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Madam Butterfly
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Posted: Sunday July 16th, 2006 22:23 |
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I have decided to step into the 21st cetury and get an MP3 player. I have heard alot of good things about iRiver (as a better alternative to apple Ipods) and wanted to get this one:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000ALAWV6/026-9696985-8982807?v=glance&n=560798
As you can see its 512 MB. I am not too bothered about that. i will moslty be uploading my existing CD's onto my laptop then downloading that onto the player. I am not that bothered about downloading stuff online, though i may do the odd hard to find song.
So is this particualr one any good or are there better? I don;t really wanna spend much more than this one costs.
Also can i upload particular songs from a CD or would i have to upload the entire CD onto my laptop then download the particular songs i want onto the MP3 player? is the latter option quicker?
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An_Advanced_Spark
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Posted: Sunday July 16th, 2006 22:30 |
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What's your budget?
I've heard good things about the creative zen
or you can always buy one for £14.99 if you look around carefully on Amazon
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Madam Butterfly
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Posted: Sunday July 16th, 2006 22:35 |
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| like i say i don;t wanna spend much more than this one costs which is £60. I n't imagine you could get any type of "decent" one for £14.99!! also i prefer to stick with the iRiver range as i have heard lots of good things about it. I just wanted peoples views on this particular or similar ones.
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Madam Butterfly
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Posted: Sunday July 16th, 2006 22:39 |
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| i just found this one by creative zen http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000A3P3WC/026-9696985-8982807?v=glance&n=560798&s=electronics&v=glance it has way more features for the same price as the iRiver. i am going to check out the customer reviews now. I just may have been swayed!
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An_Advanced_Spark
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Posted: Sunday July 16th, 2006 22:40 |
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Yes, the iRiver range is pretty good, quite a few of my friends have bought it, I was given an Ipod for a birthday so although I wouldn't have bought it I'm very happy with it.
The one you posted is nice for that price (But do check out the Zen), sometimes you do need to pay that bit extra to ge tthe quality, have you read the reviews below? Its pretty helpful.
Last edited on Sunday July 16th, 2006 22:42 by An_Advanced_Spark
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Madam Butterfly
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Posted: Sunday July 16th, 2006 23:18 |
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ok just read the reviews and overall they are good (four out of five). Three main problems seem to be: 1) battery compartment cover breaks easily (only a problem if you are heavy handed!!)
2) Some people seem to have problems downloading songs they already have stored on their PC's. But sine i mostly want to upload CDs shouldn't be a problem for me (this particluar one plugs straight into a CD player, so no laptop needed!)
3) Apparently it seems to "die" without reason after 2-3 months. This last one worried me a bit as it makes it seem kind of disposable. Since this is alot of money for me i really would not appreciate that! That being said, someone said they uploaded firmware or something from zen creative and that brough it back to life.
oh and a fourth problem seemed to be that the creatvie zen technical support wasn't that helpful, however people easily got refunds or replacements from Amazon, which was good to know.
despite the above problems, overall reviews were good and made it seem easy to use. however it is about £5 cheaper to get it in black as opposed to white.
So i guess i will be spending my hard earned birthday money on this!
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umbrarchist
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Posted: Monday July 17th, 2006 20:04 |
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I didn't see this mentioned in the thread. Some CD ripping software will be necessary to extract the PCM, Pulse Coded Modulation, on audio CDs and convert the tracks to MP3s.
I use FreeRIP to extract and Foobar 2000 to play back. I have a portable CD player that can play MP3 encoded disks, so that gives me 6 hours of music, more than enough for a day. The MP3 CDs also serve as backup for what is on the hard drive of the music computer hooked to my stereo.
umbra
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Madam Butterfly
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Posted: Monday July 17th, 2006 20:12 |
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| The creative zen comes with its own software and the particular moel i want can "upload" CD's straight from a CD player/stereo without the need for a laptop/pc, so i assume this is what the software includes.
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umbrarchist
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Posted: Monday July 17th, 2006 22:28 |
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The great thing about technology is all of the different ways it lets you do things but the downside is some of the gotchas in certian techniques.
If that MP3 player is recording straight from a stereo doesn't that mean it is recording at realtime speed? It will take 1 hour to record 1 hour of music.
CDs, unless they changed recent ones, don't include information about song titles and artists but this information can be incorporated into MP3 files. The FreeRIP software finds that information in a database on the web and puts it into the MP3 files it creates.
