Can any one give information on the availability of hardware players for ogg format

thanks
-saji

I assume you mean hardware players that play Ogg Vorbis.

Check this list out

http://wiki.xiph.org/VorbisHardware

I've got a Cowon iAUDIO M3 myself. I haven't tried mine out with Ogg files yet though, but I plan to somewhere down the track. I've got to re-rip some of my CD's first though.

It's a nice device in all respects though, also has FLAC support

You should try FLAC and Vorbis out on that device. I haven't gotten a difinitive answer as to if it plays these formats gaplessly or not. I do know it doesn't play mp3 gapless.

According to a french user, gap is very short, but is present, even with gapless audio format :/

Doh. That company seems to activly update the firmware for their devices so one could home gapless playback will be added in the future. I'll have to stick with my Karma forever at this rate.

Xclef HD-500 (only HD-800 is shown) and Pogo Ripdrive are missing from that list - both support Ogg with a firmware upgrade. I have a Karma, but prefer Ripdrive due to higher capacity (100gb) and better sound quality, although without gapless playback.

For scandinavians one could add Jens of Sweden MP-400 to the list as well, it should be out soon.

People, this is a Wiki -- why not add it yourself ?

Actually, with the latest firmware, the M3 plays my MP3's gaplessly.

The effective implementation of gapless on DAP's all depends on cache size, I don't know what the M3's is, but if you make an efficient playlist, it'll play the songs without gaps.

I'll try ripping a CD with FLACs and Oggs to test it out

Really? So you can get gapless playback by using playlists but not just by having it play files?

Actually, what I said was slightly incorrect. It'll play songs gaplessly with or without playlists.

I use playlists all the time, so that's what I was using as to refer to. Even when I use random shuffling, the gapless playback works very well.

So to answer your question, no you don't need to use playlists for gapless if you don't want to. It just queues files up in the cache and spins up the HDD during other songs to keep the cache filled (hence essentially gapless).

Firmware after 1.30 support this. Before the HDD had to spin up after every song

So gapless works for FLAC's and ogg's too?

jnc-digital

http://www.jnc-digital.com.au/products_details.php?id=32

i love my iriver ihp-120.

OMFG!

And the M3 is available in a 40GB edition...

And hell hasn't frozen over yet...

If this is really true, I'd be a happy camper indeed.

Ivegottheskill, do you happen to have "The Wall" by Pink Floyd? If you do, could you record the track change between "The Happiest Days Of Our Lives" and "Another Brick In The Wall Part 2" for me? I'd really like to hear some proof of this gapless playback capability, and I always use this particular track change to test it.

Edit: I noticed I still have the MP3 samples from those Pink Floyd tracks on my webspace:
http://users.skynet.be/bk343709/Audio/01.mp3
http://users.skynet.be/bk343709/Audio/02.mp3

So, Ivegottheskill, could you please copy 01.mp3 and 02.mp3 to your player, play them in order, record the output and upload the resulting file somewhere? I'd be very grateful if you would do that for me.

Edit2: Hmmm, according to this thread, it's still not gapless with 1.30...

Edit3: And this doesn't sound very promising either. It's created with a beta firmware version, though...

I did the test with those particular tracks, and there is indeed a small "gap" (around 1/10 of a second as mentioned by others).

I was surprised, because with all the music I listen to, there doesn't seem to be any gaps (perhaps because usually there is a more significant divide between tracks on albums).

I would post a file, but I'm not sure what would be the best way to do it. I tried playing the song through the earphones into the mic, but it came out very poorly and softly (the problem is likely to be my cheap mic, or the settings within Windows for it).

Even Winamp couldn't play those 2 songs together "perfectly" as one track. One would have better success joining the two tracks in cases like this. Most hardware and software can't seem to do it.

I'm full of praise for the M3 otherwise, but unfortunately, it still does not seem to fulfill your requirements in this area. There's continuing great pressure on DAP makers (including iAudio it seems) to provide this.

No reports if the M5 (M3's supposed successor) will provide it, or if a future firmware release will fix this. Here's hoping that they will

BTW, the latest version is 1.31 and is not beta. The first version to include FLAC support and attempt to reduce time between tracks was 1.30b2 (which was a beta version)

EDIT - I've got a FLAC copy of my recording (as I said, relatively poor quality, but a general idea can be gained from it). Is there anywhere I can upload it? Like a free file storage site or something (it's 600kb)

Thanks for confirming this.


