[derek8555]

Quote:

Originally Posted by LawnGnome /img/forum/go_quote.gif Very good point. Video is much much more intensive. Most likely you have just bad charges. Is there a reason you need lossless? With 320kbps MP3's I get about 10-12 hours. So unless you are 100% certain you can hear the difference, is it worth the battery life?

Well, with FLAC and rockbox I get 9 hrs which is not too bad for lossless and also for features that rockbox provides. Besides that I can tell difference on lossless and 320 mp3 on complex passages; also when playing mp3 on rockbox the battery life really doesn't increase much at all, maybe just an hour more for me. (BTW, I hate iTunes that's why I installed rockbox)

 

[LawnGnome]

Quote:

Originally Posted by derek8555 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Well, with FLAC and rockbox I get 9 hrs which is not too bad for lossless and also for features that rockbox provides. Besides that I can tell difference on lossless and 320 mp3 on complex passages; also when playing mp3 on rockbox the battery life really doesn't increase much at all, maybe just an hour more for me. (BTW, I hate iTunes that's why I installed rockbox)

What advantages does rockbox offer?

I do enjoy my custom background/fonts/icons/strings on my ipod, but I could consider changing if there was a reason.

 

[mrarroyo]

I have an stock battery on a 6 month old 4th Gen iPod that has been modified by Vinnie at Red Wine Audio. It is filled with over 2100 lossless files and I get 9.5 to 10 hours of play time.

 

[tk3]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrdeadfolx /img/forum/go_quote.gif Yep, apple lossless + itunes is battery death, I'll vouch for that.

How is that?
I've recently gotten my iMod (with a 1200 mAh battery), and while burning it in I noticed it still has about 15% of the battery bar remaining after 10 hours, seems pretty good to me.

This is my first time of owning any version of ipod though, I never liked the way they looked, but the high-praised SQ of the iMod sucked me in.
Got some questions for the knowledgeable:

1) I usually browse by album to pick a song, I notice the imod will play through the album but stop after that.
Is there any way to make it continue playing (to the next album, artist, whatever) without choosing your songs/album from the "all" folder?
Having to wade through 1000's of songs to find what you want is not really practical.
I don't like playlists either, I prefer folder based browsing, so I made my tags to emulate that as close as possible.

2) Any way to get more info from the 'while playing' screen than what is currently displayed with the stock firmware? Like file format, bit rate and things like that.

I assume rockbox can do both of these things, but reading about the battery life loss with rockbox I prefer to keep the apple firmware.
And uh, something else. Does the "rating" function have any practical use?

(sorry for hijack)

 

[trose49]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tk3 /img/forum/go_quote.gif How is that? I've recently gotten my iMod (with a 1200 mAh battery), and while burning it in I noticed it still has about 15% of the battery bar remaining after 10 hours, seems pretty good to me. This is my first time of owning any version of ipod though, I never liked the way they looked, but the high-praised SQ of the iMod sucked me in. Got some questions for the knowledgeable: 1) I usually browse by album to pick a song, I notice the imod will play through the album but stop after that. Is there any way to make it continue playing (to the next album, artist, whatever) without choosing your songs/album from the "all" folder? Having to wade through 1000's of songs to find what you want is not really practical. I don't like playlists either, I prefer folder based browsing, so I made my tags to emulate that as close as possible. 2) Any way to get more info from the 'while playing' screen than what is currently displayed with the stock firmware? Like file format, bit rate and things like that. I assume rockbox can do both of these things, but reading about the battery life loss with rockbox I prefer to keep the apple firmware. And uh, something else. Does the "rating" function have any practical use? (sorry for hijack)

No way you are using Apple lossless! If you are not that familiar with Itunes/Ipods you probably are using the default settings of 128AAC.

If that is the case please send the IMOD to me it is being under utilized!!! LOL!

 

[derek8555]

Quote:

Originally Posted by LawnGnome /img/forum/go_quote.gif What advantages does rockbox offer? I do enjoy my custom background/fonts/icons/strings on my ipod, but I could consider changing if there was a reason.

Well these are the main reasons why I switched:
1. Drag & drop? No more iTunes

2. Fully customizable EQ
3. Blacker background
4. Precut up to -24dB (I use that with my IEM because in the official firmware even the lowest volume setting is too loud)

All you miss is the video playback, but since I never watch any on it I don't get to loss anything.

 

[tk3]

Quote:

Originally Posted by trose49 /img/forum/go_quote.gif No way you are using Apple lossless! If you are not that familiar with Itunes/Ipods you probably are using the default settings of 128AAC. If that is the case please send the IMOD to me it is being under utilized!!! LOL!

No man.

I don't even use iTunes with all the negative stuff around it, I used a program called xplay to load music to my ipod.
All the lossless files I got are flac/ape transcoded to alac while I was waiting for the imod.

