[clue-tech] mp3/ogg players

[Jed S. Baer]

On Sun, 4 Nov 2007 15:37:58 -0700
Collins Richey wrote:

> My wife has a collection of inspirational audio recordings that she
> would like to put on an mp3/ogg/ipod/??? device to listen to to/from
> work or whenever. I have them ripped to ogg on my pc. Now the search
> is on for a portalbe device that I can transfer the files to via USB.

Unfortunately, the market for Ogg is really small. I spent a lot of time
finding a media player that supported Ogg. Unfortunately, when it broke,
the support I got sucked. It seems that while their website says, "works
wtih Linux", if the thing quits working, they'll suggest that you do a
firmware upgrade, and those are available only via a Windoze exe file.

That said, the way this thing worked is that it implements UMS -- that's
the USB Mass Storage specification, so when you plug it in, it looks like
a USB drive, and you just copy your files onto it.

There are newer versions than what I have which use flash memory. I
assume that means you can pull the memory stick out, plug it into a card
reader and copy files to it. This has the advantage of being able to make
a few different sticks with different mixes, if you want, for example, a
jazz collection, a pop collection, and a classical collection.

So, if you want Ogg, the only thing I know of is iAudio (Cowon). But save
all the original packaging and contents (the supplied earbuds are just
painful) in case you have to return it. I've seen favorable comments on
bulletin boards regarding their RMA service. When I contacted them for
support, and mentioned I run Linux, they were just plain unpleasant. Been
meaning to post a little transcript of my chat session with a support
manager, it's actually a bit funny, once you get around what a dickhead
he was being.

Oh, if you can find a used iRiver -- they support Ogg as well, IIRC.

There are programs that work with the iPod on Linux, but AFAIK, you'll
have to convert to MP3.

jed