Tuesday, March 28, 2006 - 12:53 pm, by: Aaron Mead(Aaron)
Ipods, Sony, you name it, the Digital Rights management is f*cking it up for all of us. Heres a good description and reason not to support these greedy bastards.
I so agree hey! That is the main reason I didn't buy an iPod. What's worse, say you got another friend with an iPod, you can't just take your iPod to his house and copy your songs onto his comp. They will be wiped off your iPod!!! What if you lose your comp and get a new one? The only good thing about iPods is that they look pretty. People that buy them are like sheep, everyone else has them, hey it's fashionable, so they buy them too, not realising that they are very poor. What a load of CRAP hehehehe. Ok, as you can see I hate those things.
I bought myself a Cowon iAudio X5L. Firstly it has NO CRAP. It has a 30 gig HDD, plays ALL videos (ie XVids, DixX, AVI types, I haven't had one video not work on it as yet) brilliant sound quality, 40 hour battery (I use it for 2 hours everyday) which I charge once every 3 weeks. It is different to most of MP3 players in that it doesn't use any database to list the songs, some people like it some don't. It works just like a PC, you use folders. Straight and simple. It's as tough as a rock, it has a strong metal case in black matte finish (I've read on the net some guy's dog ate it and bit it up, screen didn't work because it had a tooth hole in it, but it still played no problem, and photos of it and everything) and gets no ugly fingerprint marks on it ever. Another good thing is that it already includes all the features you have to pay extra for in an iPod. FM radio, voice recorder, USB Host function for digital cameras (so you can upload your pics without a comp) are all inbuilt to name a few. The only downside to it is that yep, it is not as pretty, slightly fatter than an iPod, but still slim enough to fit in your breast pocket.
You just need the right tools for the job. There are several available for copying files back off the iPod... usually a double click, or click and drag affair. Nothing out of the ordinary.
I have no problem plugging in my iPod into friends computers or theirs into mine. You just need to check a box in the options saying that you will manage files yourself, rather than let iTunes do it. Haven't lost a single item yet.
Tuesday, March 28, 2006 - 04:10 pm, by: David Vaughan(Davidv)
With regard to the practical problems, what Simon said.
With regard to DRM, I hate it as an anti-competitive measure, like region coding, and would love to see it go. However, we use iPods anyway because they offer good sound, easy track management, are attractive and for us have been reliable. They also have added value in that we use them to backup crucial files from the portables and carry them out of the house or on trips. Nothing unique there but still a worthwhile package.
I would focus on opposing DRM rather than the iPod implementation of it in particular. Go the French!
Sunday, April 02, 2006 - 07:11 pm, by: Vinh Bui(Hyudsjk)
iPod's aren't bad. I only have one because it's compatible with my Alpine deck and saves me from burning CD's each time I want to listen to some new tracks. Oh, and because I got it for free