mp3 / ipod players

[hannah]

hi , was browsing on ebay for a mp3 player , i am after a small ish mp3 player with 1GB memory but am i right in saying that 1GB holds about 300 minutes or songs ?

i would like to know the best sort of mp3 player i should bid on , i dont know much about them but its needs to have about 300 songs worth of memory

any suggestions or comments much appreciated
thanks

[ollyit]

Hannah, youll probably find on ebay for example that the place is flooded with them, most of them come from japan and china and you have to pay shipping costs, usually around £8 or 9 quid, I won one about 6months ago for £27 quid all in delivered, (256mb), I can get around 4/5 albums on it, does me proud and seems pretty "olly" proof, the headphone were complete arse to, bought a nice pair of badboy sony ones for argos for 8:99

[codprawn]

Hannah - amount of music depends on lots of things - the rate which it is sampled for example - 128bit is standard but higher bitrates mean better quality(hard to tell though) obviously the higer the bitrate the more space a track needs.

On AVERAGE you can say 1min = 1 meg so a 1GB player will do about 1000mins of music or 16hrs - more than enough!!!

Save yourself some money and get a 512mb version - they are so easy to put music onto you just keep swapping and changing.

As to the best type - stay away from the IPOD - the form of copyright on Apple Itunes is a pain - no doubt you being a typical teenager(nearly) you download from Emule or simiular anyway.....

Most of the cheaper MP3 players have a fixed amount of memory - you are better off getting one that can use SD cards - you can then have a few spare cards and can use them in digital cameras as well.

Go to your nearest Dixons or Currys or similar - find one you like which pref takes the SD cards and then shop aropund on the net for a cheaper one!!!

[Jonny Fuller]

Originally Posted by codprawn

As to the best type - stay away from the IPOD - the form of copyright on Apple Itunes is a pain -

Don't understand what you mean by that!

I use a 40 gig ipod, and obviously use the itunes software to upload to the unit, but that doesn't restrict what you can put on it.
I save all my tracks as mp3, as it's the most versatile with all the other stuff I do, it works just fine.

I agree with the rest of what you say tho'

[pettal]

I use a creative Zen as it accepts more files than the ipod and although isn't quite as sexy does the same thing better for less.

[codprawn]

Originally Posted by Jonny Fuller

Don't understand what you mean by that!

I use a 40 gig ipod, and obviously use the itunes software to upload to the unit, but that doesn't restrict what you can put on it.
I save all my tracks as mp3, as it's the most versatile with all the other stuff I do, it works just fine.

I agree with the rest of what you say tho'

If you take the mp3s you have downloaded and try to use them on another player - or burn them to disk or put them on another computer you get problems. They are fine if you only use them on the same setup!!!

[timboli]

I looked into an MP3 to transmit to a radio on a RIB,I was looking to go solid state(no moving parts)rather then 1gb plus with a moving hard drive.
The ipod/creative zen do have anti skip protection,I think it was around 25 minutes from memory,I never actually got aroung to trying one though so some of this could be part of the salesmans patter.
I am not sure I would want to subject a hard drive device to a lot of abuse(I was also going to use it for running)

[codprawn]

Originally Posted by timboli

I looked into an MP3 to transmit to a radio on a RIB,I was looking to go solid state(no moving parts)rather then 1gb plus with a moving hard drive.
The ipod/creative zen do have anti skip protection,I think it was around 25 minutes from memory,I never actually got aroung to trying one though so some of this could be part of the salesmans patter.
I am not sure I would want to subject a hard drive device to a lot of abuse(I was also going to use it for running)

I really don't see the point in spinning disks when memory is so cheap and so big these days.

[Ribald]

Originally Posted by codprawn

If you take the mp3s you have downloaded and try to use them on another player - or burn them to disk or put them on another computer you get problems. They are fine if you only use them on the same setup!!!

Codders - try looking at http://www.hymn-project.org/

[codprawn]

Originally Posted by Ribald

Codders - try looking at http://www.hymn-project.org/

I guessed there would be a way around it - there ALWAYS is - but much easier to avoid the probs in the first place!!!

Should be useful for anyone daft enough to buy one though......