ipod

[rookie1010]

I was thinking of buying an ipod and had the following questions

what is the Apple iPod Dock Kit
does it provide a USB connection to the PC?

can iconnect the apple ipod dock kit to my pc or does it have to be a MAC?

does the apple 20 GB iPod M9282LL connect to a pc through USB or can it just connect to a pC thrugh firewire?Hello

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

I don't have an ipod, but I was under the impression that ipods now are able to be connected to either PC or Mac right out of the box.

I think they are USB now instead of firewire and you just need to get the right itunes for your platform.

You should get confirmation on this, because I could be way off on all this stuff.

I'm sure the apply website would be able to answer all your questions.

 

[rookie1010]

what is the apply website?

i came across 4 generations of the ipods, what is the difference between different generations?

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: rookie1010
what is the apply website?

i came across 4 generations of the ipods, what is the difference between different generations?

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=apple

I wouldn't be able to tell you what's the difference between the different generations.

 

[rookie1010]

this link leads to a 4th generation apple ipod http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASI...sr=8-1/ref=pd_ka_1/202-4622626-7527866

what does this 4th generation mean?

 

[keeleysam]

4th generation means the 4th revision of the iPod. Every year or so they make a revision to the product.

 

[imported_ArtVandalay]

Are you not willing to consider a different player? I had been toying with the idea of buying a digital player and wasn't really considering an ipod (I like the ogg/vorbis format, which it doesn't support, and I like fm radio). But I happened to get a mini free from my bank, and the price was right, so... Anyway, the itunes thing is really annoying (I use ephpod instead), and I'd much rather have a player that I could simply plug in and manipulate its hard drive however I want, especially since I recently made the switch to Linux on one of my PCs, and since I mirror my music collection to that PC, I might want to put music on my ipod from either that or my main rig - but I can't. There are other little annoyances about it too; the sound is a bit lacking. I'm not an audiophile, but I do own a pair of Grado sr60s, and music sounds almost warbly through them on the ipod. I know it's not the music or the headphones, since I use my PC -> Grados at home and it sounds great. Also, the battery life sucks, and the battery drains even when it's turned off.

 

[ZappDogg]

if you get an ipod, get the 4th gen. better battery life, cleaner interface, better scroll/click wheel, smaller form factor.

the 4th gens have both firewire and usb cables included. firewire is slower than usb 2.0, FYI.

edit: and no self respecting nerd actually uses iTunes to load their music on their pod.

 

[rookie1010]

what is the ogg/vorbis format?
what is the click wheel?
i heard there is a monochrome ipod and color ipod, what is the difference between the two?

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: rookie1010
what is the ogg/vorbis format?
what is the click wheel?
i heard there is a monochrome ipod and color ipod, what is the difference between the two?

Wow, don't mean to seem mean here... but all these questions are easily answered by google, apple, or common sense.

http://www.vorbis.com/

click wheel is the interface the ipod uses (how you control it)

monochrome = not color (black and white)

 

[rookie1010]

thanks for the reply, dude

i did do a google but came back with a back headache and info overload

i think by asking these questions, i would get you guys to help me out by saying this feature is no good, and this is great

is the click wheel, something similar to the click wheel on the sony ericsson P800/P900/P910

i guess the color ipod would be a color lcd screen, is it worth it?
is the 4g model, color? i did do a gogle for color ipod and it did come up wqith a color one but i saw a 4g model on amazon which was not color, so i am not sure.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

http://www.apple.com/ipod/color/specs.html

 

[07]

I have an ipod but I cant recommend the thing really. Its mostly a hyped up popular product that you get excited about because everyone has one. You just turn your head and you see another happy person walking down the street with those little white buds in their ears.. yup another ipod. Then you look up and you see a billboard advertising the iPod. Guess what.. Like bose, you?re paying for the billboard too!

The DAC honestly sucks ass, and unless you have some crappy cans, you'll regret your ipod if you heard better.


Check out the iAudio X5,

http://eng.iaudio.com/

Its defiantly a finer product... plus don?t even get me started about how much I hate iTunes. Dint get me wrong, most people like it, but most people are not computer programmers either.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Yeah, I passed on the ipod too...

I wanted a HDD based player, but didn't want to pay an arm or a leg for it.

