Category: Music & Audio

July 22, 2008

LifeSpoke is a New Startup with a Familiar Goal

A week-and-a-half ago, I spent all weekend (well, about 34 hours of it) in a habitrail of meeting rooms with about 100 other people trying to do something pretty incredible: invent, build, and launch a new Internet startup in less than three days.

The event, InOneWeekend 2008, was the inaugural entrepreneurial exercise by this new Cincinnati organization, which hopes to jump-start new-venture creation in the technology-based services space (i.e., dot-coms).

After lots of thinking and working and coding and sweating (not to mention eating fast food and swilling highly caffeinated beverages), our concept was outlined and mocked up to a degree that we thought the world should be invited to share in its evolution from beta concept to fully operational service.

I, er, we give you...LifeSpoke.

Go on...click the link and check it out...it won't hurt, I promise.

LifeSpoke is, and soon will be more of, a place to save, organize, and share all your personal memorabilia and life's memories (assuming they come in handy digital format, of course). With an innovative, patent-pending interface (that we're not quite ready to share yet) and a family-oriented content model (that includes loads of privacy, security, and convenience), we're pretty stoked at the idea that moms, dads, kids, grandparents, and close friends will finally have a place to share their intimate memories and most precious media in a rich new environment.

Now, I know what you're thinking. Actually, you're thinking "I'm hungry...I wonder what's in the fridge." Hey, focus...there's just a little more to read here. You were also thinking "But aren't there a bazillion other media-sharing websites out there, like YouTube, most with sharing features?" To that I say of course! But LifeSpoke is different and will be the best solution for families and close-knit groups of friends to share their memories. While those other sites are great for stuff like watching someone's dog ride a skateboard or having anonymous 15-year-olds "friend" you, LifeSpoke focuses on the relationships in your life that mean the most.

So...go sign up for one of the limited beta invitations at LifeSpoke.com and join us as we ride this idea to wherever it takes us. Should be a fun trip.

If you're interested in reading more about the InOneWeekend adventure we had, check out these stories:
• Official LifeSpoke press release (Marketwatch.com)
• Cincinnati Business Courier article (bizjournals.com)

Posted by Craig in Family and Industry and Internet and Movies & Books and Music & Audio and Other and Photography and Photos and Popular Media
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July 14, 2008

Brilliant New Use for Noise-Cancelling Headphones: Mowing the Grass

Back in March, I reviewed the Audio-Technica ATH-ANC7 QuietPoint Noise-Cancelling Headphones (shown). I've continued enjoying them whenever I fly, as they greatly reduce the stress and fatigue I usually get when traveling on an airplane.

Tonight, however, I discovered a more mundane, and therefore, more useful, application for these noise-silencing cans: transforming the chore of grass-mowing into a nearly pleasurable activity.

While they can't eradicate the mower's noise entirely...it's just too overwhelming...the combination of (a) the over-the-ear seals, and (b) the noise-canceling technology effectively drops the drone of the mower to easily tolerable levels. In fact, while I usually struggle to hear the radio over the mower when using my jogging headphones, even at top volume, I was easily able to listen in total comfort at only 60% volume when wearing the Audio-Technicas.

So, if you have a pair of NC headphones, give this a shot and let me know if you notice a difference. And if you don't already have a set, and you mow the grass on occasion, go grab some...your ears will be thankful.

Posted by Craig in Music & Audio and Other
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June 5, 2008

Mitch's Hot/Not List

Mitch, seeing my Hot/Not list from yesterday, compiled his own, so here it is:

HOT

• iPod Touch - I tried the Archos 605 Wi-Fi first and its mediocrity makes the Touch that much more delightful. I really love well done user interfaces and this one is first rate. My only complaint is its picky eating habits when it comes to video formats.
  
• iMac - I waited longer than any other tech purchase to finally go with Apple's all-in-one desktop PC. I opted for the top of the line 3.06 GHz 24" model and have been completely blown away by it. So far I have found no flaws. It is stunning.
  
• High Gas Prices - Innovation rocks and if it takes $5/gallon gasoline to get us out of this oil addiction then I'm more than willing to pay my dues. Fewer SUVs and pickups, electric cars, solar energy, alternative fuels, more big butts on bicycles, less traffic congestion; I'm all for it. Let's drop our consumption by half and let OPEC drink their devalued crude.
  
• Synology - A NAS will soon be as ubiquitous on a home network as the router is today. The clever, feature-filled offerings from Synology are the best of the breed. I'll have a DS508 please!
  
• Subaru - Totally agree with Craig here. I've been
  in Imprezas now going on six years and I still feel like I'm cheating when I share the road with normal cars. Scoobys are fabulous.
  
• Ken Follett's Historical Novels - "The Pillars of the Earth" and "World Without End" are two of my favorite books of all time and I just took them in this Spring. I listened to both on my iPod (over 40 hours each) after downloading them from Audible and they made a month of 1000 mile weekly commutes totally enjoyable. Masterful stuff.
  
• CrossFit - I was in good shape 20 years ago and at 44 I can wipe the floor with my 24 year old self (if that was possible). I've been CrossFitting for almost a year now and some of the things I can do now would have seemed outlandish back then.

NOT

• General Motors - If you Google dinosaur, out of touch, lethargic, and unimaginative you should pull up GM's home page. I used to be a fan, but they have been disappointing me for 25 years now and don't seem to be planning any big changes. The sooner they finish themselves off, the better off we'll be.
  
• Labor Unions - Working in the industrial world I cross paths with unions
  of all sorts way more than I would like. I completely understand why our manufacturing sector is fleeing to other countries. I have never seen such a lazy, selfish, destructive, regressive bunch of people in my life. They can't all be like that, but the ones I've met surely are.
  
• Sheeple-Filled Corporate IT Departments - My 26,000 strong corporation is going to switch to Vista because they don't want to be left with no anti-virus support for their XP platform. Goodbye nice warm frying pan and hello fire.
  
• Cable/Satellite TV - I'm SO tired of paying $80 a month for a bunch of
  garbage that I would never watch even if I had the time. It won't be long until I cut that cord and start rolling my own TV. If I could just decide which way I want to do it!
  
• Global Markets - I realize that even the lowliest trader in/on most investment banks/trading floors/commodities exchanges is smarter than I am, but I would really love to see them use those brains rather than run with every emotion that riffles through the world markets. Do investors even pay attention to P/E ratios or supply and demand or is it all about what the hot analyst is saying or the sheeple are doing?

Posted by Craig in Cars and Computing and Health & Medicine and Home A/V and Industry and Internet and Mobile & PDAs and Movies & Books and Music & Audio and Popular Media and Science & Nature and Society / Politics and Technology and Wireless
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March 13, 2008

Logitech Squeezebox Duet Wireless Music System: The Unboxening

We just got a Logitech Squeezebox Duet, the new low(er)-cost competitor to the rather amazing Sonos wireless music streaming system, and I thought I'd post some shots of its debut at our house.

We got the Squeezebox primarily to replace the SMC Networks EZ-Stream SMCWAA-G that no longer seems to want to work properly (I constantly have to unplug it and plug it back in repeatedly when starting it up before it will recognize the network and respond to remote control signals). But then sometimes even a bargain is worth less than what you pay for it.

At $399, the Squeezebox Duet certainly isn't cheap, but it's still $200 less than a comparable Sonos setup. Plus, unlike the Sonos, the Squeezebox benefits from Slim Devices' (which Logitech acquired in late 2006) rabid developer community, so there's tons of nifty extensions and add-ons.

Click on the "continue reading" link for more pics and some initial reactions in lieu of a full review.

The black-on-black musical notes is a nice touch (I wonder if they were inspired by the "Smell the Glove" album cover). All told, the packaging is very Apple-esque, but not of the same high-quality materials; fit-and-finish is a tad lower as well. Good, not great, but better than the packaging that most of Logitech's lower-end stuff comes in. One thing that surprised me was that there was no CD included. I figured they'd at least include the PDF manual and some other stuff on a piece of media, but nope. And in retrospect, I'm glad they didn't...saves on material and weight...both good things. The box's entire contents are as follows (roughly left to right): the Squeezebox Receiver, Squeezebox Controller, power cord and North American plug adapter for Receiver, Controller recharching cradle and power cord (attached), Controller battery, stereo RCA cables, and Controller power plug adapter. The finish on the Controller is the same velvety pseudo-rubber you get on high-end SLR cameras...mmmm...smoooth.... The Receiver is very compact and very neat and tidy. If it weren't for the color, I'd have sworn it came from Cupertino. The status LED (glows red, green, blue, and white at various stages of setup) is also the only button on the Receiver. To give you a sense of scale, here's the Receiver next to a Mac Mini, a Series 2 TiVo, and a compact center channel speaker. Please ignore the hideous wiring...it's temporary...really...

After a few hours of use, I'm very, very impressed. The Duet is a really powerful way to control your music. It is amazingly flexible in its ability to handle a variety of music sources (iTunes, raw files, etc.) and to be customized per your preferences (it took me 20 minutes just to explore all the options in the Settings menu on the Controller).

Beyond the wide variety of online music services it supports (e.g., Rhapsody, Pandora, Slacker, etc.), the Squeezebox also has some nifty tricks up its sleeves. You can set the Controller to download and display photos from Flickr (yours, someone else's or random pics) when it's not being handled. It also has an accelerometer inside so it comes back to life when you pick it up (a nice touch). And, if that weren't enough, you can add both Controllers and Receivers to your wireless network and operate any Receiver from any Controller, or sync up all the Receivers to play the same content. At just $150 for each added Receiver, you can outfit a large house for far less than you could using Sonos' products.

So far, I'd have to say I like what I see. If you want to check out the Squeezebox's complete specs, along with a demo movie, head over to Slim Devices' website. More as I know it...

Posted by Craig in Home A/V and Music & Audio and Wireless
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February 17, 2008

Archos 605 WiFi Portable Media Player

The 605 WiFi, a fifth-generation portable media player from the French electronics firm Archos, is an impressive device. It boasts a vivid, high-res 4.3" touchscreen, 802.11g Wi-Fi (more on that later), and the ability to handle a reasonably broad array of media formats (although the larger, more expensive Cowon A3 handles far more). Plus, the 605 WiFi is available with hard drives of 30, 80, and 160 gigabytes or with 4GB of flash storage (the flash model also sports an SDHC slot for unlimited expansion). This review focuses on the 4GB flash version, which can be had for under $200 online and at a few brick-and-mortar electronics retailers.

After using the 605 WiFi for about two weeks now, I've come to appreciate it quite a bit. It's certainly not perfect, but it offers good value and some of its attributes that seem like weaknesses at first blush actually turn out to be strengths.

The Physical Unit
The 605 is 4.8'' x 3.2'' x 0.6'', about the same overall dimensions as an old PalmPilot, which is fairly compact for having such a large screen. The 4GB flash model weighs in at 5.3 ounces (the hard drive units weigh more, up to 9.2 oz. for the 160GB). The buttons to the right of the screen are two-way toggles (one function on each side, left and right), which take some getting used to. Thankfully, the touchscreen makes using the buttons unnecessary (although they're preferable in a few situations, such as changing volume). Two hardware buttons on the top of the unit include On/Off and a button to send video out via the docking station (when attached). The SDHC card slot is also on the top (nicely recessed so as to avoid any chance of accidental card eject). On the left is the headphone jack, and on the right is the pull-out kickstand (a very nice touch). The bottom of the unit has Archos' proprietary connector (which, of course, requires Archos' proprietary USB cable or dock to attach to it). The unit charges and syncs data through these connectors. The front also includes a very loud, clear mono speaker. The back is completely plain. In a departure from the 4th generation units, the 605 does not offer a user-swappable battery. But none of that really matters, for the 605's pièce de résistance is its screen. This 800x480 resolution beauty is simply stunning. It has an amazing angle of view and, at over 200 pixels per inch, gives every bit of clarity and detail you could hope for. Colors are well-saturated and there's no hint of screendoor or other effects that low-quality LCDs can have. Everyone I've showed this to has remarked almost immediately how good the display is. In the box, the 605 comes with headphones, a USB cable, a rudimentary slip-case, and some documentation.

The User Interface
You may have read somewhere (OK, everywhere) that the Archos user interface is terrible. It's not quite terrible...just very bad. But, I'm happy to say that (a) the touchscreen makes it a LOT easier to navigate, and (b) once you get used to certain conventions, it really isn't that bad (certainly no worse than Office 2007's new menu structure!). For example, the [X] button always takes you backwards (or back up a level) from wherever you are. Some have contrasted the 605 with the iPod Touch and come away saying the Touch is easier to use. I agree...for one main reason: the 605 has way, way more options, settings, and customizability than does the Touch, and all that requires a bit more complexity in the menus. For example, you can separately set the gamma, contrast, brightness, and backlight level of the 605's screen. The Touch, by comparison, doesn't even know what gamma is. So, if customizability is a desirable thing for you, the 605 will have you covered. But, if you're afraid of menus, then it may be a bit daunting until you read through the manual (a few times).

Media Performance
Overall, media playback is superb. Audio quality is high and videos look and sound awesome (even ones where the 605 has to up- or down-res to match the screen's resolution). The audio interface provides all the tag-based organization you'd expect -- Artist, Album, Genre, etc. -- with full album art support. The video interface even has nifty full-motion thumbnails, which is nice. Out of the box, the unit supports a variety of common formats (such as MP3, WMA, MPEG-4, WMV, and others; see the product webpage for complete info). Additional media formats (e.g., h.264 and MPEG-2) are supported through extra-cost plug-ins. One comment about the plug-ins: Archos takes the controversial approach of charging a fairly rock-bottom price for the hardware, but then charged non-trivial sums for plug-ins that provide additional functionality, such as the web browser ($30). If you don't need these plug-ins, then you'll likely feel like your 605 is a true bargain out of the box. However, if you do need several of the plug-ins, your sense of value will be diminished significantly. In the end, my feeling is that the 605 with all the plug-ins is competitively priced, just not the huge bargain it is bare-bones.

A couple of nifty things about media playback include the use of bookmarks (locations within individual files to go back to from the main screen) and playback at 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, 1X, 2X, and 4X normal speed. Plus, when playing back video, you get several options on how you want the video to be fit to the dimensions of the 650's 1.67:1 aspect screen (which is nice if you're picky about that like I am). Also, when viewing photos, you can use touchscreen actions to manipulate the images: a single swipe left-to-right (or right-to-left) advances to the next (previous) image; a swipe up (down) rotates the image counter-clockwise (clockwise); and holding your finger on a point on the image causes the 605 to zoom into the image until it reaches 100% resolution. A quick double-tap of the screen or a tap of the [X] button returns you to normal view.

Other Functions
Nobody buys a PMP mainly for web-browsing capabilities; that's always an afterthought. Thankfully, the 605's Opera-based browser is quite good. It provides Flash compatibility (for playing streaming video, such as from YouTube) and tabbed browsing (an Opera trademark). Rendering performance is so-so, but the screen's resolution means that typical pages are readable without a lot of side-scrolling. You cannot rotate the screen, so as long as you're OK with viewing webpages in landscape, you won't be disappointed.

The built-in 802.11g Wi-Fi is quite handy. The 605 not only includes a standard file management utility, it also lets you move and copy files from one location to another on your 605 and between your 605 and a computer elsewhere on the network you're on. Plus, it will stream media from locations on the network to the 605. I was able to watch an entire movie streamed wirelessly from a PC to the 605 without a single hitch...and it looked great! Fast-forward and rewind don't work when streaming, but pause does. Also, the 605 will talk to any UPnP media server active on the network, so if you're running Orb or TwonkyVision or something like that, the 605 will happily stream from it. You can also buy or rent content online through CinemaNow directly via the 605, which might be handy if you're stuck in an airport without a laptop and absolutely gotta have something to watch to pass the time.

Finally, the 605 offers a set of other functions that are nice touches. An Acrobat PDF viewer is included. Firmware updates can be done either via USB (after downloading to the PC from the Archos website) or directly to the 605 itself via Wi-Fi. If you purchase the additional DVR (digital video recording) dock and hook it up to a cable or antenna feed (via something else, though, as the dock only has S-Video and RCA inputs), you can schedule your 605 to record TV shows straight to MPEG-4. Of course, you can also record line-in audio and video as well, but that's not quite as trick as having your 605 emulate a mini-TiVo.

