no polls, just asking opinions...

Ipod vs. Zune

I'm torn between the two. I have a 6gig Ipod mini, and I like it alot,
but I want a 30 gig+ player.

I don't hate I-tunes, but its not my favorite program either.
In all honesty, I still use an old version of Winamp to play music.
Ipod is in its 5th generation I believe, so I tend to lean more that way.

I haven't heard much about sound quality comparison or the software the
Zune uses. Someone said you have to purchase "Zune Marketplace?"
Any personal experiences with both?

I haven't read reviews, but I dislike iTunes and the "style" of Apple products so I'd look into the Zune.

There are other options, too, though. I'd look around, you might not want either.

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Action Half-Life - <A HREF="http://distraction-mod.com" TARGET="_blank">Distrac

I think Zune wraps everything in DRM, whether you legally own the license to the music or not - which can be unconvenient, to say the least. However, I think there's probably a way to circumvent that by now. May I remind you that there are options other than those two? The Creative Zen players, or the smaller Creative MuVo players that double as USB drives, for example.

Yeah I'll offer from personal experience that I suggest the iPod. I have a 30G Video, and it really is well designed. Had it for about a year now, not one problem with it. I personally love iTunes, and it's organization. It plays videos fine, sound quality is great, been steadily throwing on full length movies and whole albums and have yet to delete one item for lack of HDD space.

I've dropped it a few times, sat on it a few times, really given it some accidental beatings. Still no problems yet. Really a fine piece of machinery, and I'd suggest that above a Microsoft product.

Cheers!

I'd look for more in a personal player than just MP3 or video capability. I'd probably get a PocketPC at some point. But from those two, an iPod. Apple is tremendously talented at hardware design, they always have been. Also, like any other device, you can put a different OS on it if you tried. (I wouldn't, but it is possible)

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

I don't trust microsoft to make any system better than itunes, which I find works quite well. Also, you can use Winamp in place of iTunes which is great. Drag and drop songs and play songs off the ipod.

I don't know much about Zune, but seeing how they are trying to fight the iPod like 5 years after its launch... there is just more stuff for iPod.

I'd say iPod+Winamp is the best bet.

I was drawn to the Zune from the get-go, but the more I've heard about it the more put off I've been. I wouldn't really want to go the iPod route either though, to be honest. If you are used to, and like, the interface and necessary file syncing setup, I would suggest the iPod will be the altogether more painless option to take, however.

Myself, I just got a 4Gb Samsung YP-Z5 which, with the latest firmware, I've found to be a great little player. I've got a PSP for using as my video/games player on the train or on holiday, so to compliment that the YP-Z5 is a wonderful little solid-state MP3 for using on the move or while doing sports, etc... 4Gb doesn't hold a vast quantity of music compared to the iPod/Zune style player, but as I can simply drag and drop files through windows due to it being treated as a USB key (only on recent firmware - reviews often state this can't be done due to older firmware) I don't find it much of a hassle to chop and change when needed.

I you do go for the Zune be sure and let us know your thoughts, as I'd like to hear some first hand experience with it.

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

Yeah, I prefer the "USB key" sort of interface. I don't trust a program like iTunes or Windows Media Player to organize my files and whatnot, I don't want to have to use some annoying interface just to load some music. It's pretty easy to drag and drop stuff to your player when your music is actually organized on your hard drive.

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Action Half-Life - <A HREF="http://distraction-mod.com" TARGET="_blank">Distrac

I would suggest neither, I agree with Jinx about organisation. However, if it simply must be one of the two, the ipod is, from what I've heard, better. Zune locks you into DRM and all sorts of nasty stuff from what I've heard, and uses a program instead of itunes which is like WMP, but worse. Of course, Creative have offerings which roughly match apple for hardware quality, and dont have software getting in the way.

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"If you talk at all during this lesson, you have detention. Do you understand?"

• My yr11 Economics teacher

The one thing I didn't mention before is that iPod has a lot of support. Even from independent developers (average people). This, for example, eliminates the need for iTunes and allows you to do everything from Windows. (if you use Windows, I'm sure there's an alternative for all sorts of OSs).

Not a big deal. As long as you can connect a device to your computer, you can get into it and do what you want. The popularity of the product, however, determines the amount and quality of support you will find.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

I've just got a 30gig iPod video, which is brilliant, and I'm even starting o use iTunes a bit more.

