Who Designed This Crap? The Great Ipod Scam

[ghostface24]

OK!

Gapless means no gaps in between tracks when it's playing. Such functions are used in progressive rock, art rock (well, this falls under progressive), and many other genres. So let's say I have In the Flesh off of CD1 in The Wall from Pink Floyd, my player would just jump right into the song with no loading or cache skips (ie. the player is buffering/loading the song into the cache). With gapless, there would be no skip so that the songs join together, in which this is a rock opera, it's suppose to be like that. The Ipod doesn't not in anyway (sans Rockbox because I'm talking about the Ipod natively and so should many members in this thread). Of course you can join the tracks, which would lead to clutter and to no choice but to manually skip between tracks, which is rather stupid I might add as this would be a big file. I love The Wall, my most preferred song is Track 4. The Happiest Days of Our Lives. Now this song is followed by Track 5 (duh). Another Brick In The Wall (Part II) in which should be a favourite among many. When Track 4 goes to Track 5, it's just magical, producing a feeling of connectivity (this is an opera, should be gapless!). You see, on an Ipod (sans Rockbox), if I want to select The Happiest Days of Our Lives and it's one track, it's going to take too long or just be stupidly redundant (I listen to a lot of Progressive Rock, many albums are gapless). It would just be smarter to select the freaking song already and have gapless. It's not hard either. In some cases, Vorbis does better in gapless than mp3 because to have gapless mp3, a hack must be used which LAME takes care of pretty nicely (oh wait a second, there are LAME errors on some Ipods 😱).

Now can you see it M_S, joining tracks is just completely stupid. And no, joining tracks isn't gapless at all, it's just one ficken album in one file! The Gapless Feature does not apply to it at all. Gapless is a necessary feature to many, Ipods do not support Gapless! The joining of tracks is not gapless!

Do you now understand? You really have to start listening to some Concept Albums, you'll understand then.

Oh, btw, I want to see those references.

*
If I want to select a certain song so that it would fade into the other song creating the same effect it was suppose to create, then I would want to select a single song and have gapless. Just a small summary for some.
*

 

[M_S]

OK!

Gapless means no gaps in between tracks when it's playing. Such functions are used in progressive rock, art rock (well, this falls under progressive), and many other genres. So let's say I have In the Flesh off of CD1 in The Wall from Pink Floyd, my player would just jump right into the song with no loading or cache skips (ie. the player is buffering/loading the song into the cache). With gapless, there would be no skip so that the songs join together, in which this is a rock opera, it's suppose to be like that. The Ipod doesn't not in anyway (sans Rockbox because I'm talking about the Ipod natively and so should many members in this thread). Of course you can join the tracks, which would lead to clutter and to no choice but to manually skip between tracks, which is rather stupid I might add as this would be a big file. I love The Wall, my most preferred song is Track 4. The Happiest Days of Our Lives. Now this song is followed by Track 5 (duh). Another Brick In The Wall (Part II) in which should be a favourite among many. When Track 4 goes to Track 5, it's just magical, producing a feeling of connectivity (this is an opera, should be gapless!). You see, on an Ipod (sans Rockbox), if I want to select The Happiest Days of Our Lives and it's one track, it's going to take too long or just be stupidly redundant (I listen to a lot of Progressive Rock, many albums are gapless). It would just be smarter to select the freaking song already and have gapless. It's not hard either. In some cases, Vorbis does better in gapless than mp3 because to have gapless mp3, a hack must be used which LAME takes care of pretty nicely (oh wait a second, there are LAME errors on some Ipods 😱).

Now can you see it M_S, joining tracks is just completely stupid. And no, joining tracks isn't gapless at all, it's just one ficken album in one file! The Gapless Feature does not apply to it at all. Gapless is a necessary feature to many, Ipods do not support Gapless! The joining of tracks is not gapless!

Do you now understand? You really have to start listening to some Concept Albums, you'll understand then.

Re-read and again state your contention with fact, not inane drivel and meaningless opinion.

M_S

 

[ghostface24]

Opinion! What sort of opinion?

Look here, I want to select Track 4! I want it to go straight to Track 5! Without gapless, there would be a subtle but annoying skip. It is annoying when dealing with a masterpiece. Joining tracks just makes for bloat. BLOAT! A portable device must not suffer from 200 MB files, the buffer would just be too small. Now is that an opinion?

 

[M_S]

Opinion! What sort of opinion?

Look here, I want to select Track 4! I want it to go straight to Track 5! Without gapless, there would be a subtle but annoying skip. It is annoying when dealing with a masterpiece. Joining tracks just makes for bloat. BLOAT! A portable device must not suffer from 200 MB files, the buffer would just be too small. Now is that an opinion?

