My next MP3 player.

I'm about to pop for a new unit. It will be used 99% of the time for walking, most at night. Most of that will be listening to old time radio shows so sound quality is not important and even 128 MB will hold a lot of shows.
However most of these are 30 minutes.

Does anybody have a unit that can start up where it shuts down?

I'd like AA over AAA but that's not important.

Mike Painter said:

Does anybody have a unit that can start up where it shuts down?

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What do you mean by this????

I like my Zire 31 Palm for listening to MP3s.

The MP3 format is on the way out because it's an open source compresion format and as such has no way of dealing with digital copyright management.
The powers that be are starting to lean toward AAC+ and all the big recording companies are on board. You will notice the switch first on internet radio stations. Expect to begin seeing the slow steady march away from MP3 on January 1, 2006.

The iPod rage of players support AAC. There's a simple hack to let you turn any AAC into a "audiobook" AAC which means that it will start playing where you left off in the file, even if you switch files and come back, and (on anything higher than the shuffle) You can also choose 3 different playback speeds.

That said, if you're just looking for something to listen to old radio shows on your evening walk, iPod, even the $99 shuffle, could be extreme overkill.

Creative Muvo TX FM will resume from where you left off. Takes a single AAA battery, and has an integrated USB plug so you don't need a cable when interfacing with your computer. The lower capacity versions are pretty reasonably priced.

I wouldn't worry that the MP3 format will disappear within the next few years. There's such a huge user base, and such a huge existing library.

John

Nelson.
I'm 15 minutes into a show. I want to turn the unit off. When I turn it back on I want it to start 15 minutes into the show, not at the start.

Lumenhound.
Even if they did it tomorrow it's not going to affect the gigabites of mp3 files I have now. If you check MP3 is *not* open source although there are black box versions of it which are. "The owner of most of the intellectual property inside the MP3 format is Germany's Fraunhofer Institute, a massive research organization with interests far beyond audio technology. It's licensed its rights to Thomson Multimedia, which collects the growing patent royalties"

Kubolaw.
Thanks. Does it do it automatically or do you have to pause, then scroll "right" as the manual says?

Mike, Thomson stopped supporting it a while back.

i like sony there the best i think cause battery life is the best with em and so is there sound.now in like 1 hour james will come in here and give praise to ip[od dont listen to him he is a evil person and dresses funny

Mike Painter said:

Kubolaw.
Thanks. Does it do it automatically or do you have to pause, then scroll "right" as the manual says?

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Mike -

Mine does it automatically. I'm embarassed to say that I didn't read the manual, so I don't know what that "pause, scroll right" action would do. Basically, if I turn off the unit when it is playing a song, when I turn the unit back on, it resumes from where it left off. I purchased mine about 6 months ago, so I assume that nothing that significant should have changed since then.

John

I got one of these Creative Zen Nano Plus in 1GB.
http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=213&subcategory=214&product=12720&nav=1
Very happy with it. It's tiny, runs on one AAA battery and NiMH AAA as well.
It comes back on where you switched it off and even has a FM radio, records from radio, built in Mic or Line in.
Transfer files from your PC without any software. True plug and play via USB.

I got one of the $17.50 mp3 players from surpluscomputers.com, shipping included. It runs on 1AAA and doesn't have many features but its audio is pretty good and you can't beat the price. That's with zero memory. You add an SD card. I've seen 128MB cards for as little as $20 and you can also use it in your digicam (depending on model), etc. I have a 256mb card in a PDA that I don't use so I'll put it in the mp3 player. Right now I have a 32mb card in it that was $5.99 from Rite Aid.

Frontier Lab has a fancier 1AAA player that runs for about 13 hours and uses an SD card but I haven't tried it yet. Their old model, which used two AA's and a CF card, was a nerd favorite though it's a bit out of date these days. I still might buy one since I have several CF cards including a 4GB card, from digicams and other devices. Ebay is the best place since if you buy direct they ship from Hong Kong and charge huge shipping fees.