Haven't tried the Zune, but I have seen this review from the Chicago Sun-Times which absolutely slaughtered it. Final line from the review:

Result: The Zune will be dead and gone within six months. Good riddance.

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My site

If you want to pay stupidity taxes to a large music empire before even buying any of their songs get Zune. Basically the whole copyright slavery invents values that do not exist. I'm not uncritical towards the iPod but letting Mircosoft capture the MP3 market is surely a very, very bad idea.

Plus the iPod has years of experience ahead and a better usability. You don't have to use iTunes. You can get xPlay or any other of the many third party tools for managing iPod MP3s. iTunes is evil, I don't use it.

iPod!

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Why snark works.

DRM is the work of Satan!!!

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Action Half-Life - <A HREF="http://distraction-mod.com" TARGET="_blank">Distrac

It's crap. You can't sell a "license" for sharing something privately.

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Why snark works.

Does it stop your from sharing mp3s that have no DRM? How does it react to mp3s that you ripped yourself?

Also wonder if the software for these players doesn't 'call home' about what music you have.

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Action Half-Life - <A HREF="http://distraction-mod.com" TARGET="_blank">Distrac

What's the gripe about iTunes? I absolutely love it. It organizes everything perfectly, downloads album artwork automatically, syncs your library with your iPod etc.

I don't see the big problem with it. To me, it's a lot more convenient. I just add songs to iTunes, edit their names so that they organize well, auto download the artwork and then plug in my iPod. Bam, I have 2 new albums and a season of the Simpsons... y'know?

i recently bought an creative microphoto which is 8 gig. I really like it. Maybe consider to buy sth from them?

wow. alot of opinions.

I think I'm going towards the Ipod then... DRM pisses me off too much, I
had no idea they were doing that. I thought the only way that files kept DRM info was if they were WMAs or AACs, I always rip them to MP3s...

I already own a 360, so I guess I paid my MS tax this year. lol
I-tunes doesn't bother me, but its nice to know I can use other programs to load up the ipod. I'll have to checkout some of the other players before I purchase though.

I dont like itunes because it is a less transparent system than organising your music in folders on your hard drive. I dont want it doing mysterious shit behind my back. For example, it locks the ipod to a particular PC, which for someone like me(who has machines changing, dying and being reborn constantly) couldnt make things more difficult.

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"If you talk at all during this lesson, you have detention. Do you understand?"

• My yr11 Economics teacher

I dont like itunes because it is a less transparent system than organising your music in folders on your hard drive. I dont want it doing mysterious shit behind my back. For example, it locks the ipod to a particular PC, which for someone like me(who has machines changing, dying and being reborn constantly) couldnt make things more difficult.

Yeah, I keep my stuff well-organized by folder structure etc. I don't want a program moving anything around, or getting 'confused' when I shuffle stuff around myself, which I've seen WMP do.

There is also the matter of BACKING UP your mp3s. I have a careful system for how I do this; some stuff is archived on dvd, other stuff is mirrored on an external hard drive (I have over 120GB of mp3s). If a program moves them around on me, I would be lost.

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Action Half-Life - <A HREF="http://distraction-mod.com" TARGET="_blank">Distrac

-Jinx and wilson-

Could you elaborate more on how iTunes organizes your music in the way
you dislike? I mean im looking at my iTunes folder right now, and it
seems like its in a logical order. I mean who really cares how your
music is organized if its all appearing in iTunes in an organized
manner. I can understand the frustration with a program doing things
behind your back...but to some extent all programs do that. At least
iTunes doen't download software it thinks it needs (eg: internet
explorer)

edit: ohh and due note: iTunes doenst rip your music off of your CDs,
but it turns it into its own file format. Not too much of an issue if
you get another program to rip em for ya, but it is annoying.

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Posting And You

I've heard of it moving around your music on you, to organize it in its own folders etc. I've even heard horror stories of people losing music because of iTunes.

This is old, but here's an example of how I have folders with complete albums organized:

http://www.cryotank.net/remote/complete_albums.txt

I go to great lengths to keep my stuff organized in a way I like, I don't want to risk some program moving stuff around to fit its own idea of how it should be organized.

Also had an experience with WMP where once you added music to it, it wouldn't 'forget' the music if you moved it. Even though the music was clearly gone, you couldn't remove it from the program's list, which just made a mess. Change one filepath, and the whole program is messed.

Maybe someone more familiar with iTunes can elaborate more on how it works. I keep my music meticulously organized, so I don't feel a need for a program to do anything other than play it.