You didn't read the previous posts, did you? No, I didn't think so.

Another one out to confuse the world with FUD and opinion rather than fact.

M_S

 

[ghostface24]

Well, being of experience in this area, I know that I am right.

I know that there would be no gaps in the process of joining files, but it's not gapless playback. It's just one fickin track as I said before.

Gapless playback is with separated tracks!

GET IT? If you do not believe me, debate it.

All you are saying is that I am this and I am that, I did read some of the previous posts. Why don't you debate my post for errors?

 

[dancnpete]

reading the rest of you're post I've come to the conclusion that you're a rio karma fanboy.
Again I must reiterate I am no fan of the ipod. I've played around with a couple of rio's in the past and was never that happy with the interfaces, but things might have changed with the karma I don't know. REGARDLESS, you need to chill. If you read my post thoroughly you would have realized that my coments were not singing the praises of any particular player.

The Karma might be the player for me, but I seemed to recall when I was first looking at it that several people talked about the player crashing occasionally during playback. Now before you scream bloody murder, I'm sure firmware has already fixed it if it was ever an issue.

As for gapless playback, it was never a real deal breaker, any album that was serverly hurt by the gap, I can rip as a single track. I know that illiminates the option of listening to a single track... BUT for me it is rare that I will want to listen to a single track of those albums because I want to listen to the whole thing. In fact when those single tracks come up in my winamp shuffle I get a little annoyed because I want to hear the whole album.

Now enqueue, next time you run winamp on shuffle press j a window will pop open with your current playlist select a song and push shift+enter. What will happen is the next song to play will be the one you selected, after that it will continue shuffling. it is a great feature for when a song reminds you of another song you want to hear.

Lastly I've learned to be tolerant of peoples buying decisions, Because in the end it really comes down to how you use the device. Some make it or break it features for you might be trivial to most. I'm not totally satisfied with the ipod, but if and when it dies I won't be getting a karma, I'll be getting an cowon Iaudio x5. It supports the formats I use, it has a decent interface, usb-to-go, a nice little remote, and a bunch of other little things that just make it appealing to me. Will it be the best player in the world maybe for me, but I know many people will find it confusing. Just like people found the interface for my previous player the iriver slimx cd-mp3 though I don't think anyone made a better mp3-cd player ever including rio. So take my advice chill, and before responding think about whether I'm truly arguing with you.

 

[M_S]

Well, being of experience in this area, I know that I am right.

I know that there would be no gaps in the process of joining files, but it's not gapless playback. It's just one fickin track as I said before.

Gapless playback is with separated tracks!

GET IT? If you do not believe me, debate it.

All you are saying is that I am this and I am that, I did read some of the previous posts. Why don't you debate my post for errors?

Another one agrees with my point ("I know that there would be no gaps in the process of joining files") and continues to debate. Truly hilarious.

I especially like the comment "being of experience in this area, I know that I am right". That's how you state fact alrighty</sarcasm>.

I especially think using incorrect sentence structure, poor spelling and profanity are a great way to get your point across</yetagain, sarcasm>

Re-read the previous posts and intelligently post new information based on fact (as I have done), or step to the side.

M_S

 

[ghostface24]

Well, the idea is that there would be no bloat. The cache in players are pretty small and with the playing of one huge file, there will be battery life drops and the HD will be spinning like crazy in periods where the cache will be filled and there would be a need to restore the cache. The main power consumption is the HD, you would want to keep the HD idle when it needs to. And some people like certain moments in songs than many others. For example: I don't really like the second half of the second disc in The Wall. As much as I appreciate the story, it just doesn't appeal to me.

 

[nhall]

This article...is bad.

As in "not good".

It's so strange to see someone hate a company and its products so much that they would rant so many pages of drivel dripping with their hateorade. I mean the whole anger in the "i" vs. "I" thing? That's a little obsessive; next time try and find something worthwhile to get worked up about, and perhaps people will take your words seriously. I feel dumber for reading it.

Also, that Creative Labs thing the reader bought? Ugly. Uggg-gly. Take that out on the subway and watch the pretty girls all run away from you. The ipod nano, on the other hand, is one of the few electronic devices I have ever had that gets compliments from women, the only other ones all being small, sleek cell phones like the razr.

