethnic foods are more popular -- hamburgers or sushi? What languages are more popular in schools?

        You'll learn far more about which culture is more popular by looking abroad than you will by looking at what is happening in the USA.

  • USB speeds? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by thesp ( 307649 ) on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @10:41AM (#9631845)
    These seem to be USB 1.1 devices. For all the snazzy features, high-speed data transfer should be a priority.

    • Re:USB speeds? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by meringuoid ( 568297 ) on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @10:46AM (#9631906)
      USB 2.0 probably wouldn't be such a big deal on a Flash player. Hard disk players need it, though.

      TruBass not seen before on an MP3 player, though? I'm pretty sure I've got it on my (ogg-playing, DRM-unencumbered, fully Slashdot-politically-correct) iHP-140...

      • Re:USB speeds? (Score:3, Informative)

        by benito27uk ( 646600 )
        You have indeed, and you've got SRS and WOW as well on the really rather spiffy iHP-140

        • Re:USB speeds? (Score:3, Interesting)

          by meringuoid ( 568297 )
          Quite so. Unfortunately when I had TruBass switched on I quickly discovered the inadequacies of my car's sound system...

          I'm going to have to get hold of a copy of 'The Antisocial Urban Driver's Handbook on Making your Car into a Bloody Great Boom-Box' to make best use of this thing.

          Note: I an entirely unaffiliated with iRiver, but they do make some damn fine mp3 players.

          • Re:USB speeds? (Score:5, Informative)

            by Durandal64 ( 658649 ) on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @11:20AM (#9632275)
            TruBass is not an indicator of how good your car's stereo system is, to be frank. Effects like TruBass do DSP magic on the audio, and it's been my experience that such effects (ProLogic, TruBass, Circle-SRS) fuck the audio up royally. You should only use something like ProLogic or C-SRS if the stream was meant for it, like the Dolby Surround tracks on some DVDs (mostly TV shows), which were specifically encoded for ProLogic channel reproduction.

            But using things like TruBass is basically worthless. Your car's stereo system is probably fine. The DSP that TruBass does just happens to introduce a ton of artifacts into the sound that may or may not be perceptible, depending on what kind of music it is. For example, try listening to piano music with TruBass or Circle-SRS. It'll sound awful.

            Just stick with 2-channel stereo and mirror the front two channels to the back two in your car. You'll have a much fuller sound field, and you won't be fucking with the original sound any.
      • No, it matters for a flash player as well. I have an old lyra, and it's ungodly slow copying files over. And that's only with 256 megs of memory. I gotta start it and leave. Which sucks when you're tryin' to change out some songs right before going snowboarding.

  • WOW? (Score:5, Funny)

    by sulli ( 195030 ) * on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @10:42AM (#9631851) Journal
    What's next, flutter?

  • flash MP3 players? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jbellis ( 142590 ) * <jonathan@carDEBI ... com minus distro> on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @10:43AM (#9631864) Homepage
    how 1990s :)

    seriously though anecdotal evidence suggests that the new HD-based devices are fine even for jogging. I guess the only niche left after that is if you need something even smaller than an IPod Mini...
    • I completely agree. I can't see a single usage for a flash-based player. They are virtually indistinguishable on price and features (except for the low end) and in almost every case, the HD models have vastly more space.
    • Yep, I need something smaller than an iPod Mini. In fact, I had something smaller than an iPod Mini, that cost $60, 128M, MP3 playback, looked like a disk drive to the computer, my daughter broke the USB connection too many times until I couldn't fix it... I've been looking for a replacement since.

      • Re:flash MP3 players? (Score:5, Funny)

        by Like2Byte ( 542992 ) <Like2Byte@yah3.14159oo.com minus pi> on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @11:19AM (#9632265) Homepage

        Yep, I need something smaller than an iPod Mini. In fact, I had something smaller than an iPod Mini, that cost $60, 128M, MP3 playback, looked like a disk drive to the computer, my daughter broke the USB connection too many times until I couldn't fix it... I've been looking for a replacement since.