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Action Half-Life - <A HREF="http://distraction-mod.com" TARGET="_blank">Distrac

I organize my MP3s much the same way.
I burn them to data DVDs first (@192 kbps you can fit 50-70 albums per disc).
Then I put them on my external 250 gig and sort them by artist and album.

I've never lost anything in I-tunes. I just make a new directory and put copies of albums or songs in it, and then import them into I-tunes. I never link to original files, they're all backup up anyway. I have multiple libraries with the new version
of I-tunes, you just hold down shift when loading it (to switch between them or make a new one).

I only use I-tunes to sort it for Ipod use, I use winamp to listen to music, I hate
WMP.

The problem with both players is that I want my MP3 player to play anything I like. DRM is the work of the devil, so scrap Zune. Ipods are a bit too expensive (you pay a plus because it's a shiny Ipod), and play far from everything (Flac, Ogg ?).

I also want an MP3 player that would just let me drag and drop stuff on it like as if it was an external hard drive.

I mean, serious, what's the use of the forced I-Tunes transfers ? The program hogs up way too much memory for a music player, and I don't really like the integration of the online store in it. A music player should play music. Period.

I'd go with one of the Creative models. They allow a lot of modification (there are articles on the internet from people who managed to run Doom on it :razz: ) and are pretty cheap.

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:: Forceflow.be :: Nuclear Dawn developer

I rather liked .ogg files, they definitely sounded better than an mp3 of the same bitrate. The lack of support is frustrating, though. Any more when I come across .ogg files I just convert them to high bitrate mp3s :/

Flac is nice in theory, but I can't really tell the difference and they are so huge it's rather annoying. I convert those to high bitrate mp3s, too.

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Action Half-Life - <A HREF="http://distraction-mod.com" TARGET="_blank">Distrac

I have to admit that Flac is indeed still a bit huge, but it's very nice that it can convert an 80 Mb Wav file into a 15-16 Mb FLAC file , all lossless. I mean really, you can't tell the difference, even when you're playing it on a high-def stereo set.

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:: Forceflow.be :: Nuclear Dawn developer

On a related note, I've been enjoying the scrobbling features of Last.fm



Pretty neat thing to pop on your MySpace, webpage, etc.

btw, does anyone know of anything similar that will track what video you've been watching? most videos aren't properly tagged, but even something that would show the filenames would be nice.

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Action Half-Life - <A HREF="http://distraction-mod.com" TARGET="_blank">Distrac

You can set iTunes up so it doesn't mess with your audio file set up, but like I said before you can skip iTunes all together with Winamp (I would use this if I wasn't on mac)

Price is a big factor with the iPod, I put lots of stress on design so I oped for the ipod (plus I got a big discount with I got my macbook).

I can't stress enough to use Winamp if your on a PC, it is by far the best media software I've ever used.

iPods also have a strong user base. iPod+winamp = my choice

Aye, Winamp really whips the Llama's ass :wink: I'm sure many other media players are fine too if you take the time to set them up how you like and learn to use them properly, but I've used Winamp for years now and have yet to see any reason to change.

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

I'm still using Winamp 2.10...
I hated when they added all of the visualization stuff and video
playback. It looked like it was slowly becoming Real Player.

foobar2000 for the win. It's pretty minimal, so you can just add what you want. The basic layout looks fugly, but after a bit of tweaking you've got the music player customized to your needs.

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:: Forceflow.be :: Nuclear Dawn developer

foobar2000 for the win. It's pretty minimal, so you can just add what you want. The basic layout looks fugly, but after a bit of tweaking you've got the music player customized to your needs.

Huh, I think I saw that in Last.FM's list of supported players. I was like "wtf is that?!" Maybe I'll check it out. Winamp bores me and it's the same damn player I've used for like 8 years. WMP is okay I guess, but it's excessive for just mp3s and seems like a sluggish program- no matter how fast your system is or how much ram you have, it's just a dog compared to other video & audio players.

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Action Half-Life - <A HREF="http://distraction-mod.com" TARGET="_blank">Distrac

thanks forceflow, foobar is great. Its very quick to load and
doesnt eat up my system resources like winamp. I guess it is about time to
abandon winamp now.

Be sure to check out the foobar2000 forums. There are tons of third-party plug-ins to enhance functionality. The default look is pretty spartan. I've added Album View and a small thing to pop up track info in the system tray when I'm playing music. Oh, and the audioscrobbler plug-in.