Conclusions
Overall, I like the 605 enough that I elected to keep it. It does what it does very well and tosses in some extra tricks in a fairly well-polished package. Sure, it has some rough spots -- the menu system and buttons are still a bit nutty and the codec support could be more extensive -- but it has met my rather modest needs 100%. Battery life is fair; I get about 4-4.5 hours of video playback on a charge (without Wi-Fi). I wish the unit had a regular USB port and that some of the codecs were included rather than handled via plug-ins, but these are all nitpicky details. The main thing that really matters, and the primary reason I'm happy with it, is the gorgeous screen. One look, and it was a done deal.

I'm sure I haven't covered everything here, so if you have questions about the 605, please ask.

Update: Mitch wrote in with a few comments and clarifications (thanks, mate!):

Very in-depth. A few things I would add:

Existence of the mini dock and battery dock. These will allow direct interface to USB disk drives and industry standard cables. They also give you the ability to keep the unit playing indefinitely as they allow more charging current from external battery packs.

The Archos file manager will also allow you to move files between two other computers on your network. Nice if you're already in bed and remember that you need to put something on your laptop for the next day.

The MPEG-2 plug-in activates the digital audio out for 5.1 AC-3 surround sound.

Also includes 2 styli (yay!)

The DVR dock turns it into an Apple TV with a screen allowing you to wirelessly play content to your big screen as well as browse the web, rent or buy videos, etc.

Update #2: A few other things that occurred to me after I finished up the review:

• SD card reading/writing via the 605 is much slower than it is via a card reader, so only use it for that in an emergency.
  
• The unit is mostly stable except when updating the firmware. Both times I've updated it, it's reset itself and/or behaved weirdly until after I did a full shutdown (complete "off" versus the "standby" mode it typically resorts to when you hit the Power button).
  
• The browser is quite good, actually. If you've used Opera on one of the Nokia Internet Tablets, you'll know what I mean (same res screen).
  
• Charging the 605 via the USB cable is sloooow; it takes 5-6 hours to go from empty to a full charge. Charging it via A/C using one of the docks Archos sells, however, takes about half that time. So, getting a dock has benefits beyond just a bigger variety of outputs and inputs.
  
• Accessing the bookmarking feature from the main screen only works on the most recently played file, so you can't easily jump between videos or songs without manually selecting each and entering into the menus to go to where you left off before.
  

Posted by Craig in Home A/V and Mobile & PDAs and Movies & Books and Music & Audio and Technology and Travel and Wireless
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December 28, 2007

Most Popular Media on Peer-to-Peer Networks

Wired has an interesting article that shows the media (recording artists, TV shows, and movies) most popular on the P2P networks (i.e., BitTorent). I was surprised...surprised by (a) two of my favorite shows were on the list, and (b) I'd heard of nearly nothing on the music list. I guess aging has its consequences, eh?

Anyway, here are the lists (for the full details, check out the Wired story):

Top Songs of 2007
1. Shop Boyz - "Party Like A Rock Star"
2. Akon - "I Wanna Luv U"
3. Sean Kingston - "Beautiful Girls"
4. Mims - "This Is Why I'm Hot"
5. Akon - "Don't Matter"
6. T-Pain - "Bartender"
7. Soulja Boy - "Crank Dat Soulja Boy"
8. Justin Timberlake - "My Love"
9. DJ Unk - "Walk It Out"
10. Jim Jones - "We Fly High"

Top Music Artists of 2007
1. T.I.
2. T-Pain
3. Akon
4. 50 Cent
5. R. Kelly
6. Lil Wayne
7. Justin Timberlake
8. Fergie
9. Ludacris
10. Snoop Dogg

Top Movies of 2007
1. Resident Evil: Extinction
2. Pirates of The Caribbean: At World's End
3. I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry
4. Ratatouille
5. Superbad
6. Beowulf
7. Transformers
8. American Gangster
9. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
10. Stardust

Top TV Shows of 2007
1. Heroes
2. Prison Break
3. Top Gear
4. Smallville
5. Desperate Housewives
6. House, M.D.
7. Lost
8. Grey's Anatomy
9. 24
10. Dexter

Posted by Craig in Industry and Internet and Movies & Books and Music & Audio and Popular Media and Society / Politics
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October 9, 2007

Some Recent New Gear Additions

I've not posted about much technology recently. For that, I truly apologize. This is, after all, GearBits. So, to fill that void, here's a brief recap of some gadget and gear acquisitions over the last six months or so (and why they're my picks).

GPS: Garmin Nuvi 370
After borrowing Mitch's Garmin for a recent roadtrip to the Smoky Mountains, I was hooked. The Nuvi 370 is a terrific combination of features and portability. Text-to-speech keeps my eyes on the road and the bright screen and simple menu system makes it an easy-to-use travel aid. Plus, it's small and light enough to take with you on a walkabout, as I did recently when hiking around San Francisco.

TV: Samsung LNT-5271F 52" 1080p LCD
Yeah, this is a bit over-the-top, but I told my wife that I reserved the right to redo the basement TV setup if I got my promotion at work (I did). So far, it's a really nice TV. The first one died on me (the screen went weird a week into the relationship), but this second one is doing fine. Discovery HD Theater has never been more impressive, although crappy SD cable channels now look just as crappy, but bigger. Now I just need to start working on a way to justify getting a Blu-Ray/HD DVD combo player.

A/V Receiver: Onkyo TX-SR705
As part of the upgrade of the basement TV area, our old receiver just had to be replaced. It was ca. 1996, so its idea of "A/V" meant two composite video inputs. The Onkyo is a nice balance between performance (100W x 7 and 3 HDMI inputs + upconversion) and bulk. It definitely is more capable than the Yamaha it replaced (although the Yamaha still sounds great).

DVD Player: Oppo DV-981HD
The new TV quickly showed just how awful our previous DVD player was. I shouldn't have been surprised, really. After all, it was a Sony VHS + progressive scan DVD combo unit that I got from Woot.com for like $40 last year. Man, the video signal it put out, even over component, just made my eyes bleed. The Oppo, on the other hand, makes standard-definition DVDs look really quite excellent, even converting them to 1080p and outputting via HDMI. Its video-processing circuitry is optimized for getting the best possible picture quality off those 480p discs we all know and love. And it's way cheaper than a high-def DVD player.

Media Streamer: DivX Connected (Beta)
I was invited to be part of the public beta of the DivX Connected wireless/wired media streamer concept platform that the DivX folks are currently refining in preparation for licensed production with D-Link. Suffice to say that it's a really nice user experience; much, much better than all of the other media streamers I've used that are supposed to handle video. I hope DivX and D-Link do well with it...I'd definitely consider buying one.

Networking: TRENDnet TEG-S80TXE Gigabit 8-Port Switch
I know, wired networking is a little tame, but when you can get a reliable, all-metal, 8-port Gbit switch for $23 (after Newegg.com rebate), it's worth noting.

Oh, and I've found that MonoPrice.com has some terrific quality cables and audio parts (e.g., speaker mounts) at really excellent prices. Shipping is fast and cheap, too.

So, that about wraps it up for now. Any questions about these items, feel free to post a comment.

Posted by Craig in Home A/V and Mobile & PDAs and Music & Audio and Popular Media and Technology and Travel
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September 21, 2007

Microsoft Zune Officially Jumps the Shark

At least according to woot!, who is once again offering the much-maligned Zune at its lowest price to date...just $129.99. That's even lower than the very impressive $149.99 they had less than a month ago.

Check out today's woot! entry for a Steve Jobs iPhone rebate parody as well...terrific stuff.

Posted by Craig in Industry and Mobile & PDAs and Music & Audio
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August 22, 2007

A Sure Sign that Zune Is a Loser?

A little less than a year ago, Microsoft launched its iPod competitor, the Zune, for $250.

Within 7 months, the price had fallen under $200. Now, 4 months later, the Zune is $150 and being sold through Woot.com, the online equivalent of the Dollar Store.

I think it's safe to say the Zune wasn't exactly a home run.

Of course, an alternate explanation is that Zune version 2 is on its way and Microsoft is just clearing out the last of its old inventory through a lower-visibility channel. We shall see...

Update: Turns out that Woot had 6300 units and sold all of them over a 21-hour period. Seems demand for Zunes might be fairly elastic.

Posted by Craig in Industry and Mobile & PDAs and Music & Audio
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May 1, 2007

Ziova Clearstream CS510 HD Network Media Player

This is a review of the new Ziova Clearstream CS510 High-Definition Network Media Player. Ziova (nee Zensonic), a small Australian consumer electronics firm, announced this puppy at CES 2007, but just recently (i.e., last week) started shipping units out for review. After I submitted a review request to the company a few months ago, one landed on my doorstep on Friday and I put it through its paces over the past few days. Here are some initial thoughts.

First, what it is. The CS510 is a home A/V appliance that streams/plays content located on your home network (via Ethernet or 802.11b/g) or attached storage (USB 2.0) to your home theater (TV and/or stereo system). The CS510 differentiates itself from the unwashed masses of network media streamers by virtue of a few unique (or uncommon) features:
• It serves up HD-quality video output (720p and 1080i) and 5.1 surround sound
• It has the ability to play content directly from an attached mass storage device (i.e., no PC is needed to decode the content)
• It offers up Windows network browsing via SMB

I will not enumerate the unit's specs here because that information is available from the Ziova website: overview, features, and reasonably complete technical specs

Below are some photos of the CS510 hardware and screen shots of its on-screen interface and output (if some of the screen shots look a little off-kilter or skewed, realize that I simply took handheld snapshots of the TV...the CS510's output was always completely orthogonal ;-):

The box. Sturdy enough for a 21-lb toddler to stand on.

Inside the box. This is definitely not Apple-style packaging here.

Contents. From upper left is: power cable, CS510, composite audio/video cable (wha?), installation CD (UPnP software, manual, etc.), Ethernet cable, remote control and batteries (woot!), and very decent printed user manual. A single USB 2.0 port is located on the front of the unit (why not one on the back, too?) along with the display and power button.

Rear ports. Most everything you might need.

The unit's serial number and both MACs are pre-printed on the user manual, a nice touch.

The remote is decent: big, squishy buttons, mostly in the right place, and a grippy texture.

Startup splash screen. Re-booting takes about 1 minute.

Main menu.

Main music menu. This allows you to select the source of the content you want to play (similar screen is used in Photos and Video). You cannot pull content from multiple sources (e.g., USB drive and a network share) during a single playback session.

List of folders (in this case, artists) containing music on a network share. And before you critique my taste in music, some of that is my wife's (all the non-cool stuff...yeah...that's it).

Video setup. Extensive options available for playback and output depending on what is hooked up to the unit's A/V ports.

Screen-shot of 720p output (this is shown on a 43" Samsung 720p DLP set) of an upconverted near-VGA-resolution (624x352, 132 kbps) Xvid file. I know it's impossible to get much information from this because it's a 600-pixel image down-rezzed from a 5MP digital camera image of a 720p TV's output of an upconverted stream of a compressed, resized video file transcoded from a recording of an OTA HDTV source. Suffice to say that the on-screen image quality was very, very good given the limitations of the file it was playing.

Another shot of different source material (640x352, 215kbps Xvid).

Yet another source material (640x288, 192kbps Xvid). The reason I didn't bother testing HD content as an input is that (a) I didn't have anything on hand better than 480p that was DRM-free (this unit doesn't handle DRM-laden HD video content), and (b) I assumed it would look better anyway (less upconversion going on). For me, the true test was how well it displayed the same content I play on my Treo and laptop when out and about.

Fast-forward 8X (see upper left of screen). FFWD goes up to 32X (way better than 11).

The dreaded hourglass...get used to this as you'll be seeing it a lot (more on that below).

Wha?! But...you were playing it perfectly well just a moment ago...

Yes, a weather channel (just in case you can't get the weather on your TV, your phone, your game console, your PDA, your laptop, or your AM/FM radio).

THE GOOD:
The unit has many desirable qualities, including:

• Upconverted video quality is excellent. Even VGA-resolution MPEG-4 looks quite good at 720p (what I tested). Sound quality seems good, although I will be the first to admit that I do not have an audiophile's ear (all our MP3 music is encoded at 160kbps or 192kbps anyway).

• Hardware offers good connectivity and lots of flexibility. Network connection can be wired (although not Gigabit Ethernet) or wireless (802.11g/b). The A/V outputs provided represent what most people would need/want. There are multiple ways of getting content into the unit, including UPnP media server, direct network share browsing, connected mass storage, and (in the case of music) Internet streams. Lots of options should satisfy nearly everyone.

• Massively compatible with DRM-free content. The device decodes and/or streams nearly every common audio and video format. I know of no device short of a full PC that can handle such a wide variety of formats.

• Menu system easy to navigate and understand.

• Direct network content navigation via Windows SMB means that you can play content on the network without running TwonkyVision or any other media server software. That's a very handy feature and sets the standard for other network media players in terms of accessibility.

• The remote feels good. It has a rubbery coating very similar to that on good D-SLR cameras.

• Future promise. The unit seems capable of doing a lot of interesting and useful things. The weather channel seems like a preview of that. Plus, firmware upgrades could resolve a lot of the things that weren't so appealing about this unit...

THE BAD:
In my opinion, there are several ways the unit fails to live up to my expectations or could stand improvement, such as:

• For all but the most basic use, you need to use the TV to interact with your music collection. There are no navigation buttons on the CS510 itself and the unit's front display, which only shows a single line of 12 characters, is quite irritating to use as the only means of navigation. Scrolling through options is much slower when you can't see a few items ahead. This makes it a relatively poor audio player (at least compared to the reasonable 4-line display on the SMC EZ-Stream) since there's really little reason to have the TV on when you're just listening to music (and many reasons to want it off). Some may find a 1-line display adequate; I did not.

• Sloooooow, especially when managing large media collections like ours. Our music collection includes some 16,000+ tracks, and bringing up a menu of all artist folders via the network took roughly 5 minutes. Doing the same task via USB took almost 3 minutes. That's unusable in my opinion. Plus, there are lots of little delays, like the 5-6 seconds between pushing the remote's "Menu" button and the main menu actually appearing on screen, which further impair the user experience.

• Can be flaky when interacting with UPnP servers other than TwonkyVision (e.g., likes to lock up when trying to get content via Orb). To be fair, Ziova doesn't claim that the CS510 will work with Orb, so that's probably an unfair and inappropriate complaint. I only mention it because many people have their favorite UPnP server software and don't want to have to switch to something else if they don't have to.

• Fast-foward and Rewind on streaming video takes FOREVER to actually engage. Hitting FFWD twice on the remote to go to 4X forward resulted in the video pausing for 57 seconds before it actually started fast-fowarding. I asked the Ziova rep about this and he basically pointed to the limitations of the Sigma EM8620L chipset that handles most heavy lifting done by the CS510. That chipset contains a rather meager 166MHz processor (!), only 64MB of RAM, and is neither upgradeable nor can it address any additional external memory. So, the unit is less responsive than ideal and you get situations like this. Ziova did engineer in both a "seek" feature and a "skip ahead X seconds" feature to help overcome this FFWD/RWD malaise, but they aren't exact substitutes.

• Exiting from 16X and 32X FFWD (by hitting Play) often results in the player locking up. The only recourse I found in that situation is to cycle the power.

• Inconsistent 802.11 connectivity. The CS510 often lost connection to our router despite the router sitting just 3 feet away from the unit (it was the only device in network to exhibit that issue). The Ziova rep said this was an issue they were currently working on and should be resolved in a future firmware update.

• No detailed media information shown in lists. For example, no ID3 tag info (e.g., year, artist, genre, album, etc.) is displayed for MP3 tracks when scanning through lists of songs.

• Currently no way to concoct a playlist of music on the device itself. Moreover, content can't be streamed from multiple sources in the same session (e.g., you cannot tell the CS510 to intersperse music from a USB directory and a network share during the same continuous play session; instead, you must play content from one source, switch sources, and then play content from the other source). This seems like a very silly limitation.

• Interface is utilitarian and generally not very inspired. Compared to more innovative interfaces like Apple's Front Row, the CS510's interface is very me-too in the same vein as Windows Media Center and Myth TV (functional but unexciting). A minor quibble for someone who favors function over form most of the time.

• Lots of setting changes require rebooting the unit. Want to enable UPnP support? OK...reboot. Want to change your LAN connection mode? OK...reboot. That gets old pretty quickly, especially when the unit I tested seemed to occasionally lose its ability to find UPnP servers on network and the only way to re-enable that was to go into Settings, turn UPnP support off, reboot, turn it back on, reboot, and then scan for UPnP servers. Not the most fun way to spend 5-6 minutes.