        Good luck on finding your new daughter.

        As an aside, my father used to tell me that he could 'take me out' and make another one that looks just like me.

    • I think there is a niche for a cheaper player than the mini with, say 2 gigs rather than the mini's 4. Sell it for 99 dollars and I'll buy it. Add line-in recording and I'll buy 2.

    • Re:flash MP3 players? (Score:4, Informative)

      by truthsearch ( 249536 ) on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @10:57AM (#9632050) Homepage Journal
      I own an iRiver flash MP3 player because it's tiny and light. I use it while jogging, so I wanted the lightest and least cumbersome player I could find. It also plays OGG, has an FM tuner, and is linux-friendly (thanks to the ifp-driver project [sourceforge.net]). I think flash MP3 players are still a significant niche.
      • I'll second that. I also have an iRiver flash player, and it is perfect. Small, light, 20 hour battery life, and a lot cheaper than an iPod. And the FM tuner is a big plus. I spend just as much time listening to the radio as I do listening to mp3s.

      • My flash-based wishlist (Score:3, Interesting)

        by NoData ( 9132 )
        One of the links in the post (i4u.com [i4u.com]) asked people to send in a description of their dream mp3 player. Here's the (admittedly long-winded) email I sent them If someone knows a player that meets this description, I'd love to here about it.

        (To be fair, flash cards are not essential. If they designed a 2 GB fixed flash player, I'd probably be happy with that as well. But HD is still too heavy and not rugged enough for serious exercise).

        ----

        Hi. I'm writing to answer the question posed in your June 24 artic

    • Re:flash MP3 players? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Lumpy ( 12016 )
      nice troll.

      My nex-II + a 256 meg card can hold enough for a run and I dont care if I break it/lose it or intentionally smash it.

      Hell a total of $75.00 for a 256meg mp3 player with no DRM and easily swap to more music by swapping to another dirt cheap card.

      Oh, and 12 months down the road I dont have to throw my mp3 player away like Ipod owners do because the battery died and CAN NOT be replaced.

      a pair of AA batteries last me a week of daily use.

    • Re:flash MP3 players? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by KingOfBLASH ( 620432 ) on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @11:32AM (#9632397) Journal
      The question is not are the HD based devices fine for jogging, but are they fine for sprinting? I bought a mini disc player a few years back, that was supposed to be safe to jog with, and it skipped uncontrollably when I ran faster than a pace of 7:30 minutes / mile. Plus, I'd like to point out that jogging / running put an unbelievable amount of stress on devices. If you've got an mp3 player in your arms that you're swinging wildly, and are running at a good clip, I would speculate you could cause a lot of damage to a hard drive that causes it to fail prematurely.

    • Re:flash MP3 players? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by krouic ( 460022 )
      I have a Rio PMP300 (yes the first portable MP3 player on the market) and have been using it for jogging about 40 km/week since January 1999, enduring heat, rain, freeze and sweat.

      It has no moving parts, hence its still perfect condition. It is smaller and weights less than an iPod and uses a normal AA (replaceable) battery.

      I do not think that a HD based player would have survived more than a year with the abuse my Rio has gone through.
  • is integrate a cell phone! Oh, and a camera!! I'm a genius!

  • Wait a second (Score:5, Funny)

    by stratjakt ( 596332 ) on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @10:44AM (#9631875) Journal
    ... these aren't iPods ...

    They don't even have apples DRM nor work with iTunes.

    So why is this on slashdot?

    • Re:Wait a second (Score:3, Informative)

      by argent ( 18001 )
      Any flash player that looks like a disk drive to the computer works with iTunes.

  • And we should get excited why...? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gearmonger ( 672422 ) on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @10:44AM (#9631877)
    Unless the price of high-density flash RAM drops dramatically sometime really soon, hard drive-based MP3 players will continue to be the de facto standard for large-capacity players.

    Besides, these "innovative" new features aren't really all that innovative. So there.

