Video Killed the MP3 Idea...
So... new job. This one is with a whole heap of people I used to work with - who started their own company when our Adelaide office shut down earlier this year.
[Timeline: January - Shutdown announced, March - 100 people finished up, 40 remained. September - the rest of us finished.]
It's only my second day, so any impressions on the work will have to wait... but considering I enjoyed my old job, and this one is similar with the same people, I don't think I'll have any problems. Plus, I didn't even have to interview for this, they approached me and said "Come and work for us please!" which is always nice. Never did get around to rewriting my resume during my period of unemployment, although I really should to ensure it's up to date :)
So the new job is in the city, which means I can catch the bus/tram to work, which is nice, and it doesn't take too long. I can read on the bus, for sure, but I also like to listen to music or the radio. Plus, the office itself is all open plan, and very quiet... so having music to listen to at work would be nice as well.
This of course led me to think "It's about time I got an MP3 player." After all, why not? I can play mp3s on CD in my discman (and am doing that right now) but that's only 700MB of music at any one time, which doesn't allow for a huge variety. Plus also I listen to the Babylon Podcast but as each show is about an hour, I rarely get a chance to listen to them at home - I'm in fact 3 shows behind already. Burning these to CD every week seems a waste of time for me, so having a temporary-storage home for them on an mp3 player seems a sensible thing to do.
So I started looking.
Train of thought:
- I'll get a flash-based player, it'll be good for on the bike as well. Plus they're pretty cheap.
- JJJ is advertising their new J Player, it's got a 2GB version, built in radio, that sounds nice.
- It's probably just a rebranded noname player, probably cheaper to get something equivalent elsewhere
- My sister has a 512MB Flash player which has a built in voice recorder, that'd be a handy function, to record self-memos if I can't find any pen and paper (which happens often!)
- Ok, so I want something with FM radio and voice recording.
- Probably also something that handles OGG audio files, because it's less likely to have crappy DRM then.
Looking at the available flash players, a lot of them have these features, and they come in a range of sizes. iRiver has some attractive options.
But 2GB (the largest flash-based players currently available) isn't really all that much music. Just ripping all the audio CDs I own gives me well over 8Gb, and that's not nearly enough music variety for me...
- So how about a hard drive-based player? 20Gb would be fine.
- Wait a sec... if I'm going to go for a HD based player, there's a lot of PMP/PVPs (Portable Media/Video Players) around now
- I watch an awful lot of TV in DivX/XviD format, wouldn't it be nice to save time at home and watch some of these shows on the bus?
- A PMP would be cool too, extra geek cred :)
- and useful for watching my own preferred movies/tv shows when I'm on holiday, on planes etc. But not while driving, duh.
More searching found me the Cowon iAudio A2 which has a pretty damn good Review. It's got a 30Gb version, and FM radio, voice and video recording, etc etc etc.
I was sold on this :) I showed the specs off to a few friends last night who also thought it was good.
This morning I thought of a feature I would need but not sure if the A2 had it. I wanted the ability to be able to pause a video or audio file part way through, do something else on the player, and then resume the original video/audio at the point I left it. A 'bookmark', if you will. Either this, or the ability to jump/fast forward to any point in the file would do.
Why? Well, imagine I am on the bus, watching a TV show or listening to a Podcast. But it's not finished by the time I get off the bus. Obviously, it's hard to concentrate on a tv show or podcast while I'm supposed to be doing work, but I do want to play music as a background while I'm working... and then continue the tv show/podcast on the bus on the way home.
Useful feature, you'd think?
It looks like the A2 doesn't have anything like it. Bugger.
So I kept searching and today found the Topfield TFP20 which seems to be the main challenger to the A2 on the Australian market (that is also DRM free). It looks very funky, and reading through the manual (or at least the Korean equivalent, the Maxian T600) it appears that the bookmarking feature is very cool and very there. The other features described in the manual are equally as cool. It's also got a brilliant review making both players a good choice.
