[Cardiff Irons]

I'm tempted Lea, I'm tempted. Damn these credit cards!

[Slimchandi]

Any words on how the Freecom deals with VBR mp3? Most of my collection is APS, which means a bit rate of around 200, but occasionally will max out to 256 or 320. It's really no use to me if it can't, but it was looking like the perfect buy until then.

[Cardiff Irons]

Originally Posted by Slimchandi

Any words on how the Freecom deals with VBR mp3? Most of my collection is APS, which means a bit rate of around 200, but occasionally will max out to 256 or 320. It's really no use to me if it can't, but it was looking like the perfect buy until then.

Well the audio filetypes supported (as per user guide) are mp1, mp2, mp3, wma (wma9 pro NOT supported), ASF, Ogg Vorbis, AC3 all @ output bitrates of 64-192Kbs.

Most of that's gobbledygook to me, but most of my files are mp3 @ 320Kbs and they work fine.

Hope that helps.

[Slimchandi]

They are all methods of encoding audio to play back, all with their particular benefits and whatnot.

Thanks for the heads up about bit rates, this sounds like it could be the thing for me now! Even quicker response than their tech support.

[Slimchandi]

Sorry to double post, but just to inform any new buyers that the 80gig version is £170 of your hard earned at http://extremepcs.co.uk/Itemdesc.asp?CartId={C1C4BFEB-881EVEREST8-4C47-8DDB-7C0100F65543}&ic=651565&eq=&Tp=

Don't know the reliability of that shop, but good price certainly, 40 quid off rrp.

[hornydragon]

£170 for the 80 GIG thats mad the 160Gb is £190 at pixmania!!!!!! and ebuyer are doing better deals too http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...ubcat_uid=1374

[Cardiff Irons]

Originally Posted by hornydragon

£170 for the 80 GIG thats mad the 160Gb is £190 at pixmania!!!!!! and ebuyer are doing better deals too http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...ubcat_uid=1374

Ordered mine via pixmania - prompt delivery and you can track delivery online. They are French though - the Freecom was fine but the ipod shuffles I bought were devoid of any British instruction booklets (easily downloaded from the web though).

[Slimchandi]

pixmania is now 220 for the 160 gig version. It's a shame I missed out on that one, I'm still going to wait for a bit before I purchase to see if the prices will shift at all.

[hornydragon]

http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/8948...sk-mediap.html has the price gone up?
Silver 160GB is £192.99 at ebuyer + shipping so £195 ish

[Slimchandi]

Grrr, why do some places insist on charging differently for different finishes? It's the same stuff inside, could be polka dots but still should cost the same.

[Cardiff Irons]

That is strange. I ordered from Pixmania mainly beacuse they were the only ones offering the black version. Pretty sure it was £188 plus postage - seems they've hiked the price a fair bit.

[Slimchandi]

Got any idea how VBR mp3's fare on the Freecom, I could send you a VBR sample if you wouldn't mind testing it out for me? Also, how well does it deal with gapless material like live albums, is there a large gap when the HDD spins to load another track?

[Cardiff Irons]

Originally Posted by Slimchandi

Got any idea how VBR mp3's fare on the Freecom, I could send you a VBR sample if you wouldn't mind testing it out for me? Also, how well does it deal with gapless material like live albums, is there a large gap when the HDD spins to load another track?

Slimchandi, you have PM. Not sure about the gapless play, I'll try it out this evening.

[hornydragon]

cardiff i hate to do this to you mate (not sure its suitable but take alook at this http://us.creative.com/products/prod...1&product=9192 there is one available in the UK for under £120 looks interesting.................

[jwright118]

Originally Posted by Cardiff Irons

Thanks HD. These do look cool, however it seems I'd need one in each of the rooms where I've got a sound system (in fact, I've just realised I've got three reasonable sound systems in the house), which would work out a tad expensive (it wouldn't be the first time you've tempted me to go over budget though!).

I'm leaning towards the iriver (320 or 340) at the moment. Does anyone know if that's a good choice bearing in mind my requirements? I'm particulayly interested in the ability to queue tracks.

Cheers

The i-river 340 is great, but you can only view a max of 9999 files/tracks on it, despite it being a 40gb player with space to fit far more tracks on it! Will prob return mine as ive used up the file limit, yet ive 11gb left on it. Dont know how iriver came up with this priceless restriction.