SUMMARY
I was pretty excited about this device when I heard about it. Now that I've had some hands-on time, I'm optimistic that the next version of the CS510 may be something I would be willing to purchase for home use. At a $249 MSRP, I can't say I heartily recommend this unit -- it just has too many niggling deficiencies for me to say it's a good choice. But, it's close. If you're desperate to play back digitized content on your home theater, want lots of flexibility, willing to put up with some strange behavior and waiting time, and don't already have an HTPC set up, the CS510 might be just what you're looking for.

Posted by Craig in Home A/V and Movies & Books and Music & Audio and Technology and Wireless
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April 8, 2007

Zune Media Players Now Under $200

This from a well-known online electronics merchant (that I don't particularly want to promote), down 20% from the Zune's original price of $249 just a few months ago:

Economics tells us that things in high demand rarely see significant drops in price.

Posted by Craig in Industry and Mobile & PDAs and Music & Audio
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April 3, 2007

The Futurist a New and Terrific Indie Music Blog

WOXY.com, that phoenix of Internet radio stations, recently launched The Futurist, a top-drawer indie/alternative music industry blog.

What separates The Futurist from the other entries in the music blogosphere is that it uniquely combines the insights of experienced DJs and music professionals with the level independence unmatched by professional blogs hindered by corporate oversight (such as one might have at a ClearChannel). Most music blogs are either the efforts of individuals, so they're uneven and/or highly biased, or are corporate efforts, so are subject to the whims of accountants, lawyers, and advertising/marketing initiatives. The Futurist so far appears to be none of those.

So, go check it out:

Posted by Craig in Internet and Music & Audio
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March 11, 2007

Virtual Reality Sound Labs VRFM9 Quite the Multi-Talented FM Transmitter

While at Target earlier today looking for something else entirely, I stumbled upon the VRFM3 FM Transmitter by Virtual Reality Sound Labs. What caught my eye about this FM transmitter is the fact that it will play MP3 and WMA files directly from either a flash drive inserted into its USB port or an Secure Digital (SD) card inserted into its SD slot (see below). Of course, there's also a line-in jack for transmitting audio from another source (e.g., an iPod or Treo), but this is the first unit I've seen to offer both USB and SD interfaces. So, excited by the prospect of easy, cheap, portable, and completely wire-free tunage for any car I happen to be in, I plunked down my $49.99 and headed home to put the VRFM9 through its paces.

After an initial test, I'm very impressed by how well this device works. It does exactly what you would expect, if not hope, it to do, which, unfortunately, seems to be a rarity in consumer electronics. Plus, even more a rarity are the extensive written instructions (including color diagrams) that came with the device.

First, I tried the typical external input mode with my Treo 700p as source. The VRFM9 automatically detects which source is hooked up (if music is available by more than one source, priority goes first to the external line-in, then to the USB port, then last to the SD card slot; the unit will only play music from one source) and transmits that via one of its 15 preset FM channels (8 in the low range and 7 in the high range...enough to satisfy nearly everyone nearly all the time). The two-line LCD (at right) offers some information about the FM channel being used, play mode (normal v. shuffle), source, etc. If the unit is playing an MP3 or WMA file straight off USB or SD card, it will display the artist and song title as well (assuming these tags are present in the audio file). It's a bit cryptic and not a lot of characters appear at once, but given that you likely won't be interacting a lot with this device, it's certainly adequate, if not surprisingly nice. One nice UI touch is that when you switch tracks or change the volume, the display changes to show extra-large characters (e.g., "011/045" to let you know you're on track 11 of 45 total tracks on that source) for enhanced readability.

Second, I tried a couple different SD cards. Both my 2GB and 4GB SD (not SDHC) cards worked fine. The VRFM9 will scan the card when inserted and start playing the first one it comes across. It appears to play in this order: (1) anything in the root directory, in alphabetical order by file name, (2) anything in sub-directories in alphabetical order by sub-directory, then by file name within each sub-directory. Of course, putting the unit in Shuffle mode randomizes play across all files in all directories. One odd thing I noticed was that the unit would attempt to play the two WMV files I had in one sub-directory, but it was unsuccessful as no sound was transmitted.

I then attempted to use the VRFM9 with a USB flash drive (specifically, the 4GB Patriot Xporter XT that I reviewed previously), but no joy. The unit displayed "No Source" with that USB drive. I'll hunt around for another one and give it a go when I get a chance. Another note regarding use with flash drives; not all will fit. Particularly fat flash drives may be too girthy to fit into the VRFM9's port. If there's an SD card inserted, this further reduces the space around the USB port. Most normal extension cables will work fine.

One interesting tidbit is that a USB flash card reader that mounts like an external drive will let the user effectively play music through the VRFM9 via any of the flash media formats the reader supports. But as above, music will be played from only one card at a time. I tried plugging in an external USB hard drive (full 120VAC 3.5" drive), but no dice...the unit didn't recognize that anything was plugged in to the USB port.

Controls on the unit are spartan but adequate. They all click nicely and the dual-function (click vs. hold) is reasonably intuitive.

Now, two minor complaints. First, even though the unit ratchets through about a 120-degree sweep, the LCD isn't particularly readable except at very direct angles. So, if your car's cigarette lighter/power socket is way off to the side of the center console, you may not have much luck reading the display while driving. Second, as with all FM transmitters, sound quality is not particularly good. After all, you're limited to the sound quality of FM radio, which isn't going to impress anyone. Audiophiles will want to look to other (and likely much more expensive) hardwired solutions for getting their portable audio broadcast through their cars' stereos.

Overall, I am quite impressed by this device. Not only does it do exactly what you think it should, it seems reasonably well made and is not terribly expensive. And, given that many people have at least one lower-capacity SD card or USB flash drive sitting in a drawer not doing anything, this makes for a very easy way to put it to work as a music sherpa for your car.

There are also some nice reviews of the VRFM9 over at Audioholics and Gizmos for Geeks if you're still on the fence or want more opinions.

Posted by Craig in Cars and Home A/V and Mobile & PDAs and Music & Audio and Travel and Wireless
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March 4, 2007

US Copyright Royalty Board Effectively Kills Off Internet Radio

The newly passed royalty rates, some of which are (incredibly) retroactive, for online music broadcasting are patently ridiculous. Wired's coverage outlines many of the ways these new rates will effectively demolish online broadcasting for US-based companies.

The new rates force webcasters to pay for each song streamed to each user, and increase over the next few years as follows:

2006: $0.0008 to stream one song to one listener
2007: $.0011
2008: $.0014
2009: $.0018
2010: $.0019

Those fees will add up quickly for larger webcasters; the Radio and Internet Newsletter (RAIN) calculates that, assuming that the average station plays 16 songs per hour, sites would have to pay "about 1.28 cents" per listener per hour using the 2006 rate, and would owe this retroactively, in addition to licensing fees going forward.

This is very, very bad, especially for small- and medium-sized webcasters like our beloved WOXY.com. Also, you have to realize that these rates don't even include royalties paid to the original writer/composer of the work being broadcast; the rates above are just to the recording artist!

It makes me wonder exactly how much those fogeys on the CRB get paid by the RIAA. Sure, not directly -- they're not that dumb -- but gifts to friends and family and the occasional perk indirectly sponsored by the RIAA are, I'm sure, part and parcel of the assignment. After all, if it's not bribery, how do you explain a ruling so lopsidedly in favor of industry at the expense of consumers and to the detriment of innovation?

Posted by Craig in Industry and Music & Audio and Society / Politics
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February 21, 2007

Wanted: Audio Player with External USB Hard Drive Support

When our home theater PC died recently, it got me thinking: what exactly do we need in the way of "advanced" media support in our entertainment center cabinet?

It turns out that our needs are fairly simple: playing MP3s through our main home stereo is what we do 98% of the time. So far, life has been pretty good with our SMC EZ-Stream networked audio streamer; no complaints there. But I keep asking myself the same question when I think about this whole class of networked media players: Why do they all seem to require that the media be served to them from a PC or NAS somewhere else on the network?

When it comes to video, I can understand the need for a PC to do the heavy lifting -- video decompression can be a computationally challenging task and sticking a necessarily decent processor and memory in one of these devices wouldn't make sense.

But for audio devices, such as the SMC (and others), I don't have a good answer for that question. Decompressing a plain old MP3 file, for example, takes minimal computing horsepower, probably no more than what it takes to handle audio streaming across a wireless network.

If that's true, why don't any of these audio streaming devices support plugging in an external USB hard drive loaded up with audio files for local playback? Wouldn't that be a great feature? Instead of having to have a PC somewhere on the network run special UPnP audio serving software, chewing up LAN bandwidth and electricity, why not just have the streamer suck the MP3 data straight off an attached drive?

Imagine this: you get a little box with a little display (much like the SMC pictured) that has three ports on the back: power, audio out (preferably digital), and USB 2.0. You plug in the power, connect the audio to your stereo receiver, and then plug in an external drive loaded with tunes. Once the drive spools up, the little box searches through it for audio files and builds up a database of important details (e.g., artist, album, genre, etc.). Then, you use a remote control to select and play music via the box directly from the hard drive through your stereo -- no PC or network required! And with the on-unit display, you don't even have to have a TV near your stereo to listen to music (what a concept).

External drives are incredibly cheap these days -- a 120GB drive, which would hold most people's entire audio collections, can be easily had for under $60. Plus, there are other advantages to local playback: reliability would go up since you're no longer relying on a wired or wireless network to transmit the data; sound quality should go up since data drop-outs would be effectively reduced to zero; and searching/browsing through your media library would be nearly instantaneous since the streamer itself would contain the database of your audio files' details rather than having to get info from the database stored on the server PC elsewhere on the network.

To me, this seems like a really desirable, easy, and cheap feature to add to one of these streaming devices, yet nobody does it on devices less than several hundred dollars (and usually are more video-centric, requiring you to hook it up to a TV to interact with it). Why isn't this feature commonplace? Am I overlooking an inexpensive device that does do this? Am I not understanding some complexity that keeps it from being done easily? What's the deal? If you can clue me in, let me know.

Update (2/24): I came across the D-Link DSM-120 Wireless Music Player which does let you plug in a USB drive or install a 2.5" drive internally (nifty!). Unfortunately, according to reviews at Newegg.com, that's about all this device has going for it.

Posted by Craig in Home A/V and Music & Audio
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November 15, 2006

Why Zune Won't Make a Dent in iPod Sales

After reading a lot of comments on Zune, Microsoft's recent foray into the portable media market, from lots of places, I think it's safe to say that Steve Jobs isn't losing any sleep over his iPod's latest competitor. Why Zune won't make a difference in the portable media market basically comes down to both what it is and what it is not:

What It Is:
• Bigger, chunkier, and less portable than nearly all other 30GB media players on the market.
• A Microsoft product (as those "I'm a PC. I'm a Mac" commercials point out, the Microsoft/Windows/PC side of consumer electronics is not considered very hip).
• Competing against an increasing array of better, faster, smaller, more capable devices every day.

What It Is Not:
• Able to act as a portable storage device (compatible with neither Media Transfer Protocol nor Mass Storage Class).
• Compatible with Microsoft's own Plays For Sure certification or able to play media from any store using that system.
• Able to interact with iTunes or the iTunes store (still the industry leader).
• Capable of using its Wi-Fi for anything actually interesting or useful.

Granted, this is version 1 of Zune. Microsoft tends to need 3 or more iterations to get something to work well and provide a compelling value proposition, so maybe we just need to wait a year or so for it to evolve. Of course, it may not last even that long if its sales this holiday season are as miserable as they just might be.

Posted by Craig in Industry and Mobile & PDAs and Music & Audio
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October 4, 2006

Rip Old Tapes and Vinyl to MP3 with Spin It Again

My wife and I, as children of the 70's and 80's, still have loads of cassette tapes of bands like Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Too Much Joy, Rainbow, Men Without Hats...the list goes on and on.

Realizing that these tapes were only degrading over time and that they'd eventually become completely unplayable (or we'd no longer have any equipment on which to play them...if not both), I started looking around for an easy way to get good-quality digital rips of these tapes.

After ripping about a dozen complete cassettes using Acoustica Spin It Again software, I give it a thumbs up. In a nutshell, Spin It Again records your tape (or vinyl or reel-to-reel...whatever you have) via the audio input on your PC to lossless WAV. It then automagically processes the WAV file into songs (this it does VERY well...I rarely have to tweak song splits). After that, you can apply any of a number of noise removal, EQ, and other audio quality enhancement filters. The final step is the most arduous: entering in all the track data manually (these aren't CDs, so using a FreeDB-like service wouldn't help much). It will then output to whatever format you like; it offers MP3, Ogg Vorbis, WAV, and WMA as defaults.

While I'd like to say the interface is perfect, it's not. A few little tweaks and extra options here and there would alleviate some minor irritations, but these are nothing that I can't live with (and it does seem to be fairly actively developed by Acoustica) (and Acoustica seems to be paying more attention to other apps right now, so I don't expect these to be fixed any time soon).

Audio quality of the output is pretty good. I'd say great, but these are old cassette tapes we're talking about as the source material, so I'd be lying if I said they sounded anything better than reasonable.

So, if you're looking for a decent (and, at $35, a relatively inexpensive) software solution for ripping old analog audio media, give Spin It Again a look. With 4 free rips in the unregistered app, and a 30-day money-back satisfaction guarantee, you really don't have any reason not to give it a try.

Posted by Craig in Home A/V and Music & Audio
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September 26, 2006

WOXY.com Gets New Lease on Life

Like a phoenix, WOXY.com (nee 97X) will soon be rising from its own ashes.

According to this monster message board thread, serial entrepreneur Bill Nguyen and some investors will be acquiring the station, likely salvaging most of its talented on-air staff (Barb is headed to Minnesota to work for The Current).

Possibly even more exciting about this news is the fact that Nguyen's involvement will bring scads of new technology to WOXY.com, such as a rumored "listener-created radio" (what that exactly means remains to be seen), higher quality audio streams, interactive/targeted advertising (the bills gotta be paid somehow), and some new ideas for making Internet radio more portable (something I've complained about before).

My hunch is that more official news will be posted on the WOXY.com website very soon.

Good luck guys...let's make this third time the charm, eh?

Posted by Craig in Music & Audio
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September 4, 2006

WOXY.com (2004-2006)

In continuning with bad news, WOXY.com, the best terrestrial-alternative-radio-station-to-go-completely-online will cease operations on September 15th. At least that's what a note posted on the WOXY.com website says.

After two years of struggling to make ends meet, the gang there just couldn't figure out how to make enough money to pay the bills.

While I will miss the music and personalities on WOXY, I have to admit to listening to them only rarely. NPR has taken over my car radio preset and at home we now listen mostly to music my daughter wants to hear (she's 2, so WOXY's programming isn't quite her speed yet). I guess this is a sign that I need to start listening exclusively to 80's alternative and fully embrace the stereotypical parent-figure I always figured I could avoid becoming just by trying a little harder. Black dress socks with shorts and carseats full of Cheerios are in my immediate future now, I suppose.

Thanks, WOXY...I loved what you were able to do...I just wish you were able to do it a bit longer.

Posted by Craig in Music & Audio
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August 6, 2006

Update on the Memorex iWake: Not a Keeper

Previously, I wrote about my first impression of the Mi4004 iWake Clock Radio for iPod and had some consternation over a little audible hard drive noise.

Well, two other shortcomings in the iWake make that concern seem like small potatoes. First, as my wife pointed out almost immediately, the iWake offers no radio presets. Sure, it has a digital tuner, and you can have each of the two alarms wake up to a different radio station, but it doesn't have any station memory presets. So, if you want to change stations, you have to scroll through the digital dial. Not horrible, but a bit pointless.

Second, and perhaps most incredible, is that you cannot set the volume level for the alarm. It starts out at volume level "6" and increments up to "12" over a span of about 20 seconds. By my standards, "6" is way, way too loud for an alarm clock. This is my wife's alarm...she gets up about 90 minutes before I do. It takes something on the order of an atomic blast to wake me up, usually, but this thing had me leaping out of bed as soon as it turned on. It's pretty ridiculous that you can't have it start out at zero and gradually increase into the audible range.

So, back to the store it goes...and for good, this time. :-(

Posted by Craig in Home A/V and Music & Audio
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July 31, 2006

The Princess iPod

My buddy Mitch wrote in with this entertaining story about crafting up a custom "Princess iPod" for his daughter's birthday:

My daughter somehow got it into her head that she wanted a "Princess iPod" because she saw some junky, Disney-branded knockoff in the store. I told her she couldn't have it, but she has not forgotten about it and today is her 5th birthday party.