    • Re:And we should get excited why...? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by stratjakt ( 596332 ) on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @10:48AM (#9631931) Journal
      Many people don't want a large-capacity player.

      They want an affordable digital alternative to a walkman, that doesn't skip when they're jogging. They don't care if it can store 2 jillion hours of music. They just want their favorite workout tunes on it, or something to listen to riding the bus, etc.

      That's an enormous market, and IMO Apple is positively stupid to ignore it. If they released an iPod that was under 100 bucks, that had say 64-256megs of flash, it'd sell like hotcakes and they'd increase the amount of iTunes customers 10 fold.

      As a comparison, there is a niche market for those 100 disc DVD jukeboxes. But there's a much larger market for regular $50 DVD players for folks who maybe rent a movie a few times a month.
      • The thing you described is a minidisc player.
      • Nice troll, but I'll bite.

        They want an affordable digital alternative to a walkman, that doesn't skip when they're jogging. They don't care if it can store 2 jillion hours of music. They just want their favorite workout tunes on it, or something to listen to riding the bus, etc.

        I have an Ipod Mini- doesen't skip while I'm jogging (and I've taken it on a 50 minute run many times). Even though it has a 4 GB capacity, I only store around 400 MB of music on it, because that's all I care to listen to.

        But w

      • Re:And we should get excited why...? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by zhiwenchong ( 155773 ) on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @11:37AM (#9632456)
        Whoa, let's not be presumptuous here. It's easy for the man on the street to think that Apple should do this or that... but you have to consider the economics.

        Apple does not traditionally target the ultra low-end market for a couple of reasons. For one, they're not big enough. I believe this came up in a discussion comparing Dell and Apple, and cheap PCs. Dell has the manufacturing facilities and [vastly superior] distribution channels to handle a high-volume low-margin market. Apple does not. Just look at the problems they're having churning out enough $249 iPod Minis for the U.S. market (btw, because of production problems, us chaps in Canada still can't buy iPod minis; they're only coming out Jul 24 over here).

        Second, Apple has a reputation of making innovative products. It charges a premium for it. It just doesn't do assembly like Dell does; it also does industrial design. That's why iPods are well-liked and perceived to be cool. When it comes down to it, it's just a digital music player with really good design. Someone had to pay for the industrial design and marketing (not free, you know).

        In short, Apple just doesn't seem like that kind of company that thrives on products that just barely breaking even. It can't survive in that market.

        p.s. Steve Jobs has said that they're working to make cheaper iPods. But don't expect any $100 ones any time soon.

  • Those features (Score:5, Funny)

    by 91degrees ( 207121 ) on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @10:44AM (#9631878) Journal
    I love the jargon they come up with to claim they have "features". Here's what they actually mean:

    SRS - "Small rectangular sticker". This is a small sticker in a rectangular shape with the letters "SRS" on it.

    WOW - "Works Over Water". this has been especially designed so that if you try to use it over a body of water it will still work.

    TruBass - Much like TruCalling; If the bass dies it repeats the following day.

    The moral - don't be fooled by marketing hype.

  • Useless features? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Turn-X Alphonse ( 789240 ) on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @10:44AM (#9631885) Journal
    I find it strange that everyone needs all these "amazing new features" etc. etc. but 99% of the time it won't change how the music sounds at all. I don't see the point of buying a new VCR because mine still works, same goes for TV, GBA(not SP) and so on and so forth.

    Why waste 300 on some new gadget which will work pretty much identical to the old ones when the global standard isn't changing much (global standard for MP3s will always just be the old MP3 untill replaced for example).
    • I take it you don't prescribe to The 6-Month Product Cycle [slashdot.org], get with the times man!
    • I recently bought a Korean import player at my local OEM computer shop. The Muro MR-100 [muro.co.kr] is a standard flash based MP3 player -- 256mb ram, FM radio, variety of settings. But the whiz-bang feature that sold me on it was the FM transmitter built in!