 

[zip22]

trose, there has to be something seriously wrong with your ipod. i just tested a 1.5 year old 30GB 5G ipod (daily use) with some sony headphones at ~60% volume (above normal listening level - trying to give you the benefit of the doubt) and it lasted 7 hours 43 minutes with ALAC

 

[trose49]

Quote:

Originally Posted by zip22 /img/forum/go_quote.gif trose, there has to be something seriously wrong with your ipod. i just tested a 1.5 year old 30GB 5G ipod (daily use) with some sony headphones at ~60% volume (above normal listening level - trying to give you the benefit of the doubt) and it lasted 7 hours 43 minutes with ALAC

Possibly! Is anyone else only getting a few hours using lossless?

If I switch to 256AAC battery life is perfect?? Dunno!

 

[unclejr]

Erm, something is strange. (Sorry no numbers.)

ALAC > stock fw (brightness down to zero, volume down to zero, wireless turned OFF (haha)) > line out > cmoy (low vol) > etys or se210s ...

poor battery life, but tolerable between charges.

FLAC level 8 > RockBox > same past here ...

really ridiculous, terrible battery life after full day charges. new builds installed every day. Possibly < 1 h? Really bad.

Also tried FLAC 8 > Rockbox > iPod's headphone out > etys. Still pretty bad, maybe a bit better than line out but still unacceptable.

A few devs over at Rockbox seem to be aware of the issue and have made it a last priority of sorts.

Flashed it back to the original fw and took it to a nearby Apple store to investigate this problem. They ran a couple of days worth of battery tests and came back with a "sorry our tests say it's fine."

So what's going on? Who knows. So I'm back to the original fw begrudgingly using ALAC until Sony etc. releases a more open, more worthy competitor. I'm pretty surprised by all these other reports of 9 h etc. It doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, unless the line out is really doing all of that, but something seems out of place.

 

[mrdeadfolx]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tk3 /img/forum/go_quote.gif How is that? I've recently gotten my iMod (with a 1200 mAh battery), and while burning it in I noticed it still has about 15% of the battery bar remaining after 10 hours, seems pretty good to me.

No idea my friend, I wish it werent true. I have a 5.5 gen 80 gig ipod, and when using 192/320 kbps songs, the battery can go all day no problem, but when I listen to lossless files, the thing just cant wait to die on me. I'd like an explanation myself.

 

[EFN]

Last night I gave up on RockBox for my iMod. Even with 1200 mAh battery, I can barely score 6 and half hour run time. It is even worse if I do a lot of shut down and boot up, total playtime will be reduced to just over 3 hours, it seems the lack of a good "Sleep Mode" feature will inflict heavy toll on the battery where every boot up/shut down chomps the life out of it.

So with heavy heart I switched to iTunes and began the painstaking process of re-ripping and re-encode my CDs to ALAC.

So far I am very happy with the result because since this morning (7.30AM) until now (4.46PM), my iMod still have 50% of battery reserve and she has been sleeping/playing in between. The only thing that I miss from RockBox is the gapless playback. SQ wise they sounded the same and as black (backround) as night on both. I dont have any use for RockBox's extra features so those are not missed.

But if RockBox are to be improved further with regard to power management, I will surely try it again.

 

[unclejr]

Ooh, no gapless playback w/o Rockbox on the iPod photo 60 GB (iMod)??

That, unfortunately, would be a deal breaker for me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by EFN /img/forum/go_quote.gif Last night I gave up on RockBox for my iMod. Even with 1200 mAh battery, I can barely score 6 and half hour run time. It is even worse if I do a lot of shut down and boot up, total playtime will be reduced to just over 3 hours, it seems the lack of a good "Sleep Mode" feature will inflict heavy toll on the battery where every boot up/shut down chomps the life out of it. So with heavy heart I switched to iTunes and began the painstaking process of re-ripping and re-encode my CDs to ALAC. So far I am very happy with the result because since this morning (7.30AM) until now (4.46PM), my iMod still have 50% of battery reserve and she has been sleeping/playing in between. The only thing that I miss from RockBox is the gapless playback. SQ wise they sounded the same and as black (backround) as night on both. I dont have any use for RockBox's extra features so those are not missed. But if RockBox are to be improved further with regard to power management, I will surely try it again.

 

[robm321]

My battery life is getting sucked out by itunes as well. (lossless).

I think maybe FLAC does a much better job ??

Because my mp3s play forever on this thing. I think 2.5 hours in apple lossless is about what I am getting.

Hmmmm, should I switch to rockbox...

And I can hear a difference. Its much smoother and less brittle when comparing mp3 to lossless. Well maybe not too dramatic but side by side, I can tell.

 

[zip22]

ugh...

anyone who hasn't actually done a full run down test, please do. judging by the battery meter is horribly inaccurate.