[Sweet Spot]

New i River stuff

I particularly like the IBM-esque micro drive, even though it's ugly......

 

[brent_mr2]

I'm not ready for a new medium when CDRs are super cheap. But I do think dataplay is interesting. There's an iRiver iDP-100 on eBay right now that plays dataplay media:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...category=11024

The media is about $10.50 each, but supposedly you can put up to 17 hours of music on one of these quarter size discs. I'd give it 5 years and see where it is then.

 

[SBomm]

Didn't Dataplay just go belly up?

 

[Sol_Zhen]

I thought DataPlay was DOA. They took too long to get it to market.

 

[brent_mr2]

Oh, OK. It didn't look like something that would gain a significant share of the market anyway with cheap MDs and CDRs available.

 

[Sweet Spot]

It's not the data play iDP 100, it's the iGP 100. An IBM microdrive actually, which is a super small HD based player. I actually just looked at other articles about it, and to tell the truth, I'm not so crazy about it anymore. I don't like HD based audio gadgets in general. I thought it was actually a 1 gig flash card...which would be cool. I think HD players are way too fragile/sensetive..too much of a risk.

Anyway, when the blueray stuff starts comming out at the end of Q3 this year, everything else will fall to its knees. We're talking double sided multi-layered RW discs the size and form of MD's people ! I'll probably wait for that. I can hold out.

 

[Whitebread]

Sweet spot, what is the capacity of the blueray stuff? I heard it was like 30 gigs. I also heard of some new storage technology that used 2 lasers and a multilayered disk. Suposedly, capasity was in the terabytes (yes, terabytes) but now I'm being told that the company that made it went belly over.

Anyway, switching to a whole new medium is gonna take a while, and it won't ever be as popular as MP3 or CDs. Although, I'd gladely buy one player with blueray based storage if it had MD sound quality, size and multicodec like my IMP.

 

[Sweet Spot]

Whitebread, I believe you're right...It's between 30 and 50 gigs. Since they'll be double sided that's 25 gigs per side if you use it in that fashion.

Quote:

Anyway, switching to a whole new medium is gonna take a while, and it won't ever be as popular as MP3 or CDs. Although, I'd gladely buy one player with blueray based storage if it had MD sound quality, size and multicodec like my IMP.

Sure, it'll take time, but remember...The MP3 format didn't get really really popular until people started switching from 56 k to broadband connections...not everyone was trading like they do now, it was too much a pain in the butt. Furthermore, it took about 6 years for MP3 to mature into what it is today (that's an approximation) and now, it is IMO, nearing its end because there's really no where left for it to go. The juice has been sucked from it and now, Ogg shall be picking up from where MP3 left off.

Alot of people are still denying that Ogg is a better format, but I think that they haven't done the research...anyway, my point is this...eventually Blueray WILL surpass our current technological wonders and provide room for fantastic audio formats. Remember also, Blueray isn't an audio compression scheme..it's a medium to put them on, so it's not in competition with MP3...but it is with cd's and dvd's. IMHO, it will kick the crud out of them ta' boot.

Be a believer, support and embrace new technologies and look towards the future. For if everyone was a cynic, MP3 would still be a myth. Remember how lousy the first MP3 encoders were ? I do.

 

[Whitebread]

Sweet spot, I agree with what you said about MP3. Kinda miss-worded what I said about MP3 there before, you said what I wanted to say.

Anyway, I've never used ogg, but I heard it isn't that much better than MP3 at high bitrates. Is this true?

As for time, I don't quite know if blueray will ever get at big as CD. Most people play music, they don't listen to it. Cd gives them everything they need, they can skip to tracks easily, they don't have to worry about the problems that plague vinals and cassettes. Blueray will, however, be a great medium for HD-DVD. It should have more success in there as DVD isn't as big as CD. I'm just babbling here.

I just support blueray completely.

 

[Sweet Spot]

Quote:

Anyway, I've never used ogg, but I heard it isn't that much better than MP3 at high bitrates. Is this true?

I've been called out on this before, by someone who thought I didn't know what I was talking about....and my answer to that person was that (and this is absolutely true) one weekend, a couple of friends and myself did some testing.

I of course was the one who instigated this get together, as they all said.."you've gotta be kidding me, you want us to come over and listen to some stupid audio files on your stupid computer ?"

Then I said, "No, I want your asses to bring over your stupid audio gear and THEN listen to some stupid files on my stupid computer !"

Make a long story short, I now had 3 friends come over, with
A) Altec Lansing 641's
B)Monsoon PM 14's (I love that I'm the reason she bought them

I pushed and pushed, took her to the store and viola !..)
C) Grado SR 125's
and some other various stuff (cans)

We all set up the equipment and I decided to do some controlled blind tests.
What I chose to compare, was MP3 @ 190 Kbps and also 320 Kbps Vs. Ogg @ Q7 & Q8.

What was found EACH time was that picking out the files which sounded best was easy. Even trying to trick them and visa versa by playing the same file twice didn't work. MY friends all wrote down what they thought on paper and waited till after I was tested with different files that I hadn't heard previously. They ripped them on the spot etc... Anyway, the Mp3's encoded @ 190 Kbps Vs. Q7 Oggs were a close match as far as clarity went...but the depth was better with the Oggs. Not much to brag about, but when you consider the other great things about Ogg, it makes you say, why bother using MP3 ? (Which I'll get to ) Now, here's the kicker...

320Kbps Vs. Q8 Ogg...Ogg clearly sounds more full, the stereo imaging is better and there's more presence in the instruments. Alot of the stuff we used was Jazz and Classical. Now, seeing as how we all agreed that we enjoyed the sound of an Ogg file more, the conclusions were very cool... 320Kbps is as high as you can go with an MP3, but with OGG, you can go up to Q 10...and we were only using Q8 !

Besides that, Ogg takes up half the space as an MP3 AND natively supports 5.1 channels and 24 bit playback. So, you tell me....what do you think I use now ? Sorry if I babbled, I made this as short as possible. You should do the tests for yourself, and don't let my words or anyone elses words influence your decision. But of course, don't use crappy equipment either...this WILL affect the overall outcome.

Take care,

S.S.

 

[Whitebread]

Thanks sweet spot, I'll run some tests.