Her grandmother wanted to give her something indulgent. So, I took a 512MB Shuffle and covered it with an "init Bling" kit from Best Buy and some princess stickers. I ripped several albums of Disney songs to pre-load onto the Shuffle and voila! The Princess iPod

My money has her either losing it, or interest in it, by tomorrow. :-)

Well done, sir! I'm sure the Disney lawyers will be knocking on your door any minute, now.

Posted by Craig in Mobile & PDAs and Music & Audio
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July 25, 2006

Memorex Mi4004 iWake Clock Radio for iPod

The Mi4004 iWake Clock Radio for iPod (shown) is a new accessory from Memorex for use with all dockable iPods. It comes in black and white.

I bought one of these ($70) and tested it quickly this morning to see how it sounded. The radio function worked well; reception was pretty decent and sound quality was acceptable. Not great (little bass), but acceptable.

However, once I docked my wife's iPod Mini, I noticed that the speakers gave off a weird hum that seemed to correspond to the Mini's hard drive seeking (during start-up and menu functions). It was easily audible even with the unit's volume all the way down, leading me to think it's some sort of shielding problem. When music was playing from the iPod, I didn't hear the hum/noise, but the sound quality was still nothing exceptional.

And that's too bad. The unit is aesthetically pleasing with plenty of options/functions and a nifty white LCD time display. If only it sounded as good as it looked, and didn't have that pesky shielding problem, it'd be a keeper. As is, however, it'll most likely get returned.

So...any suggestions for an iPod-friendly clock radio?

Update: I just got off the phone with Memorex and they suggested that it's likely a defective unit and that I return it and test another in the store. Will post here when I get a chance to do that, so stay tuned.

Update #2: I tested another unit at the store and it exhibited the same noise associated with hard drive activity, although it seemed a bit less (hard to tell as the store was considerably noisier than our bedroom at home). To be fair, I'm not sure if this is an issue with our Mini's connector or an issue with the Memorex unit -- if anybody tries one of these iWakes with something other than an iPod mini, let me know. Thanks.

Posted by Craig in Home A/V and Music & Audio
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July 20, 2006

Mitch's Review of the Nike+ iPod Nano

Contributed by Mitch:

The word is out in a major way about the Nike/Apple partnership and their Nike+ campaign. Reviews are starting to abound so I won't re-hash what you can read elsewhere. If you are just crawling from under some nice rock, I'll be brief. For $29 you can purchase a kit consisting of a transmitter for your running shoe and a receiver for your iPod Nano.

While you run and listen to your Nano, the system will measure your time, pace and calories burned and a nice person will "coach" you at five minute intervals. After you finish your workout data will be sent to the Nike+ website during the next Nano synch. It's very simple, very effective and how they did this for $29 a pop I will never know.

I am a Mac user and the whole system worked 100% perfectly for me from the automatic firmware update on my Nano to linking with the shoe sender to the final transfer of data to the Nike+ website. No reboots, no driver updates, no connection problems, no muss, no fuss...amazing.

As an excellent partner to this new system, I discovered a podcast called Podrunner (recently rose to #2 on the iTunes' Podcast Top 10) that offers free running mixes from LA's own dj steveboy. These hour long mixes are built at a set number of beats per minute and make keeping your pace a simple thing.

I already enjoyed running, but now even more so with this latest bit of gadgetry.

Posted by Craig in Health & Medicine and Mobile & PDAs and Music & Audio
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April 10, 2006

Mobility: The Great Challenge for Streaming Media

Streaming media is on the rise -- YouTube, Google Video, et al. are testimony to that fact. Yet there's a huge gap between those who can enjoy streaming media on the go (in your car, on the commute, etc.) and those who use the original streaming medium: broadcast radio.

Despite the growth of Wi-Fi and cellular Internet connections, good old-fashioned "radio" is still unmatched in its ease of use, cost-effectiveness, and reliability for broadcasting audio to multiple listeners.

Here's an example: When I'm out in the yard mowing, I can pick up a $10 portable FM radio (actually, you can get them free as tradeshow swag) and listen to about 30 channels for free simply by turning it on and hitting a preset button. There is no solution as simple, easy-to-use, and cheap for streaming sources, like WOXY.com or other Internet-only radio stations.

But why not? My Wi-Fi network covers my yard, so why isn't there a nice, little (maybe even cheap) Wi-Fi radio I can stick in my pocket and "tune in" to streamed sources?

Granted, I can use my Treo 650 to stream in MP3-based sources at a whopping 48k mono (thanks, T-Mobile EDGE :-/), but that means I can't receive calls and a full charge only lasts about 2 hours doing that.

So what's the solution? Is terrestrial station going to be around forever because we can't beat its delivery economics with packet-based technologies? Or will mass storage continue to get smaller and cheaper at such a rate that we'll never feel a need for stuff stored "out there"? Or is there a solution on the way I just haven't heard of yet?

Posted by Craig in Mobile & PDAs and Music & Audio and Wireless
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April 4, 2006

Why I Buy CDs

I buy CDs. That's the only way I purchase music. And here are the reasons why:

1) It's a durable format that will last a long time on my shelf. In the case, I don't doubt that my CDs will last at least a few decades (I've had some since 1987 and they still play perfectly).

2) It's guaranteed to be accessible for a long, long time because CD-playing hardware is so ubiquitous and upcoming technologies (e.g. Blu-Ray and HD DVD) still include CDDA as a supported format. At a minimum, I can rip them into other formats that can then evolve as needed.

3) It's DRM free. I don't buy DRMed CDs because I want to make sure that advantage #2 isn't obviated through software restrictions.

4) It's reasonably portable. 10 CD jewel cases takes up a fair bit of space, but 10 CDs doesn't and 10 hours of music is quite a bit for one trip. Granted, for longer trips, I take ripped tracks, but to just toss a couple of albums in the car, CDs are still reasonably handy.

5) I like albums. Even though I may initially buy a 12-song album for just a couple of songs, I often end up really liking a few other tracks as well that I probably wouldn't have bought individually. This allows/helps me to appreciate the artist more completely.

6) CD jackets often contain entertaining and/or useful information, such as song lyrics and photos. Given that it's becoming increasingly hard to legally obtain song lyrics online, getting them "for free" in a jacket is an added benefit.

So, to date, I have not purchased a single music track online. And given that legal downloads still don't seem to provide the same value that CDs do, I doubt that will change in the near future.

Posted by Craig in Music & Audio
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March 1, 2006

WOXY.com Moves to Subscriber-Based Funding

WOXY.com, the best Internet-based alternative music radio station, has announced that it is seeking contributions from listeners and subscriptions to its premium-quality music streams in order to support continue its existence.

From their website:

We're now into week 3 of our "Just Sign Up" campaign - asking you to show your support for WOXY.com and sign up for our premium members-only service for $9.95 a month. We're happy to say membership is still climbing. A big round of thanks to everyone who has signed up, contributed, and emailed their friends, loved-ones and strangers in the effort to get the word out and get people signed up. We have a ways to go, but if your staggering outpouring of support is indicative, we can get there.

If you're just showing up and wondering what we're making a fuss about, find out what we're doing and why.

What you can do to help:

1. Sign up and become a member
2. Make a contribution
3. Email your friends and tell 'em how great WOXY.com is

Some things about this trouble me greatly.

First, and most obviously, is that Internet-based content is valued in a ridiculously inconsistent and unfathomable way. On one hand, AOL spent $25 million on a cluster of 50 or so established blogs. On the other hand, we have an innovative and industry-leading Internet music provider struggling to scrounge up even a hundredth of that. How is it that a text blog, which can be created (and replicated) with little expertise or capital, is valued so significantly more than a radio station with all its music industry expertise, experience, and capital investment?

Second, I wonder whether someone is potentially asleep at the wheel at WOXY.com. We've all heard how Internet-based advertising is becoming all the rage again. Could it truly be that hard to dig up some advertising contracts to support the station?

One of the comments the WOXY.com folks have made is that advertisers haven't really figured out what they are yet. Is WOXY.com a website? Certainly not just a website, but theirs is integral to the listener community. Is WOXY.com a radio station? Well, kind of, but not in the geographically bounded sense that typifies terrestrial stations. So, according to the station, advertisers don't know what to make of them yet. Well, then it's WOXY's job to tell them. It's called "selling"...something nobody at WOXY these days is apparently very good at (not that I blame the folks there...I, myself, suck at selling). Sounds like they need WKRP's Herb Tarlek to round up some advertising accounts.

Finally, this situation clearly demonstrates that creativity, artistic talent, and good intentions are ultimately dependent upon some business savvy in order to survive in the corporate world. I personally like the folks at WOXY -- they've always been fantastic to their listeners and truly dedicated to the music they play -- but they don't seem interested in understanding how businesses grow and prosper. I'm not saying everyone there needs to know...but at least someone should.

In the interim, between now and when they go off the air (again), go visit their website and give them a listen -- I bet you a dollar that you'll like what you hear...a lot.

Posted by Craig in Industry and Music & Audio
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November 9, 2005

New GearBits Radio.Blog Stream

Over in the right menu there in GearBits' main index is a new feature I'm trying out: a Radio.Blog music streaming applet.

I've filled it with a not-quite-random sample of stuff I personally like and will be refreshing the playlist every so often. Click on the graphic to launch a Flash player applet in a dedicated pop-up window (so you can continue to browse without losing the tunes).

Let me know what you think. And if you want more info on the player applet, visit the Radio.Blog.Club website.

Posted by Craig in Music & Audio
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October 26, 2005

iTunes On Your Treo? No Problem.

Tempted by the ROKR because of your addiction to iTunes, but not wanting to give up the smug satisfaction of your Treo? Fret no more.

The newly released version 1.3 of Mass Storage Synchronizer, a free iTunes add-on by Tea Vui Huang, lets you sync iTunes to your Treo 600 or 650. Just use either RealPlayer for Palm or Pocket Tunes to play the synced music.

Posted by Craig in Mobile & PDAs and Music & Audio
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September 7, 2005

My Reaction to the Motorola ROKR iTunes Phone

One word: Whaaa??

That's what I said when I read over at Gizmodo that this device would cost $249 with a 2-year contract at Cingular.

OK, more words. Let me get this straight. You want me to pay $249 for an otherwise generic featurephone (camera, quad-band) with the only notable feature being that it holds fewer songs than a $30 512MB SD card? For the same price ($249 with contract), you can get a real smartphone (such as the Treo 650) that will hold 2GB worth of music (~500 songs), play movies, surf the web, get email, take pictures, etc. etc. etc.

Sure, some Apple fanatics will get this just because, but IMNSHO this device is overpriced by $100, if not more.

Handsets were supposed to be the razors so that wireless carriers (and now apparently online music providers) could sell them new and fresh content and services (i.e., razor blades). So now that Apple and Cingular are making it easier to get this content you bought from themn onto the device, they want you to pay $200 more than you would for a similarly equipped piece of hardware just for that convenience. I hope most people are smart enough to say "no thanks" (but then I'm usually disappointed when I rely on the general populace's cognitive ability).

Follow-up: Apparently, I'm not the only one to pooh-pooh the ROKR

Posted by Craig in Music & Audio and Phones and Wireless
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Apple Unveils iPod Phone

In a press conference today, Steve Jobs announced the forthcoming Rokr phone, which enables iTunes download/playback of ~100 songs a la the Shuffle. Apple jointly developed the Rokr with Motorola.

Posted by Craig in Mobile & PDAs and Music & Audio and Phones
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July 2, 2005

Podcasting: Fad of the Moment

Rob Griffiths at MacWorld writes up why podcasting is a fad (my words, not his).

My interpretation of is article is that podcasting is popular at the moment only because it is new, and I would have to agree with that.

Let me clarify: by "fad," I mean something popular with the masses, and by "podcasting," I mean producing podcasts, not listening to them. Producing high-quality audio content is hard work, and producing low-quality audio content isn't nearly as easy as producing written content (such as what you're reading now), so I think that a lot of people currently producing podcasts will give it up fairly soon and we'll be left with (a) those with something interesting enough to say that they become/remain popular, and (b) professional outfits using podcasts as a supplemental channel.

Posted by Craig in Internet and Mobile & PDAs and Music & Audio
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June 16, 2005

Open Letter to the Music Industry

I didn't write this, but I damn well wish I had.

Warnings and Promises by Glenn McDonald

Read it. (Thanks, Mike)

Posted by Craig in Industry and Music & Audio
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June 6, 2005

Klipsch ProMedia Ultra 2.0 Compact Speakers

I've been listening to a lot more music on my main PC lately and I was thinking that I could probably do a lot better soundwise than my well-aged Altec Lansing ACS33 setup (two micro-satellites + subwoofer). Reading reviews, I saw a lot of good things said about Klipsch ProMedia Ultra 2.0 speakers. I've had them now a couple of days and they sound pretty darn great.

There's no subwoofer, but they crank out surprising levels of bass. The bass isn't ultra-deep, but more than adequate for casual listening and regular computer work (serious gaming requires surround sound or headphones). All other frequencies are quite nice and tight -- overall, you get a pretty rich sound from these very reasonably priced speakers (under $100). A couple of nice features seal the deal, including front-mounted headphone and line-in jacks as well as a separate bass control knob.

Available in black or silver, they also have removable front panels (for that serious "damage me, I'm naked" look). And at just over 10" high, they're big enough to let everyone know that you're serious about your sound quality, but not so big as to make people wonder if you're compensating for something.

Everything seems to be of the high quality one would expect of the Klipsch name. As long as these are for casual listening, and you aren't expecting $500 bookshelf speaker sound quality, you will be hard pressed to do better than these Klipsches. Highly recommended!

Update (3/1/2008): The volume knob is failing electronically, creating static and decreasing the sound quality of what comes out of these speakers. I'm not very happy about that, as there's no way to fix it myself. Less than three years isn't a very reasonable lifespan for something of this supposed quality. :-/

Posted by Craig in Computing and Home A/V and Music & Audio
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June 3, 2005

Headphones for Running: Koss KSC22 Portable

A while back, I posted an open question: does anyone have any recommendations for good jogging headphones?

Some folks offered suggestions, and I've been using a pair of Koss KSC22 Portable headphones for nearly a year now. For running, they're pretty good -- very light, very unobtrusive, stay put no matter what I do, and sound decent without blocking street sounds entirely (dangerous if you're running near traffic). The only downside to these is that they tend to whistle a bit if I'm running into a stiff wind, but that happens only rarely. Another nice aspect to the KSC22 is their price; they're only about $15 and pretty easy to find, so buying a spare set isn't a painful proposition.

Posted by Craig in Music & Audio
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May 30, 2005

WOXY.com Adds Vintage Alternative Rock Stream

Doing something that no terrestrial radio station can do, 97X WOXY.com has just added a parallel broadcast called WOXY Vintage. WOXY Vintage is a 24/7 broadcast stream dedicated to, well, vintage alternative rock. The folks at WOXY actually sum it up best:

Welcome to WOXY Vintage, the first new 24/7 streaming channel from WOXY.com dedicated to the history of Modern Rock, Alternative and Punk music. You'll hear nearly 30 years of adventurous, innovative and influential music from The Velvet Underground, The Clash, Talking Heads, The Smiths, Depeche Mode and much more. Consider it your Modern Rock primer.

Sound good? Well, it is. In fact, the Vintage stream just finished broadcasting the 16th annual Modern Rock 500, a Memorial Day tradition on 97X where they play the top 500 alternative rock tunes in reverse order, counting down to #1 (this year it was "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana). The new Modern Rock 500 will be re-broadcast this week, Tuesday-Thursday 11a-8p and Friday 11a to completion.

Posted by Craig in Music & Audio
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April 7, 2005

WOXY.com Adds High-Fidelity aacPlus Streams

97X WOXY.com has upped the fidelity of their online broadcasts by employing an impressive and relatively new audio format: aacPlus. Two streams are currently offered:

Stereo aacPlus v2 48k - http://woxy.com/stream/aac48.pls
Stereo aacPlus v2 24k - http://woxy.com/stream/aac24.pls

At just 48kbps, a very modest bandwidth requirement, it sounds very, very close to what I'd consider "CD quality" audio. Impressive, indeed.

aacPlus, an MPEG-4 audio format, is the combination of three MPEG technologies comprising Advanced Audio Coding (AAC), coupled with Coding Technologies' Spectral Band Replication (SBR), and Parametric Stereo (PS) technologies. More about aacPlus can be read here.