Did you use in_mpg123 as the MP3 decoder, and did you set a "prebuffer on track change" (or something like that, I haven't used Winamp in ages)? If you do this, it should be gapless. Of course, it should be gapless in foobar2000 "out of the box".

I'd be interested to know if using Ogg Vorbis instead of MP3 would make any difference. Gapless MP3 playback requires a bit more work than gapless Ogg Vorbis playback. Or, to put it another way, there is a lot more software that plays Ogg Vorbis gaplessly than software that plays MP3 gaplessly.


You could try posting it in the Uploads forum.

Thanks. I didn't see that upload forum. The FLAC is 600kb (still kind of large, but it compressed well from a 1.8MB wav).

I haven't tried with Ogg files. I haven't got many CD's with an obvious track change like that (most have fade ins/fade outs)

Here's the thread:

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=29328

I now also created Ogg Vorbis and FLAC samples, in case you'd like to test those. I also created a small webpage to host them, so I can easily refer back to them in the future if necessary.

http://users.skynet.be/fa828592/Audio/gapless.htm

iRiver players play *.ogg files.

The iRiver players all seem to have a weird limit of 96k minimum bitrate.

Anyone have a suggestion for a small flash based player like the iriver 7xx/8xx that doesn't have such limits? (removable battery, and usb-keyfob like abilities would be a major plus).

What about the Rio Karma? I heard that it's gapless and supports Ogg and FLAC

I hope iAUDIO can "fix" the gapless issue with a (not-to-distant) future firmware update (as opposed to it being some kind of limitiation within the hardware/cache itself)

I have the Rio Karma and it's absolutely wonderful.

Plays FLAC, Vorbis, and MP3 gaplessly. It loads MP3s instantly, and you don't know the meaning of instant until you've tried MP3s on the Karma!

I'm Korean. Sorry for my poor english.

All iRiver Flash player have limitation. (<96kbps)

My Suggestion:IAUDIO G3,U2 IOPS F4... These players have wide support range(q0-q10). U2 and G3 have various sound effect(BBE,MP Enhance...).
IOPS F4 have SRS sound effect.

That Wiki states that the iMP-350 CD player (which I have) supports OGG in a new firmware upgrade. But looking at iRiver's site, I see no mention of OGG in their 2.30 firmware upgrade and if you look at the FAQ it says this:

Now, iRiver IMP-350's lastest firmware is 2.80. (ogg support >2.70)
But it is Korean and Chinese version only.

I see. Are there no plans to release the firmware for the North American versions?

Not that it is a real big deal to me. I'm much less excited about OGG support in the iMP-350 since I found out the bitrate must be between 96kbps and 160kbps.

actually it is not mentioned: Kiss Players. I'm using DP-1000 without monitor. if you have a well remembering brain you can easy cycle through folders, if you don't you just drop the ogg without folders onto DVD or CD. then just put the medium into it, and it will play just fine.

so this one has to be mentioned as ogg player in my opinion

Just tried the iAudio M3 with the latest firmware (1.34) and Vorbis playback is still not gapless. Actually, there was an annoying click between the two tracks.

I just bought a Jens Of Sweden's MP-400... what a cool thing... little, light, the rechargable battery actually lasts for 20 hours, and best of all, it supports Ogg Vorbis! The MP130 from JOS is also quite good, and supports Vorbis as well... so Vorbis is starting to go places!

Does the MP-400 play gapless?

As far as i know the Rio Karma is the only one that support gapless playback for Ogg/mp3/wave (concerning mp3 players, i don't talk about Atrac players)

There's a Philips player that advertises gapless playback, but I'm too lazy to find the model number.

What about the DCube 150D? (reseller review UK, US reseller).

Apart from the integrated battery(?) it seems perfect to me (really don't need multiple gigabytes of storage).

Plenty of storage, Vorbis support, USB2, USB Storage, FM radio, SRS WOW, 24bit Wolfson codec, etc.

It seems that my theory about small vendors need to support OGG (and WMA, AAC) to have a chance to gain market share against iPod etc just plays out very nicely. More and more OGG support. This is the coder of my choice and I was agonising on it for long because its HW support was in infancy. Well I made the aformentioned prediction and I am glad that so far I seem to be right.

