[Charles Mingus]

I'm in the market for an mp3 player, but I have become frustrated because I haven't been able to find any clear answers as to whether there is an mp3 player such that I am seeking...

I am looking for an mp3 player with great sound and a nice color screen that will display jpgs (the "cover art" in most cases) of my choice for each album that I will be playing on it.

Notice that I mean I DON'T want a database to decide what image to assign what album (like say an Ipod would do, I don't want that.)

I want something where I can drop a jpg into the directory of mp3s that make up some album I ripped from my collection and when I'm playing those mp3s (that album) the mp3-player would put that image (usually the cover art that I assigned it) on screen when it plays the album. The entire screen.

Is there such an mp3 player out there, and with good sound?

(see, I would want to assign my OWN images to the albums, because 3/4ths of the albums I would be playing on it are so obscure they are not listed online. Or say I was playing my Ornette Coleman box set from Atlantic, and for each individual disc, I would have an individual jpg for that album of Ornette Coleman playing his sax, as opposed to having one image--the box set cover--for all six discs).

I was excited when I found out about the Toshiba Gigabeat
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...&s=pc&v=glance
It seemed to be everything I wanted! You could even select and browse which album you want to listen to on the player BY the cover art. But apparently the sound sucks on the thing, and I believe you have to use THEIR software to operate the thing.

I just want to be able to plug the mp3 player onto my computer and copy and paste folders of jazz that I sorted myself! with the artwork that I assigned or scanned in and with good sound without distortion, etc.

Can anyone help me out, please?

Thanks so much in advance!

 

[blessingx]

Just for the record, for those displaying album art it's usually in a track tag (comforming to one of a couple tagging standards) instead of placing an image in a directory. Except for maybe file size (one image instead of ten for a ten song album) I don't see an advantage to the directory image placement instead of actually referencing the song in a tag (thus song can be moved or whatever and still retain the assigned image(s)).

Anyway for what it's worth the iPod/iTunes doesn't assign/decide an image from a database. It's all manual (put whatever you want in there) unless you use various third party apps that will lookup the cover art (often from one of the various Amazons across the planet or Yahoo/Google) and allow you to copy it over if you want. It's just an option. Either mentioned won't work for the directory drop system you want, but I wouldn't think of it as limiting the content you can put in there. Just wanted to clear that up.

P.S. And welcome to Head-Fi. I like your music.

 

[Charles Mingus]

Quote:

Originally Posted by blessingx Anyway for what it's worth the iPod/iTunes doesn't assign/decide an image from a database. It's all manual (put whatever you want in there) unless you use various third party apps that will lookup the cover art (often from one of the various Amazons across the planet or Yahoo/Google) and allow you to copy it over if you want.

Really?

I had only assumed, because people have told me that iTunes decides how your mp3s are ordered, and that if you had ripped your CD collection into mp3 form before you got iTunes and had your own way of ordering it, that once you installed iTunes that it would then reorder all of your mp3s into it's own format and what not. Which sounded intrusive. So I assumed that on the iPod Photo or the iPod Nano, both of which I am to understand display cover art for the albums, that iTunes chose the image for the album. But this is not true?

Two other questions I had about the iPod was that (1) On pictures I've seen, the album art will be almost microscopic, like say in this image from Amazon
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0...CLZZZZZZZ_.jpg
But I believe that I've heard that if you press the "select" button that it makes the cover-art FULL screen while the mp3s play. Is that true?
And (2) friends have told me that iPods are known for having weak bass, and using the EQ causes them to distort horribly. What is your take on all of that?

Thank you, so very much!

Also, so are you a Mingus or Ornette fan? I'm guessing since you said you dug my music. =)

 

[blessingx]

iTunes/iPod plays fine with MP3s (even encodes as such if you want). Only proprietary formats or DRM is on files purchased from the iTunes Music Store.

There's a switch called 'Allow iTunes to Manage Your Music' in preferences. If on it will reorder in directory structure of artist/album/track (by tag). If off it will leave alone. Either way though it will organize in iTunes and iTunes by tags. So you pretty much have to get those in order and can't rely on your own directory structure exclusively. There's various progs to help with translating that structure to your tags. I don't use any so can't help there.