I refuse to use anything with DRM. I'm happy to buy players with no AAC. I don' t care what formats the online vendors offer. If they don't have non-DRM formats I won't buy from them. I can always rip my own CD's to mp3 or whatever else. Yes there are patents on MP3 but whether those patents are legally valid is a separate question. Suffice it to say that there's plenty of MP3 source code you can download, and the patents even if valid are due to expire in a few years.

I personally would not buy a player that doesn't have easily replaceable batteries (rules out all the ipods) and doesn't either have a large internal hard drive or easily removable/upgradeable memory (rules out a lot of players with internal flash). However, if you don't mind non-upgradeable memory, iRiver has some nice players, that even play Ogg Vorbis, which is a true free format (no patents).

Finally, my favorite source of music: www.magnatune.com --- check it out, they are great, mostly artists you haven't heard of but just about all of them are good. All free to download and no DRM anywhere.

evil person and dresses funny

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Indeed, it is true. I am evil, I secretly hold the world for randsom and this is what I wore to the last CPF evil overlord dinner and a movie outing...



That being said, get the little iPod. It will do what you want, battery life is excellent, the smaller ones are flash based. It will play any AAC file or any MP3 file, and even if the file is not technically an "audiobook" it can still be setup to remember where you are in it in various ways.

iRiver makes really nice units, but they require special software to transfer music to the unit. No drag-and-drop.

James S said:

That being said, get the little iPod.

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Apple has been selling sizzle since the Apple II hit the market.

The II was based on the I and the I was part of a contest to see who could build the cheapest computer. It used software where others used hardware, and charged more for it.

If the design of the iPod is anything like the design of the rest of their stuff there is less on the inside and more cost on the outside.

People stop buying sizzle after a while.

LumenHound said:

The MP3 format is on the way out because it's an open source compresion format and as such has no way of dealing with digital copyright management.

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Oh crumb!

Neither did the CD, cassette tape, 4/8-track, or LP ... but I guess you had to go to some effort and expense to copy those prior to MP3 et al.

Of course, I need all the crippled functionality and inevitable malware that would come with the "freedom" to listen to sanctioned digital audio on my PC/portable audio player like I need a hole in my head ... but I guess we need to make the marketplace safe for the record industry's increasingly obsolete business model ... or is it that the record industry really just wants us to pay more so they can up their profit margins by reducing their cost. Er, not that manufacturing and distributing CDs costs very much. Pay-per-play? The original divx DVD failed - miserably... go figure.

Hm, why does the record industry hate its customers so much?

Apple has been selling sizzle since the Apple II hit the market

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You're the one who asked the question, dont get upset when someone makes an honest suggestion. I have owned 3 iPods and 3 players of other models, 2 by zen and an iriver. I know of what I speak

Obviously it doesn't matter how good the Apple is inside or outside, you've already decided you dont want one apparently I think you're visceral reaction to Apple might actually be stronger than my visceral reaction to Microsoft

I haven't seen a really small player that takes regular batteries in a while though. You might have to settle on one that has an internal battery.

If you only create your own MP3's of old radio recordings that you already have, or that you record yourself, then the capability of playing anything else by the unit is not important. If you plan on purchasing recordings directly in the future then deciding if you want AAC or windows media support is important. Also check into the recordings available from audible.com, they have a lot of older audio books and some radio plays I believe, and a lot of newer stuff too. Not all players are compatible with their file types either so that also bears thinking about.

i have a iRiver
it's nice

http://www.iriveramerica.com/prod/ultra/

iriver does have drag and drop requiers a difent firmware im not sure if this is fact on all units

just to some more arstechnica did a Destructive Review and take apart of the new ipod model Even throwing it out a car window at 50mph didn't break it. Nor running over it stop it from working (though that did mess up the screen) they had to resort to whipping it up in the air and letting it fall to the concrete repeatedly to finally get it to stop playing Must be some solid sizzle in there...

i have to admit i like the new nano.thumbs up apple