looking to buy a video,audio,pdf personal music player

[Onceler]

leaning towards the zune
after owning an ipod I really don't like the way I can't copy back to the computer the files I have on it without having a 3rd party software.
just looking for something I can watch videos and read pdf and text files and play my .WAVs
Anyone know some specs I should be aware of
Thankyou

 

[ViRGE]

The Zune doesn't play AVIs, you would need to encode them to Windows Media Video (WMV) or MPEG-4 ASP/AVC in a MP4 container. I'm pretty sure it doesn't do PDFs or any other kinds of documents either.

 

[Onceler]

does ipod do them?

 

[pm]

The iPod Touch does .PDF and .doc (viewing only) but won't do .avi or .wav.

I'm writing this on my iPhone (over EDGE while on vacation) so it's hard to do any research but I would recommend looking at the Nokia N800/810 and maybe the Archos wifi player. The Zune won't do any of the documents you listed and iPods are stuck in MP4 only and only the Touch/iPhone will do documents and only invirwing mode.

 

[Onceler]

my ipod 4GB one of the first ipods made does wav
are you sure the newer ones wont?
and if the ipod wont do avi then what kind of video does it do?

 

[ViRGE]

MPEG-4 ASP/AVC in a MP4 container. That's the standard format for video on a MP3 player.

 

[BuckFuddy]

I own a Cowon O2 pmp and it supports a huge amount of audio/video files. It'll handle the mp3/wav/avi/txt that you listed, but I don't think it supports pdf/doc atm. Someone may create a program to support those in the future as Cowon has a Software Development Kit for users to make applications for the player.

I use it mainly for watching movies and almost all the videos I put on it require no conversion whatsoever. This might be the player for you if you like watching videos on the go and don't like wasting time encoding the files.

Here's a link if you want to learn more: http://www.cowonamerica.com/products/cowon/o2/

 

[aceO07]

My iPAQ hx4700 supports avi, mkv, mp3, wav, pdf, doc, txt and probably almost anything else. It's not as small as most PMPs though. It does have VGA resolution..

 

[Onceler]

leaning towards an Ipod touch 32gb
it wont play avi but I wouldnt haave a hard time converting video
still confused about pdf
Ipaq is not good it only has a little flash memory

 

[QueBert]

Core is putting out a Pocket Player for the Touch after that it should play AVI just fine. I can't find any info about when it comes out, but I would be surprised if it's much longer, and if it doesn't support AVI I'll be shocked.

 

[Onceler]

ipod touch can read pdf in mail,does that mean it cannot read pdf files directly,would I have to mail mysefl the pdfs?

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: QueBert
Core is putting out a Pocket Player for the Touch after that it should play AVI just fine. I can't find any info about when it comes out, but I would be surprised if it's much longer, and if it doesn't support AVI I'll be shocked.

Interesting. Do you know if it uses the decoding hardware, or if it's all software?

Originally posted by: Onceler
ipod touch can read pdf in mail,does that mean it cannot read pdf files directly,would I have to mail mysefl the pdfs?

Yes. It loads them in Mail or Safari, but not from anywhere else (not that it has a file browser in the first place).

 

[ViRGE]

Bad ViRGE, bad.

 

[QueBert]

Originally posted by: ViRGE

Originally posted by: QueBert
Core is putting out a Pocket Player for the Touch after that it should play AVI just fine. I can't find any info about when it comes out, but I would be surprised if it's much longer, and if it doesn't support AVI I'll be shocked.

Interesting. Do you know if it uses the decoding hardware, or if it's all software?

Originally posted by: Onceler
ipod touch can read pdf in mail,does that mean it cannot read pdf files directly,would I have to mail mysefl the pdfs?

Yes. It loads them in Mail or Safari, but not from anywhere else (not that it has a file browser in the first place).

Not sure, but I know the hardware is plenty powerful enough to play even 720p content, UI would hope it's hardware. Because that would cut down on the battery drain a lot.

I need to look into a PDF viewer, mines jailbroke and I don't see why there wouldn't be a 3rd party app that handles this.

 

[DivideBYZero]

Originally posted by: QueBert
Not sure, but I know the hardware is plenty powerful enough to play even 720p content

LOL?

 

[QueBert]

Originally posted by: DivideBYZero

Originally posted by: QueBert
Not sure, but I know the hardware is plenty powerful enough to play even 720p content

LOL?

720/1080p support is coming to iTunes, they're saying with the video out cable an iPhone/iPod Touch will be able tp play 720p fine on a TV. what's the LOL for? The hardware inside is good enough to play back 720p. Of course with the resolution of the screen you can't do directly it on the device, but if I can hook an iPhone to my TV and get 720p to play on the TV from the iPhone it seem pretty easy to understand the iPhone is capible of handling it.

for the hell of it I encoded some m4v files with a 4,000kbps bitrate and it played them back flawlessly. Not sure what kind of hardware decoder it's working with but on my Motorola Q files with anything above 850kbps would choke badly

linky to a article on Gizmo thatsays an iPhone can even play back 1080p. It's a powerful little shit

 

[DivideBYZero]

Playing 1080 back @ 480*320 != being able to output full HD to a TV.