There no automatic album art support in iTunes. There's a slot you can copy something to or you can use a different prog. There's a ton. I use Clutter, but it's OS X only. See this thread for some others.

As for size. Yeah, I don't quite like Apple implementation. It's small during normal playback. If you click the center wheel it cycles thru a few things like ratings, fast forward/reverse, etc. One of them is a larger nearly full-sized album image (maybe 80%).

EDIT: And was commenting on your name.

Like the biggies, but listening mostly to Evans lately.

 

[outsidelookingin]

meh, I think the iPod has the best album art/now playing screen out there. The fonts are all smooth and nice looking IMO.

 

[Charles Mingus]

Yeah, iPod just isn't my bag, though. I'm really looking for something that isn't an iPod. Not that there really is anything wrong with iPods, they just aren't my thing, really.

My friend told me that she thought the iRiver H320 would fit my criteria, but see she only "thinks", she doesn't know for sure whether you can configure it to display the album art while said album is playing. I've tried calling iRiver on the phone to ask them, but no luck. Does anyone have one that could fill me in?

 

[ZackT]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charles Mingus Yeah, iPod just isn't my bag, though. I'm really looking for something that isn't an iPod. Not that there really is anything wrong with iPods, they just aren't my thing, really. My friend told me that she thought the iRiver H320 would fit my criteria, but see she only "thinks", she doesn't know for sure whether you can configure it to display the album art while said album is playing. I've tried calling iRiver on the phone to ask them, but no luck. Does anyone have one that could fill me in?

I was asking about the album art on the X5, I just assumed from the colour screen and the many features it has that would display album art too. But I hear it doesn't - it will be interesting if any (non-iPod) players support album art as I think it's a really good feature.

ZT

ZT

 

[grawk]

You know something is successful when people decide that even tho an item is the only one that fits the bill, it doesn't, because, well, you know, it's white and popular...

 

[outsidelookingin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by grawk You know something is successful when people decide that even tho an item is the only one that fits the bill, it doesn't, because, well, you know, it's white and popular...

haha, agreed.

 

[blessingx]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charles Mingus My friend told me that she thought the iRiver H320 would fit my criteria...

God Google answers all.

 

[ZackT]

Quote:

Originally Posted by grawk You know something is successful when people decide that even tho an item is the only one that fits the bill, it doesn't, because, well, you know, it's white and popular...

Here's another one (hee hee)....


http://board.iexbeta.com/index.php?showtopic=58127

ZT

 

[neversummer]

yes, as blessing x has pointed out, the ihp-320 does not have album art.
Why a company would release a photo player without the ability to show album art is beyond me. however, iriver has a history of including obscure features and ignoring obvious ones.

anapod will let you assign images to albums based on the jpg that is in the album folder. that is, of course, if you can get over your ipod bias.

 

[Charles Mingus]

You guys have me pegged wrong.

I don't want an iPod-Photo because of the unreliable nature of the darn thing. I know about maybe eleven people with iPods, and about four of them have never had a problem with it ever, and maybe never will, and the other six always have problems with it freezing up, with the screen dying, with certain things needing to be replaced and so forth and so on. They'll just go buggy on them, when they least expect it.

I'm not interested in rolling that die.

Now, the iPod-Nano, I only know one person with one of those. Nothing to report there. From what I've read online, that thing is hardly prone to be buggy at all. The thing is apparently great. But the damn thing is too damn small. The screen is microscopic. So the answer is no, it does not fit my bill, because I want to be able to look at my album art on a screen where I can actually admire the artwork, which for me would be a 2 inch screen, at the very minimum, and what I would be perfectly happy with. I do not want to look at postage-stamp representations of my album's artwork.

So no, an iPod does not fit my bill.

 

[Csidinim]

well if high resolution graphic display is your priority, why dont you get a portable media player. those things have typically 4 inch screens that take up most of the player's surface. and are all about visual display alongside audio.

 

[jant71]

You should probably check out the Sony Vaio Pocket. I have an RCA lyra that will do album art but only for up to 20 seconds till the playback screen is displayed.