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High capacity alternatives to the i-pod?
carnivalist
09-05-2008
I'm looking for a music player that has a large capacity, as I would like to use it as a backup for my collection. Bells and whistles like video and suchlike aren't essential, but of course they would be nice - however I'd prefer the ability to play a variety of formats - particularly flac.

I know most people will scream "i-pod" at me, but I'm a bit wary of them. Most people I know who swear by them seem to be more fascinated with the design than whether it's actually the best device available - it seems to me that they don't know anything about any alternatives - "media player" means "i-pod" to them and that's about it.

I also seem to remember some techy acquaintances I once had being a bit sniffy about it and claiming that there were annoying things about it, like having to use i-tunes and what not and that there were better, if less hyped, machines available. However this was some time ago.

Are there high capacity devices that are better than the i-pod and what issues and restrictions are there with the i-pod and it's insistence that you only use i-tunes?
Fromez
09-05-2008
Originally Posted by carnivalist:
“I'm looking for a music player that has a large capacity, as I would like to use it as a backup for my collection. Bells and whistles like video and suchlike aren't essential, but of course they would be nice - however I'd prefer the ability to play a variety of formats - particularly flac.

I know most people will scream "i-pod" at me, but I'm a bit wary of them. Most people I know who swear by them seem to be more fascinated with the design than whether it's actually the best device available - it seems to me that they don't know anything about any alternatives - "media player" means "i-pod" to them and that's about it.

I also seem to remember some techy acquaintances I once had being a bit sniffy about it and claiming that there were annoying things about it, like having to use i-tunes and what not and that there were better, if less hyped, machines available. However this was some time ago.

Are there high capacity devices that are better than the i-pod and what issues and restrictions are there with the i-pod and it's insistence that you only use i-tunes?”

What's your price range? The Cowon range support a huge range of formats including flac but they are around the £200 mark.

There's a few threads below that mention different mp3 players.

iTunes doesn't seem to be the only program, Media Monkey has an option to synch with iPods but never tried that. But it doesn't support that many formats, and it's certainly not the best device available. You are probably looking at the Archos or Cowon ranges as the best available, although in the more limited format player range like the iPod, Creative Zens and Microsoft Zunes are better imo.
sancheeez
09-05-2008
Yup, Cowon players support FLAC and the sound quality from their units is fantastic. Generally regarded as abount the, if not the, best sound quality from a portable unit.

Capacity wise, they are a fair way behind the iPod though.

I use an A2 myself and can vouch for the excellent sound quality, especially with a lossless format such as FLAC. But .... my A2 is only 30gb and FLAC files are a fair bit bigger than MP3.

The new Q5 is 60gb but also very expensive (not much change from £500 for the 60gb unit). Looks like a fantastic device. Now that the firmware has had a couple of updates, the user interface is meant to have improved considerably. They do also act as a USB host mind you so you could always add a portable HDD to bump up the capacity of the unt. Not the most elegant solution but if it's sound quality you're after .....

Nice players, but possibly a lot more bells and whistles than what you're after.

The A3 (replaement for my A2) also offers a 60gb version and will still play FLAC. Still not cheap though ... in the £350 region.

Much as I dislike the closed system Apple operate, a 160gb classic playing Apple Lossless files may be worth looking at.

Going back to Cowon, the X5 also comes in a 60gb version (or an XL version with much longer battery life). Again, excellent sound quality (it does FLAC) but it's been discontinued now. If you hunt around you could probably still find a few places selling new old stock ....

Some of the Archos players offer 160gb units but I dunno what their handling of lossless files is like.

Oh, and my wife syncs her iPod using MediaMonkey. All my digital music is normalised (properly - using +/- db readings) and iTunes can't interpret this info properly and makes a mess of the volume levelling when it transfers the tracks to the ipod. They work fine if synced through MediaMonkey though.
Alien8
09-05-2008
Originally Posted by carnivalist:
“I'm looking for a music player that has a large capacity, as I would like to use it as a backup for my collection. Bells and whistles like video and suchlike aren't essential, but of course they would be nice - however I'd prefer the ability to play a variety of formats - particularly flac.

I know most people will scream "i-pod" at me, but I'm a bit wary of them. Most people I know who swear by them seem to be more fascinated with the design than whether it's actually the best device available - it seems to me that they don't know anything about any alternatives - "media player" means "i-pod" to them and that's about it.

I also seem to remember some techy acquaintances I once had being a bit sniffy about it and claiming that there were annoying things about it, like having to use i-tunes and what not and that there were better, if less hyped, machines available. However this was some time ago.

Are there high capacity devices that are better than the i-pod and what issues and restrictions are there with the i-pod and it's insistence that you only use i-tunes?”

I use the Creative Zen M, it has some great features, high capacity storage 60GB.
I download all my movies off the internet and either watch them on it or use a Video Cable ( cheap off ebay) and plug it into my TV avi input and watch all my Music or Movie vids off it.
Supports a good range of formats..
I've dropped it a few times and its a tough old boot, if there is a problem with it there's a reset hole at the bottom of it.
I store loads of software programs on it, so its ideal for a storage unit, even has my collection of Digital Photos on it, which you can view.

