Wintertijd

Congrats! Did you usb-host-it-up to your digicam already? I'm curious to find out how that works. After all, the most important feature of my mp3 player is it's image tank capability (reads CF cards).

Seeing as the Canon camera Chris has got (and much like my Canon camera) does not have USB mass storage support (in my mind an error on Canon's part), I doubt it works.

In fact, I don't think I like this player much. I also have a little mp3 player, which I wrote about here: http://tinyurl.com/dz96d

One problem is, for a lot of songs, you need to be able to go through the metadata for it to be useful. The iPod is probably the best at this currently, but it could still be much improved, imo.

Another problem that still hasn't been addressed is disk size. The iPod Nano, with 4GB is enough for a casual holiday or trip, storing around 40 albums. (I'll keep to a rule of thumb of 100MB per album, this is at high bitrates) Since I currently have over 700 cds (and increasing, and I'm not even talking about the lps and cassettes that I also have), this means I need at least 70GB in a player to have all my music on there. Adding a little room for growth, a minimum of 100GB is not too much to ask for.

Recording options are quite limited on most machines, although if they allow a line in from a mixing board and accurately record uncompressed, then that is enough for me.

Then, of course, there is feature creep. I don't understand why people want radio or video on these players, even though I regularly travel. (and sitting in airplanes can get quite boring) Still, I'm fine with the features being there (radio is somewhat of a problem though, as officially it immediately stops you from using the device on any airplane at any time), but you'd think they would fix primary features, like a good database for metadata and how to maneuver through it, first.

Let me ask you a simple question: does your player have random album playback? Can you easily switch it to random track?

The music player market is still making moves, I hope it will mature within a few years so that I can finally buy an acceptable solution. Till that time, a small, flash based solution seems the only way to go for me, to listen to a few albums at a time.

Well folks, it's actually compatible with the Canon 300 and 350 D. It explicitly mentions so on the Cowon website, and I tried it and it actually works. On the other hand, I rather stick my CF card with photos in the little reader I have for that, and attach that to the MP3 player (which works too) because it's faster. Canon USB is notoriously slow.

Furthermore I can randomly play the songs in one directory. And I can make playlists. And it's easy to get in and out of random mode. I can even use M3u files I make on my PC in this baby. All of this works quite well. So far, it's only been a huge improvement from the 1 GB flash player I've toyed with (MPIO 600 series). The interface is pretty much similar, but other functionality, better battery life and a more clear display do do the trick.

Currently I store about 250 Albums and some other misc stuff ripped at either 192 or 224 kbps. This is an excellent quality, and I still have 6 GB available for other stuff. Having *all* my music on there is undesirable. I'm pushing 1000 albums, but I cannot honestly say I listen to all of them all the time. SO this allows me to make a good selection.

Furthermore the Cowon people are pretty good at releasing new functionality in FirmWare releases, so I don't think the X5 is a locked device by any means.

"going through meta-data" is not something I need to do as I meticulously organise my MP3's. I only rip whole albums, and I don't like slack. Hence I don't need to go through meta-data to find stuff I want to listen to. Having that functionality is fine if you download a lot of stuff from dubious sources and don't mind to re-name any of it on top of that. But then, who would want to rely on ID3 tags in downloaded songs? Somehow they always end up with stupid things like saying that Bob Dylan wrote and sung "Stuck in the middle with you" simply because the cretins out there never heard of Gerry Rafferty and Steelers Wheel (Scotsmen, by the way).

Lastly, if the FM radio isn't activated, it doesn't receive or transmit anything. Thus making it possible to use it on an air-plane. Also, having a radio can be nice if you're in countries that have good radio broadcasts to start with such as Germany. Then, you can even record directly from a Broadcast.

-compatible with the Canons, cool! (then again, I'll just buy a compact flash card that is big enough (or 2 or 3 cards..) and skip the extra step)

-random and random from directory. That's a useful alternative to actual DB access, depending on how you organize your directories/files. Playlists I've never particularly liked, although they work for some. I suppose you can even create "genre" playlists ;)

-"metadata only needed for randomly downloaded tracks"
It seems you never used a good music metadata program. I can recommend amaroK http://amarok.kde.org/ or, if you must, itunes, the poor mans alternative. (for windows, musikcube might turn out to be an alternative if development doesn't stop)

I have ripped most of my music myself and have made sure it is all with filenames I want, with correct tags and everything. And maneuvering the directory structure, no matter how well designed, simply doesn't hold a candle to a well designed meta data interface. If you don't feel you need it and are happy with roaming your directories and playlists, fine, that's your prerogative. I know it can be better and want it to be better.

Just an example, you have around 1000 albums, of which you take approx. 250 with you on your player. I assume you don't want to limit what you listen to to just one fourth of what you have, so you will change the albums you have on the player regularly. This means you won't always know exactly which albums you have on the player at any given time. Suppose you don't know exactly what you want to play at some point. If you have to go through the directory structure, you are likely to always end up at the same albums. Simply having a list of all the albums will make the process already a lot easier. And random album play will definately get you to hear albums you haven't heard for a while, as I found out after I got a player with good metadata support. (winamp sucks for this, just fyi, but I use it to check out new albums, it is fine for having a small playlist)

(and by the way, if you download stuff, just rename the files and edit the metadata so it reflects what you think is right, very easy to do)

-Radio. Even if the radio is switched off, you are still not allowed to use it. "any device with an antenna" I don't think they will check very often, but I'd rather do without, if I have the option. Even if there are countries with relatively bearable radio stations, like Germany and, especially, France. Recording from radio is a funny idea and you'd need a better antenna (does it have the option of connecting it to external antennas?) for things you'd actually want to keep, like live shows. But again, radio isn't such a big deal for me, it's just that I don't see it adding any value.

It's not that I hate the current players, far from it. I have one that has some drawbacks, you have another with other drawbacks. (and I'd like to play with it to see how well the trade-offs work, the controls seem complicated, but it's hard to tell) I am simply saying that there is no player that is good enough yet. I am hoping one will come out soon, as I've got the money ready for it..