      For a 4 hour road trip on the long weekend I copied over my Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio plays and had a nice alternative to radio for the weekend. The transmitter worked flawlessly, and it saved me time and $ from burning my own CDs for the trip.

      I
    • I find it strange that everyone needs all these "amazing new features" etc. etc. but 99% of the time it won't change how the music sounds at all.
      On the contrary, it will change how the music sounds. It'll sound worse.

  • Apple on Top.. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by artlu ( 265391 ) <artlu@art[ ]net ['lu.' in gap]> on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @10:46AM (#9631902) Homepage Journal
    Unless I can get a flash player for $50 that is the size of a AAA battery, flash players are dead to me. Nothing can stop the iPod!

  • I just see crappy iPod interfaces (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TheOtherAgentM ( 700696 ) on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @10:47AM (#9631915)
    People seem to understand that iPod got it right with their circular controls, but all the other MP3 plays I've seen implement it ths far shrink it so much. I'm no giant of a man, but my fingers are still fat enough to mash a few buttons at once. Smaller is not always better. I never understood the benefit of OGG either. Could someone explain that? When I have 15GB does it really matter how great my compression is on the songs?

    • Ogg support (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Gordonjcp ( 186804 ) on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @10:51AM (#9631967) Homepage
      You can't encode MP3s above 56kbps without paying a licence fee to Fraunhofer-IIS. You don't need to pay a licence fee for Ogg.

      • Re:Ogg support (Score:4, Insightful)

        by OS24Ever ( 245667 ) * <trekkie@nomorestars.com> on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @11:07AM (#9632147) Homepage Journal
        My iPod costs the same amount whether or not I use MP3 or Vorbis. It's not like there is a 'license fee free' version out there that supports only vorbis...

        • Re:Ogg support (Score:4, Informative)

          by pavon ( 30274 ) on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @02:34PM (#9634220)
          You are right - it doesn't really make any difference for hardware devices if you have to licence the codec or not - peanuts in the overall cost. Same with proprietary software - the licencing costs won't add much to the cost of the product, so no big deal.

          But open source software is a problem. It is illegal to distribute an mp3 encoder without paying the licence fees, which makes it impossible to have a legal open source mp3 encoder (or DVD players, or anything else that is patented) because to be open the licence must allow anyone to redistribute it without restriction. The way that LAME gets around that issue is that "LAME Ain't an MP3 Encoder" - it is a reference implementation for educational use only. This doesn't really solve the problem, it just makes the users criminals instead of the developers and distributers.

          So we don't like patented formats for that reason - because it is illegal for us to use those formats on our open source systems, and if we are restricted to use open formats on our computer, it would be really nice to use them on our handheld music players as well, which fortunately is a very viable option, contrary to what the whiners here say, and thanks to some cool hardware companies.

      • Re:Ogg support (Score:3, Informative)

        by hankwang ( 413283 ) *
        You can't encode MP3s above 56kbps without paying a licence fee to Fraunhofer-IIS.

        Unless FHG changed the rules in the past couple of months, the license-fee structure is something like this:

        • Selling encoded music: 3% (or so) of what you charge for the music
        • Selling an encoder: a fee per software license if you *sell* it. The lame encoder can be used legally for free because you don't have to pay for it. There are issues with distributing a compiled version, though.
        • Selling a decoder: a fee per decoder ($
    • "I never understood the benefit of OGG either. Could someone explain that? When I have 15GB does it really matter how great my compression is on the songs?"

      Sir, you have offended the honor of OGG. I challenge you to a duel, lossy compression formats at dawn, tomorrow. Either accept, or never show your face on Slashdot again.

    • If the compression/quality ratio doesn't matter to you, there's really not much anyone could say to sway you. However, mp3 is actually a licensed technology, which is bad, and there is a movement to add DRM to it as a standard, which is worse. OGG (Ogg Vorbis to be correct)is free, and certainly isn't about to add draconian DRM to its code. Also, I should mention that I have upwards of 40GB of music on my PC hard drives, so really, a smaller ogg of nearly equal quality to a large mp3 would go a long way
    • Ogg is simply free/open source. Better encoding quality is purely accidental.

