03-18-2008, 03:51 PM | #1 |
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iPod Questions
Over break, I discovered that I had "a super-secret stash of cash" that I'd forgotten all about. It puts me over the edge from "maybe I will, maybe I won't be getting an MP3 player" to definitely ready to make a purchase in the next week. Here are the questions I've got before I make the plunge:
Reasons:
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03-18-2008, 06:46 PM | #2 | ||
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Re: iPod Questions
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03-19-2008, 11:15 PM | #3 | |
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Re: iPod Questions
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Note: If you buy a Zune or iPod, you need to download the applications for these. Also, I hear from several people that I know that the Zune has a much better screen than the iPod when it comes to watching movies. I hope I helped. Take what I said with caution though, I do not know much about the Zune, and it could therefore be worse than the iPod. I'm just saying from my experiences, that my iPod has given me many problems, however, I have heard that the Zune allows for more freedom than the iPod does.
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03-19-2008, 11:20 PM | #4 |
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Re: iPod Questions
Basically what I'm hearing is that there is no magic MP3 player which out of the box is [strike:3ohwfm7y]piracy[/strike:3ohwfm7y] fansub friendly. Which means I'm going to have to just re-evaluate this purchase completely, settle for "an Only Music" player and forget if it can even do video or not, and in that case I don't need one bigger than 20 gigs -- and that's assuming i want it to house every song I've ever gotten and then some, which would be ridiculous for a portable music player i.e. NOT my main music player. So I'll probably just get a 20 gig or 40 gig model of an iPod or Zune or whatever so long as it's less than $150. (Since I'm not paying $300 for a fucking music player.)
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03-19-2008, 11:36 PM | #5 |
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Re: iPod Questions
Pretty much. Sorry man, I wish I had one of these awesome super "fansub" friendly media devices as well. According to what I hear, the Zune is pretty much the closest you can get.
Considering I'm pretty sure it's near impossible to put 20,000 songs on an iPod, the only real good thing an 80GB is good for is storing about 100 hours worth of videos. I've downloaded a few programs which rip my DVD's to my computer and then throw them on to my iPod (thank god for blockbuster, lawlz). I've also found that a few various sites get their hands on early copies of movies new to cinemas with DVD quality, and then upload them to the interwebs for downloading to your iPod. I've never downloaded these because I really don't have the time. As for fansubs---well, I was able to successfully put a fansub of a One Piece episode on to my iPod, however, it looked bad on the small screen and the words were hard to read...
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03-20-2008, 07:11 AM | #6 |
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Re: iPod Questions
I would get the biggest possible iPod if I were you. I bought a 30GB one in 2006 thinking it would be enough, but I filled it to capacity as soon as I got home. Doh!
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03-25-2008, 09:31 PM | #7 |
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Re: iPod Questions
I got on iPod Shuffle tonight for $50 just to finally shut up about this and have something for use at the gym. It's not intended to be a "true" MP3 player -- hell, it only has half the space that my 2 GB USB memory stick has! -- but I have one, so there you go. Now, some questions from 1999 that I'm only just asking now because I'm 9 years late to the party ...
1. How do I organize songs on my iPod without modifying the contents on the hard drive? The manual claimed that when I imported files it would change nothing, but this was a fucking two-faced lie made apparent halfway through my modification of many of my favorite songs for the sake of organizing them "properly" on an iPod vs. on a PC where I can have folder upon folder upon folder. (I'm a very tree-branch kind of guy when it comes to organizing music.) Here's what I think I've noticed: - if you change the file name in the iTunes Library, it does nothing to the original file - if you change the Artist, Album, or Genre information, this does change the corresponding fields in the files on the hard drive -- as seen when I hover over them in XP both before making a change in iTunes and after making a change in iTunes I don't want the iPod to fucking touch the files on the hard drive -- I just want to export them and then fuck with them on the iPod itself. Is this possible? Or is the iPod fucking lame and only allows you to manipulate file settings in relation to the originals? If you can't tell, I'm fucking pissed because I've lost 40 minutes to having to retrack through all the songs and giving them back their original settings (by comparing them against brothers and sisters from the same album) ... and I can only even do this when possible. Some songs, including some of my Chobits songs, are irreparably modified. Fucking ... -_-; 2. Is there a way to export songs to the iPod without doing the following? - dragging the files to the iTunes Library - telling the Library, "Add these songs to the Playlist 'fugue' " (the name of my Shuffle) I would prefer to just drag them to the iPod. And I'm wondering if figuring out how to do that wouldn't solve my complaint in Question 1.
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03-26-2008, 06:44 AM | #8 |
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Re: iPod Questions
If you had bought a more advanced iPod, you could have installed RockBox on it. Then you would have had true drag and drop capabilities and a real directory-tree interface. Oh well.