MP3 Player
Radio Player
Data Storage
No Drivers needed in Vista ( sees it as a extra drive)
Recording Sound device ( built in mic)
Easy to use..

http://uk.europe.creative.com/produc...&product=14331

Fast USB 2.0 transfer rate.
Software that comes with it is good, it can convert videos from other formats..
From Creative Excellent !

# 30GB capacity to carry up to 15,000 songs1, tens of thousands of photos, 120 hours of video (There's also the 60Gb version as well)
# 2.5” (51x39 mm) colour screen displays 262,144 colours
# Supports photo zoom & customisable menu
# Watch digital videos (WMV9, MPEG1/2/4-SP, Motion-JPEG, compatible DivX® 4, 5 and XviD)2
# View digital photos and album art JPEG (BMP / GIF / PNG / TIFF)3
# Customisable Shortcut Button
# ZEN vertical touch pad control
# FM radio
# Works with subscription, pay-per-download music and video services
# Syncs with Microsoft Outlook Contacts, Calendar & Tasks
# Up to 14 hours of continuous audio playback, 4 hours of continuous video playback
sancheeez
09-05-2008
The Vision:M is a good all-rounder but one area it is lacking is support for lossless audio formats such as FLAC.
toasties
09-05-2008
How about a 5.5 generation ipod and installing rockbox. 80gb storage, flac support (plus loads of other formats), and no reliance on itunes.
Alien8
09-05-2008
Originally Posted by sancheeez:
“The Vision:M is a good all-rounder but one area it is lacking is support for lossless audio formats such as FLAC.”

If you are ripping music, instead if converting them to MP3, You could just have them as .WAV
The Creative M can play .wavs and this would be a lossless sample ?
Ezenden
09-05-2008
Originally Posted by carnivalist:
“I'm looking for a music player that has a large capacity, as I would like to use it as a backup for my collection. Bells and whistles like video and suchlike aren't essential, but of course they would be nice - however I'd prefer the ability to play a variety of formats - particularly flac.

I know most people will scream "i-pod" at me, but I'm a bit wary of them. Most people I know who swear by them seem to be more fascinated with the design than whether it's actually the best device available - it seems to me that they don't know anything about any alternatives - "media player" means "i-pod" to them and that's about it.

I also seem to remember some techy acquaintances I once had being a bit sniffy about it and claiming that there were annoying things about it, like having to use i-tunes and what not and that there were better, if less hyped, machines available. However this was some time ago.

Are there high capacity devices that are better than the i-pod and what issues and restrictions are there with the i-pod and it's insistence that you only use i-tunes?”

I purchased an 80gb Microsoft Zune a couple of months ago, and i'm very pleased with it. It's about the same price as the I-Pod, but it hasn't been officially released in the UK (i got it new from an eBay seller), so it's unique to have one. The down side to that of course, is you can't utilise the media sharing (you can only wirelessly trade mp3s with other Zune users) and you can't buy films and music etc from the Zune Marketplace. But other than that, i think it's a great I-Pod alternative.

One of the very good things is; being a Microsoft product, when converting video, all you have to do is use the standard Windows Movie Maker to create a wmv file and the Zune will play the video. With my previous media player, it was a nightmare converting videos to be compatible.
carnivalist
09-05-2008
Thanks for the excellent replies so far. Certainly food for thought, but keep them coming please!

Originally Posted by Alien8:
“If you are ripping music, instead if converting them to MP3, You could just have them as .WAV
The Creative M can play .wavs and this would be a lossless sample ?”

Good point. However that would make the files even more massive. FLACS are big enough as it is unless, someone could find me an affordable 400GB player!

BTW it's not so much sound quality that's critical. The reason I want flac support is that I'm transferring a huge vinyl collection to flac on HD and I'd like to be able to just stick ithe LPs on the player. That way it doubles as a back-up and I don't have to spend even more time converting loads of flacs or wavs to compatible formats.
Alien8
09-05-2008
Originally Posted by carnivalist:
“Thanks for the excellent replies so far. Certainly food for thought, but keep them coming please!



Good point. However that would make the files even more massive. FLACS are big enough as it is unless, someone could find me an affordable 400GB player!

BTW it's not so much sound quality that's critical. The reason I want flac support is that I'm transferring a huge vinyl collection to flac on HD and I'd like to be able to just stick ithe LPs on the player. That way it doubles as a back-up and I don't have to spend even more time converting loads of flacs or wavs to compatible formats.”

Well you could go for a MP3 format and when ripping set the bitrate slightly higher..

Rockbox is coming to the Creative soon..
http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=KCB3-z...eature=related
I agree with sancheeez the Creative M is a good all rounder.
It does how a Graphic Equalizer and I do recommend it.
Study and stable, and for the last 6months, never had a problem with mine.
There is some sites now offering new fonts and themes for it.
http://www.pimpmyzen.com/news.php
Hope u make the right choice........
carnivalist
14-05-2008
Are there actually few alternatives to the 160GB ipod? If so why? Surely their rivals must see the opportunity this presents. Are there inherent problems with high-capacity devices this small?