Posted by Craig in Internet and Music & Audio
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April 6, 2005

NY Grants Longer Copyrights to Music Companies

CNET News is reporting that a New York State Court of Appeals has granted extended protection to record companies' copyrights well beyond the federal copyright limits.

A New York State Court of Appeals has issued a ruling that protects record companies' copyrights - at least in that state - for works issued before the 1972 federal copyright statute.

EMI had sued to stop rival label Naxos from reissuing 1930s recordings originally recorded by Capitol Records, which have fallen into the public domain overseas.

This is dangerously thin ice. Since most innovation happens as a result of, or incorporates, existing ideas and works, the indefinite extension of copyrights will only serve to inhibit innovation in the long run.

Posted by Craig in Industry and Music & Audio and Popular Media
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March 14, 2005

Installing the Omnifi DMP1

While I was setting up the DMS1 this weekend, Mitch recently installed his new Omnifi DMP1 and he was generous enough to share his thoughts and some pictures:

I spent a good portion of my Saturday installing the Omnifi DMP1, which is the mobile portion of the package Craig and I both ordered from Woot! The install was very smooth, but more ambitious than the average bear's as I was also putting in XM Radio at the same time. This required additional interior panels to be removed and some extra wiring.

I already had an AUX input equipped Alpine head unit in my Subaru WRX, so it really was just a plug-and-play operation with the exception of soldering the switched 12V, constant 12V and dash illumination wires. I cut a piece of plywood that fits under my driver's seat and won't move around. All the components bolted to the plywood and the wiring was semi-organized around it. The hard drive in the DMP1 is easily accessible from the rear seat footwell. I put the wireless antenna up on the package shelf.

The system fired up and worked with no issues other than an errant period in one of my MP3 filenames which crashed the synch. The sound quality is very, very good (better than the iPod that was plugged in for MP3 duties). File navigation could be improved, but it's not terrible. My wife, who fears most things technical, needed no instruction to find the files she wanted to play. That's saying something.

The only real niggle I have with the system right now is my inability to synch the system wirelessly. I can see my home network, but can't get the car to see the media server. I will figure it out, but the implementation is a bit wonky as the firmware refuses to retain a WEP key. I will have to go WEP-less to find a workaround.

I have not had time to try any of the other UPnP music servers, but I will. The TwonkyVision server sounds nice as it works well with the Linksys NSLU2. I'm formatting a new 250GB drive as I type this which could become my new media server.

If the DMS1 is a cool as this DMP1, I will be totally pleased with my $200 purchase. Kudos to Craig for catching that one over on Woot!

Photo: Close-up of Wi-Fi adapter on rear package shelf (wired through the LATCH fixture opening)

Photo: Mess o' wires mounted under driver's seat

Photo: DMP1 mounted above Alpine head unit

Photo: Completed center console in WRX cockpit

Posted by Craig in Cars and Music & Audio and Wireless
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March 13, 2005

Omnifi DMS1 Networked Music Streamer

When Woot! offered up the Rockford Fosgate Omnifi package, consisting of a DMS1 (shown), a DMP1, and two wireless adapters, for $199 a second time last week, I couldn't resist. The DMP1 (the wireless hard-drive-based MP3 car audio system) alone used to retail for North of $400, so $199 was just too good to pass up. Plus, I'd been looking at the wireless home media streamers for a while, and the DMS1 seemed decent.

As of today, I've only had a chance to set up the DMS1 (installing the DMP1 will require me getting a new head unit to replace the factory stereo since I really don't want to go the FM modulator route). Once I get the DMS1 installed (or maybe I can get Mitch to write up his experience with it, since he has his 50% in right now), I'll post about that unit.

The DMS1 is a wired/wireless music streamer. In a nutshell, it grabs music off of PCs elsewhere in your network -- MP3 and Internet radio, for example -- and feeds them into your stereo. Given that we have our entire CD collection ripped to MP3, and given that we listen to WOXY.com a lot, a media streamer makes a lot of sense.

Installation of the hardware was a breeze. Plug in the audio patch cables into our stereo, plug in the USB Wi-Fi adapter, and plug in the power cord. All done.

Getting the included media server software (that runs on a PC somewhere on your network) to work was a bit more of a chore. An app called SimpleCenter is included with the hardware and it works fine...with one bizarre restriction: it will only accept 10,000 music files into its database. Now, not to brag, but Lori and I have 13,000+ files in our collection (yes, we have a lot of CDs), so this just wasn't going to be acceptable. So I started looking around for alternative solutions.

Since the DMS1 simply talks to any UPnP (Universal Plug-n-Play) music server application, there are several to choose from. Ones I've tried so far include SimpleCenter, TwonkyVision MusicServer, and Musicmatch Jukebox 10.

Of the three, TwonkyVision's solution is the best fit for my needs. It not only has no limit on files (none that I've seen yet), but it also feeds up Internet radio streams like a champ. It's not terribly robust -- I've had it crash a few times (althought I think that is just because I had multiple UPnP media apps running at the same time...since having it run by itself, it's been pretty stable) -- but it's free and seems to work OK.

It's pretty nice being able to browse our MP3 collection and favorite net radio streams from the family room without having to turn on the TV or use the HTPC. While the DMS1 isn't as full-featured as a PC-based solution is, it's easier to use and makes accessing our music much, much faster. Below is a pic of the DMS1 (sitting on top of a TiVo Series 2 for size comparison).

Posted by Craig in Home A/V and Music & Audio and Wireless
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March 7, 2005

FM Radio to Rise Again?

Wired has an interesting article suggesting that corporate radio may have learned its lesson that efficiency is not the ultimate objective.

But in the past decade, radio changed from a village of small, independent stations to a bastion of the US media oligopoly, content to deliver sterile, cookie-cutter broadcasts. The transition made sense economically, because Big Radio was able to cut costs by consolidating advertising departments and using the same programming across the country. But alienated listeners fled in droves.

Noting radio's declining audiences, recurring low-level payola scandals, horrendous public image, and competition for drive-time ears from iPods, satellite broadcasting, and cell phones, pundits have been gleefully pronouncing the medium's last rites. But they may well be wrong. Rather than being on life support, radio in fact is on the verge of its boldest technological change since the introduction of FM stereo in the 1960s. Not only that, it may be on the threshold of another golden age, one which could have almost as powerful an impact as the first. And in the vanguard of this movement, bizarrely enough, are many of the same flaccid, reactionary media giants that put radio in a coma to begin with.

I hope it's true, but I'll believe it when I can once again turn on my radio and not run screaming from the room.

Posted by Craig in Industry and Music & Audio and Popular Media
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February 25, 2005

WOXY.com Still Pumping Out the Music

If you recall, I was mildly (OK, extremely) distraught when I found out that my award-winning, local, independent, alternative radio station -- WOXY 97X -- was being sold and going off the air. Well, fate intervened (kinda) and, with the help of some investors, 97X's new online offspring, WOXY.com, is keeping me in tune with modern rock.

If you really enjoy new music, especially alternative/modern rock, you owe it to yourself to check out WOXY.com. With great, live, professional DJs (most of every day) spinning a terrific mix of new, local, and on-request tunes, it really is the highest quality web-only radio station out there.

Check out the WOXY.com website or jump directly to their MP3 or WMA streams (both 64K).

Posted by Craig in Music & Audio
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November 8, 2004

Modern Rock Countdown Lists

Ever wonder what the best modern rock song of, say, 1992 was? Jon over at RockLists.com has assembled a boatload of such "top song" compilations from various modern rock and alternative radio stations.

Just as a sample, here are KROQ's top 10 songs from 1980:
1. Devo - Whip It
2. The Pretenders - The Wait
3. Tom Petty - Refugee
4. The Rolling Stones - She's So Cold
5. The B-52's - Give Me Back My Man
6. Pink Floyd - Another Brick in the Wall Part II
7. The Cars - Touch and Go
8. The Police - De Do Do Do De Da Da Da
9. The Talking Heads - Once in a Lifetime
10. The Clash - Train in Vain

Posted by Craig in Music & Audio
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May 24, 2004

Gary Shapiro is My New Best Friend

Who is Gary Shapiro, you ask? He's the President and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association, an industry trade group.

Why am I suddenly so fond of him? Because he wrote (or at least signed) a positively brilliant response to a letter from the RIAA (the Recording Industry Association of America, a.k.a. the spawn of Satan). The RIAA letter was asking why the CEA didn't want to back its efforts to get the FCC to mandate a copy-protection flag for digital radio transmissions (as it has with digital TV signals and that goes into effect next summer).

In the CEA's response, Shapiro basically cuts off at the knees every claim the RIAA makes and dismisses every hope it expresses. It's just a great letter...here's the last paragraph:

"In closing, let me again reinforce that non-commercial recording of freely broadcast over the air radio programming is a fundamental consumer right, and one that has consistently been given great deference by Congress. Any discussion of curtailing that right, prior to even the most minimal showing of harm, is ill conceived and premature."

If you want to read it yourself, first read the RIAA's letter and then read the CEA's response. And thanks to boingboing for the lead.

As a final thought, let me just say once and for all that I truly, honestly, and with every ounce of my being, hope the RIAA is soon sued into oblivion and every one of its greedy, soulless and foul-smelling executives sent to prison on 317 consecutive life terms for wanton abuse of consumer/citizen rights and its ongoing, wholesale assault on culture.

Posted by Craig in Industry and Music & Audio and Society / Politics
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May 19, 2004

Pain Is...

...filling a 512 MB MP3 player via USB1.1.

Pain is also tuning the FM dial to 97.7 and hearing tripe like Hoobustank and Linkin Park where I should be hearing my beloved 97X.

Pain is also finding out that my swanky new $100 DVD±RW drive has failed after less than 2 months and has to be RMA'ed back to OptoRite.

Posted by Craig in Computing and Music & Audio
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May 11, 2004

It Seems that 97X Truly IS the 'Future of Rock & Roll'

I stopped by the WOXY studio (photo) today to say good-bye and thank the folks there for two decades of awesome music. I got to have a nice chat with Bryan Jay, WOXY's resident tech guru, about the situation facing the online side of the station's operations.

In a nutshell, and an oversimplified nutshell at that, to maintain the current online listenership would require a few hundred thousand dollars a year in bandwidth (they chew through several terabytes each month). Unlike my previous take, which is that the big barrier was royalties, it's these bandwidth expenses that are the largest hurdle. The good news is that there may be a way they can cut some of these expenses down, but that alone isn't enough.

The next hurdle is the fact that an actual online radio station (as opposed to someone just streaming music) would require about 4 full-time staffers. Salaries and benefits for those peeps would come out to just under $300K a year.

The final hurdle is indeed the royalties that an Internet broadcaster of this size would have to pay the artists and composers (unlike terrestrial radio, which only has to pay composers). IIRC what Doug Balogh (former owner) mentioned today, that would be a bit over a $100 grand a year.

Add up those figures and you're talking about $650 thousand or so each year that the station would have to generate through advertising and other revenue streams. And that's just to break even. Obviously, this isn't a trivial business model to make work on a for-profit basis.

97X's tagline is 'The Future of Rock & Roll.' To me, it has always been just that; I could depend on it to show me what's new and on the horizon. Today, 97X still represents the future, but no longer in a positive way. As 97X looks to go off the air this Thursday, the future of rock & roll seems to belong entirely to corporate radio and the RIAA. They are the ones with the lobbyists and the economic/political power. What do we consumers and music lovers have to look forward to? From here, it looks to be the death of independent radio and the ever-increasing homogenization of our culture. Yippee...I can hardly wait.

Posted by Craig in Industry and Music & Audio and Society / Politics
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April 30, 2004

Music Player Snaps Pictures

iRiver has announced a new combination digicam music player, the iRiver Prism Eye. Coming in two models, the iFP-1090 and iFP-1095 devices combine digital audio with FM tuner capability with a digital camera.

While similar in size and specs, the iFP-1090 and iFP-1095 have storage capacities of 256-MB and 512-MB. The devices do not as yet support any expansion memory, and connect to PCs by USB1.1. Form factor is 3.5x 1.5 inches.

Prism Eye devices use a 0.3-MP CMOS sensor to capture images at 640x480 resolution, with an available 3x digital zoom. The 256-MB device can hold approximately 300 shots.

Audio formats supported include MP3, WMA, Ogg Vorbis and ASF. FM tuning is within the 87.5-108 MHz band. A Li-ion battery can handle about 35 hours of playback.

The Prism Eye is expected to ship this summer.

Posted by Sam in Mobile & PDAs and Music & Audio and Photography
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April 21, 2004

Wireless Media Hubs All Come Up Short

I've spent some time reviewing the wireless media hub options available, and they all come up short. What I want is simple, really: I want something I can plug into my stereo and, without using the TV, enable me to stream both MP3's (from a computer on our network) and Internet radio (from our broadband connection) to our home stereo using an 802.11g wireless connection.

There are several requirements in that description (i.e., integrated screen, MP3 and Internet radio streaming, and 802.11g), yet every wireless media hub out there (at least that I've seen) fails on one or more accounts. Here's a review of how they stack up (or fail to, actually):

• Netgear MP101
-- OK: Integrated 4-line LCD and streaming MP3
-- Failures: No streaming Internet radio (other than a subscription-based service...ugh!) and no 802.11g (low-speed 802.11b only). However, this discussion gives me hope that the MP101 might someday at least accommodate streaming Internet radio.

---

• Creative Sound Blaster Wireless Music
-- OK: Integrated LCD (on RF remote!) and streaming MP3
-- Failures: No streaming Internet radio and no 802.11g (again, 'b' only)

---

• Roku Soundbridge M1000 & M2000
-- OK: Integrated LCD and streaming MP3
-- Failures: No streaming Internet radio and no 802.11g (the Soundbridge relies on an optional CompactFlash Wi-Fi adapter, and those only exist right now in the 802.11b flavor)

---

• Turtle Beach AudioTron-100
-- OK: 2-line integrated LCD and streams both MP3 and Internet radio
-- Failures: No wireless of any sort (Ethernet only)

---

• Slim Devices' Squeezebox
-- OK: 2-line LCD and streams both MP3 and Internet radio
-- Failures: No 802.11g (802.11b only)

---

• SMC SMCWAA-B EZ-Stream
-- OK: Large LCD and streams both MP3 and Internet radio
-- Failures: No 802.11g (802.11b only)

---

There are quite a few other wireless media hubs that require you to use your TV as the interface, including the HP ew5000, the Play@TV NMP-4000, and the Linksys WMA11B. However, since I don't want to have to hook the unit up to the TV to use it (our television takes 24 seconds to warm up when you turn it on before an image appears, which is seriously annoying when all you want to do is listen to music), I'm not even considering these.

So, I'm still waiting for something that will let me listen to MP3s and my favorite Internet MP3 streams over our 802.11g network that won't require me using the TV. A couple of nice-to-haves would include (a) not requiring me to use clunky proprietary music management software and (b) a bitchin' RF remote. Any suggestions?

Update: I've added the Squeezebox to the list at the suggestion of the folks at eHomeUpgrade. The rationale for wanting 802.11g rather than 'b' is that I'd rather have a homogeneous wireless network to ensure the fastest possible connections for all attached devices. Utopian? Possibly, but IMO there's no compelling reason why we should be forced to use old technology when there's something better available now.

Update #2: I've added the SMC offering as well (thanks, KC).

Posted by Craig in Home A/V and Music & Audio and Wireless
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April 16, 2004

Name That Tune

Have you ever heard a song on the radio and thought - "That's great! Now who is that artist?" - and the DJ forgets to let you know? With a new music recognition service from AT&T Wireless, you can easily name that tune.

Customers dial #ID for the identification service, then hold their phone up to the speaker. In 15 seconds, the NowPlaying service sends out a text message with the current song title and artist, as well as information on the last five songs just played (in case you missed one of those).

The service is the first in the US, and is provided by Musicphone in cooperation with Shazam Entertainment, which has provided a similar service in the UK based on proprietary recognition technology and a database of over a million recorded songs.

The UK service includes an additional option to purchase the artist's CD containing the song, once it has been identified.

Posted by Sam in Music & Audio and Phones
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April 13, 2004

Headphones for Running

Every time I run, I listen to something on my MPIO FL100. More often than not, it's something informative -- NPR, Marketplace, etc. However, recently, I've been trying to use a spare pair of earbud headphones that came with my Tapwave Zodiac. They sound pretty decent for freebies, but they don't stay put very well when running.

So, does anyone have any recommendations for good jogging headphones? I think the behind-the-neck "street style" headphones would bug the heck out of me, but I haven't tried them. We have a pair of Sony clip-on earphones (shown), but they fall off after about 4 steps -- definitely meant for stationary activities.