Now I'm not advocating purchasing electronic equipment vainly out of the hopes that it will help reel in the ladies. However, I provided the example above to show that some people place value in things that are asthetically pleasing - in fact, most people do, but it usually doesn't extend to computer electronics purchases. Apple undeniably extends it to computer electronics, and the ipod market share vs. that of its competitors shows that people overwhelmingly see value in this. Sure, the Creative Labs product does the same thing on paper, although if the companion PC-based music player is anything like the confusing abortion of a music player that comes with my SB Audigy, that's arguable. However, the laundry list of specs the Creative Labs product has doesn't overcome the one biggest issue consumers see when they review the packaging - it's ugly. Go figure. Perhaps when Creative Labs brings out something that doesn't look like the retarded offspring of Optimus Prime and a Yugo, they might have a chance at this whole MP3 thing in the broader market. Here's an idea - bring out some good-looking devices that concentrate on just doing things in a simple manner that the non tech-oriented consumer (a.k.a. the majority of consumers) can easily understand. Works for Apple, I hear.

In your pictures of rock icons of yesteryear, you forgot one for when you were talking about the Nano. Elvis. As in "50 million Elvis/iPod fans can't be wrong".

 

[ghostface24]

Double post, excuse me.

 

[ghostface24]

Well, being of experience in this area, I know that I am right.

I know that there would be no gaps in the process of joining files, but it's not gapless playback. It's just one fickin track as I said before.

Gapless playback is with separated tracks!

GET IT? If you do not believe me, debate it.

All you are saying is that I am this and I am that, I did read some of the previous posts. Why don't you debate my post for errors?

Another one agrees with my point ("I know that there would be no gaps in the process of joining files") and continues to debate. Truly hilarious.

I especially like the comment "being of experience in this area, I know that I am right". That's how you state fact alrighty</sarcasm>.

I especially think using incorrect sentence structure, poor spelling and profanity are a great way to get your point across</yetagain, sarcasm>

Re-read the previous posts and intelligently post new information based on fact (as I have done), or step to the side.

M_S

OK, as I am typing this in a rush, there will be some mistakes here and there.

Now back to the point, it's not gapless playback! Look, joining files has it's issues, as I said, the cache size in portable players are small (16, 32, 64). Single file albums has a file size of about 200 MB. Do you see where I'm coming from? Gapless playback helps this as there is no need to join tracks. Joining files is just plain tedious.

Oh, and about my experiences on audio compression and data, it's pretty broad. Having an H320 with all my files in q7 Vorbis aoTuVb4.51 Lancer, I know how to take care of my audio files.

And remember kids, Lossy to Lossy encoding is a waste of time and quality.

 

[nilepez]

reading the rest of you're post I've come to the conclusion that you're a rio karma fanboy.
Again I must reiterate I am no fan of the ipod. I've played around with a couple of rio's in the past and was never that happy with the interfaces, but things might have changed with the karma I don't know. REGARDLESS, you need to chill. If you read my post thoroughly you would have realized that my coments were not singing the praises of any particular player.

I wasn't claiming you were talking about the karma.

You said

now my dream player would have
1) tremendous space
2) reasonable battery life
3) on the fly playlists
4) en queue during shuffle (I miss this soooo much)
5) native operating system support(so I can use on linux, windows, or mac even) and I can do diagnostics
6) gapless playback
7) fast navigation
Cool some standard freaking connectors so I don't have to worry about losing a piece of wire

[/quote]

Sounds like a rio karma (except for the HD space...only 20gb) and possibly en queue

The reason for saying that is simply that the karma has those features. The battery life was 15-20 hours, it came with a dock with line level RCA outputs and it worked with any O/S that had java and ethernet support.

Whether you would ultimately have liked it, who knows, but you gave a list of 7 items and it possibly had all 7.

If Sony or Creative had support for all of those things, I'd have mentioned their DAPs as well. If you just wanted .ogg, I'd mention iRiver, among others.

 

[ghostface24]

M_S, if you know that the Ipod has native gapless playback, why not test it on your Ipod. Buy a copy of Dark Side of the Moon, Animals, or The Wall. Rip it with EAC in LAME 3.97b2 mp3 at any preferred quality. Now, import these files to Itunes (and don't join, that wouldn't be native), place the files in your Ipod, and finally play the album. Now, is the Ipod gapless natively? I would guess not since it is apparent that gaps will be there.

 

[franksargent]

Hi all, this is Barry Gerber, the author of the story.

I want to thank you all for your input on the Ipod story here on the forum and in email. First, let me assure you that I did indeed attempt to test Itunes before writing the story. However, thanks to your input, I was able to do further testing and, as a result, to fix some errors in the story. You can find my corrections in the story itself. I have not changed what I wrote. Rather I added corrections in clearly marked paragraphs after the paragraphs with the errors.

