ipod question

[rowjimmy]

Tet has clearly read up on the rockbox ipod 80g problem. Well described.

At this point they are having trouble even reading or writing to the drive. But they haven't given up...

It's great software, too. I'm going to add Doom to mine today, just to see how it plays.

[haleakalari]

It's great software, too. I'm going to add Doom to mine today, just to see how it plays.

ditto. i have my iaudio x5 set up with a dual boot firmware configuration (rockbox/original firmware), and never have any problems. btw, doom plays surprisingly well and looks really good, but navigating with a miniature silver joystick hurts the thumbs a bit, if you are playing fast or with a goal, the pain can be roughly equivalent to playing bass with round-wound strings on high action for 15 minutes. yes. not horrible, but fairly annoying.

[rowjimmy]

ditto. i have my iaudio x5 set up with a dual boot firmware configuration (rockbox/original firmware), and never have any problems. btw, doom plays surprisingly well and looks really good, but navigating with a miniature silver joystick hurts the thumbs a bit, if you are playing fast or with a goal, the pain can be roughly equivalent to playing bass with round-wound strings on high action for 15 minutes. yes. not horrible, but fairly annoying.

How's that x5 working for you? I've never spoken to someone who owned one, although I've coveted one for some time.

[haleakalari]

well, i have had it for like 4 or so months and have been very pleased with it. i dont really use it for video, but viewing pictures and reading text files works just fine. as far as audio goes, along with the more standard codecs (wav, mp3, wma etc...) it plays ogg and flac out of the box, which is great. it has only locked up on me once (i was toying around with the different usb modes a bit too much and it just froze) but it was easily fixed by turning it off and then back on again. battery life is amazing, i have had it last for longer than 10 hours without an extra charge. there are some neat audio plugins it comes with, one is called MPEnhance which is somewhat like the winamp plugin called rocksteady [it is a dynamic range booster which applies gain to lower frequency sounds]. you dont have to use any software for file transfers as it just mounts as an external disk. you can record from the built in radio tuner or the tiny microphone on the side. there are just way too many features for me to cover, but in short, it makes a great lossless audio player on its own, sound quality and battery life are wonderful, and if you add rockbox to it [which functions pretty well on the x5] it will play an even larger variety of audio formats. i dont know, i had the m5 before and i did not have any problems with that one either, basically i have nothing negative to say about it, except the mini-joystick takes a little getting used to.

[rowjimmy]

Sweet.
Thanks for the first-hand details.

[haleakalari]

no problemo, i wish i could have summed it up more precisely... but yeah its a solid piece of hardware.

[sophist]

getting ready to make the plunge and buy one.if i convert to the aac format(or whatever it is called)how many gd or phish shows can i expect to fit on an 80gb unit?i know you cant give an exact number...just looking for a ballpark figure.

Here's a related thread I started a while back:
http://week4paug.net/index.php/topic,5799.0.html

You'll see that the number of shows fluctuates, but the ipod is the best option for nuts who obsess over GD and Phish.

I love mine.  Its one of the best purchases I've ever made.