Gaming World Forums
General Category => Technology and Programming => Topic started by: the bloddy ghost on December 06, 2008, 11:35:21 pm
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I want a MP3 player that allows you to just drag and drop files onto it without any problems. I don't want to be forced into using iTunes. I listen to a whole lot of music, and probably won't watch movies on it. So, what are your favorites?
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I used to have Creative Zen, and it allowed you to do it.
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I'll second the vote for the Creative Zen. I used to own one, and drag and drop worked fantastic on it.
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I'll second the vote for the Creative Zen. I used to own one, and drag and drop worked fantastic on it.
its a shame the zen hardware and software are so terrible
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well pretty much every device except the ipod lets you do that, so if i were you i'd go with the creative zen too, from my experience they aren't bad. failing that, samsung's mp3 players are fairly solid.
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the iRiver I used to have was like that and it was pretty good but I dropped it and broke it :(
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its a shame the zen hardware and software are so terrible
gotta second this, also my creative zen broke twice. my ipods broken once and I've had it several years. just mentioning that before you throw down on a zen.
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I spent £15 on an MP3 player and $90 on headphones.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000PE6RUI/3000222g-21
It's great. I expanded it with MicroSD so it has the capacity of one of those flashy ipods and it supports sync in media player and drag and drop and it has no organisational problems at all. You can use it as a memory stick too. It charges from USB.
Also it's cheap so if some fucker nicks it or you break it then you won't cry.
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The Sansa Clip is a pretty dumb mp3 player, but that sansa looks like it might work better. I was actually thinking of getting a Zen for a while.
The only thing I really have against iPods is that you can't put songs that you get from random websites on it can you? they force you to pay for them, right? or am I mistaken?
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you're mistaken
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yeah for sure. ipods dont force you to buy from apple dude no one would buy them then.
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The Sansa Clip is a pretty dumb mp3 player, but that sansa looks like it might work better. I was actually thinking of getting a Zen for a while.
The only thing I really have against iPods is that you can't put songs that you get from random websites on it can you? they force you to pay for them, right? or am I mistaken?
you can put whatever you want on them you just have to convert them to aac first.
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you can put whatever you want on them you just have to convert them to aac first.
that's also a lie, my ipod mini from 2004 allows me to play mp3 and wav too so i would think that later models support the same formats or maybe more
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oh, okay. i'll probably just get an ipod then. i was misinformed and under the impression that they changed their strategy recently.
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IPOD
APPLE IPOD
IPOD TOUCH
I got my ipod video 2 years back when it came out and I have had no issues!
not to be a fanboy but yeah.
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yeah dude ipods are the best, also i'm pretty sure there's some program out there which is ipod compatible and which can be used instead of itunes, not sure what it is though.
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ephpod works Bravo
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i've had an iPod video for about 2 years now. It still works, but the screen has a fairly thick strip of dead pixels that take up about 10% of the screen area. The one huge problem I have with my iPod (which has been going on for about 8-12 months now) is that it does not turn off. Ever.
Ever since I purchased one of those cheap iPod docks with speakers, my iPod has refused to turn off ever after resetting it, deleting everything off it, plugging it in, removing it from power, etc. No method of trying to turn it off works. Fortunately its battery life is still about 12 hours of just laying in my backpack and about 3-4 hours of actual music listening.
Also, I don't know if it is the fault of my iTunes software or of me not knowing how to set things up, but I could never get my iTunes to automatically add files to the library/sync them to the iPod unless I manually chose "add files from folder" from the menu. This is despite the fact that "add files manually" was never selected in the options.
Basically, iTunes is a nightmare to me and I'm absolutely sick of it and would like an MP3 player with at least 10GB (preferably at least 30GB) that comes with non-buggy software that allows music that I download to a specified folder on my computer (say, C:\Music) to automatically sync to the MP3 player when I plug it in.
Oh, and support for audio scrobbling would be nice too (last.fm)
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There's no support for audio scrobbling? I thought that there was.
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the ipod does but his hypothetical device may not
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Yeah Zen had pretty horrible software, but it did its job pretty good anyways. One thing that really pissed me off about Zen was that I bought an expansion card when I ran out of the 8 gigs that it had (bought a 8 GB MicroSD, at least I think it was MicroSD, memory card, but it only worked like 30% of time and it was totally random when it'd work and when it wouldn't). Luckily digital camera used the same memory card type and was only 1 GB so the money wasn't wasted.