I have recently been testing ripping speeds for an article I'm writing. I ripped 60 minutes of music from the Beatles Red 1 CD. I chose that because I was able to get almost exactly 60 minutes by selecting the right songs and plenty of people should be able to use that CD to repeat my tests.
A 300 MHz Panasonic Toughbook took 32 min and 57 secs.
A 1.3 GHz Gateway took 10 min and 8 seconds
A 2.7 GHz Asus mobo took 5 min and 42 seconds
A 2.7 GHz Asus mobo took 11 min and 9 seconds
The Asus got two different times because it has two DVD drives and I tested both. The fast time was a DVD reader I bought recently identical to the one in the Gateway. The slow time is an older DVD burner. But all of these machines should make MP3s faster than just using that MP3 player/recorder. Plus if you change the music in the player won't you be destroying what is already there? How can you save what you converted before? If you ever want it back you must do another conversion.
umbra
Last edited on Tuesday July 18th, 2006 00:17 by umbrarchist
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Madam Butterfly
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Posted: Monday July 17th, 2006 22:34 |
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i'm sure the blurb for the MP3 player says something about downloading in seconds. I doubt if it does take "real time". Customers would have complained about that!!
That being said, to be honest i would not want to download an entire CD as there are often only 5 or 6 songs i really like. Do you know if it would be possible to download individual songs as opposed to an entire album?
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The Watcher
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Posted: Monday July 17th, 2006 22:54 |
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I bought an Iriver and sorely wish I hadn't.
Look up the product on google and cross reference customer reviews. Then you'll see what people who actually own one think of it. Something I failed to do...
Mine isn't so much of a problem now but that's cos I've learned to live with the annoyances. Wish I had bought a creative zen now, they truly are the best.
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Madam Butterfly
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Posted: Monday July 17th, 2006 22:57 |
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| thanks Drunk, thats what i needed to hear!! Creative Zen it is! For the same price as a 512mb iRiver, you can get a 1g CZ and it has SO many more features than the iRiver including an FM radio.
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The Watcher
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Posted: Monday July 17th, 2006 23:01 |
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You do realise that you could skip buying an MP3 player and simply upgrade your phone right?
I mean what's the point of only 512mb of music? I have a sony ericsson w810 and it comes with that as standard (upgradable card to 2gig). So if you only want that small amount of music why have two devices when your phone would be able to act as an MP3 player anyway.
My MP3 player is 20gig which is why I bought it but now I feel even that isn't enough lol. When I replace it, it's gonna be no less than 60gig.
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Madam Butterfly
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Posted: Monday July 17th, 2006 23:06 |
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so about how many songs would i be able to fit on a 1GB? And do you know if i can download individual songs from a CD as opposed to a whole album? I really am trying to get off of T mobile so i am not looking to upgrade. My other phone is an O2 pay as you go and i want to get another pay as you go (as a back up) as it is cheaper for me. So i would really rather just have a seperate MP3 player
**side note: the creative zen is actually CHEAPER than the iRiver!
Anyway, to again reiterate because this is one question i really want an answer to that no one seems able to give(!): Can i download individual songs from a CD or does it HAVE to be the whole album?
Last edited on Monday July 17th, 2006 23:08 by Madam Butterfly
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The Watcher
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Posted: Monday July 17th, 2006 23:40 |
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Do you have a music library on your PC Madam Butterfly?
With most of these things, they link to your computer and get the tunes from USB that way. So you make up your playlist in the order you want comprised of only the songs you want all on your computer and THEN transfer that to you device. That transfer takes VERY quick. Use media player or another package (usually one that comes with the device) to arrange your tunes.
It's presumed you have ripped your CDs to your PC already. I did all that ages ago an never see my CDs anymore  awkward clumsy things are all in boxes in the cupboard! Ripping to your PC is easy and YES you can choose just one song or whichever ones you want and no you don't have to have them all.
Arranging playlists is a quick or complicated as YOU make it. Depends how fussy you are and if you like everything "just so". I do so it took me ages and I still fuss with it
btw how much on a 1gig? Depends on the format and the sample rate. A 4 minute long standard MP3 tune is probably about 3Mb. You'll get a couple 100 songs at least.
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Madam Butterfly
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Posted: Monday July 17th, 2006 23:52 |
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thanks for that DM. I had the odd few songs Dl'ed on my old hard drive but it died and i have none at all on my new hard drive (not that i would call what i had before a "library". it was just a few songs not released in this country).