I ended up getting a 15gig Dell DJ for $179 about a year and a half ago. The first thing I did was throw away the ear buds too heh.

 

[freethrowtommy]

I own a 15GB 3g iPod... and I really love the thing. It does have its downfalls such as battery life. I get 8 hours on a GOOD day. Keep in mind, i have had this thing well over a year. I did go in and replace the battery with one on the internet for 30 bucks and it works like it was brand new again.

One nice thing about the iPod is how durable they are! I have dropped this thing on concrete from about 6 ft up and it never skips a beat. It is perfect for anything rugged and it doesn't feel like a cheap plastic thing either, it feels nice and solid.

The audio quality isn't the best (from what I hear other people say), but I am using some cheap 20 buck Sony headphones for work. I mean... I didn't go all out, so I can't comment on something that wouldn't be holding the sound quality back. Gets the job done and works well for me.

If I had to buy a player again, I might have taken a harder look at the Zen but I don't regret buying the iPod at all.

 

[linuxconvert]

just a fyi the iPod has sort of a new 4.5 Gen that is color. or so it seems, and OGG/Vorbis are open source formats if i remember correctly.

 

[rookie1010]

oh the 4g is the monochrome
and there is an interim version (4.5g) which has the color display

ah that resoves my confusion

 

[Ken90630]

Was cruising the forums here and just thought I'd point something out.

Like some other digital sound sources these days, the sound quality of iTunes is very poor. In fact, it's about the worst. Apple uses an utterly crushing data compression scheme so that kids and the unknowing masses can store zillions of songs on their iPods -- at the expense of audio quality.

All digital music media has been sampled, and the number of times the music has been sampled is a key determinant of its ultimate quality. With commercial CDs, as an example, the original music (from the master tape) has been sampled at a bit rate of 1,378 kilobits per second. The bit rate for iTunes is -- hold onto your headphones -- 128 kbps. :shocked: That's less than one tenth the sample rate of a commercial CD. So when some people talk about iTunes songs not sounding very good, they're telling the truth. They don't sound good because huge parts of the music's original fidelity have literally been removed by the compression process. Apple could fix this by using a lossless data compression process that would compress the data during download but restore it during playback, but they choose not to (presumably 'cuz it would add to the cost?).

Anywho, I don't know enough about iPods themselves to comment on the fidelity if a source other than iTunes is used. Hopefully there are some other sites/sources you can get songs from that don't use such overwhelming compression schemes. Now that I think about it, I'd kinda like to know if there any other better sources out there and how their downloads sound on iPods. Anyone care to chime in on this?

Ken

 

[mdchesne]

Originally posted by: rookie1010
I was thinking of buying an ipod and had the following questions

what is the Apple iPod Dock Kit
does it provide a USB connection to the PC?

can iconnect the apple ipod dock kit to my pc or does it have to be a MAC?

does the apple 20 GB iPod M9282LL connect to a pc through USB or can it just connect to a pC thrugh firewire?Hello

idock is the plastic holder for the ipod. a cable connects to the bottom of the ipod when it's in the dock. the other side is connect to the USB port of your computer through the USB cable.

yes

it works with mac and PC. just need iTunes (freedownload at apple.com)

usually through USB 2 because not all mac's have firewire 800 standard yet (at least not the lower end models). If you want firewire, just buy an el-cheapo USB-FW adapter (if it doesn't come with a firewire cable already

 

[imported_ArtVandalay]

Originally posted by: Ken90630
Was cruising the forums here and just thought I'd point something out.

Like some other digital sound sources these days, the sound quality of iTunes is very poor. In fact, it's about the worst. Apple uses an utterly crushing data compression scheme so that kids and the unknowing masses can store zillions of songs on their iPods -- at the expense of audio quality.

All digital music media has been sampled, and the number of times the music has been sampled is a key determinant of its ultimate quality. With commercial CDs, as an example, the original music (from the master tape) has been sampled at a bit rate of 1,378 kilobits per second. The bit rate for iTunes is -- hold onto your headphones -- 128 kbps. :shocked: That's less than one tenth the sample rate of a commercial CD. So when some people talk about iTunes songs not sounding very good, they're telling the truth. They don't sound good because huge parts of the music's original fidelity have literally been removed by the compression process. Apple could fix this by using a lossless data compression process that would compress the data during download but restore it during playback, but they choose not to (presumably 'cuz it would add to the cost?).