    • I have an 80G portable so I can compress my music however I'd like to...

      Some of us use Ogg (note that it is not an acronym) Vorbis for our music collections on our computer and don't want to re-encode everything for our portables (especially when you start getting into the 300+ disc range as I have).

    • On my iHP-120 (20GB), OGG allows me to get an extra 50 or more CDs on to it. Unfortunately it cuts the battery life from over 16 hours (MP3) to nine (almost as bad as an iPod).

  • Geez... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Last_Available_Usern ( 756093 ) on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @10:47AM (#9631920)

    "...with measurements of only 30x75x16mm"

    Great...I already can't find my keys half the time as it is.
    • Maybe that'll be the next thing in mp3 players: control it by clapping, like some keyring-locator systems.

  • iPod (Score:5, Insightful)

    by blackmonday ( 607916 ) on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @10:53AM (#9631993) Homepage
    Look, I'm an unabashed Apple fanboy, but I'd like to know why I should choose this over an iPod. None of these features matter to me. Tru-Bass? the iPod has a huge EQ selection, and you can assign an EQ to each individual song in iTunes and it carries over to the iPod.

    If these gadgets aren't half the price of an iPod mini, I have no reason to consider them. There's no mention of disk space on the JM-200, but I want GB's, not MB's.

    • Re:iPod (Score:5, Insightful)

      by stratjakt ( 596332 ) on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @10:58AM (#9632060) Journal
      That's fine for you then.

      Myself, I couldn't imagine there's 20gigs of compressed music out there that I'd want to listen to. I'm a creature of habit, when I listen to recorded music, it's the same dozen punk and metal albums. Y'know, the ones with about 10 2 minute songs.

      I don't enjoy recorded music, it's merely a distraction while I'm on the plane. In the car, I'd rather listen to the radio. I prefer live music, I'd rather listen to some local band jamming at the bar on friday than stay up late buying songs on iTunes to fill up a big HDD with RIAA horseshit. I'd rather hear some small band doing Rolling Stones covers for free beer, because they enjoy playing, than to own the entire Stones' discography.

      To each their own. There's a huge market made up of people just like me. Not everyone has, or aspires to have, a 90000000 CD collection.

      So, how about a compromise. You buy what you want to buy, I'll buy what I want to buy.

      • Re:iPod (Score:3, Funny)

        by EnVisiCrypt ( 178985 )
        Wow. I've finally met you.

        Everytime I'm at a bar, and some caterwauling douchebag with a Heineken, Leathers, and a Michael Bolton haircut steps onto the "stage" and says, "thank you! we're 'turbo brush fire!'", I sigh to myself, die a little inside and wonder, "Who actually enjoys this shit?"

        Now I know. God bless you. ;)

        --Don't take it personally. Tis but a joke. Back to my nsync cd's. ;)

  • Ogg Vorbis Support (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @10:53AM (#9631996)
    It's nice to see these new players support open source audio formats like Ogg Vorbis. It's even nicer to see services like Audio Lunchbox [audiolunchbox.com] and others offer Oggs for download.

  • Actually..... (Score:2, Informative)

    by arcangelo ( 794775 )
    for Christmas of last year I did buy a Samsung Yepp' MP3 player (model YP-55 - 192Mb of storage). Mind you, it's not to be compared to any uber-fancy MP3 players that go for hundreds of $$$ but, it certainly does have features like WOW, SRS and TruBass .... and did I mention I got it in Canada? ;)

  • Info (Score:5, Informative)

    by guido1 ( 108876 ) on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @10:54AM (#9632019)
    Googled up some info on these players, as I4U seems to be dead.

    The EPM-100 has 512M flash, a very small 3-line display, and is about the size of a thumbdrive. I found it selling for $220.

    The JM200 has 256M flash (unknown if upgradeable via cards), includes a FM tuner, and looks downright funky. It doesn't seem to be available for purchase yet.
  • The website was running a bit slow. Were they hosting this off one the mp3 players perchance? Tip: When shilling for your own website, make sure it can handle the hits.