Actually this DCube thingy is special because they claim OGG support up to -q 10!!! So far only M3 Audio did that.

Can somebody confirm that it has the CPU power to support -q 10???

Triza

I'd like to read an independent review of the DCube, I'm really tempted to get one. A bit pricey to get "blind" though.

Found they've opened an english version of their site, with a downloadable users manual.

Unfortunately it's a MS Word file, not a PDF. Doesn't bode well :-\

Edit: Well, it confirms some good things (is a true USB Storage device, firmware is upgradable, lyrics support seems great, fonts can be uploaded/replaced (which presumably means it shouldn't be a problem getting it to display any quirky national characters)), but doesn't mention vorbis that I could see. Would like 100% confirmation that it actually plays vorbis natively, since they do provide a "download manager" which could concievably be doing conversions.

But I do hope only Sony is as stupid as that.

I believe the H100 and H300 series iRiver players will play -q 10 no problem either. At least I've never had on refuse to play on my H120.

H140 plays vorbis q5 and q6 with no problems, except for reduced battery life compared to mp3.

I firmly believe the Vorbis battery life reduction is simply because the decoder isn't optimised very well at all. If more work was done on the decoder then I'd say we'd get much better battery life with it than we get now.

i just got this tiny 512mb solid-state mp3/ogg/asf/wma [as if i will every play an asf file anyway...] and so far i've played up to -q 6 without any probs.
check it out. will try to encode higher asap. Comes with crappy ear-buds tho :/ still 30mW @ 16ohm is not that bad considering its size.

http://www.ez-av.com/english/product/emp_400.html

[edit]
sie = size

Seems cool, however the link you posted is for the EMP-400 which the specs state is only 256MB. I think you may have meant to post this link: http://www.ez-av.com/english/product/index.html

Seems odd that they don't have a direct link to the EMP-500 though, the link for it just is just an index page

erm the emp-400 _does_ come in 512mb cause that's the one i got lol . the site might not mention it. emp-500 is a totally different model.. [and i assume more expensive - wasnt on my supplier's website anyway ]

par example:

http://www.advancedmp3players.co.uk/shop/p...products_id=436

[edit]
Added URL

My mistake, seems they need to do a quick update to their website. I like the look of the EMP-400 better anyway.

Jetaudio, also know as Cowon has a great line of players that not only can play OGG files but also support vorbis gain with firmware upgrade.
The modesl are G3, U2 and I5.
Link here
http://www.jetaudio.com
The new Lexar LDP-800 (available march 2005)
is going to support OGG files and the best is that it supports SD cards up to 1Gb.
Is almost a perfect flash based player.
but too bad they didn't make it to use AA batteries.

Here is the link for the lexar.
http://www.lexar.com/ces/Data%20Sheet_LDP800.pdf

It seems that OGG is gaining ground.

If only players like the Creative Muvo would support OGG playback.

They use standard batteries, require no cable or driver (Removable Drive, Quick & Easy) and are very compact. Does anybody know an alternative from a different manufacturer that does support OGG?

Hey Thomas, I'm telling you Jetaudio G3 is awesome.
$215 for 1Gig.

Check it out here.
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc....-603-814&depa=0

I've been taking a look at the iAUDIO web and it's wonderful, at least the M3 one, woaa, what features !!, and let me ask u sth, due to I don't have a fast internet connection and this page takes too long to load, does anybody know if they are selling or planning to do it outside Korea?

The other possibility (I'm currently planning to buy one), would be the Rio Karma, but it's a little outdated. 20GB aren't too bad but in my case, 40GB would be the right solution and also the Karma doesn't support other files than audio ones, so you can't use it as hard disk drive to store other stuff than music. And what about the joypad?, I dunno if I'm right, but it doesn't seem to last too long

Anyway, I wish those iAUDIO begin to sell here in Western Europe ASAP, if they aren't currently. Any online shop ?

Finally, does anyone know if either Karma or any iAUDIO player support cue sheets (*.cue) files alongside with an audio file as a playlist (*.pls/*.m3u) with several audio files ?

Well, they do actually, at least in Germany. For instance http://www.mp3-player.de/

I'll take a look, but the english version is in progress, so I'll look around and wait until translated