MP3 players and PC system requirements

In My Humble Opinion
1

I had been thinking of getting a CD changer in my car instead of using my portable CD player/car kit. Then I realized that I probably would be better off getting an MP3 player (Ipod, Nomad etc). This way I could have my entire collection at the touch of a few buttons instead of just the ones in the CD changer. The cost is a bit more, not much, but since I could take the MP3 player with me anywhere it would justify the higher cost

I assume all the newer MP3 players are “car kit friendly” right?

I was doing some research and reading reviews here and at circuitcity.com. I had narrowed it down to three MP3 players.

Creative NOMAD Jukebox Zen Xtra 30GB Audio Player
Archos Gmini 120 20GB MP3 Jukebox
Apple 15GB iPod Audio Jukebox

I was really deciding between the Nomad and Gmini but I kept the Ipod in case there was a price break. Anyone have any recommendations?

I started to read the PC system requirements and I am at a loss. At home I have Windows 98 and I see that the requirements are as follws:

Creative NOMAD Jukebox Zen Xtra 30GB Audio Player
Windows 98® SE/Me/2000/XP, Intel® Pentium® II 233MHz or AMD K6® -2 266Mhz, 64MB RAM (128MB recomm.), USB 2.0 or 1.1 port, 30MB free HD space, Sound Blaster® Audigy™, Extigy™ or Live!™ for EAX® enhanced MP3/WMA encoding, CD-ROM drive

Archos Gmini 120 20GB MP3 Jukebox
PC: Pentium® 233MHz or higher, Windows 98SE/ME/2000/XP, 32MB RAM, CD-ROM drive

Apple 15GB iPod Audio Jukebox
Windows requirements: PC with FireWire or USB 2.0 port, or FireWire or USB 2.0 card; Windows 2000 with Service Pack 4 or Windows XP Home or Professional

Ok, now some questions:

How do I know if I have Windows 98 SE? That means Second Edition, right? IIRC I bought my comp in 99 so I am thinking that I may have the SE but how do I know for sure? If I don’t have SE how hard is it to update my PC? I asssume I won’t loose anything already on my comp. I hope I won’t to have to reconfigure my applications if I need to update…

How do I check my Pentium MHz and my RAM? Is this what dictates the speed of the download from CD to the MP3? How long should a song take to download from CD to MP3?

What are these requirements for the Nomad? (Sound Blaster® Audigy™, Extigy™ or Live!™ for EAX® enhanced MP3/WMA encoding) Are they included with the Nomad or standard in PCs? How would I check for them?

Am I also dowloading these onto my computer or is the PC just the middle man so the CD and MP3 can interact with each other? I want to download for now at least 200 CDs and I don’t want to loose all that memory on my PC if I don’t need to.

It seems the Ipod may be out of the running if I have to have Windows 2000 or XP. Plus it’s cost much more than the other two with less GB.

Am I missing anything important to consider in my selection process? Are there any new editions coming out soon with much improved features that I may want to wait for? Or at least wait on one of these because of they should go down in price when the newer ones hit the market.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts and help.

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To find the information on your computer, right click on My Computer and select Properties. This should bring up Device Manager and the first page will tell you OS, RAM and probably CPU speed. Sound Blaster® Audigy™, Extigy™ or Live!™ for EAX® enhanced MP3/WMA encoding, CD-ROM drive
are sound cards by Creative and are only needed if you want to enhance the sound of the MP3. I don’t know if these players can hookup to a car CD player but that should be easy to find out.

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Thanks Toddly. I’ll check when I get home. Are the sound cards worth it? I am guessing Creative won’t include them with the MP3. I have no idea what a sound card looks like. Is it just an application added through the CD Rom or download? Or is it something I need to physically install into my computer?

Will Windows 98 Second Edition (SE) specifically say that or is it just Windows 98 but with a later copyright date?

FYI, I am planning to hook up the MP3 through my tapedeck and powered through the cig lighter. I have the portable “discman” set up that way now and figure the MP3s should be able to do the same. I know on or two of them mention they can do this but I just wanted to make sure that there isn’t one without the capability.

4

NYR407, the sound cards are not neccesary for what you need. They are add on components that physically install in your PC. Sound cards enhance and control the quality of the sound that your computer generates. It won’t come with the player. If I remember right Device Manager should indicate if OS is SE. I am a little unsure about your original post. You know that you need to encode a .cda format CD to MP3. They are different file formats and the benefit is MP3 is about 1/3 the size of .cda.

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I am guessing you mean a .cda file that takes up 1000kbs will only take up about 330 kbs in .mps format. So then I do need to download them onto my comp and then onto the MP3 player. I read that some of the players also take .wma format and that uses even less memory with lilttle or no decrease in sound quality. I thought they might have been referring to the memory on the player but i guess it also is the memory on the comp too.

You said I’ll “need to encode…” That is done through a media player, right. Be it Windows Media or the notorious RealOne Player, right? Ipod claims they can download a song in 10 seconds. Is that from the PC to the player only? The speed to get the CD onto the computer may take much longer. The ones I have on there now took a lot longer than a few seconds to download from the CD.

I guess I’ll need to check my comps capablilites first. If this is too much of a headache I might just stay with what I have for now.

Thanks.

6

I suggest you get a Neo Jukebox, They have several, One, made directly for your car, or a portable version, The Neo Jukebox is best for one reason. YOU CAN USE IT ANY WAY YOU WANT WITH ANY MEDIA PLAYER! All the others come with propetary software that just plain SUCKS! The Neo acts as a REMOVEABLE DRIVE! Just drag and drop everything into it, ANYTHING!! :slight_smile: And AND!!, Take the neo to your friends (or whoever’s house) and plug it in and share & enjoy your files!