Any suggestions, peeps?

Posted by Craig in Music & Audio
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April 12, 2004

Pocket Tunes by NormSoft

I've started listening to the radio on my phone. How? All through the magic of Pocket Tunes from NormSoft.

Pocket Tunes is first an MP3 and Ogg Vorbis player application for your Palm OS device. It's fully skinnable with decent playlist handling and has lots of other nifty features that make it very capable stand-alone music player.

However, the real magic starts when you realize that Pocket Tunes Deluxe supports streaming MP3 over wireless connections. You can now listen to that favorite streaming radio station or your own Shoutcast source wherever your wireless Palm OS handheld or smartphone has Internet access.

For example, my phone is the Treo 600 from palmOne (nee Handspring). Using GPRS, I can stream in 97X at 24 Kbps without a hiccup (higher quality streams surpass GPRS's sustained throughput, so you end up buffering every so often, which gets annoying). Or, I could listen to my own stream if I were to switch it over to 24 Kbps (its default is 64 Kbps). Some other Treo-friendly streams can be found at Treobits.

Now, if my endorsement isn't enough to convince you, Pocket Tunes also won PalmSource's "Best Multimedia Solution" at the 2004 Developer's Conference. Nice job, NormSoft!

Posted by Craig in Mobile & PDAs and Music & Audio and Wireless
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March 31, 2004

Phone Your Television

NTT DoCoMo has announced that phones from its 3G FOMA videophone series can now be used in Japan to control home appliances from almost anywhere the phone can be used.

The heart of the system is an in-home control box that is contacted by the phone, and which in turn processes commands to appliances via infrared (IrDA) or via cable connection.

The controller can be connected to a PC via a USB port, or to external sensors (such as light or motion sensors) via an independent I/O port. It is connected to the mobile FOMA network via a special data card.

The system lets users control lights and air conditioners, for example, turning them on or off as appropriate.

More amazingly, it enables users to remotely program recording a television program, and then transmit the playback on the phone, streamed through the FOMA network.

A FOMA videophone can also transmit pictures to the controller, for viewing on a connected screen.

Posted by Sam in Home A/V and Music & Audio and Phones and Wireless
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March 29, 2004

iRiver Discman-Style Media Player

Multimedia device maker iRiver has announced an interesting new media player, the iMP-1100.

The new media player, successor to the iRiver iMP-1000, has the format of a discman-type player, and sports a 2" TFT colour display. This is admittedly a small screen compared to other media players, but the first for portable media players is the additional ability to play from CD.

The iMP-1100 is compatible with DivX, MPEG4, MP3, WMA, ASF and CD-DA file formats.

iRiver has scheduled release of the player for late May to June 2004.

Posted by Sam in Music & Audio
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March 25, 2004

Archos AV500 Mobile Viewer

Archos has just announced the successor to its AV300 series of mobile viewers. The AV500 has a more ergonomic design than the AV320, and is similar in size to a Jornada Pocket PC.

The AV500 comes in 20-GB and 40-GB models. The display screens have a 704x480 resolution, with 30-fps refresh. Also available are an external speaker and microphone.

Dual USB 2.0 ports enable direct camera-to-device transfer of images. Finally, Archos also allows users control of the AV500 via a remote control as a video player and recorder.

The AV500 sports DivX and MPEG4 playback, DRM support for Microsoft's WMA and WMV9 video format, as well as synchronization compatibility with Microsoft Windows Media Player.

The Archos AV500 will be the first PVP/PDA device on the market to support standard PIM applications (including Calendar, E-mail, and Notepad), and will include an integrated Web browser.

Internet connection is still unspecified, but is said to support Ethernet, WiFi, Bluetooth, and GSM.

Posted by Sam in Gaming and Mobile & PDAs and Music & Audio
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March 17, 2004

Exploding Music CDs

Last night, my wife popped the most recent CMJ music CD into our CD-RW drive to rip it to MP3 (so she can listen to it on her iPod) and it exploded into a bazillion parts.

We heard it spin up (admittedly a bit faster than I thought necessary) and then "Bam!" and little pieces flew out of the drive. Opening the drive yielded about 12 small, sharp pieces of CD shrapnel, but I'm sure there are still more in there. The drive is unusable.

Gadgetopia has a post about exploding CDs and how it rarely happens. Yeah, whatever.

Posted by Craig in Music & Audio
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March 15, 2004

Bam! The Future Of Rock and Roll: A Legend Passes On

Wow. I don't even know how to start with this one. 97X Is Going Off The Air!!! Most of you out there are now saying WTF so let me explain a bit...

For the past 20 years, the Cincinnati area has been blessed with a wonderful little broadcasting jewel called WOXY-FM cranking out modern rock at 97.7 MHz from sleepy little Oxford, Ohio. These guys are the ultimate in cool and have defined my radio listening habits for almost as long as they have been spinning tunes. A few random memories:

* After way too much beer, I beat Jay Forman (DJ at the time) in a midnight Rock & Bowl heads-up match to snag a pre-release autographed "Over The Rhine" CD.

* Craig (yes, this one) and I spent a good part of the day skating staircases over at the Miami campus then all at once decided to skate over to the Party Patio at 97X. The Saturday DJ let us in after we beat on the doors for a while and it was really cool to skate through the offices and see all the priceless modern rock memorabilia.

* Evaluating every stereo tuner purchase over the last 15 years by how well it received 97X. I have even nixed car purchases because the factory head unit would not receive it. (Just last week I cut a new dipole for my receiver so it would get better 97X reception.)

* Programming 523-4114 into every phone in the house so we could win call-in goodies. In the distant past, the worst part was actually winning as you had to drive all the way to Oxford to pick up your booty.

* Hearing Dustin Hoffman in "Rainman" immortalize 97X by repeating their slogan over and over. "Bam! The Future of Rock and Roll!"

It's really not the end of the world as 97X is making a transition from terrestrial broadcasting to internet-only, but for we local listeners there will be some very big shoes to fill at 97.7 MHz.

Good luck to Linda and Doug. You did a wonderful job and we grateful and loyal listeners will miss you. Enjoy your retirement.

Posted by Mitch in Music & Audio
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February 23, 2004

iPod Mini: Mixed Feelings So Far

My wife is leaving on a 12-day international work trip in 3 weeks and she wanted a convenient way to take her music with her. In the past, she relied on an MP3-capable CD player, burning 30-40 albums on 3-4 CD-Rs -- a cheap and fairly convenient option.

Well, since her CD-MP3 player was stolen during our trip to Hawaii last October, she needs a new solution. I asked her what functionality she'd like and how small it should be. She replied that she wanted it to hold around 30 albums (at least), be small enough to easily jog with, and it didn't need an FM tuner. Doing the math, I figured that one of the new MP3 players with a small 1.5-4 GB hard drive would be perfect.

I investigated the options and came up with three reasonable alternatives: the Rio Nitrus (1.5GB), the Creative Nomad MUVO2 (4GB), and the Apple iPod Mini (4GB). The Nitrus and the MUVO2 are shown above on the left and right respectively.

Reviews generally favored the interface on the iPod Mini, and I figured my wife would prefer the simplest UI. So, off to the Apple store we went, and we came home with a silver iPod Mini for her (shown below to the right compared to my 256MB flash-based MPIO FL100 player on the left).

She followed the setup and installation instructions, which went mostly smoothly. Within about 20 minutes after the initial charge was completed, she was installing songs onto her iPod. iTunes seemed to do the trick, although the interface wasn't nearly as intuitive as I had expected. This was our first Apple product since my beloved IIe back in High School, so I haven't kept up on the state of the Macintosh. I guess I had figured that Apple's software would be as driven by UI and industrial design as their hardware is, but apparently I was expecting too much. iTunes is no better laid out and no more intuitive than Real One or most of the mainstream Windows-based music apps. But, it worked, and she's happy with it, and the interface on the actualy iPod itself is quite excellent.

This morning, my relationship with iTunes took a turn for the worse. I tried to sync my Palm OS device and it hung when it got to WeSync, an app we use to synchronize our calendars and contact data between our handhelds. I eventually tracked it down to a conflict with ituneshelper.exe, a TSR that iTunes loads and which serves no obvious purpose. Removing ituneshelper.exe from memory re-enabled WeSync. Unfortunately, there's no setting in iTunes to tell it NOT to run ituneshelper (even though iTunes seems to run fine without it).

Searching the web has revealed that ituneshelper has caused a fair bit of grief. Not only is there no authorized way to disable it (other than to uninstall iTunes), it causes conflicts with a variety of programs on both Windows and Mac systems. To compound my frustration, Apple's tech support knowledge-base turns up zero hits when searching for "ituneshelper" -- go figure.

So, at the moment, I'm a bit uneasy. I haven't any idea whether iTunes will continue to operate OK without ituneshelper.exe in memory and I hate the idea of having to manually shut that process down each time I reboot. I wish someone at Apple would let us know what the deal is and release a correction for it.

Posted by Craig in Music & Audio
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February 19, 2004

The Intensity of Henry Rollins

I spent last evening at Bogarts, Cincinnati's famed venue for live performance variety. On the card was "Henry Rollins: The Spoken Word Tour". And that is all. Because, you see, nothing else could fit.

If you are familiar with Henry in this setting, you know what I saw and heard: an interesting, shocking, thought provoking, profane, intelligent, funny, opinionated, cynical, informative, take on things current by one of the hardest rockers who has ever rocked coming at you in one long, unbroken stream of thought. And it was good.

Aside from that, I was truly amazed by something. Slightly after 8pm, Henry walked onto stage dressed in green chinos and an olive drab t-shirt. The only clue that he was the rocker that he is were the bulging biceps and the mosaic of tattoos on this arms. He wrapped the mic cord around his left hand, put his left foot in front of his right in a sporting stance and began to speak at his machine gun clip. And there he remained for 2 hours and 45 minutes never taking a breath or a sip of water and only moving to illustrate some point he was making. Sadly I had to leave at that point to rescue our baby sitter and for all I know Henry may still be on stage. For this I apologize Henry (if you are reading this) because you put on a heck of show and deserved the standing O that was surely coming or will be coming.

Posted by Mitch in Music & Audio
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February 10, 2004

FISH Memory Card Standard Debuts

The Universal Transportable Memory Association (UTMA) has introduced a flash memory card standard requiring no adapters, cables or card readers, called a Flash Internal Semiconductor Harddrive, or FISH. Cards based on the standard plug into any USB port, allowing transfer of information between PCs, PDAs, cameras or other devices.

FISH Memory cards are smaller than SD cards and have transfer rates of 10 Mbps. FISH cards are fast enough to capture streaming video from DVRs and videocams. Standard FISH cards are 1.3" long with width and thickness the size of a USB port. Miniature versions exist, 25% smaller. Current FISH technology allows for 2-GB, with 16-GB expected in 2005.

47 independent industry experts were involved in the development of the UTMA standard. Inputs to the standard came from 34 different companies. This industry consensus is expected to lead to a broad range of devices.

Posted by Sam in Industry and Mobile & PDAs and Music & Audio and Photography
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February 4, 2004

Wrist Watch Plays Digital Music

Laks, an innovative Austrian watchmaker, is launching a wrist watch with digital audio player functionality.

The Laks Memory Music comes in models that sport from 32-MB to 256-MB in memory. Music formats supported include MP3, WMA and ADPCM, uploaded though a USB 1.1 interface. Playing time is about 4-5 hours. A built-in microphone also allows voice-recording.

Equalizer settings are indicated via miniature LEDs in the watch face, and other music controls are integrated into the watch mechanism very unobstrusively.

Cost of the Laks Memory Music Watch depends on memory, and ranges from 89 to 279 Euro ($110-350)

Laks' offering is the latest in a line of digital music watches, including the Casio WMP-1V and the V@mp MP3 Player watch. Despite the functionality, none of these multifunction watches has gone mainstream... so far.

Posted by Sam in Music & Audio
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February 1, 2004

Super Bowl Ad Features Music Outlaw

Over three years, 14-year-old Annie Leith downloaded nearly 1000 songs via Kazaa. The downloading, illegal in the U.S., got Leith into legal trouble with the Recording Industry Association of America in September 2003. Ultimately, the lawsuit was settled for $3,000.

Now, that experience has landed Leith in an ad for Pepsi and Apple Computer, to be shown on Super Bowl Sunday. The ad introduces a promotion in which 100 million bottle caps on Pepsi soft drinks include a code for free downloads on Apple's iTunes Music Store.

The partnership deal is one the most visible of recent digital music partnerships. Coca-Cola has partnered with Musicmatch to promote its Sprite soft drinks, and Heineken has partnered with RealNetworks in a giveaway of beer 12-packs.

In the Pepsi-Apple Super Bowl ad, which features Leith, her sister, and 14 other music downloading outlaws, Leith acknowledges she was among hundreds sued for downloading songs, then vows to continue doing so... on iTunes.

Posted by Sam in Music & Audio and Popular Media and Society / Politics
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January 27, 2004

Forget the Online Music Stores

Peter Rojas over at Gizmodo rightly points out that most music stores today are more trouble than they're worth:

"...to be perfectly honest, [we are] feeling more and more convinced that the best move would be to simply stay away from online music stores (and their restrictions) altogether and just stick to MP3."

That's exactly why I've yet to sign up for iTunes or Real's music store or (god forbid) Wal-Mart's music download service. I don't want to reward the corporations who produce these consumer-unfriendly content protection schemes. Convenience and/or hassle factors aside, I personally don't believe the state of things today is a viable, satisfying situation.

Do I have an alternative? Sadly, I'll admit that I don't, but that certainly does not mean there isn't one waiting to be invented. Was Napster (the first version, not today's bastardization of the same name) better? In some ways, but I don't think it did enough to bring rewards back to the artists who produced the music.

Ideally, we'd have a system that permits both peer-to-peer and direct-from-distributor content sharing while simultaneously rewarding the artists and producers of the content based on the value they produce for the consumers. If/when such a system turns up, we'll all know it, since it will immediately reveal all these intermediary services to be the transient evolutionary mis-steps they are. In the meantime, I'll continue to buy CDs (at least I own those) and rip them to MP3 so I can listen to my music the way I want to, when I want to, and on what device I want to. After all, isn't that the way it should be?

Update: Of course, the geniuses at Forrester disagree.

Posted by Craig in Music & Audio
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January 19, 2004

MC Stephen Hawking

I didn't know that Stephen Hawking was such an accomplished rap artist. The track QuakeMaster has to go down as some of the best "nerd rap" to date.

Posted by Craig in Music & Audio
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The Great MP3 Disconnect

At CES this year, portable MP3 gadgets were all the rage. Why is this happening when the music industry still insists that physical products, CDs to be exact, are the best format for the consumer? Obviously, something is going to have to change, and my hunch is that it won't be the consumer.

Will download services like Apple's iTunes become the new standard? I'm not sure, since a lot of music fans like to have some kind of physical component as well. For example, my wife really enjoys lyrics sheets and liner notes in CD booklets and would hate to be forced to go totally digital. Also, a physical CD acts as a durable back-up for your MP3 in case of hard drive failure or some other problem. And, of course, most of today's CD's don't require any pesky DRM configuration or other use-limiting annoyance -- they simply play when you put them in the player (as they should).

While I expect download services like iTunes to expand and become more numerous, I think the next dominant mode of music distribution is still out there waiting to be developed. Perhaps what is really needed is a standard that will permit all device manufacturers and content owners to focus on what they do best rather than worrying about whom to partner with and which format du jour should be supported. After all, wrangling over DRM schemes, formats, and distribution channels does nothing to create value for the consumer. And he who figures out how to create the most value for consumers will win in the long-run.

Posted by Craig in Music & Audio
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January 8, 2004

Microsoft's iPod Killer?

Apple's iTunes Music Store has captured over 80% of the market for legally downloaded music, the Trojan Horse for the real moneymaker, the iPod music player. Steve Jobs has called iTunes "the Microsoft of music stores."

Well, the Redmond giant is awakening. Last month, Microsoft began offering, with Loudeye, a service that lets other companies build online music stores. Later this year, Microsoft will offer its own music download service through MSN.

And finally, at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show, Microsoft is expected to reveal new details about a line of portable devices that could challenge the iPod's position in the digital music world.

As previously reported by GearBits, Microsoft's handheld Portable Media Center device will store photos, music and video. A 40 GB device will hold up to 175 hours of video, 10,000 songs or 100,000 pictures. The first commercial devices are expected later in 2004, from licensees Samsung, ViewSonic, iRiver, Tatung and Creative.