    Might just be me though... Excuse the troll.

  • Not seen before? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Dryth ( 544014 ) on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @11:00AM (#9632075)

    Both players feature audio functions not seen in MP3 Player before, like SRS, WOW and TruBass.

    At last check, my iRiver iHP-120 [iriveramerica.com] supports SRS, WOW, and TruBass in amongst its EQ settings. Don't know about their Flash-based players, but it would be surprising if some of them didn't.

  • Try [gizmodo.com] for the Muzio and [eratech.co.kr] for the eratech (much Kanji, though).
  • http://www.eratech.co.kr/eng/prod/pro3_1.htm

    Grab it while you can.

  • This is timely for me (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ThePlague ( 30616 ) * on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @11:10AM (#9632175)
    I've been looking to get an MP3 player as a gift for someone for a few weeks now, and I just can't seem to find one model that has the features I want:

    Flash-based: she's a runner, so I don't believe the HD based ones could last

    FM Tuner

    USB 2.0

    Voice Recording

    256 MB internal, with the ability to expand via a card slot (SD preferable, but others would be considered)

    Act as pen drive (in Windows) without additional drivers or the need for a cable.

    It seems like relatively simple and low-end requirements, but I can't seem to find a device that fulfills all these. If you know of one specifically, I would appreciate feedback.

  • Coolest feature about these MP3 players: (Score:4, Insightful)

    by torpor ( 458 ) <ibisum AT gmail DOT com> on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @11:11AM (#9632186) Homepage Journal
    ... the fact that, in quantity, these key-chain USB/MP3 players can be had for as little as $10 per item.

    Why is this great, "in quantity"? Well, I know plenty of unsigned artists whose mp3's are floating around the internet, promoting them, who can now offer "Albums" on these MP3 devices, custom-like, to their loyal fans.

    Mark my words: CD's are dead. Static MP3's are dead.

    Long-live the value-added MP3-player-bundled-with-new-tracks website freelance musician upsell!

  • Audiobook Player (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @11:12AM (#9632189)
    I have the Rio Karma, 20GB, which is pretty good all things considered, I really like it.

    But the one feature I've never been able to find in an MP3 player that would be perfect for listening to audiobooks is variable speed playback.

    Many audiobooks you could speed up the playback by 20% - 50% and still understand it and comprehend it. In many cases you retain more because your mind doesn't have time to drift off.

    Very useful, but I haven't been able to find a player (or even software on a PC) that will do it on the fly, so each file has to be transcoded, which is time consuming.

    • I think you need to speed up the silences... (Score:4, Informative)

      by N Monkey ( 313423 ) on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @11:27AM (#9632352)
      But the one feature I've never been able to find in an MP3 player that would be perfect for listening to audiobooks is variable speed playback.

      Many audiobooks you could speed up the playback by 20% - 50% and still understand it and comprehend it. In many cases you retain more because your mind doesn't have time to drift off.

      Apparently a better thing to do is to reduce the length of silences between words etc. I remember seeing research (perhaps 20years ago!) into a variable speed tape recorder/player which would reduce silences in speech but leave the words at the normal rate.

      That way you don't have to listen to mickey mouse or the chipmunks yet still save time and maintain comprehension.
      • That's a lovely idea, it's how I watch seasons of shows like 24... cause lets face it, there's no acting genious in any of that stuff, but I still want to know what happens.

        I've found I can trim about 7 hours off each season by watching it at a faster bit rate, and really the only thing I ever lose are dramatic pauses.

        Would love to see this feature added to my iRiver, slow as they are, it's nice they actually do update firmware on occassion so maybe I'll get lucky.