Also let me assure you that I'm not out to get Apple, just to put the Ipod revolution into perspective and to get to some key issues where I would have expected Apple, of all companies, to be more on the side of us little guys.

:tongue:

Since when is ANY form of capitalism going to be "on the side of the little guy?" Such a LAME statement from the proported author of such a LAME article!

:tongue:

 

[ghostface24]

Hey, what's wrong with LAME. I love LAME, it's the only way my mp3s are encoded 😛.

Hehehe, just kidding.

 

[franksargent]

I'm on computer number 4 on my DRM, but I only have one computer, it's way easier to reach the limit of 5 than people think. I built a new rig, so this became number 2. I had a mobo go bad, so I got a new one, this became number 3. I got a nice large SATA HD to replace my IDE one and did a fesh OS install, this became computer number 4. Remember, a new mobo or HD counts as a new computer, so it's very easy to reach the limit of 5, I should be there at the end of the year when I build a new SLI rig. I love my ipod, but the limit of 5 is BS for people that have hardware problems or rebuild there rig every year and a half like I do.

:tongue:

Oh, boo hoo, cry me a river!

If you bought a Mac it would definitely last longer (each of mine have lasted 6+ years/each, thank you very much), but then again it isn't BIY, which is what you DOS fanbois love to do, since you have nothing better to do?

And why does anyone in their right mind EVER buy large amounts of online DRM'ed music anyway? Oh that's right, you need to fuss with you're DOS box 247!

Online DRM'ed music sux dude, or haven't you heard? Limited copies and low bitrates does not sound like a winning strategy to me? Ever listen to low bitrate music on a high end stereo? It sux dude!

But then again you are a savvy hackerz dude, aren't you? I thought you guyz had hacked Fairplay, thus lifting the 5 copy limit? I suggest you ask your hacker dudez how to do it, I'm sure they will help, seeing as they also have nothing better to do?

:tongue:

Calm the F down dude. I rebuilt my rig often because it's mostly used for gaming, which is why I don't have an Mac. I do no hacking, no interest, I haven't bought very much music from itunes, maybe 30 songs. All digital music sucks as far as sound quality, it doesn't matter what the bit rate, even cd's sound worse than good old LP's. Don't bother responding Mac fan boy, I'm done with this forum, BTW, does your overpriced, slow Mac match your curtains ?

:tongue:

Curtains? I prefer urine stained bed sheets, thank you very much!

:tongue:

 

[franksargent]

This article...is bad.

As in "not good".

It's so strange to see someone hate a company and its products so much that they would rant so many pages of drivel dripping with their hateorade. I mean the whole anger in the "i" vs. "I" thing? That's a little obsessive; next time try and find something worthwhile to get worked up about, and perhaps people will take your words seriously. I feel dumber for reading it.

Also, that Creative Labs thing the reader bought? Ugly. Uggg-gly. Take that out on the subway and watch the pretty girls all run away from you. The ipod nano, on the other hand, is one of the few electronic devices I have ever had that gets compliments from women, the only other ones all being small, sleek cell phones like the razr.

Now I'm not advocating purchasing electronic equipment vainly out of the hopes that it will help reel in the ladies. However, I provided the example above to show that some people place value in things that are asthetically pleasing - in fact, most people do, but it usually doesn't extend to computer electronics purchases. Apple undeniably extends it to computer electronics, and the ipod market share vs. that of its competitors shows that people overwhelmingly see value in this. Sure, the Creative Labs product does the same thing on paper, although if the companion PC-based music player is anything like the confusing abortion of a music player that comes with my SB Audigy, that's arguable. However, the laundry list of specs the Creative Labs product has doesn't overcome the one biggest issue consumers see when they review the packaging - it's ugly. Go figure. Perhaps when Creative Labs brings out something that doesn't look like the retarded offspring of Optimus Prime and a Yugo, they might have a chance at this whole MP3 thing in the broader market. Here's an idea - bring out some good-looking devices that concentrate on just doing things in a simple manner that the non tech-oriented consumer (a.k.a. the majority of consumers) can easily understand. Works for Apple, I hear.

In your pictures of rock icons of yesteryear, you forgot one for when you were talking about the Nano. Elvis. As in "50 million Elvis/iPod fans can't be wrong".

:tongue:

My sentiments EXACTLY!

Go into any Wal-Fart and look at the lineup of cretinous MP3 players, kinda looks like their clientele, don't you think? Or so I've been told!

One word, Fugly!