Anywho, I don't know enough about iPods themselves to comment on the fidelity if a source other than iTunes is used. Hopefully there are some other sites/sources you can get songs from that don't use such overwhelming compression schemes. Now that I think about it, I'd kinda like to know if there any other better sources out there and how their downloads sound on iPods. Anyone care to chime in on this?

Ken

You talking about the itunes music store or the program itself? While the music store sucks, it's not alone - they all do. Between DRM and low bitrates, they're total ripoffs. The program itself has mixed reviews. Personally I dislike it, but I should point out that you can choose what bitrate to rip in, including lossless - you're not stuck with the default 128bit. Unfortunately it doesn't support ogg/vorbis or flac, my two favorite codecs.

As far as ipods, the sound quality is so-so using the internal amplifier. The line-out, on the other hand, is superb - for the models which have them. Unfortunately, mine (a 1g 4gb mini) doesn't Further, most people don't buy portable devices with the intent of using the line-out --> external amp. (my ipod was a gift from my bank; if I were to purchase a portable player I'd look at iAudio or iRiver)

 

[Ken90630]

You talking about the itunes music store or the program itself? While the music store sucks, it's not alone - they all do. Between DRM and low bitrates, they're total ripoffs. The program itself has mixed reviews. Personally I dislike it, but I should point out that you can choose what bitrate to rip in, including lossless - you're not stuck with the default 128bit. Unfortunately it doesn't support ogg/vorbis or flac, my two favorite codecs.

Hmmm ... Apple must have added the lossless option then, 'cuz they sure didn't have it the last time I read up on the store. Ha -- maybe they heard too many complaints. I know there was an article in The Wall Street Journal awhile back that lamented the 128 bit rate and the lack of a lossless option, so maybe Apple read that and decided to offer it. Anyone know when lossless became available with iTunes?

I'll have to go to the site and get the latest info, I guess. Even with the option of lossless, however, I'd bet that most users prolly use the 128-bit default so they can maximize their Pod's storage capacity. Plus, the lossless downloads prolly take longer. It would be unfortunate if most people do in fact choose the 128-bit option, 'cuz the fidelity really can't be anything but very poor at that level. Then again, to each his own.

Thanks for mentioning that bit about the line out being "superb." I'd be interested to hear what an iPod is capable of with better source material and with a signal out to, say, a nice receiver or even some high end, portable multimedia speakers or something. It looks like such a cool device in many other ways. Maybe I'll pop into an Apple store one of these days and check it out further.

 

[rookie1010]

if it is 128 kbps, does that mean a 5 minute song would be 128 kbps x 60 second times 5 minutes amounting to 38 MB
which amounts to approximately 5 megaabytes

i checked out the formats that the ipod supports
AAC Protected AAC, MP3, MP3 VBR, Audible, Apple Lossless, WAV, and AIFF audio formats;

i guess it would be easy to get all the formats but think that they all would have different sizes,

which is the best one quality as well as size of music clip?


i guess the color 4.5g version of the ipod is the latest, and the one to have
is this the one
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de...646445?v=glance&s=electronics&n=507846


came across ipod photo,
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de...3906311-0646445?v=glance&s=electronics
does it just show pictures which have been transferred across the USB.

what is DRM?

 

[imported_ArtVandalay]

Originally posted by: rookie1010
what is DRM?

Digital Rights reMoval

Btw Ken - Sorry I wasn't clear, I meant you can choose what bitrate to rip CDs in when using itunes (not that I use it). Afaik the itunes online music store still sells only 128kb music and will continue to.

 

[rookie1010]

hey just came across the archos av700 40 Gb
does it not have evreything that the ipod offers and much more.

40 gb,80 gb, 100 gb

 

[imported_rod]

If you want to be able to tell the differences between ipod's, here's a link: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=61688

One question though: can the iPod (specifically the 2nd generation ipod mini) play any quality MP3? (I generally rip my Mp3's with Audiograbber at 192kbps, but i also have alot of 128kbps files.) I was just getting a bit confused by what you guys were saying.

Thanks
RoD