        In the meantime, does anyone know

  • I was really impressed untill... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TubeSteak ( 669689 ) on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @11:24AM (#9632324) Journal
    I saw these two things:
    1. powered by a built-in Li-polymer battery
    2. Both players still feature only a USB 1.1 interface
    I went to the Korean website and peeked at the specs page (it's in Korean, but #s are still #s) and found out the battery is 3.7 Volts. Anyways, even though it's a lithium polymer [buchmann.ca], it's still only got ~3yrs of lifespan before it's kaput. And USB 1.1! It's not horribly slow, but with all the stuff packed in their you'd think we could get our 400Mbps worth.

    The USB 1.1 isn't a deal breaker, but if i can't easily get to that li-polymer battery... It'd be the whole iPod story again. This time with an overseas manufacturer.

  • Compact Flash Damnit!!!! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by NullStream ( 121401 ) <null@@@bitbucket...ca> on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @11:32AM (#9632395) Homepage
    Dear MP3 player manufacturers,

    Lots of people have compact flash media why not make a model of your wonder device that supports compact flash? The semi-competant guys at Frontier Labs do (albeit the firmware from there products is less than perfect).

    SD/MMC cards are useless because they are too fragile (physically and electromagically) so much so you can't just put one in your wallet and just carry it around for a week without the card dying.

    Please support CF in your future products OK PLZ TKS.

    --
    Null

  • Jm-200 look like a real skined player (Score:3, Informative)

    by denisbergeron ( 197036 ) <`moc.oohay' `ta' `noregreBsineD'> on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @11:33AM (#9632410)
    Google is my friend and give me this link : http://www.gizmodo.com/archives/muzio-jm200-flash- player-with-twocolor-oled-017186.php [gizmodo.com]
    i want one. Period. here the texts :
    A new Muzio from Korean manufacturer Jungsoft (promoting the hot new band, "Man and His Cymbals"), this one called the JM-200. Besides being sort of ugly, which is probably not a bullet-point feature, the Muzio supports USB Host functionality, SRS (some sort of surround sound magic?), OGG Vorbis support, FM radio, aluminum body, and recharging via USB. Plus, it has a two-color OLED screen, which probably isn't too much to get worked up over, but there you have it. I4U has some information, and apparently a test model, so expect a proper review in the next few days.

  • My solution (Score:3, Interesting)

    by CastrTroy ( 595695 ) on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @11:41AM (#9632511)
    I've always been an advocate of the Minidisc player, ever since they came out with NetMD, so you could hook it up to USB. These things have amazing battery life, unlimited storage capacity (switching disks), and are quite small. They never skip, are quite cheap, very durable, and as one poster was searching for, they allow you to fast forward while listening.

    Also, for me, it just feels a lot more like a music player, then those memory stick or built in hard drive players. Something about putting disks into it just make it seem more fun.

  • The perfect mp3 player (Score:4, Interesting)

    by pcx ( 72024 ) on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @11:57AM (#9632672)
    The ideal mp3 player would be...

    1] A cell phone with bluetooth capability.
    2] A bluetooth enabled headset.
    3] All major music formats including ogg.
    4] A "bookmark" feature (useful for book on tape or book on mp3).
    5] Stopwatch with lap timing and counters. (For those of us who exercise)
    6] FM tuner.
    7] XM or Syrius Tuner.
    8] Uses standard flash ram cards for expansion.
    9] USB 2.0 at minimum.
    10] Rechargable battery and docking station.
    11] Garage door opener (for those who exercise and need a way to get into the house without lugging your keys around) :)

    That's my wish list. To date, nobody has even come close.

  • Flash players work better for the Korean market (Score:3, Informative)

    by Sangbin ( 743373 ) on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @12:14PM (#9632855)
    I'm here in Korea and the people seem to use the players mostly in the subways and the buses.

    In the States where the people use it in the car or perhaps in their work places, the capacity of the storage is a big deal since they may use it for up to 8 hours continuously.

    That's certainly not the case for the people here. The average time spent in a bus or the subways is around 30min~1hr, and you don't need anything over a gig for that.

    When you don't need the storage, wouldn't you want a flash player that you can put in your pocket along with your cellphone?

