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General discussion

Really _big_ digital medial players

Aug 24, 2005 11:09PM PDT

Most of the digital media players I've seen lately have been in the 20 gig size. However, I know that my music collection is quite a bit larger than that. Certainly the 60 gig iPod is out there. What are some other large storage options? My collection is primarily mp3s that I've ripped from my own CD collection. Once I find some equipment, I'll be ripping my cassette and vinyl collections as well. So 60 gb may be too small for me to carry all at one time.

Any other alternatives? I suppose one of the small units designed for video might work - do they typically play mp3s as well? What about flac or ogg?

Discussion is locked

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The future is not in carrying 20GB+
Aug 24, 2005 11:27PM PDT

I have an unit that uses wifi to access what's on that PC for playback. While my CD collection pales to some, that makes it quite easy to have what I want without carrying yet another multigigabyte device.

If what I see continues, it will be just another feature in your cell phone to call home and either play direct or fetch what you want.

The future is not big.

Bob

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Re: wifi access vs local access
Aug 25, 2005 3:39AM PDT

I have read a few press releases about digital media players that would use wifi. Alas, that would be of no help to me, since my data is not on anything with wifi access. Perhaps the far distant future will have all data online in some fashion. Right now, though, between users with little to no internet access, and cell phone and wifi service being so spotty (depending on carrier, etc.), then I don't think in the short term that that will be a solution.

However, you've got my curiousity aroused - which player are you using which allows you to access your digital media via wifi?

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A cheap...
Aug 25, 2005 3:46AM PDT

refurb 239 buck iPaq rx3115. There are many new things in the works, but packing gigabytes is likely to be a short fad.

Bob

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Remote access - near future? No.
Aug 31, 2005 5:25AM PDT

I'm not here to start an argument Bob, but I think it'll be a few years before you can call home for your music...

Three years out you might be made fun of for packing a lot of music around (I pack 1GB on my flash player), but if you want fast access to all or most of your music away from home it's the only option in the immediate future. Besides, how long is a 60GB iPod going to last before you want to replace it? Maybe three years...?

-Sablazo

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Did you catch Apple's latest ... phone?
Aug 31, 2005 7:43AM PDT

No argument from me, but with the rx3115 and likely any wifi PDA that has MP3 capability, you can call home and get some new tunes. You don't need to be connected to play, but just to update.

Bigger hard disk MP3 players are, from my view a passing fancy.

Bob