Prices are expected to range from about $400 to $700, pitting lower-end devices squarely against Apple's 20 and 40 GB iPods... and trumping them with what could be the next mobile killer app, video playback.

Posted by Sam in Mobile & PDAs and Music & Audio
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January 7, 2004

iPod's Mini Me

Apple has just unveiled the much-rumored, much-denied iPod mini at Macworld Expo. Voila!

Weighing in at 3.6 ounces, the iPod mini sports a shell of anodized aluminum (your choice of silver, gold, blue, pink, or green), holds 4GB of music, and will retail at $249.

The original iPod retails at only $50 more, now at 15GB in size, and is also available in 20GB and 40GB versions.

To conserve space, the iPod mini sports a smaller LCD screen, and integrates the iPod’s buttons with the Touch Wheel to form a new Click Wheel.

In addition to playing music ripped from your CD collection or purchased from Apple's iTunes Music Store, the iPod mini can store contacts, a calendar and to-do lists. Also available are nightlife guides, news articles and games - Music Quiz, Brick, Parachute and the ubiquitous Solitaire.

Posted by Sam in Mobile & PDAs and Music & Audio
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January 6, 2004

New NOMAD Digital Audio Player Debuts

Creative has just launched the NOMAD MuVo TX digital audio player.

The media player includes USB 2.0 connectivity, which ensures that hours of music can be downloaded in seconds. Requiring no cables, the player plugs directly into a computer’s USB port for instant recognition as a removable flash drive.

Measuring 36.7 x 74 x 16mm, and weighing 43 grams, The NOMAD MuVo TX features 512 MB of memory for up to 16 hours of music, and a continuous play time of up to 15 hours. A backlit LCD display shows song information, track number, play time, play mode and EQ setting. A built-in microphone also enables recording of over 32 hours of live audio.

The player is bundled with Creative MediaSource software, a full MP3/WMA ripping and organizing app.

Posted by Sam in Mobile & PDAs and Music & Audio
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December 28, 2003

Quicktime Does CDMA, GSM

With the latest release of QuickTime, Apple is claiming that it has developed the first mainstream media format for rich multimedia content across CDMA 2000 and GSM wireless networks.

QuickTime 6.5 enhances the popular software - already a leading platform for high-quality audio and video over IP, wireless and broadband networks, with over 175 million downloads for the 6.0 version - and enables users to share high-quality multimedia across the two predominant wireless networking technologies worldwide.

The new release supports 3GPP and 3GPP2 standards, including Advanced Audio Coding (AAC), Adaptive Multi-Rate (AMR) and Qualcomm Code Excited Linear Predictive (QCELP) audio codecs, MPEG-4 and H.263 video codecs, 3G Timed Text, native .3gp and .3g2 file formats, Movie Fragments, cross-platform Unicode text support, and enhanced DV playback.

Posted by Sam in Computing and Mobile & PDAs and Music & Audio and Phones and Wireless
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December 22, 2003

iPod Accessories

I have no first-hand, or even second-hand, experience or knowledge of these products, but a website I came across just now looks like it contains some wicked cool iPod accessories.

Griffin Technology appears to focus exclusively on iPod and Mac hardware accessories, some of which appear to be quite elegant. One example is the PowerMate (shown), a USB accessory that looks like you ripped the volume knob off a high-end stereo amplifier and stuck it on your desk. You can set it up as a volume control or shuttle/jog-dial for video editing.

Another interesting product is the iTrip, an iPod FM transmitter. While you can get the Belkin TuneCast for cheap, the iTrip both looks good and doesn't have any dangly cords to worry about.

Of course, I'm judging these things by their pictures, something you're not supposed to do.

Posted by Craig in Music & Audio
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December 16, 2003

80's Lyrics Quiz

I don't usually post things I receive in "friendly spam" (you know, those circulating emails you get from well-intentioned friends and family), but this is worth mentioning.

80's Lyrics Quiz: People are What? is a not-so-short online test of your knowledge of 80's pop song lyrics. Fill in the blanks, hit "score it, baby" and your quiz is graded immediately for you. Most entertaining, perhaps, are the quippy comments when you get answers wrong (as you inevitably will).

I scored a 62.4 -- not too bad for someone whose wife claims that he can't remember his own name. Had there been extra credit for artist and song title, I would have done better...I swear.

Posted by Craig in Music & Audio
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December 12, 2003

Home Entertainment Industry News Tidbits

I was perusing this week's copy of TWICE (This Week In Consumer Electronics) and I noticed a few stories that seemed interesting in that they contained info I hadn't heard before. So, I'll summarize.

First, there's a large story about how sales of home audio (components, speakers, etc.) are in a major slump right now -- electronics retailers and custom installers just aren't selling much right now. Why is this? They suspect that the huge emphasis on innovative and large displays (DLP, plasma, LCD, etc.) is partly to blame (after all, consumers don't have endless checkbooks), but they also believe that the lack of innovation regarding compressed/digital audio (to attract younger buyers) and networking (part of integrated solutions) are also to blame. Sounds right to me -- there's just not much innovation going on in home audio right now...it's all in displays.

Second, there's an interesting pair of bar charts. While I can't reproduce them here, they provide the sales of LCD flat-panel TV's and plasma televisions from 1Q02 through 3Q03. I've long thought plasma was a neat, but interim and short-lived, technology -- something that was here for only a brief period until something significantly better came along (e.g., 8-track and DAT). Well, the numbers finally seem to be bearing this prediction out. Quarter-on-quarter growth of LCD sales during 2003 was 30% to 57% -- impressive numbers! On the other hand, during the same period, plasma saw only 2% to 7% growth. Granted, plasma sales last quarter were $438 million, versus $274 million for LCD, but the trend clearly shows LCD trumping plasma in 2004 and beyond. Unless something happens to either displace LCD or greatly improve plasma's performace or value, LCD will be the new king of the flat-panel display. For how long is anyone's guess -- maybe SED will rise up strong.

Finally, there seems to be a huge shortage of DLP- and LCD-powered rear-projection TV's. A Tweeter (retail chain) manager says that Samsung's DLP line is "turning very quickly." The root causes of the shortage appear to be overly conservative ordering by the retail chains as well as higher-than-expected demand by consumers. Could it also be the fact that there's finally enough HD programming on to interest a significant number of folks (e.g., the Super Bowl)?

Interesting stuff.

Posted by Craig in Home A/V and Industry and Music & Audio
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December 10, 2003

One Remote to Rule Them All

If you're like me, you've got a remote control for your TV, DVD, PVR, video, stereo, satellite, and other sundry electronic boxes....12 at the last count. Universal remotes? Cumbersome IR programming, new remotes which turn out to be incompatible, the need to switch modes from TV to DVD to stereo....I'd just about given up.

Until now. The Harmony Remote by Intrigue Technologies is a universal remote with a difference - well, three to be exact - and promises to herald in a new era of clickophile nirvana.

Advantage one: A scroll wheel aids navigation through different modes, and aids in accessing stored preferences, viewable via a small LCD screen at the base of the unit. This makes the Harmony ergonomically a joy to use.

Advantage two: Instead of having to switch control modes by electronic box (TV, DVD, stereo), the Harmony uses macros to organize functions by activity: "Watch TV", for example, turns on and controls your TV, cable/satellite and speakers. "Listen to CD" turns on and controls your amplifier, speakers, and CD player. "Play a DVD"....well, you get the picture.

Advantage three: The Harmony Remote is the first Internet-programmable universal remote. Connect the Harmony to your computer via USB, and you can tap into a growing online database of tens of thousands of remotes. Everyday new remotes are being added, thanks to Harmony's online user community. You simply select the remotes you want mimicked, and download to your Harmony....no more IR mating rituals to teach your universal remote new tricks. Oh, and you can download TV listings as well.

The reviews have been ecstatic. One user enthused: "My mother-in-law, a 77-year-old woman raised on an island mountain farm without electricity, got it working within seconds. And her techno-hostile daughter, my wife, declares the Harmony the first gadget I've brought home that actually does something useful."

All this adds up to the Harmony being possibly the one remote worth fighting over.

Posted by Sam in Home A/V and Internet and Music & Audio
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December 9, 2003

Stradivarius Secret Revealed?

Why are violins from the 17th-18th centuries generally considered superior in sound quality to modern instruments?

Theories range from the craftsman's skill, to special varnishes, to the storage or drying of the wood, or the use of wood from old structures.

Now, researchers from Columbia University have a new theory - climate.

The study, published in the journal Dendrochronologia, proposes that the superior tonality of instruments from this era can be explained by the climate in Europe in the 70 years from 1645-1715 AD.

This period - known as the Maunder Minimum - was characterized by less intense solar radiation and a sharp decline in temperature. The long winters and cool summers produced wood with a slow, even growth - properties ideal for producing high-quality boards. Additionally, narrow tree rings from slow growth tend to increase wood density and thus the strength of instruments.

Antonio Stradivari, the famous violinmaker, was born one year before the Maunder Minimum. The only wood available to Stradivari and other violinmakers of the era were from trees that grew during the Maunder Minimum...providing one more critical difference to the tone and brilliance of the famous violins.

Posted by Sam in Music & Audio and Other
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December 8, 2003

Audio Trade-Off: Quality vs. Portability

A colleague at work and I often have a discussion where we come to radically different perspectives on enjoying music. He's an audiophile and I'm a...well...I guess you could call it a portaphile.

To him, being the audiophile that he is, the quality of the sound is what matters most. His highly sensitive ears can detect even slight degrees of compression in digital sources and he can easily tell the difference between mid-level and premium speakers.

For him, nearly any type of audio compression scheme is unacceptable, since it results in the loss of sonic detail and clarity. Moreover, easily toting his music along with him is almost impossible, since even the best small headphones don't have the sound reproduction capacity he demands.

To me, I desire portability over every other aspect. I'm not unhappy with FM-quality sound if I can listen to it where I want, when I want, and how I want to. I just can't hear the difference between, say, two MP3 files encoded at 128 kbps and 192 kbps. But then, I don't often listen under optimal conditions -- while working (over computer speakers), while mowing the grass, while driving, etc. Listening to music is rarely something I do as my sole activity (and I bet that's pretty much like most folks).

The good news is that there are a lot of lossless digital audio formats out there to choose from, including Monkey's Audio, the Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC), WavPack, and Lossless Predictive Audio Coder (LPAC). Supposedly, a lossless version of Windows Media Audio (WMA) is also on its way (oh, goody). A good overview of these formats can be found a modatic.net.

However, that still doesn't help with the headphone problem -- Mr. Audiophile still has a hard time easily toting around an enormous over-the-ear headset. Another technology, known as bone conduction, may help here. Bone conduction basically sends sound waves directly through the skull instead of transmitting them through the air to the eardrum. While most small earphones have little problem with high-frequency sounds and the upper end of the audible spectrum, bass is almost always pretty bad. That's where bone conduction comes in -- solid bone carries low frequency (bass) sounds better than air, so sound reproduction could benefit significantly.

So, while there's a distinct trade-off of sound quality versus portability today, that may not be the case for much longer. Better software and better hardware, and innovations in both, might permit Mr. Audiophile to take his high-quality experience with him and might let me, the "portphile," begin to appreciate better quality sound without losing the portability I crave.

Posted by Craig in Music & Audio
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December 4, 2003

HP to Launch Music Service

Jumping on the online music service bandwagon (which is starting to get fairly crowded), HP has announced that it will launch its service, along with a new MP3 player, at the January 2004 Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

I'm all for competition, but do we really expect hardware makers to offer the best music service? Apple is somewhat of an exception, since it produces the entire customer experience. But Dell and HP are just box makers...what do they know about music services?! Needless to say, I'm underwhelmed with anticipation.

Posted by Craig in Music & Audio
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November 26, 2003

iTunes Hacked

Apple's digital rights management (DRM) system on the iTunes Music Store has been challenged by Jon Johansen, well-known as the author of the DeCSS program for bypassing DVD copy protection.

The new program, QTFairUse, does not actually crack the DRM. Instead, it intercepts the music file while it is in the process of being streamed and before the DRM is applied.

While this implies that - similar to DeCSS - the program works only on content legitimately purchased from iTunes, a number of observers suggest that the program can be mis-used because it allows users to compile their own database of unprotected - and potentially distributable - content.

In its current release, QTFairUse does require some programming knowledge to implement, but more user-friendly versions are likely to appear in time. The current version is available only for Windows-based PCs.

Posted by Sam in Computing and Internet and Music & Audio and Popular Media
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November 24, 2003

Air Guitar

Six years ago, researchers from Cornell University built the world's smallest guitar to demonstrate the possibilities of using silicon fab techniques to manufacture micron-sized systems.

Now, Cornell has demonstrated a playable version of the red-blood-cell-sized guitar to show how such devices could be used as cheaper, more energy-efficient electronic circuit components.... by using a laser to strum the strings.

The new nanoguitar is 5 times larger than the original, but still only viewable with a microscope. Its strings are silicon bars, from 6-12 microns in length, and cross sections of 150 x 200 nanometers. The strings vibrate at 17 octaves higher than a real guitar.

You play the nanoguitar by focussing a laser beam on the strings. As the strings vibrate, they create interference patterns, which are detected and electronically converted to audible sound. The device plays simple tones and chords, with pitches determined by string length.

Practical applications? Of course.

Nanoscale objects vibrating at radio frequencies can substitute for quartz oscillators in electronic circuits, using less space and power. Since these vibrations can be tuned to a narrow range of frequencies, they are also usable in filter circuits. The unique light modulation system is also usable in fiber-optic communications systems to replace more expensive light sources.

All this, and the ability to play a wicked Santana...now that's my kind of science!

Posted by Sam in Industry and Music & Audio and Other
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November 19, 2003

SHN & FLAC: New(?) Lossless Music Formats

A friend (hi, Bob) just pointed me to etree.org, a website dedicated to live music and digital music formats:

etree.org is the award-winning leader in lossless digital audio distribution on the Internet! We are a community committed to providing the highest quality live concert recordings in a losslessly-compressed, downloadable format. All of the music on etree.org is free, and 100% legal to download, trade, and burn. We also assist new traders in learning to trade online through our extensive guides...

They rely on two lossless digital music formats I'd never heard of before: Shorten (or SHN) and FLAC. FLAC is the newer of the two and etree.org suggest that it may replace SHN in the future.

Has anyone heard of these formats before? I hate feeling this clueless. :-)

Posted by Craig in Music & Audio
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November 11, 2003

Now that's a good soundtrack

It's funny how imperceptibly music and sounds can hook into your emotions. I popped the soundtrack from Kill Bill Vol. 1 into my computer and started the import into iTunes. I surfed as iTunes ripped and encoded and played the CD. Track 4 is a little whistling tune called "Twisted Nerve" by Bernard Herrmann that's really quite catchy, but as soon as it started I was hit with an overwhelming sense of dread. My body sprung a million goose bumps and the hair stood up on the back of my neck. What the heck?! I focused on the song and remembered back to the movie for the scene it scored. Then I knew! This is the tune that Elle Driver whistles as she saunters down the hospital ward carrying a syringe full of poison destined for the comatose Bride's IV drip. I remembered how helpless I felt for The Bride as she laid there unable to move as death approached. Real nightmare stuff for me and obviously so with my reaction to "Twisted Nerve". Check out the soundtrack if you can and if you catch someone whistling that catchy little tune, watch your back.

Posted by Mitch in Music & Audio
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October 28, 2003

msPOD

Microsoft has announced a new initiative to power handheld media players - similar to Apple's iPod digital music player. Devices based on Portable Media Centre will enable users to store photos, listen to music and watch movies and TV shows on the road.

Portable Media Center is a variant of Windows CE.NET - previously named Media2Go - that will power devices shipping in 2004.

Licensees include Creative, iRiver, Sanyo, Samsung, Tatung, Viewsonic. The handheld players will support MP3 as well as WMA9, Microsoft's own digital audio and video format.

Dell recently announced plans to produce a digital music player, the Jukebox. There have also been rumors about a video iPod for some time now, though with Apple one is never sure until the official announcement.

Posted by Sam in Mobile & PDAs and Music & Audio and Popular Media
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October 22, 2003

Ozone: Composing on the Go

Not many people know this, but one of my passions is composing music. In between working on various projects for GearBits, Qvadis and Kinectrics and more, I'm within months of launching a new site around this passion.

Meanwhile, I thought I'd do a wander through my various pieces of studio gear (this is GearBits, after all), for anyone who's interested. And if there is anyone, it'd be great to hear your thoughts.