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:: Forceflow.be :: Nuclear Dawn developer

good to know, I'll check it out. thanks again.

Giving foobar a try as well. works with the multimedia buttons on my keyboard, which is nice (to pause if I get a phone call, etc.)

He's right, though, it's pretty godawful ugly lol.

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Action Half-Life - <A HREF="http://distraction-mod.com" TARGET="_blank">Distrac

• ColumnsUI is a very good layout manager (allows you to sort songs, tabbed playlists, ... it is the framework to start placing other things in, really)
• PrettyPopup is good for popping up song info
• Database Search is handy too, playlist search also
• AlbumInfo is nice
• And the Bauer to Stereophonic plugin is very nice if you listen a lot with headphones. You may not hear the difference at first, but I notice I can stand listening to music longer without my ears getting ... 'tired' - might be the wrong word, but that's how it feels.

And even with all these plugins loaded, the thing tops off at 1 Mb memory usage. w00t.

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:: Forceflow.be :: Nuclear Dawn developer

I gotta ask, I have ALOT of albums that don't have ID tags on them.
What's a good program to go through and "mass-tag" them?
I've tried quite a few and they didn't work as well as I hoped. I haven't
tried with I-tunes yet, I know it will take forever.

or can foobar do that too, with the correct plugins?

I gotta ask, I have ALOT of albums that don't have ID tags on them.
What's a good program to go through and "mass-tag" them?
I've tried quite a few and they didn't work as well as I hoped. I haven't
tried with I-tunes yet, I know it will take forever.

or can foobar do that too, with the correct plugins?

I think foobar can with some plugin, but here's a program I know works:
http://www.cryotank.net/remote/ID3_tag_scanner.zip
It's freeware, but I uploaded it for convenience.

If your mp3s are named in a consistent manner, it can automatically generate ID3 tags from the filenames. For example, I used to name my stuff like this, but make no tags:

artist - album - track## - songtitle.mp3
ie
Covenant - Northern Light - 03 - Bullet.mp3

You just tell it how the info in the filename is arranged, and you can have it batch generate all the tags for you from them. Assuming, of course, you named the mp3s consistently ;D

You do that under the "Tag Processor" tab. I dumped all my ripped albums in one folder, set it to do subfolders, too, and had it do every damn one all at once :biggrin:

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Action Half-Life - <A HREF="http://distraction-mod.com" TARGET="_blank">Distrac

Easier: Get iTunes.

foobar : right click on group of files, choose 'masstagger' (if it's not there, you have to download the plugin, it's optional during install).

otherwise, the program jinx posted or this thing: http://mp3bookhelper.sourceforge.net/

The program has a horrible interface (waaay too much functionality in one UI, but still) but one super-function: filename to tag. Just input the structure, and your files will be tagged.

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:: Forceflow.be :: Nuclear Dawn developer

Apple sued for iTunes/iPod monopoly tying

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Why snark works.

Someone who hates Mac jumping on any opportunity he gets?

I hate America sometimes.

The stylish mac almost formated my harddisk because there's no proper safe mode in OSX. I have all reason in the world to hate them.

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Why snark works.

I don't like Macs, but I don't hate the company. They pretty much started the home computing business, and BG ripped off Apple for every idea they had.

If I'm not mistaken, MS owns at least part of Apple... So, isn't the Ipod competing with Zune kind of pointless? lol MS seems to be the only major monopoly around.

If I'm not mistaken, MS owns at least part of Apple...

I highly doubt that... ...

Don't get me wrong, I like the competition. But I think it's wrong to be a loyal follower of either of them. Apple, for example, is much more restrictive when it comes to hardware than even Microsoft. Things like that.

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Why snark works.

Yeah, my main problem with Apple is the restrictive hardware. If anyone could build a computer and put OSX on it, you'd see way more people trying it and way more game software for the platform. Hell, I would happily give it a shot if it would work on a non-mac system.

However, while MS seems to make their $$ off their OS, Apple seems focused on profiting from a hardware monopoly over anyone who wants to use their OS. Apple used to be about bringing home computing to everyone in an easy-to-use way. Now they are about selling overpriced, "stylish" hardware to preppy douches.

What I don't get- "Apple people". I mean, good for you, you bought a computer and plugged it in. So you have the same connection to your computer as you do to your toaster. Mac enthusiasts are just consumers with a stick up their collective asses. If you buy a pre-built computer, mac or pc, having that sort of obsessive brand loyalty is senseless. Thinking you are better than everyone else because you happened to buy a particular brand is just snobbish.

