I carried the above discussion to this forum from
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/showth...25&pagenumber=2

This post is not completely on Ogg Vorbis but it is about Vorbis/AAC/MPC support by i-River.



I remember that I saw an email in Vorbis mailing list from i-River stating that they'll support Vorbis, actually that's how I realized i-River exists and was madly happy. Then I visited their page and believed naively in their advertisement about future vorbis support, though it was vaguely stated, and got a SlimX. I continued to believe for a couple of months that Ogg support is near. When I got impatient eventually, I sent them an email asking about it...

When I emailed , I got a reluctantly written 2 line response that there's no definite date for Ogg support. The guy at sounded more well-informed (not only on Ogg issue but also was aware of the fact that his job is only to answer those emails so he'd better do it good) but he just said they have been planning to support Vorbis although I specifically asked whether they're working on it or not. Just that, no further comments on when or the progress or how serious they're. I know Ogg Vorbis project didn't hit 1.0 yet and I'd appreciate if they said they're actually waiting the project to mature. But from their responses what I inferred was that they are not actually working on it, it's just theoretically possible. Therefore I believe their advertising is absolutely misleading.



frozenspeed, if you still keep that email that says they'll have a concrete schedule by the end of april, could you send a reply and ask about that? I'm sure there're so many iriver customers out there who picked SlimX because they believed i-River will support Ogg (or AAC or MPC) soon.

--Alp

In reply to:

frozenspeed, if you still keep that email that says they'll have a concrete schedule by the end of april, could you send a reply and ask about that? I'm sure there're so many iriver customers out there who picked SlimX because they believed i-River will support Ogg (or AAC or MPC) soon.




Heheh... Sorry I couldn't reply to this sooner, I just got back from vacation with my wife on our first year anniversary (YAY!) but even before I read this thread, I had just sent off another email to Iriver, requesting information about support for the ogg vorbis codec. Last time I mailed them they got back to me relatively quickly and since I now have finally finished my bachelor's in software engineering (double YAY! I have a lot to brag about these days!) I will have more time to pester Iriver about the project.

Oh- btw, I have no idea how to use the formatting text in this forum so if this comes out all messed up, my apologies.

-Jeffrey

Does anyone know which companies currently have the license for Tremor (the integerized decoder for Vorbis)? Maybe some insider from Xiph would know. If i-River has it then we may conclude they're serious. Otherwise there's still a chance that i-River guys will try to integerize the decoder themselves. Though not too much...
--Alp

Here is the reply I have received from iriver today (May 7, 2002) regarding the status of the ogg vorbis codec. I personally am not happy with this but who knows what it might mean:

Jeffrey,

Our Research and Development has Ogg Vorbis under consideration to support in the future, but there is not a definite date at this time.


Regards,

Erica L. Briggs
Customer Service Representative
iRiver America, LLC
Direct: 408.452.7940
www.iriveramerica.com

Well that's the complete message I received this time which isn't quite the detail they gave me previously but makes me wonder if they're just using the possibility of ogg vorbis as a merketing tool/ gimmick at best. hrmpf.

-Jeffrey

thne again.. that's US
ok. I get a similar message from korea, but more positive.
I'll quote the next reply

here a reply that i just received from iriver (they are very quick to reply!) :

We never said anything about new formats in April, so I am not sure where that came from. In the second caveat of yours, all I can say is we have 5 engineers currently working on that and 1 additional format. No comment on when it will be released to the consumers. Thanks for writing.

Cheers,

Christopher Lee Papazian
Marketing Manager
iRiver America, LLC
Direct: 408-452-7960

www.iriveramerica.com

i hope this "1 additionnal format" will be ogg and not AAC or worse mp3Pro....

Hmm, I think what he's trying to say is they have 5 engineers working on that (which is probably Vorbis since you asked about it) and an additional format, which I think is probably AAC. I guess so because iDP-100 (http://electronics.cnet.com/electronics/0-...l?tag=pdtl-list) supports it and it is kind of popular among those companies which are trying to limit digital music sharing (like Toshiba) and support secure memory cards or DataPlay discs. DataPlay and i-River are somehow affiliated partnerwise. But I don't think DataPlay is ever going to get popular and eventually iDP line is going to fade out. Unfortunately instead of putting effort into making DataPlay enabled players they could've assigned more engineers for Ogg support. But I think they will be quick to realize their mistake that no proprietary format is going to survive. I wonder who's going to buy iDP-100 with a price tag of $370, requiring more expensive WORM discs and could only play in encrypted CK format (bringing additional quality loss in conversion). So let's hope i-River comes up with DVD players next year as DVD+RW drives get popular.
--Alp