Not with Ipod or nomad or everyone else, I’ve had them and they stink for the reason that you are sooooooo limited with your music. The crummy scumbags with the RIAA have their hands in all of these MP3 players and they are making them worthless! The Neo Jukebox is the ONLY MP3 player that lets you do what you want. and to use it as an extra drive. Go To www.ssiamerica.com and see for yourself that this one is better, if you don’t you will be doing what I did, returning the nomad and getting a Neo. BTW, I don’t buy new CD’s anymore, you crummy RIAA, I only buy from used sources, such as pawnshops, you are no longer getting my money.

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Thanks and Welcome to SDMB Sonic,

I’ll definately give the Neo a good look. The Car system is a bit pricey and I don’t need that much memory. The portable looks ideal and and reasonably priced so I will have to keep an eye out for it in the stores. I noticed that it allows for regular Windows 98 and they offer the car lighter adpater so I should be able to connect it to my car tapedeck.

Thanks.

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Sonic The NEO sounds interesting and propietory software does indeed suck. Will it be recognized as another drive with 98? It also sounds like it will store any type of data which is an added benefit. They are sold out at the site.
** NYR407** you would need some hardrive space for the conversion process to MP3 or wma. You can store the encoded songs to a temp file and then transfer to the portable unit or if the NEO is just another drive then you you might be able to just save them to that unit. The NEO comes with Music Match which is better than Real Player. That program does indeed suck and I will never use it. I am not a big fan of wma even if the files are a bit smaller. The IPOD Claims of 10 seconds are probably for the transfer from the PC to the player. Encoding doesn’t take to long though, once you learn and repeat the process of encoding and transfer it’s easy. Do you have a CD burner?

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Trust me, if you get the 30 gig neo (399.00) You will be able to put every cd you own in it… If you have as much as me… ( i encode a 320bps for best quality) I have 25 gigs of tunes… and it keeps growing… I believe you will love the Neo… You will not find the portable in stores… you will have to buy online… Good Luck and enjoy

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Yes! It will work with win98, It has a driver disc so you can get the “little green arrow that points down” so you can click to remove the removable drive.

With the neo it’s great, you just drag and drop MP3’s on it, It shows up in My computer as "Removable Disc “F” etc… Just copy and paste mussic to it!!!
Just like on the website, how you organize the music it is how it works…

Just put your fav songs in folders, such as “best of the 70’s” and you will browse that folder and songs on your Neo display when you disconnect it from your computer,
Everytime you put music in it, it scans automatically and updates!

11

Unless I’m mistaken, all of the MP3 players listed in the OP will let you do whatever you want with your music.

Or are you just ranting against the RIAA as a bonus?

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No, It’s just that if you wanted to get a copy of a song from your friend, you could just plug in your neo to his computer and get a copy, with all the others, you have to put in their crummy software and it uses that crummy DRM to lock it up and make it worthless, or it forces you to use wma or other format types to avoid sharing " freedom " with your tunes.

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First, you can simply put MP3s on the players, thus avoiding any and all DRM issues.

Second, it’s not rocket science to get the music off those players and to your buddy’s PC. I know the iPod simply stashes your music in an invisible directory, and once you get in there, it’s all drag-and-drop. I can’t imagine the others being much more complicated than that.

14

Sorry, but with the iPod, at least, you are quite mistaken. The only digital rights management elements apply to songs purchased form the iTunes store and even that is quite workable, especially on the Windows side. For your home-ripped tunes you are free to manipulate them as you please in MP3, AAC, WAVE, and AIFF formats. Plenty of freeware and shareware exists that allows two-way transfer of music on iPods.

NYR407, I suggest you consult the recent NY Times story on the iPod and 6 new competitors for a well-written analysis of all the underlying issues involved with these kind of players.

15

I have an Archos player, and it couldn’t be simpler. You plug it in with a USB cable, and a standard window opens up, showing your player as just another hard drive. You can cut, copy, paste, and delete files on the player just like you can on any hard drive.

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Thaks for all the input. The good news is I have the min reqs of Windows 98SE and a Pentium III. I assume Pentium III has more than 233 Mhz. I also have 64 MB of RAM. Can I/should I incread this?

Geoduck, do you know the date of the NY Times article? I may still have it laying around if its not too old.

Okay, I am not really confident enough to buy an MP3 player without actually seeing it in person first so I may take a pass on the Neo, for now. Thanks for the heads up though.

Now I checked how much memory my songs take up in the PC and I see it equals about 1MB for each min of the song. Is this too much or normal? I just updated my WMP and I am wondering what I should set my audio quality at.

The lowest is 48 Kps and the highest is 192 Kps. I have it at 128 Kps now. Is that too high? Is using my WMP going to automatically have my file be a .wma file? Or do i have to further change my settings? I don’t see where it says if it is a MP3 or .wma file.

I guess I am looking for the smallest sized file without a hugh impact on the sound quality. If I was to downlaod over 200 CDs onto my comp just so I can transfer it to the MP3 player it would take up tons of memory. Could I delete the files after I trasfer it to the player? Or is the file leaving my PC after I transfer to the player?

Thanks again.

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NYR407, you want to encode MP3 at least at 128 kps.The sound quality is not as good at the lower settings. The higher the setting, the better the quality and they are larger files but with 15 or 20 GB or more you can store a lot of songs. The MP3 files would be stored on the PC hard drive or the hard drive of the player itself and not RAM memory. Once you have encoded them and put them on the portable you can delete the files on the PC. Your system is light on RAM . You might see how much another 128 MB costs and see if that is worth it to you.