[Cardiff Irons]

Originally Posted by hornydragon

cardiff i hate to do this to you mate (not sure its suitable but take alook at this http://us.creative.com/products/prod...1&product=9192 there is one available in the UK for under £120 looks interesting.................

No problems - as I mentioned earlier this technology is moving very quick and I have no doubt that there'll be all manner of stuff even in the next few months that can do the job better, quicker, cheaper etc. You just have to make the jump at some stage.

Good first impressions of the creative, I'll look at the specs later. It does mean (like Rokus) that you'd need one in every location though.

[Cardiff Irons]

Originally Posted by jwright118

The i-river 340 is great, but you can only view a max of 9999 files/tracks on it, despite it being a 40gb player with space to fit far more tracks on it! Will prob return mine as ive used up the file limit, yet ive 11gb left on it. Dont know how iriver came up with this priceless restriction.

Blimey, that's just plain stupid. Have you contacted i-river about it?

[Boom04]

Great thread

Freecom looks really interesting. Has anyone found a user guide/manual online anywhere. Doesn't seem to be anything on the Freecom website.

Cheers

[hornydragon]

If you email freecom they will email you a copy of the manual.

[Slimchandi]

Also, I've noticed, ask them a question which is not specified in the manual, they will send you the manual anyway! Good show!

[Boom04]

Cheers

- and an exceedingly prompt reply from Freecom (within minutes). Now settling down to a lunchtime read....

[Boom04]

Cardiff Irons

Just wondering now that you're 2 weeks into using the Freecom mediaplayer whether you have any further thoughts/comments? Are you pleased with it?

From your earlier comments you seemed to indicate that playlist functionality is low/non-existent. The solution being to prepare dedicated playlist folders (with copies of your desired tunes) and then navigate to these folders. Seems a little inconvenient and might duplicate files (but as one offs perhaps not that bad given the potential massive HD space). Any other work rounds you have discovered?

One thing I was wondering about was speed of navigation and folder structures (and this is assuming you just wished to play albums only) and whether the file structure could be organised as the main audio folder which then contained folders titled as each letter of the alphabet, and then under each of these the "sorted/allocated" artist/album folder name. Would this work? Okay there are other ways, but personally I tend to look for artist then track. The pdf manual isn't very helpful in this area!

Finally looking round for reviews of the mediaplayer I can across a very negative review, which amongst other comments included that a lot of the remote control features didn't work and the player often gets "stuck" and will not respond. Apparently this person had contacted the customer support line to be told "that this was quite normal". Have you experienced anything similar?

Cheers

Boom

[zekdj]

iAudio M3L

Best sound quality from an MP3 player around imo. Also, line in recording is excellent.

[Cardiff Irons]

Originally Posted by Boom04

Cardiff Irons

Just wondering now that you're 2 weeks into using the Freecom mediaplayer whether you have any further thoughts/comments? Are you pleased with it?

From your earlier comments you seemed to indicate that playlist functionality is low/non-existent. The solution being to prepare dedicated playlist folders (with copies of your desired tunes) and then navigate to these folders. Seems a little inconvenient and might duplicate files (but as one offs perhaps not that bad given the potential massive HD space). Any other work rounds you have discovered?

One thing I was wondering about was speed of navigation and folder structures (and this is assuming you just wished to play albums only) and whether the file structure could be organised as the main audio folder which then contained folders titled as each letter of the alphabet, and then under each of these the "sorted/allocated" artist/album folder name. Would this work? Okay there are other ways, but personally I tend to look for artist then track. The pdf manual isn't very helpful in this area!

Finally looking round for reviews of the mediaplayer I can across a very negative review, which amongst other comments included that a lot of the remote control features didn't work and the player often gets "stuck" and will not respond. Apparently this person had contacted the customer support line to be told "that this was quite normal". Have you experienced anything similar?

Cheers

Boom

Hi Boom, sorry for delay in replying. I'm still not sure I can give it a proper review as I can never find the time to play with all these toys I buy

Playlists is virtually impossible without the visual display and, even then, it is quite clunky. I've not yet worked out how you actually "save" playlists that have been set up using the playlists function.

You're right, a more sensible arrangement of folders would make things far simpler, but to be honest I can't be bothered rearranging what itunes has already set up for me. The unit has more than enough capacity that I could create a separate "playlist folder" with duplicates of the songs I want in it.