    I think the US slashdotters would understand the reason behind the development of the new mp3 players when they understand the culture here better.

  • What these do: (Score:5, Informative)

    by Otto ( 17870 ) on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @12:15PM (#9632866) Homepage Journal
    Essentially, these all mess with the audio in some way. These are all by SRS Labs, BTW.

    This is all my opinion, more or less. Quotes from SRS are found here: http://www.srslabs.com/ConsumerTechMonoStereo.asp

    SRS - Sound Retrieval System
    Claims to be able to "retrieve the spatial information that is lost during ordinary audio compression from any stereo recording and restores the original three-dimensional sound field." Also claims to be able to eliminate the "sweet spot" and "isolate and restore the spatial cues and place them in the proper space relative to the direct sounds, such as a soloist or dialogue."

    What it really does, as far as I can tell: It uses an algorithim to isolate the audio into various sets of frequencies, which it then amplifies on various speakers and introduces a slight time delay. The effect of this is to give a slight emphasis to various parts of the sound. In a 5.1 surround system, this will make it seem as if the various chunks of frequencies are coming from more specific parts of the room. This is a neat effect, but the truth of the matter is that you can't restore what isn't there. Not really. It's a trick that lets there appear to be spatial orientation on the sound, but the spatial orientation it gives is entirely made up. It's not really what it is supposed to sound like, and it's not "much closer to what the artist originally intended" as they claim. You think artists don't listen to their own work and talk to their sound engineers? The original source material you have in the player is what the artist intended because it's what you actually got from them. SRS is a neat trick, but not actually any better. It'll work on headphones, but works best in a 5.1 surround situation. On a 2 speaker scenario, the artifical delays it introduces really hurt the sound noticably.

    WOW
    WOW claims to "dramatically improves the quality, dynamics, image field size and bass tones of digitally compressed audio file formats including WMA, WAV, MP3 files."

    What it really does, as far as I can tell: It enhances a small band on the high end of the frequency spectrum, compresses the low end, then sticks the whole thing through a phaser to make it sound kinda deep and slightly echo-y (a phaser, for those not into audio, basically eliminates very specific frequencies.. whatever ones you have it set to... you can do all sorts of weird things with a programmable one, but it creates a pretty distinctive type of sound). On cheap ass speakers, this sort of thing can make it sound like your speakers are bigger, but the actual bass output suffers horribly on good speakers, and the echo type of effect is annoying as hell once you notice it.

    TruBass
    TruBass claims to "produce the perception of lower bass tones and deeper, richer bass from products that contain small, medium or large size speakers."

    What it really does, as far as I can tell: Basically it increases the Bass. What? You have a bass control? Well, TruBass does it better. Oh wait, no, it doesn't. It's using some kind of tricky harmonics deal to enhance the low end of the audio to make it seem louder without actually making it louder. In other words, TruBass will increase the *perception* of the bass without actually increasing the amount of bass there. The human ear is better at certain frequencies than others, and TruBass adds harmonics to the bass that increase those frequency ranges, increasing the amount of bass you hear. But it will not increase the amount of bass that you *feel*, which to me, is kinda the whole point of bass. TruBass will work best on small crappy speakers, in other words, where you don't expect to feel any bass anyway. And the distortion on the bass is pretty severe, if you have a song with good bass to begin with.

  • New Features? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Zarnce ( 56746 ) on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @12:37PM (#9633094)
    I have an IRiver iHP-120. My player already has all those "new" features. Whats the big deal?
    My player is just slightly larger than an ipod. It lasts twice as long. It handles the Ogg format. I could keep going but I should get back to work.

    Zarnce

  • OLED lifetime issue? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Cheerio Boy ( 82178 ) on Wednesday July 07, 2004 @12:53PM (#9633233) Homepage Journal
    uses a two color OLED display

    Don't OLEDs still have a shorter lifespan than standard LCDs?

    Considering how often an mp3 player is using the display when running, song info - etc., would the shorter lifespan of the OLEDs make a difference?

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