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MULTIMEDIA SIG: |
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MULTIMEDIA SIG MISSION STATEMENT: |
iPods Ipods come with some very restrictive limitations, designed to lock you in to their brand and spend extra money. But they look nice and are easy to use as long as you are being a good consumer and only doing what Apple wants you to. One big problem for Ipods is that they can't play any tracks protected with the extremely common Microsoft/Windows DRM (Digital Rights Management - a way of stopping you copying digital downloads that you pay for). Apple provide their own protected tracks through Itunes and their online store, but there are lots of other sources which may have tracks unavailable through Apple but which you couldn't play. On the other hand Apple refuses to be compatible with anyone else, so no other mp3 player can play protected tracks from Apple. Ipods also can only be operated via the Itunes software, whereas many if not most other mp3 players can be used as a portable storage drive, like a USB stick that can be plugged into any computer and used (regardless of whether Itunes is installed). Such adaptability for other players is useful if you ever want to transfer some computer files - Word documents or photos, for instance - to another computer or take them travelling with you, or keep backups. Another disadvantage for the storyteller is that Ipods don't come with a voice recorder, although you can get a somewhat bulky plugin device for SOME Ipod models that adds this facility. My mp3 recorder has a mono recorder built in, and can therefore be used as a dictaphone at any time - very important if you want to use the player for recording and listening back to your story rehearsing. You can also get your own recordings onto any player via a microphone plugged into a computer, but that ties you to the computer whereas the beauty of the mp3 player is its extreme portability as a tool. Another reason I won't get an Ipod is their attitude to customer rights. It is very common for Ipod batteries to die just after the guarantee has run out - I think some study put it as high as 10% or more - but the battery isn't replaceable. Apple will do it, but for a vast fee that makes it better value to buy a new one. Their attitude is that there isn't a problem. In the UK this is illegal, and customers are entitled to replacements, but Apple refuses to acknowledge rights and won't give replacements unless threatened with legal action. Hmmm, that 'friendly and easy to use' tag really doesn't hold up! My player is a Rio Carbon, a 5Gb disk-based player. The higher capacity players all have little hard disks inside, slightly less robust if you're aiming to do extreme sports while listening. Lower capacity players are solid state (flash memory based) and with no moving parts are even more reliable, leaving aside battery life. I would definitely replace my Rio Carbon with another one if it broke. It's no longer made but it's easy to get new or refurbished ones online at a really good price - far cheaper than an equivalent capacity Ipod or indeed any other make's newest models. That's what my current one was anyway, and it's lasted a long time very reliably. When it came out, reviews often placed the Rio better or as good as the Ipod, but it just didn't have the marketing muscle of Apple. It looks great, is exceptionally slim and easy to tuck in a pocket without lumps digging into you. It's also very easy to use and comes with good software. As for using an mp3 player of any kind: The player's software resides on your computer and manages the transfer, and usually the ripping too - though you can get better quality using third party free ripping software. The software manages the entire library of tracks on your computer, and whichever tracks you want on the player - which can be easily and regularly swapped if you want variety. It can also create playlists on your player - selections of the tracks on it, to be played in a certain order. You can play albums as normal, or you can create playlists of individual tracks from anywhere, or you can usually randomize (The Ipod Shuffle is limited to only this randomised playing, claiming a virtue from the restriction). If you want to transfer tracks from elsewhere than cds or online downloadable files, then it's not so easy. That is, if you want tracks from old records or tapes then you'll need to play those machines into your computer, using the right cables and software, to convert the music. Not difficult, but can be time consuming. Once you have your tracks on the player, it's very easy. You need headphones, and I recommend Sennheiser's PX range of extremely nice foldable headphones if you want something better than the little in-ear bud phones that come with players. The player's battery needs to be kept charged (via the mains or your computer, preferably both for adaptability), and battery life varies considerably - check reviews for a realistic estimate. My Rio lasts for 15 - 20 hours; some players barely manage a handful in real use (and don't forget the battery life always declines over time, so start with a high one). Playing and choosing tracks should be easy, and there should be fast forward controls etc. Finally, don't forget that there are thousands of sources of interesting audio material now. You can get podcasts, which are like downloadable radio shows or lectures that you put on the player and listen to at your convenience, on every subject imaginable. There are self-improvement or business skills seminars, many of them free, that you can learn from as you walk, sunbathe, travel