Sometimes the reading of the hard drive on the Freecom is a slow and painful process. This seems to be when it is accessing the main file structure (when you move from the main menu into the "Audio" folder). It can take more than a minute to get into the directory presumably because I have so many different folders in there (100s because they're organised by artiust name). So, as a standalone device, if you want to nip in and out of different folders it could be a nightmare.

I've not experienced the hard drive getting "stuck" (although the delays are such that you might think it has, the hard drive indicator light tells you it is chugging away).

Overall, I'm quite mixed about it. I bought it knowing that I needed a big storage device to get my music on to and also knowing that it would likely be a stop-gap, with something like Rokus being the ultimate goal. The Freecom works well hooked up with my laptop and in that respect it's a bloody expensive hard drive (no delays in access time using itunes) - but I can if I want connect it up to my main sound system in the Lounge with an optical connection and it pumps out some serious sounds. I do suspect it is aimed more at the visual rather than the audio and I haven't really explored how useful it is in terms of images/videos. Certainly most of the remote control functions are geared towards images/videos.

Hope that helps. Any more questions, give me a shout.

[Boom04]

Hi "Cardiff"

Thanks for your reply - much appreciated. I was quite excited when I first saw this device as initially it seemed deliver a lot. The thought of a non-pc music server/file storage looked quite attractive (in that I wouldn't have to bother with networking up). However it does seem that its functionality isn't quite there. Lack of good "Playlist" support and initial slowness in hard drive reading is a bit unsatifactory. Mind you if you could have wifi'ed the unit up in its own right (i.e and use this as the primary server) then that might have tipped the balance.

As it is I, probably like you spinning back to ultimately thinking of Roku's (even if this entails additional networking costs). Why is this so difficult!!??

Many thanks again

Boom

[hornydragon]

boom i think we are after the same device, i have the network infrastructure in place but dont want to turn my laptop onn to listen to MP3's i wanted to keep the Freecom connected to my lounge system via cables and to the network as a NAS (possibly through a file server NLSU-2) all i want is a box that can access a network storage device and play music and that seems to require
a:PC
b: Roku or similar
c: Imerge server!!!!

[Boom04]

HD

Yep. Similar spec requirements it seems -in fact you seem to have exactly the same main issue in that I don't want to power up the PC/laptop just to listen to music. Also I have a slight preference to have a dedicated "machine" or at least "hard drive" for these purposes just in case of disaster (i.e. you don't lose everything!).

I can't help think there must be a way to "build" something relatively cheaply. I must admit that I had brushed over the previous posts about using an NLSU-2 as it just seemed too technical/fussy, but I think this might be the way forward for me (if I can figure out what I need equipment wise, cost and how it all links). Will go back and do some research over the weekend.

In the meantime an "Imerge server" - pinch me I'm dreaming...!!

Boom

A possible (certainly easier) route to jukeboxing would just be this at £35 to add to an iPod:

http://www.tentechnology.com/product..._naviproex.php

I've not used one to find out how useful it is, but it looks pretty good. The drawback would be the small display of course.

[surfermc]

Originally Posted by Boom04

HD

I can't help think there must be a way to "build" something relatively cheaply. I must admit that I had brushed over the previous posts about using an NLSU-2 as it just seemed too technical/fussy, but I think this might be the way forward for me (if I can figure out what I need equipment wise, cost and how it all links). Will go back and do some research over the weekend.

Boom04 it is not as difficult as you think. I've set myself up in the last fortnight with a wireless setup having taken information and pointers from this post. I've gone for the NSLU2 linked to a Roku Soundbridge by a wireless lan.

With a bit of time a patience and reading the how-to it is not difficult. Have look at the following.
mt-daapd
NSLU2 Linux

It is worth it.

Martin

[Boom04]

Martin

Thanks for the links (and encouragement). I had an initial read and doesn't look too bad. For me there is an obvious phased upgrade path as follows:

1. Wireless router (I have been thinking about this for sometime anyway).
2. Roku soundbridge (driven initially by PC).
3. USB hard drive (running out of existing capacity anyway)
4. Finally the NAS/NLSU.
5. More Roku's.....

Each seems to be a logically step (and won't break the bank at each stage), it will also give me an opportunity to access whether this delivers exactly as expected.

So first step a wireless router. Without wishing to hijack this thread does anyone have any suggestions for a good piece of kit (and which will work well with the above)?

Cheers

Boom