The disadvantages of the TFP20 compared with the A2 are:
- It's got no FM radio
- It only has a 20Gb version in Australia (although there's a 30G version of the T600 in Korea)
- The carry case is crap compared to the A2
However, I think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages (hey, the TFP20 has a remote!) and so I'm going to look at it further. It's a little more costly than the 30G A2, but I suspect it'll be worth it for the bookmarking function. It also appears that the TFP20 supports text files more widely than the A2 (eg HTML) which means I could probably also use it as a bookreader (although not for PDFs, yet).
I can get away without the FM radio (despite it being one of the things I wanted in a MP3 player!) because I already have a small pocket radio which works fine... it's only bad point is the batteries don't tend to last that long even when the radio is off...
So... I haven't bought anything yet, but am leaning toward the TFP20. The only other possible contenders are in the Archos range, like the 604 but I haven't found as many reviews of it yet.
If anyone out there has an opinion, or recommendation, or whatever... please let me know :) I'm not in a super hurry to buy anything, but once I get an idea, I tend to move pretty quickly on getting it done...
EDIT: 7.30pm
I've now found a few other players to consider, a fancy one (not yet available in Oz, I think) is the iUbi Blue which has bluetooth.
I popped into Truscott's before coming home and had a very quick play with the TFP20, which they are selling at $799 (RRP, it will definitely be cheaper elsewhere). Tried out the bookmarking feature on the video, looked pretty good. Picture quality was nice too.
Also, it appears the Cowan A2 does support bookmarking, and many other features not mentioned in the manual I found, mostly due to a number of firmware updates. After reading this review, I'm leaning back towards the A2. It's slightly cheaper than the TFP20, has a 30G version, and has the FM radio as well. I suspect many other problems with it might be overcome with future firmware upgrades too :)
EDIT: 1.30pm Thursday
Went to play with the A2 today... it's a nice little device, and I showed the shopgirl stuff she didn't know about it. Bookmarking of
video & music is quite easy and works well. Just a mystery as why it's not mentioned in the manual I downloaded (probably an older firmware version or something). I suspect the A2 will win over the TFP20, now all I have to do is find the cheapest price :) See if I can beat this one in a B&M store on the weekend...
[Timeline: January - Shutdown announced, March - 100 people finished up, 40 remained. September - the rest of us finished.]
It's only my second day, so any impressions on the work will have to wait... but considering I enjoyed my old job, and this one is similar with the same people, I don't think I'll have any problems. Plus, I didn't even have to interview for this, they approached me and said "Come and work for us please!" which is always nice. Never did get around to rewriting my resume during my period of unemployment, although I really should to ensure it's up to date :)
So the new job is in the city, which means I can catch the bus/tram to work, which is nice, and it doesn't take too long. I can read on the bus, for sure, but I also like to listen to music or the radio. Plus, the office itself is all open plan, and very quiet... so having music to listen to at work would be nice as well.
This of course led me to think "It's about time I got an MP3 player." After all, why not? I can play mp3s on CD in my discman (and am doing that right now) but that's only 700MB of music at any one time, which doesn't allow for a huge variety. Plus also I listen to the Babylon Podcast but as each show is about an hour, I rarely get a chance to listen to them at home - I'm in fact 3 shows behind already. Burning these to CD every week seems a waste of time for me, so having a temporary-storage home for them on an mp3 player seems a sensible thing to do.
So I started looking.
Train of thought:
- I'll get a flash-based player, it'll be good for on the bike as well. Plus they're pretty cheap.
- JJJ is advertising their new J Player, it's got a 2GB version, built in radio, that sounds nice.
- It's probably just a rebranded noname player, probably cheaper to get something equivalent elsewhere
- My sister has a 512MB Flash player which has a built in voice recorder, that'd be a handy function, to record self-memos if I can't find any pen and paper (which happens often!)
- Ok, so I want something with FM radio and voice recording.
- Probably also something that handles OGG audio files, because it's less likely to have crappy DRM then.
Looking at the available flash players, a lot of them have these features, and they come in a range of sizes. iRiver has some attractive options.
