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General discussion

iRiver PMP120 - can anyone help me get music on it?

by josmom Dec 17, 2005 2:50AM PST

Have a PMP-120 for my daughter for Christmas - I want to get her music on so when she opens it it's ready. But I have no idea what to do. iRiver told me I can't put the music I downloaded from MSN Music or Walmart on it - I need to put it onto a cd then copy it onto the PMP120. I tried that and it didn't work - iRiver told me I need to have the music in MP3 format. It's all in wma - does anyone know how I can get this music loaded?

Please help!!

Discussion is locked

3 Posts
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Interesting...
by John.Wilkinson Dec 18, 2005 9:17AM PST

The representative was partially correct, but way off at the same time. The iRiver can accept and play MP3, WMA, and WAV music files without a problem. However, it cannot handle WMA files that incorporate DRM (Digital Rights Management)-protected music. (You can read about DRM-protected WMA files by clicking here.) Unfortunately, the music you purchased from Walmart and MSN music is protected in this manner, and thus unplayable on the PMP-120. (This is stated in the Cnet product review.) What the tech was attempting to do is help you circumvent the copy protection by burning the music to a CD, then ripping it in an unprotected form. At this point I regret to inform you that I cannot aid in the circumvention of copy protection, as the legal waters in that part of the pond are murky. The best I can suggest is return the PMP-120 due to incompatibility (you cannot play any protected music that you purchase or subscribe to online). There's no excuse for a $500 PVP to not support DRM. (Even the $50 Walmart-special MP3 players support DRM!)

Sorry.
John

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Thanks John!
by josmom Dec 19, 2005 5:19AM PST

I thought this is what I was going to hear - but I was hoping there was something else to do. I have contacted ebay and paypal about the situation and hope they will find in my favor since the description on the item said "The PMP-120's format compatibilities extend from MP3 to WMA (Windows Media Audio, with full Microsoft Digital Rights Management compatibility)"
which lead me to believe there would be no issue in getting the music to the player.

Thanks anyway - hopefully we'll hear soon so I can run out and get my daughter another mp3 player.

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PMP-120
by drumstick Dec 20, 2005 3:29AM PST

I also bought one of these for my mother for Christmas with the idea of loading the player full of her favorite songs, pictures..etc. I took a case of CD's and copied them to my harddrive and then imported them into the player. To my horror, I received a 'Incompatible Format' on each one (due to the WMA format, which I found out after the fact.). Anyways, my solution was to find an Audio convertor program that convert the WMA's into MP3. Check the Downloads section of CNET, that is where I found the free audio program (unforuntely I cannot remember the name of it) but it works perfectly now.

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