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The New video iPod can record stereo!

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bozo

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Recent reports of the new audio capabilities of the new video iPod are starting to emerge-why does video get all the attention-and there are implications here for the second generation of Hi-MD recorders:

http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/5649

What do folks think about the ability to record so many hours of uncompressed stereo on a 60GB device and get video capabilities for free? :blink:

[Mod edited the title and description to cut down on repeat threads. best regards Bt]

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What do folks think about the ability to record so many hours of uncompressed stereo on a 60GB device and get video capabilities for free? :blink:

The recording capabilities are certainly underplayed. You can barely find them in the specs:

http://www.apple.com/ipod/specs.html

which don't even tell you what kind of input it uses. The other reports suggest it's a line-in, not mic-in. That means an external preamp, or for loud music a battery box, for concert recordings. So it's the iPod plus another box.

Tell Steve Jobs to put a mic-in on that thing. and I've bought my last MD recorder. Until then...

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Yes,it is not like Apple to hide their lights under a bushel is it?!So how would it work?Not having used any kind of mic with an iPod before or ever recorded to one(I do have a 1st gen Hi-MD though)do you download additional software to the iPod?How do you set recoding parameters and so on?And now Apple have taken away the remote on the top leaving just the headphone output are there any existing accessories that would be able to take advantage of the new recoding capabilities in the new iPod?

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Well one benefit of this is Mac users can stop asking on the forum if or when Hi-MD can be used with their Mac. Now there is absolutely no reason to worry that the Hi-MD can't connect to a Mac (I know very recently Sony brought out a couple that can but sorry Sony - Too Late). Get an iPod! Sorry Sony, you gave me the $#$@%^ for years with your incompatibilities - now you are losing money hand over fist and Apple come along and remove the only thing the Hi-MD really had over other consumer devices. This really is another stake in the heart for Hi-MD - a format that could have ruled if only Sony had allowed its imagination to break through its intra departmental rivalries.

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You can record with the new Ipod. The next question is: can you upload those recordings? I think yes, but I wouldn't be surprised if you can't.

Nedlass to say, I am concerned by this. An Ipod that can record to its HDD and can upload WILL kill Hi-MD. Well Sony, there you go. Serves you right to have your butt kicked by one of the American companies you despise so much, for treating us like dirt all this time. Be grateful Kutaragi-san didn't include anyone from your MD team in the PS2 and PSP section. Otherwise you'd be screwed.

Yeah, I'm concerned and upset.

Ta.

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But my question would be: what is the maximum recording time (is there some kind of cut-off mark) and what is the battery life when recording? Can it really record 'in unit' or is this some kind of line-in through the dock?

I'm all for a HDD-based recorder the size of an iPod, but it had better be good! I guess we'll see how the Video iPod fares when people start to get them.

~Archivist~

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Sigh.

Can you set record levels? How about mic sensitivity? Does it finally have decent DACs? (The other iPods don't IMHO.) Does it have decent ADCs? So far, I've found that only professional equipment can beat Sony's sweet sounding 20-bit ADCs they put in their consumer equipment. Where is the noise floor? How about finally giving us a user-replaceable battery? Will the hard drive crash if I start to jog?

People buy iPods to make a statement. Too many obviously care only about quantity, not quality ("how much crap can I put on this thing?"). Same with video - no quality is remotely possible on a small screen like that. My VGA pocket pc (made in Taiwan) has a much larger, better screen and I have been encoding movies for PPCs since 2003. What's so special? Another US marketing company peddling cheaply made, yet expensive Chinese products? Yawn.

Wake me when there is a real alternative, thanks!

Cheers

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A recording mp3 player? Another one? So this one's white, ok, does that make it's recordings sound good? I doubt it. There are dozens of cheap and expensive digital recorders out there but none have so far matched MD for recording quality. I very much doubt that this will record well, the average iPod user doesn't want to record from anything but PC. I'm quite sure that MD and HiMD will still rule as far as the quality of real-time recording is concerned.

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Sound quality.

Dynamic range.

You compromise on both, if the recorder offers automatic level control only,

or if it doesn't even provide any form of level control.

Another point to consider: What has been done to keep interference away from the analog section?

And the quality of the A/D-Converter is also important.

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If it still records at 8 KHz samplefrequency (like other iPods do with special iPod mics) it is still pretty useless as it then only can record frequencies up to 4 KHz which is only usefull for limited quality speech-recording.

Addition: according to the mentioned article samplefrequency will now be 44,1 KHz: same as MD.

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^^ Now you see why I'm so concerned? I can almost see the hordes of I-pod drones rubbing their unit's record ability and upload speed (if any) on my sad face.

Shame on you Sony. A bunch of Gaijins were able to outdo you in a couple of years. With inferior hardware.

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Look closely at the product pictures - this thing has no usable i/o. You would need to buy accessories to hook up mics. If the headphone jack is used for "line in" you can forget monitoring or checking input levels. Too many hoops to jump through. Look, Hi-MD and iPod address very different markets. There is no competition - there never was. See, iRiver (what's with this i-crap, anyway?) had decent recording flash players, the iFP-7xx-8xx series back in 2004. You could switch line-in to mic-in, monitor, even set levels (but they had no level meters, no biggie). It was all built-in. Best quality was 44.1kHz 320kbps MP3, stereo, very high S/N, about 90dB. Not too shabby at all. Now, their new 2005 players have lost almost all ability to record. The ones that can require accessories!

What it boils down to is this: The player market will always be bigger than the distinct, separate recording market because the "powers that be" want you to buy the rights to listen to their garbage content at inflated prices instead of creating your own. It's that simple. Sony has nothing to worry about in this case, they have their own award winning, high quality HD players. Sony also sells far more audio equipment than Apple ever will. (I'm an Apple fan, I love their computers. Typing this on my Powerbook.)

So the next time some iPodder gets in your face, tell them that you prefer quality over quantity, and on top of that, in a pinch, your Hi-MD can double as a studio deck! Not that you would actually want to use it for this purpose, but you could if you had to. Enough said, and that's all the iPodders need to know. :P

Cheers

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I agree with you e1ghtyf1ve. But just to point out that the iRiver H120/140 (20GB/40GB) could record to WAV 44.1kHz and had optical in/out in addition to HDD an analogue line in/out. Never heard much about the recording features being used though. Theres a guy in our office has one, but hes never used the I/O on it. The later 320/340 dropped the optical I/O and the wav recording. I guess not enough people used it. However theres a modded firmware for 120/140's called rockbox which fixes a lot of issues, like gapless and recording from the radio. I think it adds OGG and FLAC support too. Of course its an old unit now.

But still theres nothing like MD which has decent battery life on AA's and is a an easier size for your pocket, especially if you are recording.

Edited by Sparky191
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Though I'm still concerned, 85, thanks for your reply. I actually have used my MD as a studio deck to record, edit, mix and channel-in my brother's band recording for church. Unless Apple adds some sort of editing utility (For a premium, heh heh) to I-diot Tunes, it will not be able to compete with the features of Hi-MD.

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