mp3/mp4 players support ideas

[bikersnake]

Hi,everyone!

 There are plenty of portable media players on the market,like
well-known iPod and similiar devices. Mac&PC users,even those
with Linux installed,are able to use these players with all their
features. AmigaOS users are not in such comfortable position.
Even if newly bought player will be recognised by Amy,most of
features will be out of reach because lack of software.

I've planned to buy an iPod,especially when I've found the
Amishuffle software by Thomas Meigel. It was a tool for
transferring music files to iPod Shuffle with Amiga(!).Author
has planned to add support for other iPod models in future,
including the initialisation of iPod under AmigaOS.Unfortunately,
it seems that mr.Meigel has suspend all AmigaOS projects,leaving
Amiga users with support for Shuffle only. Apple doesn't seem to
be interested with porting iTunes for other platforms than MacOS
and Windows.In that case,I've bought an iPod "look-like" player
VTec mp490 (1Gb).It has support for all popular video-formats,but
after conversion to .amv format.I haven't found any AmigaOS tool
for converting files into .amv (I could present more formats
not supported with AmigaOS).

 Amiga is "back in the business",its development is fast and
bright. Why there is still no software for such popular devices
like portable media players?

I'm not a programmer,I'm just a gfx-artist,and Amiga fan with
huge imagination about this computer,but I think that there are
few people whose programming skills are good enough to create
type of software mentioned above.Am I wrong?

[InTheSand]

Hi,

If your Amiga has USB, most of the non-DRM-crippled MP3 players will work fine as they use the standard mass storage device driver to operate when transferring files.

However, DRM-crippled players (iPod, Zune, etc) that aren't switchable to use the mass storage class (some are) will be unlikely to work with the Amiga unless someone writes specific driver software for it.

As for the AMV file format - forget it. Video converted into this format looks crap even on small screens and takes up tonnes of space - not the ideal combination for small devices. It's basically a cop-out format that requires little CPU power to play back and is used on cheaper so-called "MP4" players that don't have enough grunt to play back real formats.

And I'm not quite sure why you think Amiga is "back in the business"! It appears to be mainly in the business of doing nothing much at all...

 - Ali

[Piru]

Amiga is "back in the business",its development is fast and bright.

*cough*

[oddmario]

Buy anyone that works as a hardisk with usb and you should be ok.

Piru!
Try something for that cough  ;-)

[JimS]

InTheSand wrote:
If your Amiga has USB, most of the non-DRM-crippled MP3 players will work fine as they use the standard mass storage device driver to operate when transferring files.

I've been wondering if any of those cheapo USB players can be run over the USB connection? Can you send them a command that makes them play a track, etc? That could be a way to get mp3 players on classic Amigas.

[odin]

Agreed, buy anything which registers as a mass-storage device and you can probably even use it on a C64 if anyone has bothered to cobble together a USB interface for that ;-).


Samsung devices often support Ogg Vorbis, get one of those =).

[oddmario]

Liked the plug!

Iriver aswell works as a hard disk on my amiga

[AmigaHeretic]

@Piru

LOL!  I was thinking almost the same thing, only I was trying to figure out how to fit a *cobullsuhitgh* in there  :lol:

[InTheSand]

@AmigaHeretic:  :lol:

@JimS: AFAIK, this unfortunately isn't possible. When plugged in, such players just present themselves as a "dumb" storage device and in some cases turn off playback functionality while file transfers are taking place...

 - Ali