What specifically are the major drawbacks of the ipod?

Sorry about all the questions!
Fromez
14-05-2008
Quote:
“Are there actually few alternatives to the 160GB ipod? If so why? Surely their rivals must see the opportunity this presents. Are there inherent problems with high-capacity devices this small?

What specifically are the major drawbacks of the ipod?”

I think the market has got smaller since iPod has strengthened its grasp on it. Which makes it difficult for any competitiors. These kind of devices are actually quite expensive to make, especially if they use custom made parts to spec. Companies like Creative and Philips are drifting towards flash based players, which are not high capacity at the moment. The only company to position itself as a true competitor to the iPod is Microsoft with the Zune, and the fairly slow selling rate of that shows how difficult it is (2 million Zunes sold in a year compared with about 70 million iPods sold in about 3 months).

As mentioned, the Cowon range are your best (possibly ONLY) bet for a higher capacity, flac-playing device. But personally, I wouldn't go this route, not just because of price. Assess what you actually gain from having your music as flac? Isn't 320kbps mp3 enough?

Remember, mp3 players are portable music players, and not meant to be an alternative place of storage to your PC. They fail at some point, a lot more frequently than PC hard drives. Because of that and above points, I think using a portable media player for all your flac albums is a little redundant as you're going to have it full up in no time with only a hundred albums or so. To me, the word portable implies portable in quality and size too.

My criticisms of the iPod:

- navigation isn't easy
- the click wheel is ill-conceived. Having to swipe your finger round in circles is ridiculous. I much prefer the up/down motion of the touchpad on my MS Zune (or clicking up/down, left/right)
- the iTunes software is horrible. Rather than scrolling by album, like Media Player or MediaMonkey, you scroll by tracks clustered into albums, which is horrible if you have several hundred albums.
- syncing music to and from iPods is a nightmare. You can't just click on an album as you can with a Zune (or other players) and delete it. You have to fiddle around with the songs selected in your music library until you get it right.

Personally, I have an iPod touch (for its PDA type features) and an 80GB Zune for music, which I prefer. I've got about 900 albums on it (many are 320kbps), as well as 69 TV episodes and 21 movies. And still over 6GB storage left. Other people push the Creative range which is a good choice too, but I can't recommend the Zune enough for ease of use, sound quality and more flexibilty than iPods.
cr19
14-05-2008
Originally Posted by carnivalist:
“Good point. However that would make the files even more massive. FLACS are big enough as it is unless, someone could find me an affordable 400GB player!”

And me too! I've been looking around for ages for this sort of device, unfortunately Apple now dominates the market and manufacturers probably don't want to waste millions on a small UK market. In the US, there is much more choice for Ipod alternatives, though many suppliers don't ship to the UK.

One alternative, not really affordable is the buy a Cowon P7 16gb, though obviously this won't be cheap at approx £200

http://www.amazon.co.uk/MP3-MP4-Play...0782973&sr=1-1

Another route is to buy the Sandisk sansa 16gb player, but this has an sd slot, the players are around £100, sd cards extra but then as another user has suggested, use Rockbox software to enable it to play flac files. sd card capacity are increaing all the time at the moment 16gb but I'm sure I heard of a 32gb being developed..it won't be too long.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sandisk-Sans...0782842&sr=8-1

Basically though 400gb pmp doesn't exist.. wait a few years
carnivalist
16-05-2008
Fromez,

I'm on my knees, making the "we're not worthy" motion as a result of that fantastic post. If anyone can add anything else like that please do.

The reason I would like flac support is that I'm slowly archiving the rarer items in my very large (thousands of LPs) vinyl collection. I'm going the lossles route because I want the best copy I can get of a lot of them, due to their rarity. In addition I sometimes DJ with them, which is another reason I want to digitise them. Gigs (especially outdoor ones) can ruin collectable records. Some events are outdoors and therefore played over VERY loud PAs - my ears are not so good, but apparently the dip in sound quality can be detected at such volumes.

If I was to get a player that doesn't support flac, I'd have to convert all of them to 320 mp3 from flac simply in order to use them on the player - TBH it's tedious enough converting from wav in the first place. I'd also need enough space to temporarily store the mp3s for transfer to the player. My external HDs are full enough as it is! However maybe I'll be forced to go down that route.

As a matter of interest, leaving aside the kind of fanatical audiophiles who fulminate against the reduction in sound quality caused by having controls on your pre-amp and whatnot, is 320 mp3 very noticeably inferior at club volumes? For that matter how bad do you think even lower bitrates sound in such a context?. I'm aware of some dubious arguments being made on this issue - I once presented on a radio station where the boss complained about Djs using mp3s with bitrates lower than 224, even though the station broadcast at a lower bitrate than that anyway!
christocar
16-05-2008
So here is a semi-related question: If you install Rockbox on an ipod 80GB can you watch Divx on it?
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