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03-26-2008, 07:14 AM | #9 |
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Re: iPod Questions
I can still buy another iPod -- or for that matter any MP3 player. I bought the Shuffle because I felt like I was whining both to people online and people in real life about wanting to have music at the gym when the answer was pretty simple. For $50, I could afford to take the risk, and the portability & weight argument for the Shuffle sold me. I had previously looked at the Shuffle (the original Shuffle) and thought it was a chewing gum piece of crap. "Who wants small HD space? Who wants short battery life? Get a fucking iPod Classic. Hell, if you insist on "so small you'll break it" technology, get a Nano! Don't get a Shuffle! What a waste of money!" But what changed my mind was when I realized how many people at the gym had Shuffles, and how two of my friends pointed out that while the treadmill might have a large rack to put an iPod on, a lot of exercise machines wouldn't and I'd look silly cradling my iPod in one hand while moving from one machine to the next -- or even worse I'd be screwed if I put my iPod down on the floor and some macho man came and crunched it on accident while walking too close by.
I still might take all those risks anyway because I'd prefer to watch anime at the gym to listening to music, but for the time being the concensus I am getting is that watching .mkv files at the gym on an unmodded MP3 player is going to be impossible -- and that even if you mod it, the h264 codec is so processor-intensive that tiny p.o.s. MP3 players aren't going to be handle the video stream. So the point is, if I can't watch anime any foreseeable time soon on a portable media player, my choices are: 1- Don't get a media player yet, but keep whining because I really want one. 2- Shut the fuck up and get an interrim candidate while holding out for the real deal 3- Get the closest thing I can to the real deal right now, but be disappointed in the end by the fact that it isn't the real deal (For me, #3 would be the iPod Classic with a tiny-ass screen or the iPod Touch with a tiny-ass hard drive.) I decided to go with #2. Because I think that what I basically want is either a modded PSP (depends on how much memory those little memory sticks of Sony's can hold) or an unmodded-to-slightly-modded iPod Touch with a larger internal hard drive. The current pricing on those is ridiculous -- $500 for 16 GB? Get out! I'll use my Shuffle for the next year or so and wait for the price to fall and the HDD size to rise to a reasonable level for the iPod Touch, like $300 for 60 GB (which is still expensive, but it's more in line with what they charge for iPod Classics right now). Or like I mentioned, if I can get a PSP + 10 GB memory stick (I doubt such a thing exists, but I'm just saying) for a competitive price, then a PSP would be as good to me as an iPod Touch. PSP = iPod Touch = large portable screen for watching anime with legible subs.
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03-26-2008, 07:22 AM | #10 |
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Re: iPod Questions
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03-26-2008, 07:40 AM | #11 | |
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Re: iPod Questions
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- iPod battery lives tend to be between 1-2 years - Apple offers a 1-year warranty on unmodded products. - Some vendors offer a 2 year warranty on unmodded products for a fee. - Once the battery goes, the iPod's pretty much bricked. Unless you or someone you know can take the iPod apart and put in a replacement battery. So this iMod is fantastic ... for people who already know how to mod a little. That's one reason I'm straying away from modding an iPod ... because if I get one, given the shitty battery life, I'm going to need to rely on that warranty.
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03-26-2008, 07:46 AM | #12 |
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Re: iPod Questions
There are special kits designed for easily opening an iPod and replacing the battery with a new, higher capacity version. Some of them sell for as little as $30.
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03-26-2008, 02:21 PM | #13 |
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Re: iPod Questions
Link? (to both the kit and to the superior batteries) 'Cause if the combined cost comes out to be more than $70, then it may not even be worth it: Apple charges $70 to get the battery replaced, I hear, and I'd probably want to purchase a brand new unit anyway by the time the battery would die for its 2nd time.
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03-26-2008, 05:46 PM | #14 |
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03-26-2008, 06:48 PM | #15 | ||
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Re: iPod Questions
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03-26-2008, 07:01 PM | #16 |
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Re: iPod Questions
There's no point in getting a iPod touch. They're fun to play with, but you can get an 80GB 5.5G iPod for much less and it would sound just as good.
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03-26-2008, 07:03 PM | #17 |
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Re: iPod Questions
A-NI-ME
I'm not talking about (or planning on) getting one now. I'll do so when the following two things happen and no sooner: 1- the pricing goes from $500 for shitty HD space to $300 for acceptable (40 GB at least b/c of how big video files are) 2- people figure out how to get anime to work on an iPod Touch, with or without Apple's permission Have you done the battery replacement yourself before, Namek? Was it easy? I'd be afraid of bricking my unit.
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03-26-2008, 07:42 PM | #18 |
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Re: iPod Questions
I haven't needed to replace my battery yet.