Yeah, too use a car analogy, they might get 10,000 MPG and go from 0-60 in like 0.0 sec, but like I said, one word:


FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGLLLLLLLLYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!

:tongue:

 

[M_S]

M_S, if you know that the Ipod has native gapless playback, why not test it on your Ipod. Buy a copy of Dark Side of the Moon, Animals, or The Wall. Rip it with EAC in LAME 3.97b2 mp3 at any preferred quality. Now, import these files to Itunes (and don't join, that wouldn't be native), place the files in your Ipod, and finally play the album. Now, is the Ipod gapless natively? I would guess not since it is apparent that gaps will be there.

Oh God, now we need to get you a definition for native...

I guess when you are beat the only thing to do is step back and modify what you said originally to fit the criteria I put forth. Now it's a pain to choose a menu option to join tracks? Yes I have "The Wall" in iTunes I don't own an iPod, (but have purchased many for family and friends) and don't need to own one to tell you that "The Wall", which I ripped with joined tracks, plays with no gaps. You are mincing words and definitions to form to your view of what "gapless" should mean.

What part of "without gaps" does not equal "gapless"?

You understand what you are saying as do I, but those that are perhaps not quite as informed would read what you said and say "Oh, it must be impossible to play back any audio intended to be without gaps properly on the iPod"

Now that I have brought it up, you and others are starting to clarify your positions (only slighty), but before that you and the original author mislead the reader.

BTW, I recieved my B.A., with major/minor in music, in audio engineering from an accredited university. I just might be considered an "expert" as well.

M_S

 

[yankeeDDL]

I think this was a great article.
And kudos to the author for going against the crowd.
Ipods are pretty, like most of Apple's products. But they are also incredibly overpriced and offer an extremely low price/performance ratio.

So if you want to throw your money away and pay for all the advertising, marketing and to feel part of the "gang", then sure, go buy an ipod.
But for that much money you can buy better products. Or equivalent products, just much cheaper.
The MuVo works great. You can use with cheap rechargeable batteries and it's also an USB key for the easiest possible use. It's smaller than all ipods, except the nano (which does not have the display though) and does the job just as well.

About MP3s and DRM, I cannot believe the people who are not concerned. I used to buy a CD and exchange it with friends. I could make tapes for the car or for my walkman.
Now I can rip the CDs and make as may compilations as I want.
But no, if I download a song from iTunes I can't do this anymore. Why? Because if you "buy" a song from iTunes you don't "own" it but you own the right for using it with restrictions. BS. Pure BS. On a typical CD you have, what, 16 songs and you pay ~$30 for one CD. On iTunes you'll pay about ~$16 but you won't be able to own anytihng. It's not worth it. It's a rip off. And, incredibly, thousands of people are falling for it. Then you wonder about file sharing. If I buy a CD I own it and I want to be 100% free to share it with whomever it pleases me, and rip it and make as many CDs as I see fit. Period.

 

[Syzler]

M_S, if you know that the Ipod has native gapless playback, why not test it on your Ipod. Buy a copy of Dark Side of the Moon, Animals, or The Wall. Rip it with EAC in LAME 3.97b2 mp3 at any preferred quality. Now, import these files to Itunes (and don't join, that wouldn't be native), place the files in your Ipod, and finally play the album. Now, is the Ipod gapless natively? I would guess not since it is apparent that gaps will be there.

Oh God, now we need to get you a definition for native...

I guess when you are beat the only thing to do is step back and modify what you said originally to fit the criteria I put forth. Now it's a pain to choose a menu option to join tracks? Yes I have "The Wall" in iTunes I don't own an iPod, (but have purchased many for family and friends) and don't need to own one to tell you that "The Wall", which I ripped with joined tracks, plays with no gaps. You are mincing words and definitions to form to your view of what "gapless" should mean.

What part of "without gaps" does not equal "gapless"?

You understand what you are saying as do I, but those that are perhaps not quite as informed would read what you said and say "Oh, it must be impossible to play back any audio intended to be without gaps properly on the iPod"

Now that I have brought it up, you and others are starting to clarify your positions (only slighty), but before that you and the original author mislead the reader.

BTW, I recieved my B.A., with major/minor in music, in audio engineering from an accredited university. I just might be considered an "expert" as well.

M_S

An expert Troller maybe...

You are arguing semantics, they are talking about terminology pertaining to a specific object.

Yes "Gapless" in the dictionary simply means without gaps, but in the world of music players it has come to mean the transition between tracks without noticable pause.

You are in the wrong and are either too proud to admit it, or are intentionally trying to instigate.