CONSUMER GUIDE: PORTABLE MP3 PLAYERS
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Hard drive or flash? Depends on how much music you want to download
and how much you want to spend
February 16, 2003
BY BEN SCHMITT
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
First there was the VCR. Then came the DVD. And just as the PDA
(personal digital assistant) is becoming a household acronym, the MP3
is taking over.
MP3 stands for Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG), Audio Layer III.
When choosing a portable MP3 player, think size and
compression.RIPPING
A common way to use an MP3 player involves downloading your CD
collection. Doing this requires a recording process known in geek-
speak as ripping a CD. Many MP3s come with the necessary software,
which can easily be downloaded onto your computer.
A CD ripper takes data from a CD and converts it to a wave file,
which is made up of uncompressed and interchangeable audio data. How
long it takes to convert data from a CD depends on the speed of your
computer's CD-ROM. An average is about 10 minutes.
With some players, you can compress and download your entire music
collection and categorize it into listening files. With others, which
are cheaper and don't hold as much music, you can work out at the gym
or take a jog with a musical device about the size of the palm of
your hand.
"The biggest question I get when people come in shopping for MP3s
is: 'How much music can they hold?' " said Rich Krupa, who works in
the computer section at Best Buy in Roseville.
The answer lies in how much money consumers are willing to spend and
what they want to get out of their MP3. Keep in mind that there are
two major types of MP3s: hard drive players and flash players.
Hard drive players, such as Apple's iPod or the Archos Jukebox
Studio, allow owners to download up to 400 hours of music
(approximately 4,000 songs) onto the player. They generally range in
price from $250 to $500.
Flash players, such as the SONICblue Rio S50 or the Creative Labs
Nomad II, do not use hard drives but instead use memory cards that,
on average, hold up to four hours of music. The memory cards, similar
to those used in digital cameras, are interchangeable and can be
recorded over. So if you have two hours of music you use for working
out, you can either record over the music when you get tired of it or
pop in another memory card with different music. These can be bought
for as little as $120.
"More and more, the MP3 is becoming a tool of the trade, like a
regular PDA," said Gina Eldridge, marketing director for Archos
Technology in Irvine, Calif.
MP3 music files are CD-quality compressed recordings. This is one of
the reasons that MP3 format music files are gaining popularity with
music lovers. They're the perfect way to get legal music files over
the Internet without lengthy download times.
Some of the major issues users care about when it comes to comparing
MP3 players are: the number of songs they store, how easily they can
find a desired song, sound quality, how easy it is to load music into
the gadget and where they can use the player. (Some players can be
hooked into stereo setups at home and in the car.)
"The only drawback to MP3s versus standard CDs is the sound quality,"
said Karl Brauer, editor-in-chief at Edmunds.com, an on-line resource
for auto consumers based in Santa Monica, Calif. "However, most
people can barely tell the difference, even under perfect listening
conditions. In a car, where there is always a certain amount of wind,
engine and road noise, a format like MP3, which is near CD quality
but offers far more custom features and storage potential, is
perfect."
Some models also pick up FM radio stations and have voice-activated
microphones, which allow them to function like a hand-held tape
recorder. You can even download the voice files to your PC.
"Consumers are very excited by MP3 and the whole possibility of
owning one," said Stan Ng, product line manager for Apple's iPod. "If
you have 50 or 100 CDs, you're forced to grab five or so and bring
them along with you wherever you go. With MP3s like the iPod, you
never have to take the music along. You have that entire music
collection in your pocket."
Legal issues
There are plenty of Web sites that allow you to legally download free
music to your MP3 players. These sites, including www.mp3.com and
www.pp3now.com, usually feature up-and-coming musical artists who
want to gain exposure.
The federal Home Recording Act allows you to make copies of your
music CDs for personal use. You cannot share or sell these copied
files or CDs. Once you have distributed these files to individuals
who do not own the original CD, you have broken copyright laws.
You are not permitted to go on the Internet and trade your MP3 files
with people who do not own their own copy of the CD. Note that
copyright laws that pertain to ripping and encoding legally purchased
CD audio music for your personal use vary from country to country.
Despite the fall of Napster, many illegal Web sites allow you to grab
any song you want and download it to your computer. It then can be
transferred to an MP3.
The music industry was initially reluctant to endorse MP3 because of
the threat of wholesale piracy.
Apple's iPod comes with a disclaimer advising you not to steal music.
"We encourage people to do the right thing," Ng said. "We understand
artists need to be compensated. The iPod is about taking your music
and CD collection and bringing it with you."
SONICblue has a different philosophy.
"We don't actively monitor our customers one way or another," said
Kevin Yeung, senior product line manager for SONICblue. "We're
primarlily just a hard-drive manufacturer. Where people get their
music files (is) not really our business."
Douglas Kinloch, business development manager for Infinite Data
Storage, an international consumer electronics technology development
company, said music piracy from the Internet is going to continue to
be a concern "until the law catches up with the technology."
And MP3 players appear to be on the upswing, Kinloch said.
"We're already beyond the stage of an MP3 being a luxury item where
only the geeks and enthusiasts are into it," he said.
Contact BEN SCHMITT at 313-222-6597 or schmitt@freepress.com.
AI