All my music is on CD and on each album i have maybe 5 or 6 songs that i would want on my MP3 player (a couple of hundred songs would do me just fine!).
The particular MP3 i want allows you to plug it into a stereo CD player and transfer songs that way without the need for a PC. that is one of the things i liked about it.
I am too lazy to upload all my CD's to my laptop(!) but for arguments sake, how long would it take if i had to upload say about 90 full albums?
Could i just do it and save them in a "folder" on my hard drive or do i need some special software?
As you can probably tell, i am a real numpty when it comes to these things and i have never had an MP3 player before, so explain it to me like i am a slow 5 year old lol
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umbrarchist
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Posted: Tuesday July 18th, 2006 00:16 |
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| The particular MP3 i want allows you to plug it into a stereo CD player and transfer songs that way without the need for a PC. |
Notice that you keep saying that you transfer the songs from a CD player. A CD player is going to play the song at realtime speed. One hour of music will take 1 hr to record. You should be able to program the CD player to just play the songs you want so that is all the MP3 player will record but I don't know how it will know where the song transitions occur.
A normal CD requires 10 megabytes per minute of music. So with 10 to 1 MP3 compression you will get 1 minute per megabyte, so you should get 512 minutes or 8 1/2 hours.
umbra
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Posted: Tuesday July 18th, 2006 00:23 |
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If you do it from CD to the device directly probably by a "line in" socket then it will take as long as the song takes. 5 tunes 4 mins each from 90 albums will take 30 hours I think
Are you using Windows at home?
If so I really do suggest you rip your CDs to your library use the rip function of media player (you only take the songs you want). This will take about three minutes per CD (given you're only taking 5 songs per CD) so three and a half hours.
Then when you transfer from PC to device, your 450 tunes wont take more than 20 minutes, if that long. If you're worried about space on your HD simply delete them when you're done.
That feature the devices have for taking a song at a time from the CD directly is for one or two songs to add to what you have. Not imo to start filling the device with unless you REALLY have 30 hours to waste? Like say you already have most songs you need but your friend has a CD with two more you like so you can take those there and then. Thats what the feature is for.
Of course I could be wrong and it samples a lot quicker than real time and not simply a line in socket but I doubt it.
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Madam Butterfly
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Posted: Tuesday July 18th, 2006 00:44 |
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 thank you DM!!! finally, a definitive answer to this query i have been searching for for about a year!!
I have windows media player, so i will do it the way you said. I already started on one album but i think i will wait until i have a few hours spare to do it. Even though this is relativly quick, its still a lil time consuming (or maybe i just have a short attention span!)
No wonder rich people pay folks to do it for them!!
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umbrarchist
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Posted: Tuesday July 18th, 2006 01:36 |
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| If you're worried about space on your HD simply delete them when you're done. |
If possible I think you should burn the MP3s to CD so you never have to rip them again.
I have found FreeRIP and Foobar 2000 easier to use than Media Player and don't use it for MP3s at all.
umbra
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Madam Butterfly
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Posted: Tuesday July 18th, 2006 07:15 |
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i'm downloading freerip now, but in what way is it easier than the windows media player? seems pretty straight forward to me: click on "copy music from CD" then uncheck the tracks you don't want then click on "copy music". Is it faster than windows?
I just had to cancel the installation process. There is waaaaaaay too much crap to read!! and i can't just click on "next" or "install" wily nily!, already had one hard drive die on me i'll just stick with windows. It may be a lil slow for the number of CD's i have but i'll persevere!Last edited on Tuesday July 18th, 2006 07:20 by Madam Butterfly
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Madam Butterfly
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Posted: Tuesday July 18th, 2006 08:26 |
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ok last question and it may seem a bit of a silly one:
i don't have the MP3 yet, but if i uploaded my music into a folder on my USB pen, would i be able to copy that folder to the MP3? is it just the same difference as if i copied a folder from the hard drive?
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Jay Jay
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Posted: Wednesday July 19th, 2006 07:50 |
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You should be able to copy directly from the usb pen to your mp3 player, most new mp3 players acts the same as a usb pen by making an extra drive letter for you. Just copy the contents from one place to another appropriate place on your mp3 player.
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HatHaruhotep
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Posted: Thursday July 20th, 2006 12:03 |
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| Both iRiver and Ipods are pieces of trash. Buy a Creative Nomad. Sturdy, easy self-repairing feature if there are ever any problems. I have a ZenMicro from Creative Labs and I couldn't be happier. It gets radio, plays mp3s, records voice, everything.
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