[D555]

Hello,

Question says it all. Does a portable 100GIG+ HDD player exist that supports OGG Vorbis? Archos seems to want to be the champ of of portable HDD drive sizes but no support for OGG Vorbis.

Does such a beast exist?

Thanks!

Paul

 

[solvexyz]

I believe closest is a 5.5Gen iPod 80Gig loaded with Rockbox

 

[Xpander]

My old Xclef fits the bill. The question is: do you really want a bulky monochrome player that you have to upgrade yourself?

 

[khbaur330162]

He said "PMP"... Niether the iPod, nor the Xclef fit the bill.

Actually, nothing really does. The largest Ogg playing PMP will be about 30 gigs unless you find some super rare Chinese funked out PMP that I don't know about.

I did my fair share of research concerning this and ended up buying the i-Station V43. I might be biased, seeing as I'm selling one atm, but you should definitely check into this player.

Bottom line is if you want Ogg, you can't have 100 gig w/o use of some external HDD that connects via USB host with a PMP supporting that feature. This will be slow and anything but hassle free. Good luck finding a HDD powered by USB too. If you can't live w/o that much space, then start re-encoding your music. Archos is the only company to really supply PMP's with more than 60 gigs, and they don't look to be implementing new codecs anytime soon. (Haven't added any between the past couple of gens anyway, if my memory serves me correct) I'm sry to break it to you...

Good luck.

 

[pds6]

Quote:

He said "PMP"... Niether the iPod, nor the Xclef fit the bill.

Why isn't the iPod a portable multimedia player "PMP"?

 

[D555]

I've done searching as well, and the 60GB iAudio X5 seems to be one of the largest ogg Vorbis players though the video capabilities are somewhat limited (no 16:9 screen, limited LCD resolution, 15fps).

 

[khbaur330162]

Quote:

Why isn't the iPod a portable multimedia player "PMP"?

You are correct in saying it is portable, and it plays media. However, you could say the same for PCDP's... When some one says "PMP", they usually mean something with a relatively large screen for watching videos on. (I would imagine they are also looking for a wide range of codec compatibility) "Well the iPod has a screen and you can watch movies on it!" Well that's fine and dandy, but the LCD is pretty shoddy and it supports like 2 video codecs rendering it rather useless for what the OP would be using it for.

The iAudio A2 looks like a good choice. Some one took it completely apart a little while back. I'm pretty sure after perpendicular drives become readily available you'd be able to swap out the drive with one up to 40gigs. (single platter drives only...)

My sister has and X5; I have an H320 as well as i-Station V43. Honestly, watching even 30 minute TV shows on either DAP would be somewhat straining to my eyes. Also, both LCD's can't even be compared as far as picture quality is concerned to the V43. Get a dedicated PMP. If a video player is what you want, a video player should be what you get. Anything less will simply disappoint.

 

[The Smokester]

An iRiver H340 with the (future, long-promised, very expensive, install-it-youself) 80GB HD would come close. That's my plan.

 

[pds6]

khbaur330162 says,
Quote:

iPod a portable multimedia player

Just making sure we were talking the same initials

 

[khbaur330162]

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Smokester An iRiver H340 with the (future, long-promised, very expensive, install-it-youself) 80GB HD would come close. That's my plan.

Again, I just don't think something along those lines would fully suit him. He's looking for something to play videos. I'm judging off the fact that he said "no 16:9 screen, limited LCD resolution, 15fps". He's obviously looking for something with a a quality screen and with quality video playback. You just won't get that out of a DAP imho.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pds6 Just making sure we were talking the same initials

Lol. I'm aware of the acronym's meaning. I wouldn't call myself a PMP veteran, seeing as I've only ever owned one (the i-Station) but I've read about them more than I'd like to admit to and I've also been lucky enough to fool around with a few varying models. Perhaps I've been babied by my i-Station, but watching anything over a matter of minutes on a 2" LCD would simply be ridiculous in my mind; anything past music videos is a waste of your time.

 

[Kaaspeer]

I believe there are players where you can put in laptop harddisks, forgot the name tho.

 

[pds6]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaaspeer I believe there are players where you can put in laptop harddisks, forgot the name tho.

I don't know the player, but it would have to be huge or have a 20 minute battery life.

 

[D555]

Indeed, I'm looking for the best of both worlds (music/movie), with large capacity if I can get it.

Nothing's perfect of course.

For my needs, an Archos AV500 (or 504: 160GB!) with Vorbis would fit the bill if Archos would only add support (I have the AV500 already!)

Or if Cowon would add a 100GB or larger drive to the A2.

 

[pds6]

D555 says,
Quote:

[W]ith large capacity if I can get it. [A]n Archos AV500 (or 504: 160GB!) Or if Cowon would add a 100GB or larger drive to the A2.

I am going on a trip next month and began to load my iPod. I just used Instant Handbrake. A movie is 2:12:24 long and it took about 2.5 hours to process. It takes-up less than 1.25 gb on my hard drive. Eight movies that are two hours in length need 10 gb of space.

I rip my music to MP3 320bits lame cpr. I average 1,000 song per 10gb. So a rather small sized hard drive like the A2 (20gb) can store 1,000 songs and 16 hour of video.

How much space do you honestly need?

 

[D555]

At one point 100GB would have seemed like enough. An estimate is that I'm about 20% through my collection of CDs with about 9,000 songs on the AV500 taking up about 42GIG of space - roughly about 10 hours per GIG. LAME VBR Q=0 stereo (not joint stereo) is being used. Most songs are usually between 230kbps and 270kbps. I find with Vorbis I'm as happy (or happier) with between q=5 and q=6 thus the Vorbis quest.

On the AV500 I also have 18 movies ranging from about 1.5 hours to 3.5 hours.

I have about 50 or so, "all-time" favorite movies. I can transcode them such that even a 2.5 hour movie will fit with 1GIG .avi and be quite watchable on the AV500. So, figure 50GIGs for movies.

160GB might not be enough but may be OK! It's a big project. Time to open a radio station!