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Where to get an iPod
Bush Tucker Man:
Being a bit of a 'Techno-Luddite', what are they?
I keep hearing about the things, do you download music from the internet (isn't that still a bit naughty?), or record your CD's via the PC?
What kind of capacity do they give, in track/CD terms?
TimM:
Well.....
I used to think they were a waste of time (MP3 players in general) as I never got any use out of my walkman style gizmos, but I did download lots of MP3's from the internet, AND copied them from my CD's.
I have an Audi aswell as my Discovery and that had a tape player in it, when I upgraded I fitted an in-dash cd player with MP3 capabilities, this allowed roughly 10x as many songs on a CD as normal.
I still thought iPods and other personal MP3 players were a waste of time, but I recently slated my nephews 512Mb capacity as I have about 25Gb of Mp3's, and he said (in a 'matter of fact ' kind of way) "well just get an iPod then they hold loads".
I've now looked a the market and the one I'm after holds MP3's and/or photos, has a colour screen and can hold 60Gb of data.
I would say an average track is 3-4Mb as an Mp3 so if you say 3.5Mb for an average this would equate to 17odd thousand tracks (iPod quote 15k), all stored in directories and easily accessible.
Suddenly I regret not having one, and am desperate(ish) to get my hands on one, for me this kind of storage means I get get my whole CD collection into one little device that fits in your hand.
I feel that technology had past me (or us) by and I feel it's time I tried to catch up.
Cheap iPods with less storage start at around £50 (I think - not really looked at those) up to the top of the range one I'm after at around £300.
Does that make it any clearer?
Bush Tucker Man:
--- Quote from: "TimothyM" ---Well.....
Does that make it any clearer?
--- End quote ---
As clear as the proverbial.....
thermidorthelobster:
Right, iPods 101...
An iPod is a device made by Apple (there are alternatives, naturally) which stores large numbers of MP3s on a hard drive or in flash memory. That bit you probably knew... Current capacities are up to 60GB.
As a guide, I store my tracks in MP3 format, 128Kbps (which is perfectly adequate), and have 2438 songs (well over 100 albums) taking up 9GB. So you're talking about about 2750 songs per 10GB storage. This is actually quite a lot; it would take me 7 days to listen to all of that back-to-back. On a 60GB iPod you could store around 15,000 tracks, or about 800 CDs. Other formats allow greater quantities of tracks per GB.
The user interface allows you to play music by album, by artist, or by genre, including randomising, so if I'm in the mood for Pop music, I can randomise all my Pop tracks and effectively get a tailor-made radio station. You can also set up automatic or manual playlists; so if I want to listen to Rock music from 1983, I can do that too.
Putting this all together, you can buy for a couple of hundred quid a device which will store your entire CD collection, and let you take it and listen to it anywhere. Battery life of the newer devices is something like 10 hours, but that's actually quite a bit of continuous listening. In the car, mine charges continuously anyway, so in real terms I don't often have to worry about the battery running out.
You can get music onto your MP3 player in a number of ways: by "ripping" CDs, which is legal as long as you own the CD (and takes about 5-10 minutes per CD); by buying them online, for example from Apple's iTunes store, for 79p per track; or by illegally downloading them. 90% of the music on my iPod comes straight from my CD collection; 8% I've bought on iTunes, and 2% is stuff I've downloaded, generally because I can't get hold of it on CD or legally online. Personally I'm of the opinion that iTunes actually *encourages* legal downloading because it makes it so easy. A surprising number of people on mac-forums.com hold their music collection entirely legitimately.
The iPod is popular amongst the genre because of the design and user interface; I've had a Creative Labs one in the past and it just didn't compare to the iPod. Personally I'd stick to iPods for the foreseeable future, but then I'm a known Apple zealot.
The FM transmitters plug into your MP3 player and broadcast a low-powered signal on the FM frequency of your choosing (some have only limited frequencies). This means you can tune your car stereo into the iPod and listen along in the car. Some have higher power outputs than others; I have a Griffin iTrip, which doesn't really have enough power to be usable in the Discovery or my old Range Rover, but the PodGear CarDock FM I have now is very usable in anything I've tried it in. As mentioned, these are not legal in the UK as they would need to be licensed as broadcasting equipment.
TimM:
--- Quote from: "thermidorthelobster" ---Right, iPods 101...
etc.
--- End quote ---
Excellent, that has made me want one even more now.
I knew the menu allowed you easy access to tracks but you have made it sound so much more.
Thanks :wink:
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