Here's the first in the series.

Home audio/MIDI recording used to mean devoting a room or den to a range of equipment, including a computer, a MIDI keyboard, control surface, a mixer, a preamp. And there was no way you were going to pack this in the back of your Saturn if you wanted to compose in, say, Tahiti.

No longer. Amazingly compact, the Ozone by M-Audio is combination keyboard, MIDI control surface, microphone preamp, USB audio and MIDI I/O - in a package no bigger than a laptop. It's like a portable keyboard for your PDA...but more.

Put Ozone together with a laptop and software like Sonar, or Reason, and you have a complete personal mobile studio. Talent not included.

Everything you need is at your fingertips - fullsize keys, mod and pitch wheel, MIDI controller knobs, microphone and instrument monitor and gain levels, headphone volume. The back panel sports a balanced XLR input, ¼-inch line-level input, ¼-inch stereo input, two ¼-inch line-level outputs, ¼-inch headphone output, sustain-pedal input, MIDI I/0, and USB port. One quirk for me is that the Ozone cannot be powered parasitically, an AC adapter must be plugged in at all times.

Output from the Ozone is amazing - very clean. Recording at 24-bit, 96-kHz recording turns out product that is excellent. The preamp does provide a sound reminscent of some older mixers, but hey, I'm not a great vocalist, so this is an extra for me.

Its size, weight, and capabilities make the Ozone a great accessory for the touring musician or composer. Now all I need is a ticket to Tahiti.

Posted by Sam in Music & Audio and Popular Media
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October 17, 2003

Infernal Downhilling

Spurred into action by Apple's release of iTunes for Windows, I dropped by my local Best Buy last night and bought an iPod after years of lusting. Until now, the price and the stigma of having to use MusicMatch to manage my MP3s was just too much of a turn off. Arriving home, I already had the iTunes software and the latest iPod firmware tucked away on a Smartmedia card in my wallet.

My initial impressions of the iPod (a 20GB model) are probably common: great packaging, cool carrying case, it's white (yuck), slick user interface, too heavy, awesome backlight, looks like hell if you happen to touch it (damn those fingerprints!).

iTunes installed without a hitch as did the firmware updater. I rebooted the Windows machine just for safety's sake. WinXP recognized the iPod immediately as did iTunes. The updater formatted the drive and laid down the new firmware. All was well. I was ready to suck in some tunes.

I pointed iTunes to several directories on my MP3 hard drive and to some favorite selections in KaZaA's download directory. The 200MB of songs firewired over lickety split. Man was I impressed. It was time to break out the earbuds and hear what this thing could do.

This is where the whole process skiied right into a ravine and did it's best Warren Miller tumble down the mountain. THIS $400 MP3 PLAYER WILL NOT PLAY MP3s!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For some reason, any tune I select loads up, plays about 1/2 second and then causes the iPod to reboot. I re-initialized the drive three times and did the whole reload process again even trying different groupings of songs and still not a peep can I get from this thing. I have not been so disappointed since Audi put an automatic transmission in the RS6.

This will probably be continued. I suspect my tribulations are not unique and there could be a fix posted soon. I have my receipt in a safe place just in case this is par for the course.

Posted by Mitch in Mobile & PDAs and Music & Audio
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October 16, 2003

There's Skiing In Hades Today!

Apple has released iTunes for Windows.

Posted by Mitch in Music & Audio
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September 12, 2003

They Leave in Threes

Warren Zevon - 9/7/2003 - link
Johnny Cash - 9/12/2003 - link
John Ritter - 9/12/2003 - link

Thanks.

Posted by Craig in Music & Audio and Popular Media
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August 26, 2003

Neuros More Than an MP3 Player

ExtremeTech has a review of an interesting new music portable, the Neuros Audio Computer. It sounds pretty sweet.

"A new company on the scene, Neuros Audio, took a long hard look at this market space and is now shipping what the company has dubbed an 'audio computer'. It features an FM tuner and transmitter (transceiver), support for the open source encoder Ogg Vorbis, and a Linux music management app. It can not only record FM radio, but can sample and save music playing on an FM station and find similar material via the Web when the player is connected to your PC."

Check it out and read the article.

Posted by Craig in Mobile & PDAs and Music & Audio
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August 1, 2003

A Sane Voice in the RIAA Uproar?

Norm Coleman, a Republican Senator from Minnesota, has asked the RIAA to produce what sounds like a ton of documentation regarding its massive barrage of lawsuits and subpoenas against those suspected of trading music online.

This article in Wired discusses some of the concerns the senator (rightly) has about the RIAA's attack. Finally, there's someone in Congress with some moderation on this issue.

Posted by Craig in Music & Audio
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July 18, 2003

My Office Companion: The XMPCR

Are you one of the 692,253 subscribers (as of 6/30/2003) to XM Radio? I am and have been giving it a whirl for a couple of months. I was enjoying those 100 channels so much in my car that I just had to have the XMPCR. The XMPCR is a $69 hardware/software combination that brings XM Radio to your computer without eating up bandwidth. The shockingly small box comes with a USB-connected tuner, an antenna and a CD-ROM with all the drivers and software to get things running on a Windows computer. There is aftermarket software available for the Mac OS, Linux, FreeBSD, and there are already Windows alternatives.

So far, my experience with the XMPCR has been painless. It installed without a hitch and has never had a signal outage. I am on the family plan with XM so my two receivers cost me $17 per month. I have the XMPCR on nine hours a day and my Alpine about one hour per day (during the work week). That works out to roughly $0.08 per hour which is well worth it if I can stay away from the spreading menace of Clear Channel Communications.

With a little creativity you can even record your favorite stuff right to MP3 using something like Total Recorder. There is also a little project underway to equip the XMPCR with a digital output for superior sound quality and analog-free recording. The possibilities are endless and the entry fee is small. Great stuff.

Posted by Mitch in Computing and Music & Audio and Wireless
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July 2, 2003

The Sad State of Pop Music

I was having an email discussion with some friends today about the music industry. We were all pretty much horrified by the actions taken by the RIAA over the past few years. From lawsuits against individuals to near-complete domination of US legislators, the music industry is running unfettered and taking us music fans over the cliff with it. If the RIAA were actually doing a good job at working first for the interests of the artists and the fans instead of for their own pocketbooks, we probably would have many fewer complaints.

This, of course, lead to discussion about the advantages (and limitations) of using direct publishing in the music industry. That is, things get better (in some ways) when fans can interact with and buy directly from the artists without having to go though a publisher (e.g., EMI, Sony, Universal, etc.). Jørgen Sundgot, Editor-in-Chief of InfoSync World summed it up best when he said:

And possibly the best part of all? The music would be controlled by what people like, and we'd all be rid of scantily clad, goat-voiced, computer-synthesized, glossy hellspawn courtesy of big American music companies.

Until then, keep supporting the artists directly and the small, independent publishers when you can. Some good places to look for more info include the Association for Independent Music and the original music website, the Internet Underground Music Archive (IUMA).

Posted by Craig in Industry and Music & Audio
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June 15, 2003

A Radio Station in Your Pocket

Guglielmo Marconi would have been amazed. A combination of two diminutive devices, shown to the right, now lets anyone walk around with a personal radio station in his pocket.

The white device on the top is the Belkin TuneCast FM Transmitter. It will broadcast on four frequencies: 88.1, 88.3, 88.5, and 88.7 MHz. Although it was designed to aesthetically match an iPod, it will work with any device that has a 1/8" headphone or line out jack. It runs on 2 'AAA' cells (rechargeables work fine).

The shiny device on the bottom is the MPIO/Digitalway FL100 MP3 Player (see that link for my blog entry devoted to the FL100). It plays MP3s, tunes FM stations, records voice notes, and records off of the radio -- amazingly versatile for a 1.5 oz. device. It runs on a single 'AAA' cell. The battery and the memory card in the photo are shown for scale.

So, imagine walking around with virtually unlimited music in your pocket (the FL100 takes SD cards up to 512 MB) and being able to broadcast it to any FM receiver. Granted, the range of the TuneCast unit is a bit short -- roughly 30' line of sight in my usage testing -- but the fact that you can do this at all is pretty cool.

So, the total weight of this personal radio station, including batteries and an SD memory card, is a smidge over 4 oz. (113 g). Granted, while any personal music player could be used in this setup, the FL100 is the smallest I've seen to include an SD card slot. Now, what happens if I set the FL100's FM tuner to the same frequency as the TuneCast is set to broadcast on? Hmm...

Posted by Craig in Mobile & PDAs and Music & Audio and Wireless
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May 21, 2003

MP3 Server on the Cheap

A few posts ago, I mentioned that I maintain a dedicated MP3/music server at home. Here are the details in case you're considering setting something similar up or you want to let me know a better way to do it (I'm sure there are lots). Keep in mind that I wanted to do this for the absolute lowest cost reasonably possible.

First, I started off with a desire to be able to convert our complete CD collection into some easy-to-access, streamable format. Due to the ubiquity of MP3, and the limited options when I started this project, I picked that format and began ripping CDs using CDex. CDex is a great freeware utility that is constantly being updated and supports a variety of formats, including both MP3 and Ogg Vorbis, a wonderful open-source digital music format.

After generating about 15 GB worth of MP3 files (about 40% of our CD collection), I began to seriously look at exactly what hardware and software I was going to need to achieve my desired end state. I determined that I could set up a PC in the basement and feed an audio cable from it up to the family room on the first floor (where our main stereo system is). As I said, there are many ways to get your MP3 to feed into your stereo, but this was the easiest and most cost-effective option for me.

I determined I would need an 80 GB hard drive to provide enough room for our existing collection (about 50 GB) and allow for growth. For backup, I merely copy changes to the contents of one hard drive to a second hard drive in the same machine on a nightly basis using Second Copy 2000, a schedulable back-up application (well worth the measly registration fee). Better backup setups certainly exist, but mine is zero effort, automatic, and relatively safe (unless the entire PC is devastated, at which point I have bigger problems). The PC I use for the server is a rather meager 750MHz AMD Duron machine running Windows XP. While I could have stuck a nice sound card in it, the on-board sound seems adequate for my needs (at this point, at least). For $220, I got the base machine, and the two hard drives added another $200. Now, I needed to connect it to the rest of my LAN, so I dropped $60 for a Wi-Fi adapter card (running CAT5 from the 2nd floor of our 101-year-old house clear to the basement was not an option). So, total cost for the actual server was $480. A spare 17" monitor, keyboard, and mouse completed the basement installation (or so I thought).

So, with the server physically set up, storing the MP3s is no problem. However, now I need a management system -- some way to organize and play the MP3 files. After much searching, I settled on Real One Player, which is free and provides a really nice interface for cataloguing your tracks by artist, genre, etc. While it doesn't do everything I like, and it's a bit clunky in some areas, it's the best no-cost solution.

Now, when I ripped all my CDs, I didn't take the time to employ a rigorous genre categorization scheme. After all, my wife would have to OK all those decisions anyway. ;-) Plus, CDex at the time couldn't write both ID3v1 and ID3v2.3 (or v2.4). Given that I'm pretty anal about how my stuff is catalogued, this would never do (plus, it rendered the genre sorting function in Real One Player totally useless). So, I looked around for a good mass ID3 tag editor that would work across a network. ID3-TagIt fit the bill wonderfully -- I highly recommend this freeware app if you do much ID3 tag editing.

With the MP3s all ripped, categorized, and playable, I was ready to enjoy my MP3 server. Then I realized one glitch -- I either had to operate the server remotely, such as by using VNC, or I had to run down to the basement and operate the server directly. Neither of these options was acceptable, as they both required running stairs to start, stop, or change the music (the nearest VNC-equipped PC was on the 2nd floor).

The best solution turned out to be pretty interesting. I ended up running the video feed (TV out) from the server to the television that was next to our stereo system by fiching a second wire up the same route that the audio cable followed (thank goodness for 20' S-VGA cables). Now I could see the server from the same place I could control the volume, but that was only half the solution -- I still needed to be able to control the server. For doing that, I found a wonderful piece of tech: the Gyration Wireless Mouse and Keyboard ($99). The base receiver plugs into the MP3 server in the basement via USB. I mounted the receiver on the basement ceiling to get it as close to the family room as possible. The keyboard and mouse now live in the entertainment system armoir, taken out whenever I need to surf the web, control Real One Player, or do other music- or net-centric stuff in the family room.

For streaming, I use ShoutCast being fed by WinAmp. This works really well, especially now that I added the plug-in that lets me send WinAmp HTTP instructions to start playing, stop playing, etc. If you want, check out my setup (yes, you can actually hear what's on my MP3 server...just don't tell RIAA). All the streaming software is free for personal use.

So, what's the total cost for this project? Let's add it up: $480 for the server, $99 for the wireless keyboard/mouse kit, and about $30 in miscellaneous cables, adapters, etc. So, the grand total comes out to be $629. Not too bad, IMO, given that I can now use my family entertainment system as a true multi-media PC setup with really good audio (compared to most PC speakers, that is).

How would I change things if I was doing this today? Good question. As good and open as Ogg is, I would probably still stay with MP3, mostly because I have an MP3-friendly CD receiver in my car. I don't seem to need any faster PC for the server, so that's fine. Probably the only thing I'd do differently is get a better TV. Granted, this doesn't fall into the "lowest possible cost" category, but a nice LCD HD television would make for a rockin' monitor for this setup. Instead of running at 640x480 and having to guess at certain small fonts, I could run at 1280 x 768 (40" Samsung LCD) or 1366 x 768 (37" Sharp Aquos) or a mind-boggling 1920 x 1080 (the forthcoming 54" LCD from Samsung). I'm saving my pennies, for sure.

Anyway, let me know if you have questions or suggestions -- both are welcome.

Posted by Craig in Computing and Music & Audio
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May 13, 2003

Digital Music Formats

Will digital music formats ever settle down and standardize on something that everyone can get behind? We thought it would be MP3, but then we found out that MP3 is fettered with licensing requirements and it's not DRM-able...go figure. Sony came out with ATRAC, and now Apple is pushing forward with AAC. Ogg Vorbis is pretty awesome, but doesn't support DRM (to my knowledge). Then there's WMA, MP3Pro, and the list just keeps getting longer. So just about the time that I'll get my 50 GB MP3 collection all organized, I'll have to switch it all over to a new format. And then my car and personal MP3 players will need to be replaced. Of course, given that MP3 playing is being embedded in everything today from PDAs to phones to toasters (well, practically), how easy will it be to dislodge this as the standard any time soon?

Speaking of digital music encoding, CDex is an awesome GPL'ed utility for converting most anything to most anything else (especially handy for ripping CDs).

Posted by Craig in Music & Audio
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April 29, 2003

Lightweight MP3 Player

After briefly perusing portable MP3 players, I was stunned at the specs of one unit in particular: the FL100 from MPIO/DigitalWay (MPIO is the Korean name of the company, which is called DigitalWay in the US).

MPIO is the OEM producer of devices for Samsung (the Yepp series) and a couple other brands, so it has some experience in this product area. Its latest offering, the FL100, was introduced at CES, where it won a Best in Show award.

In nutshell, the FL100 is about the size of a large pack of gum (think 20 sticks of Juicy Fruit) and weighs under 42g (1.5 oz.) without the 1 'AAA' battery that powers it. In that diminutive package is an MP3/WMA player AND an FM tuner AND a slot for SD/MMC memory cards. You can get either 128 MB or 256 MB versions, making the possible memory on the thing a whopping half-Gig! For less than $200 for the 256 MB model, it sounds like a pretty sweet deal, as well.

The downsides I've noticed are USB1.1 (as Mike pointed out, a bit slow for moving 250MB of MP3 files) and the reliance on proprietary desktop software for RAM management. Other than that, this tasty little device looks pretty yummy. If you like, check out this detailed review at IGN Gear or buy one directly from DigitalWay.

Posted by Craig in Music & Audio
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March 14, 2003

Music

One thing I love about music is that it goes so well with technology. A few weeks ago, I spent about 10 minutes and set up Shoutcast server on my home network so I can broadcast my MP3 collection and listen to it at work (or wherever I am). If you want, listen to my stream. It consists of a random sampling of around 10,000 MP3 tracks that I've ripped from my personal CD collection (yes, it's all legal). Interestingly enough, if you listen continuously 24 hours a day to this stream, you'll have to wait nearly a month before you hear a repeated track. Note that you'll need either Winamp or Real Audio player to listen to the feed. Enjoy!

Posted by Craig in Music & Audio
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