I got an Ipod now as well, and I like it much more, it's much easier and more intuitive to browse your music/playlists with an Ipod touch than it was with Zen, and I don't really hate ITunes that much either, and I never found it bothersome to sync my music. All you need to do is add all songs from your HDD (I just added my E:\Music) to the ITunes library. Then you check that "only sync checked songs" checkbox in sync options. Then you just check the songs you want to sync, and uncheck the ones you don't want to sync, and what makes this very easy is that you can use the browser to list all songs, or all songs by certain artist, or all songs of certain album etc. and you can then mass select/unselect checkboxes with ctrl+click, meaning that it's very easy to sync certain artist's music, or just one album etc.
I would love to sync my whole music folder, but 16 GB isn't nearly enough. :(
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Well the syncing isn't the problem. The problem is iTunes doesn't update its library unless I go to the file menu and select "add folder to library", which just happens to be the same exact folder every time. I would like it if it would automatically check the specified folder associated with the library (C:\Music) and update it on startup of iTunes.
edit: never mind. i may have figured it out. apparently my default iTunes folder reset itself?? I definitely don't remember setting it to be some weird my documents / my music / itunes shit
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that's also a lie, my ipod mini from 2004 allows me to play mp3 and wav too so i would think that later models support the same formats or maybe more
Yeah, I'm pretty sure iTunes just doesn't allow .wma files, for obvious reasons.
Edit:
iTunes 8 can currently read, write, and convert between MP3, AIFF, WAV, MPEG-4, AAC, and Apple Lossless.
The Windows version of iTunes can automatically transcode DRM-free WMA (including version 9) files to other audio formats, but does not support playback of WMA files and will not transcode DRM protected WMA files.
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the files on your ipod, i'm pretty sure are going to be AAC no matter what you do. When you import them into itunes, it converts them
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about itunes, i liked it when it first came out. A music player and a program to sync with your ipod pretty much. Now it's a fairly hefty program, with iphone support (i almost want them to have a seperate program). Not to mention Apple trying to get you to install safari and quicktime. I just want a light, simple music program to use with my ipod. I don't know does anyone else feel this way?
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the files on your ipod, i'm pretty sure are going to be AAC no matter what you do. When you import them into itunes, it converts them
No, they're not imported when you import them into iTunes. Some formats are converted, like WMA files, but MP3 files are not converted. Dunno about when they're transfered to iPod though, there might be a transparent conversion, but I somewhat doubt it!
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There's no support for audio scrobbling? I thought that there was.
It most certainly is as I use iPod scrobbling through last.fm and iTunes.
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With iTunes you can change the format music is stored/downloaded as. A lot of files that iTunes can play get converted when you add them to your library. The default is aac or whatever but you can set its primary format to mp3.
iPods are amazing but iTunes is the worst program ever. It is such a pain in the ass. The Apple store is stupid too and you should buy your music on Amazon (it is DRM free, higher fidelity, and cheaper). I had an iPod video for a year and it broke just after a full year of constant use. I was a little disappointed but I felt like I had gotten use out of it. I think I played it at least five hours on an average day.
Drag and drop browsing would be wonderful but iPods do not support it! You can hack your iPod but I don't really want to do that.
Also the iPod is a wonderful external hard drive!
So yes I would recommend either an iPod or a super cheap solution like a cell phone with mp3 support.
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Are there any big differences sound-wise between MP3 players? If one player in particular had crazy good signal-to-noise ratio I'd get that one instead of worrying about mad features. The one I have right now is like pretty loud even if you're on the last volume bar (might just be my headphones but I dunno why that'd be)
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you don't need to use itunes to load music and videos in your ipod anymore. Winamp can read ipods now, it can play and rip songs off any ipod without erasing the whole thing. So for example if you have alot of music in your ipod, you can delete the copies in the computer because you can always pull them out by using winamp.
besides, winamp uses less resources than itunes, so your pc will be more stable, and winamp has extra stuff that itunes does not.
But if you want a drag drop interface...
there are alternative firmwares to the ipod that you can use such as rockbox.
with rockbox you can turn your ipod into a drag and drop mp3 player so you don't need to use softwares like winamp or itunes to add/remove tracks.
Also I suggest you get an older generation ipod because, from what i know iTouches cannot be used as hard disk drives, which is one of the reasons why I like the older generations better.
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Also I suggest you get an older generation ipod because, from what i know iTouches cannot be used as hard disk drives, which is one of the reasons why I like the older generations better.
There are a bunch of software that lets you transfer files between iPod Touch (and iPhone) and your computer.
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There are a bunch of software that lets you transfer files between iPod Touch (and iPhone) and your computer.
You will only be limited on doing these file transfers between your itouch and a pc that has that software. It'd be easy if it was a patch that you load in your itouch that permanently lets you do it but no.
The advantage of old generation ones is that its a plug and go hdd, you technically don't need to carry around thumb/flash drives when you have one because all computers will recognize it as a drive. He can't just download the software whenever he wants to especially if he is on a public computer, or another one, too much hassle.