etc. Response: Very interesting but not inconsistent with the way Apple has operated since their beginning. BTW: I use a CD player or MP-3 player (not Ipod) for background music during a show. My wife handles the music. That's all the equipment needed. The software is not difficult. I highly recommend Pinnacle's 'Clean', which is pretty cheap (although you can get a slightly more expensive version with a hardware preamp designed for connecting record decks directly to the computer without an amp). This software is specifically designed for transferring music from record decks or cassettes. It makes it pretty easy and convenient, and of course gives you full instructions. You play the cassette in real time, with the software running on the pc. It records it digitally until the tape stops. There's lots of software that does this, including good free software. But 'Clean' does the important next steps if you want a good result. Firstly it automatically recognises the track breaks (if there are pauses between them) and divides the big digital file into tracks. Then you can apply a very configurable, or automatic if you prefer, cleaning process which considerably reduces or eliminates the hiss, or the clicks of scratches etc. - you can even repair very bad problems if you spend more time adjusting things. This cleaning is very necessary for cassettes if you want a clean sound. It also gives you loads of options for extra stuff if you want to get creative. And it saves it all how you want it, with names etc. You will need a couple of gigabytes of free space to record and process the raw recording, but it will compress down a lot once you've finished the editing. The processing, once you've selected what kind of cleaning etc to do, will take quite a lot of minutes, depending on the power of your computer, but you just leave it until it's finished. If you don't care about the quality of the recording, ie the hiss etc, then you can just use basic software. You may have something already, for creating cds with your pc cd drive - that may well be able to capture analogue music too. I'd advise downloading the very well respected Audacity - an audio editor - from audacity.sourceforge.net. It's totally free, very capable. It will 'listen' to the tape recorder or anything else and record it digitally. You then have a huge sound file which you can divide up into tracks by hand if you wish, chop out bits etc. and save how you want it. You'll just need to pay for a cable. There are also online tutorials in how to do all this. Just search on 'transferring cassettes to pc' or 'to digital' etc. Note well: if you want to record from a record deck there is a special factor you must deal with - the deck either has to go through a hifi amp or a special record deck pre-amp. This is to rectify the biased sound of vinyl records back to normal listenable sound - otherwise you'll end up with tinny sound and little bass. 'Clean' deals with this easily. Mary, since you're already a Mac user, then I wouldn't buy anything but an iPod. It's easy to use and will work perfectly with your iBook. Yes, point taken. I can see it could be awkward transferring a lot of tapes and getting a LOT of files. I'm really interested in a one-off transfer of the eight stories I have on a 1994 cassette recording, including the occasionally discussed "Reason to Beat your Wife". That was my first independent venture and, of course, absolutely no one ever buys cassettes nowadays. I did a quick test yesterday (when I should have been battling through a translation job about eye vitamins). But then what to do with them? I could put the eight stories onto a CD and sell them that way. An alternative would be to try marketing them as downloadable stories from my website. And now comes my questions to all of you - repository of knowledge that you are. And what about the technicalities? For those who haven't got into using mp3s on computers and players, my biggest tip is to ensure right from the beginning that you get into the habit of tagging your mp3 files, and in a consistent way. Tags are the details of artist, title, album, genre etc., and these are embedded inside each file. CD ripping often does this automatically, retrieving the information from free online databases so you don't have to fill it all in. But recording from cassettes etc. means you have to do all that by hand, though there are simple utilities that make it easy enough. You'll only realise the need for these tags once you have a fair number of tracks and start to lose track of what contains what, and where it's from etc. At that stage you will kick yourself at the thought that to sort it out you'll have to go through them all and apply hundreds of tags, and will probably never get around to it. But your mp3 player, and computer, rely on these tags to help you sort, choose, and find your tracks, so things get much more awkward if some of them are untagged. Keeping the files in a sensibly organised folder-tree on your computer can help, but on your mp3 player that organisation is lost. While iTunes might have proprietary copy protection, the iTunes store is huge and easy to use. I particularly like the selection of classical music -- how about ten different performances of "Lark Ascending"? And you can use the iTunes software to transfer your CDs to the iPod. However, as a device for listening to your own stories, you'll need to record them via Garage Band or some other software onto your lap top computer, and then load that onto your iPod. Or, buy the add-on microphone that uses the iPod as a recording device. |
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