Also, your priorities are mixed up! Music is much more important than anime, especially in an exercise situation. Anime will only distract you then. |
03-26-2008, 07:59 PM | #19 |
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Re: iPod Questions
I need to be distracted, to keep my mind off of the clock. When I'm constantly thinking of it (which I am when I have nothing else to occupy my thoughts -- my mind constantly jumps back to "How long has it been now?" with each pain in my side), it goes by at a snail's pace; but when I watch the local news on the television sets directly in front of me, I can jog at the same pace as usual (which I know I'm doing because I'm on a treadmill, and since I'm not modulating the speed while watching TV it must be going at the same speed now it was going at 5 minutes ago when I set it!!) and I don't even notice the time going by.
So since I've already proven myself different from you, i.e. I need the distraction and I don't slow down because of it but maintain the same energetic workout as before, I may as well kill two birds with one stone: CURRENT SITUATION: I'm exercising (+) but wasting time watching the local Lafayette news or even worse some retarded thing on VH1 since that's what the other TV is always on (-) IMPROVED SITUATION: I'm exercising (+) and re-watching an old favorite, be it Minami-ke or Haruhi or Planetes or what have you (+) Could I listen to music? Yeah. But the problem is, I'd fiddle with the iPod too much while exercising. I would want to skip tracks because I'm a very spontaneous listener who does poorly with "pre-programmed playlists." I have to have all of my songs with me (or all of the songs I guesstimate I will want to listen to in the gym) but from there on, once I hit the Play button, it's all about whatever mood I'm in right there right then that determines whether I keep listening or hit the Fast Forward button to skip to the next track. Whereas with watching anime, I find an episode I want to watch and I stick with it. No fast-forwarding, no track skipping. Once I find it, I'm glued in for the next 22 minutes. Nice, solid, uninterrupted, undistracted.
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03-26-2008, 08:03 PM | #20 |
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Re: iPod Questions
Well, if that's the case it's time to develop some discipline and learn how to keep going without looking at the time! ;) Another alternative is to find a type of workout you actually enjoy so that time becomes a non-issue.
Also, I agree with you about the playlist thing. Never saw the use for them, personally. |
03-27-2008, 08:07 PM | #21 |
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Re: iPod Questions
I'm prepared to buy the headphones so long as I think I'd be comfortable with them, so I went to Circuit City and Best Buy today hoping to find a stand-alone pair of the tri-flanged earpieces -- so I could buy a test pair for $20 and see if I like 'em or not. ("What? And waste $20 if you don't like them?" you may be asking. My response being "Yeah -- because it's not like I wouldn't be wasting $200 if I got the headphones first instead!") I was not able to find one, so I think I'll order the $20 tri-flanged pair Amazon is offering and see how comfortable (or not) they are. And if they're really comfortable, then I'll get the headphones you recommended, Blaise.
While at Circuit City, I bought an audio cassette-to-MP3 player device. It works, but while my radio sounds crystal clear (like, 192 kbps let's say), the music playing from my iPod onto the radio sounds like it's coming through some sort of "audio fog." Like there's some thick, uniform obstacle that is dampening both the contrast (so the highs and lows are inaudible and things in the middle sound more similar to one another than dissimilar) and the intensity (so that it feels like it's only 90% as loud as it originally was). I don't know if it's the iPod and my Elantra's speakers not getting along well, or if maybe the cassette I got at Circuit City's a dud. Before I take it back, any of you have any experience with these devices? Do you know if they all suffer from this imperfect playback issue? Or do you guys have crystal clear playback when you hook your MP3 players up to your cars?
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03-27-2008, 08:50 PM | #22 | |
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Re: iPod Questions
Just order the Etymotic headphones from http://www.headphone.com. If you don't like them there is a 30-day guaranteed no-questions-asked return policy. (Assuming you didn't damage the product, of course.)
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Also, never use triflanges, they are extremely uncomfortable and don't block out sound well. I use these foam eartips with my ER4Ss: http://www.earphonesolutions.com/shpameblfosl.html. Five pairs per packet and each pair will last about six months. They are washable too, just wipe them down with a damp paper towel and they're good-as-new. |
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05-11-2008, 03:03 PM | #23 |
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Re: iPod Questions
A couple weeks ago I obtained an iPod Shuffle after finding it on the bus to school, so I have a few questions about them -
1. How do I remove songs from an iPod? 2. How do I erase songs from an iPod? 3. How do I calibrate the order of lectures on an iPod?
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05-11-2008, 03:08 PM | #24 | |
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Re: iPod Questions
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Be a good Samaritan. "Found an iPod."
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05-11-2008, 03:11 PM | #25 |
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Re: iPod Questions
I hear that losing an ipod can be as painful as getting dumped. I recommend keeping all the data intact so you can verify the true owner.
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