But 2GB (the largest flash-based players currently available) isn't really all that much music. Just ripping all the audio CDs I own gives me well over 8Gb, and that's not nearly enough music variety for me...
- So how about a hard drive-based player? 20Gb would be fine.
- Wait a sec... if I'm going to go for a HD based player, there's a lot of PMP/PVPs (Portable Media/Video Players) around now
- I watch an awful lot of TV in DivX/XviD format, wouldn't it be nice to save time at home and watch some of these shows on the bus?
- A PMP would be cool too, extra geek cred :)
- and useful for watching my own preferred movies/tv shows when I'm on holiday, on planes etc. But not while driving, duh.
More searching found me the Cowon iAudio A2 which has a pretty damn good Review. It's got a 30Gb version, and FM radio, voice and video recording, etc etc etc.
I was sold on this :) I showed the specs off to a few friends last night who also thought it was good.
This morning I thought of a feature I would need but not sure if the A2 had it. I wanted the ability to be able to pause a video or audio file part way through, do something else on the player, and then resume the original video/audio at the point I left it. A 'bookmark', if you will. Either this, or the ability to jump/fast forward to any point in the file would do.
Why? Well, imagine I am on the bus, watching a TV show or listening to a Podcast. But it's not finished by the time I get off the bus. Obviously, it's hard to concentrate on a tv show or podcast while I'm supposed to be doing work, but I do want to play music as a background while I'm working... and then continue the tv show/podcast on the bus on the way home.
Useful feature, you'd think?
It looks like the A2 doesn't have anything like it. Bugger.
So I kept searching and today found the Topfield TFP20 which seems to be the main challenger to the A2 on the Australian market (that is also DRM free). It looks very funky, and reading through the manual (or at least the Korean equivalent, the Maxian T600) it appears that the bookmarking feature is very cool and very there. The other features described in the manual are equally as cool. It's also got a brilliant review making both players a good choice.
The disadvantages of the TFP20 compared with the A2 are:
- It's got no FM radio
- It only has a 20Gb version in Australia (although there's a 30G version of the T600 in Korea)
- The carry case is crap compared to the A2
However, I think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages (hey, the TFP20 has a remote!) and so I'm going to look at it further. It's a little more costly than the 30G A2, but I suspect it'll be worth it for the bookmarking function. It also appears that the TFP20 supports text files more widely than the A2 (eg HTML) which means I could probably also use it as a bookreader (although not for PDFs, yet).
I can get away without the FM radio (despite it being one of the things I wanted in a MP3 player!) because I already have a small pocket radio which works fine... it's only bad point is the batteries don't tend to last that long even when the radio is off...
So... I haven't bought anything yet, but am leaning toward the TFP20. The only other possible contenders are in the Archos range, like the 604 but I haven't found as many reviews of it yet.
If anyone out there has an opinion, or recommendation, or whatever... please let me know :) I'm not in a super hurry to buy anything, but once I get an idea, I tend to move pretty quickly on getting it done...
EDIT: 7.30pm
I've now found a few other players to consider, a fancy one (not yet available in Oz, I think) is the iUbi Blue which has bluetooth.
I popped into Truscott's before coming home and had a very quick play with the TFP20, which they are selling at $799 (RRP, it will definitely be cheaper elsewhere). Tried out the bookmarking feature on the video, looked pretty good. Picture quality was nice too.
Also, it appears the Cowan A2 does support bookmarking, and many other features not mentioned in the manual I found, mostly due to a number of firmware updates. After reading this review, I'm leaning back towards the A2. It's slightly cheaper than the TFP20, has a 30G version, and has the FM radio as well. I suspect many other problems with it might be overcome with future firmware upgrades too :)
EDIT: 1.30pm Thursday
Went to play with the A2 today... it's a nice little device, and I showed the shopgirl stuff she didn't know about it. Bookmarking of
video & music is quite easy and works well. Just a mystery as why it's not mentioned in the manual I downloaded (probably an older firmware version or something). I suspect the A2 will win over the TFP20, now all I have to do is find the cheapest price :) See if I can beat this one in a B&M store on the weekend...