What I find ironic is that a lot of Mac users are graphic designers, artists, etc. People who should realize a) that most macs are, in fact, godawful ugly and b) that building a machine is a form of expression. I don't see how you could want to create art on a computer, but not understand a PC user's attraction to creating a computer that is a work of art in of itself. I think a lot of it is just snobbery, not to mention jealousy that they don't know enough about computers to do that sort of thing.

Heh my sister's boyfriend was talking about his iMac's nice widescreen display, comparing it to my 20.1" LCD. I was like, "Wow, that's nice. Too bad you'll have to throw it away when you get a new one". lolz burn.

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Action Half-Life - <A HREF="http://distraction-mod.com" TARGET="_blank">Distrac

Personaly I would go for a Zune.
Although iPod are more popular.
All personal preference. :smile:

Wow Jinx, what a shortsighted and ignorant post.

Dear god... he- he's right.

These "Apple people" are a landing platform for a powerful race of extraterrestrials, or extradimensionals, rather. Earthlings from a parallel universe, where the peace movement took hold in the sixties and instead of the Vietnam war everyone just sat around drinking coffee, smoking pot and playing hacky sack and/or various kinds of hand drums with readings of freeform poetry that doesn't really make sense no matter which way you slice it interspersed throughout. They abolished war and focused on advancing civilization, though most of the advancements were made in the fields of coffee, pot, and hackysack.

Another version of humanity, from a different parallel universe where Hitler won the war and his successors installed totalitarian control across the globe and they focused not on pot and hackysack, but real science, with military applications, developed a way of communicating with the people of other universes who also had the same technology. The people they found on the other end of the line transmitted back schematics to build a device capable of crossing into other universes through the 11th dimension which the totalitarians used to enslave the dirty hippy universe. And since the nineteen-seventies they've been transmitting brainwashing communications into our universe, preparing to enslave us! The only thing that has kept us from complete assimilation is the Flying Spaghetti Monster (know henceforth in this document as FSM), who is an agent of the Benevolent Egyptian Lizard People (known henceforth as the BELP), not to be confused with the Malevolent Eqyptian Lizard People (known henceforth as the MELP), who are in league with the Future Society of Humans (know henceforth as FSH), who provided the Totalitarian Alternate Universe Human Civilization (known henceforth as TAUHC) the technology to cross the 11th dimension and enslave the Dirty Hippy Alternate Universe Human Civilization (known henceforth as DHAUHC), who provided the TAUHC a way past FSM's cosmopsychic field into Our World (know henceforth as OW) in the form of a hip image to push onto the people of OW to brainwash them.

FSM is powerless to stop the interdimensional communications from TAUHC, who influenced several entrepreneurs and celebrities in OW, including Steve Jobs, Steve Ballmer, L. Ron Hubbard, and Stephen Baldwin. The've cultivated an image that will transform OW Human Civilization (known henceforth as OWHC) into dirty hippies, and they're doing this because dirty hippies are easy to push around. Unfortunately, with FSM in OW, the BELP is left defenseless against TAUHC crossing into BELP's universe from both TAU and DHAU. That means the BELP is under siege, and since we humans are so good at reproducing, they're vastly outnumbered. If and when the BELP falls, the MELP (with help from FSH) will invade TAU and DHAU and FSH will take control of the BELP universe, where they will undoubtedly destroy FSM (if TAUHC haven't already done so), leaving OW vulnerable to a full-scale invasion from any number of at least EIGHT DIFFERENT UNIVERSES.

My proposal is covertly developing interdimensional transport of our own, and invading TAUHC. It would also be wise to interbreed with BELP to strengthen the ties between us, because without each other, OW and the BELP will surely fall. I predict a war lasting at least 500 years, and there's a very good chance our planet Earth will be utterly destroyed, so it is of the utmost importance that we colonize space as soon as possible. Boycotting the Ipod AND the Zune, in addition to scientology, the Baldwins and the metric system will surely increase the chances of OW survival against the TAUHC/Apple/MELP/RIAA/FSH onslaught, but that's only the beginning of what must be done. Remember that a group is nothing but a collection of individuals, that without the individuals the group has no power, and that every individual has the power to make a difference.

I fear they'll come for me now that I've exposed the awful truth, so if you never hear from me again, for FSM's sake, do NOT let my warnings fall on deaf ears.

JUST SAY NO TO APPLE.

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o