whats the deal with MD???

[Watchdog]

Austonia, what's the mountain biking like in Kansas City? Isn't it fairly flat in Kansas?

Certainly if you lived here in Vancouver with our World Class trails and seen the crazy 20 ft. drop offs/jumps guys ride here, you'd never risk riding with a precious iPod.

 

[gloco]

Quote:

Originally posted by austonia Hmmm... let's see. OK i just checked one drive 56.5GB, or 9534 high quality MP3's (160 - 192kbit). A 60gb hard drive is like $80, if that (I wait to get deals at $1/GB or better). How many MD's would it take to hold 9534 tracks, and at what cost? It is also very easy to copy/backup/share the whole contents of 60gb hard drive. If you think EAC/LAME takes too long, you may need a faster computer, or there are alternatives. AudioCatylst can rip and encode an entire CD, in one step, in about 15 minutes.

Hehe, yeah...i'm gonna sit around and encode for days on end to fill up a HD mp3 player...nuts. As for eac/lame, i have a 1.4Ghz Athlon...it's just too time consuming for a MD user who can knock out a copy in 20 minutes tops with his current gear. Unless i plan on walking the earth, then yeah, the mp3 unit would come in handy....does it take solar power?

 

[TMC]

Let's look at this whole mp3 vs md thing from a distance to sort out some things before we discuss how expensive or timeconsuming one is compared to the other.

For me mp3 is something I use every day. I rip just about all my cds to mp3 and I play them on the comp. when I'm like now browsing around on the internet or when I'm doing homework. So for me it's a no-brainer to go for an mp3-player on the move since I already have all the songs stored on my comp.

Now for someone who only uses his comp. to check mail and maybe browse a little and don't use his comp. for music, movies etc. it's no point to suddenly rip all their songs to mp3 just to use it with an mp3-player. If you never use mp3 on your comp. you might aswell go for the MD and copying from CD approach.

So let's just keep that in mind as we go further in this discussion, otherwise it's the apples vs oranges discussion again.

 

[gloco]

Quote:

Originally posted by TMC Let's look at this whole mp3 vs md thing from a distance to sort out some things before we discuss how expensive or timeconsuming one is compared to the other. For me mp3 is something I use every day. I rip just about all my cds to mp3 and I play them on the comp. when I'm like now browsing around on the internet or when I'm doing homework. So for me it's a no-brainer to go for an mp3-player on the move since I already have all the songs stored on my comp. Now for someone who only uses his comp. to check mail and maybe browse a little and don't use his comp. for music, movies etc. it's no point to suddenly rip all their songs to mp3 just to use it with an mp3-player. If you never use mp3 on your comp. you might aswell go for the MD and copying from CD approach. So let's just keep that in mind as we go further in this discussion, otherwise it's the apples vs oranges discussion again.

I think your point is a part of the time consuming argument...think about it. Would a casual PC user want to spend all that time extracting and encoding? No.

 

[TMC]

Quote:

Originally posted by gloco I think your point is a part of the time consuming argument...think about it. Would a casual PC user want to spend all that time extracting and encoding? No.

But on the other hand, should someone who has a growing collection of well ripped mp3:s get an MD when you can transfer a song to an mp3-player in a matter of seconds? What I wanted to say is that it depends on what kind of pc and mp3 user you are that greatly effects the pros and cons when it comes to md vs mp3-players. But if you want to have a huge amount a songs with you when you're for example going on a trip, mp3 on an HD-player or an mp3 cdplayer is certainly more convenient than a whole bunch of md/cd.

 

[myself, aka me]

You can't argue with MD vs mp3. Both users are equally stubborn. I think MD totally trashes any form of .mp3 player, others may not.

What I find funny is this: EAC taking too long? NEW hardware required?! I guess I just hate computers. Blah. Too many variables for .mp3 to get roughly the same sound quality, MD be more convenient. (for me...)

 

[TMC]

Quote:

Originally posted by myself, aka me You can't argue with MD vs mp3. Both users are equally stubborn. I think MD totally trashes any form of .mp3 player, others may not. What I find funny is this: EAC taking too long? NEW hardware required?! I guess I just hate computers. Blah. Too many variables for .mp3 to get roughly the same sound quality, MD be more convenient. (for me...)

Well you do belong to the category of casual pc user so it's no wonder you prefer keeping your music outside your computer. I'm quite the opposite myself with a rather big collection of mp3 before I even touched a portable mp3-player. As for needing new hardware, it depends on how impatient a person you happen to be. But frankly how much patience does it take to turn on the comp, start EAC and let it work before you're off to work/school/gym/whatever?

 

[PodMan]

well when I had the ipod/iTunes combo, it took like 10-15 minutes and one click to get a cd into the ipod.

1) Put cd in computer (itunes pulls track names from internet).
2) Click icon for encoding into computer (takes like 10-15 min depending on cpu speed).

that's it, it automatically syncs with the ipod after (takes like 15 seconds to copy one cd to ipod). if you turn off the auto-sync cause your ipod is out of room and you need to be selective, then you simply just drag and drop the album into the ipod manually.

I can integrate LAME with itunes as well through a script. no EAC though. I only speak for the mac ipod. Until I get a high speed deck, I have no patience to record in realtime (even for SP). I converted to minidisc though anyway cause of its long battery life .