MP3 capable CD players

[troysvihl]

Has anyone else bought one of these? The concept is pretty sweet. A diskman that can read MP3 burned CD-R's. I can fit my whole music library onto 7 or 8 CD-R's and take around 2,000 songs with me! This product is going to completely kill all the other MP3 players out there to date. No need to fuss with expensive memory sticks or modules.

But the concept is not working in practice quite yet. At least I can't get it to work so I was hoping one of you knows where I'm screwing up. I've bought a few modles already and they all suffer from some of the same symptoms. First, none of the models ever reads all of the MP3 files I've burned to the CD-R. Supposedly they should be able to find the files in a directory system, but I can only get them to read the files in the root directory; nothing works in the directory tree. And the files it does read in the root directory are often split up into multiple six-second tracks. So when it plays a song, every six seconds there's a pause as it jumps to the next track of the song.

Anyone know what I'm doing wrong? I know this is 1st generation technology, but I kinda doubt that any company would bother putting out such a sh1tty product so the problem probably lies with me and not the machine. Maybe I'll have to take it back and wait for the ones that have the panel screen so that I can see the directory tree. But I've heard those are going to be a few months down the road, and I was hoping to use this thing over Xmas break.

[Edited by troysvihl on 12-11-2000 at 01:46 AM]

[Byte 2.0]

Ok, I will try to help...I too have been reading some reviews and the reviews I have read so far have skipped the important questions for me...

1. I don't think they are compatible with CDRW disc. I think that is a different format..

2. I wish some reviews had talked about directories. I currently have all my legal music CD's converted to MP3 format and burned to 8 CD-R's.

The Bummer is they are in a Directories.... Hmmmmmmm???

3. Maybe the 6 seconds is caused by fragmeantation on the CD-R. However since I understand it is always 6 seconds, I don't think that is problem..

4. I take it, that you have made at least one CD-R with no Directory and tried it??? If so how did it react? did you have the 6 second probelm then too...

5. Just wondering, have you tried a CDRW to see what it might do....

6. I would love to have one for about a day to write a review on them.

7. I take in that your CD-R disc with MP3's and no Directories that has the 6 second problem, doesn't have the problem when played in your computer from the disc right?

That is to make use the CD-R isn't the problem...

[Statica]

Do u have something like this: http://www.easybuy2000.com/store/products/mp3/mp3_discman.html

If so check out the instruction manual towards the bottom of the page. This does let one use CDRWs and pretty cheap!!

<HR>
On a related note, I wanted to ask: are these MP3 players really that useful, Ok i mean the hitherto industry standard of RAM stick/ZIP Disc type mp3 players. Especially for a person with a slow connection
(a) Do the mfg-er provide legal mp3s/sites or is the user relegated to scouring the net for "ez" ending here today, gone tomorrow sites?
(b) What about when diallup connxn is the norm?
(c) are they flash"upgradeable" to a recognize a different bit-rate or a better format should it be available?

These are the questions that keep me awake at night ....

Cheers

[Edited by Ex-Static-Cling on 12-11-2000 at 03:29 PM]

[troysvihl]

>are these MP3 players really that useful, Ok i mean the hitherto industry standard of RAM stick/ZIP Disc type mp3 players.<<


Well conceptually, I think they are about a billion times more useful than the MP3 players that have memory sticks, modules, etc. Those memory packs are expensive and they hold a pitiful amount of info. With there CD players, you can just put your whole library on a few disks. You essentially carry around a CD library worth several thousands of dollars.



>>(a) Do the mfg-er provide legal mp3s/sites or is the user relegated to scouring the net for "ez" ending here today, gone tomorrow sites?<<

I'm unsure what you mean. These CD players can only read disks, you can't connect them directly to your computer, so a mfgr provided site wouldn't be all that useful. Besides, "legal" (and I use that term loosely since no sites I know of have been declared illegal) sites suck as they never have any songs I really care about.


>>(c) are they flash"upgradeable" to a recognize a different bit-rate or a better format should it be available? <<

No unfortunetly, but they've only been on the market for a few weeks now, so perhaps the second generation will have them.





>>4. I take it, that you have made at least one CD-R with no Directory and tried it??? If so how did it react? did you have the 6 second probelm then too...<<


Well, one of my disks has a bunch of files not located in a directory, but that disk also contains directories, so perhaps that is causing the fragmentation. The files not listed in the directory are the only files the CD player recognizes.


>>5. Just wondering, have you tried a CDRW to see what it might do.... <<

No I haven't.


>>6. I would love to have one for about a day to write a review on them. <<

Pick one up at Circuit City or Best Buy and when your done, take it back.


>>7. I take in that your CD-R disc with MP3's and no Directories that has the 6 second problem, doesn't have the problem when played in your computer from the disc right? <<

Right. The fragmentation only occurs on the player.



I notice the instructions for that model say it won't play 700 mb CD-R's. I doubt it, but that may be my problem.

BTW, that isn't either of the same models I have, but it's similar.

[Edited by troysvihl on 12-11-2000 at 04:41 PM]

[troysvihl]

i think i know what the problem is. the vast majority of my music files i rip from my personal cd collection are coded at 192. Those are the ones that skip, but the 128 stuf I've downloaded off of napster work fine. Still pretty sketchy playback though, even with dropping down to 128 coding. The player seems to skip randomly as if it is straining to keep up. Oh well, the second generation should be better and they should be here within the next four to five months. I've been hearing alot of good stuff about them, like they'll have large LCD screens so you can see the whole directory tree.


I guess I'll just have to take mine back and wait until then.

[troysvihl]

Ahhhh... just read a review of a ton of players. (there are a ton of these things on the market, more than i thought) Seems that many of these players don't like Direct CD. So, I'm going to try a non-Direct CD. So that would explain the problem with the directories and the bitrate explains the problem with the fragmentation. I'm going to test this tonight....

[glc]

Ejecting a DirectCD Disc to Read on Another Computer

When you eject a CD-R DirectCD disc from the drive and you want to read it on another computer that has a standard CD-ROM drive, the disc must be formatted as an ISO 9660 closed session disc. To do this, follow these steps:

1 Right-click the CD icon on the Windows taskbar.

2 Select Properties from the drop-down list box.

3 Click the DirectCD Wizard tab.

4 Select the Enable standard CD-ROM compatibility Eject option and click OK.

5 Right-click the CD icon on the Windows taskbar.

6 Select the appropriate option from the drop-down list box:

· Eject, if the Eject Wizard is turned ON, or

· Finalize, if the Eject Wizard is turned OFF

7 Select Organize the disc so that it can be read in most standard CD-ROM drives. . . and click Finish.

Note: To make the disc readable on a standard CD-ROM drive, the disc is closed as an ISO 9660 format. This format information requires 22 MB of space on the disc for the first session, and 13 MB for each additional session. Only CD-R discs can be closed as an ISO 9660 format. CD-RW discs do not support the ISO format.
When DirectCD finishes closing the disc to an ISO 9660 format, the disc is ejected from the drive and, if the Display Disc Ejected notification option is selected in the DirectCD Wizard Options, the Disc Ejected message box appears.

----------------------------

You could of course use EZ CD Creator to do a layout and burn your discs instead of using Direct CD.

[troysvihl]

hey thanks. i wasn't aware i could change the format like that.