MP3 Insider 118: MP3 Insiders get silly
The Ion Block Rocker in all its boxy glory.
Donald and Jasmine intersperse the silliness with details on the latest iPod Classic review, as well as information on the Sony E-Series Walkman and a very special member of the S-Series family. Also on the table: a super durable portable party speaker, a chat about podcast support, and free stuff!
Listen now:
Download today's podcast
 | Episode 118 |
iPod Classic reviewed: http://reviews.cnet.com/portable-video-players-pvps/apple-ipod-classic-second/4505-6499_7-33247504.html?tag=mncol;lst
Sony E-Series reviewed: http://reviews.cnet.com/mp3-players/sony-nwz-e438f-walkman/4505-6490_7-33270788.html?tag=rb_mtx;item_0
Ion Audio Block Rocker: http://reviews.cnet.com/portable-speakers/ion-audio-block-rocker/4505-11313_7-32331413.html?tag=mncol;lst
Last.fm 2.0 iPhone application: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13549_7-10054897-30.html?tag=mncol
----VOICE MAIL----
GIVEAWAY PRIZES:
iSound TimeTravel speaker + alarm clock: http://reviews.cnet.com/portable-audio-devices/dreamgear-i-sound-time/4505-6450_7-32041026.html
Snowflake portable professional USB mic: http://reviews.cnet.com/microphones/blue-microphones-snowflake-usb/4505-6469_7-33131110.html
BlueAnt BlueSonic Bluetooth portable speakers: http://reviews.cnet.com/speakers-speaker-systems/blueant-bluesonic/4505-6467_7-31935085.html
(You may specify your first, second, and third choices in the entry e-mail.)
RULES:
1) Winners will be picked randomly and announced on next week's show
2) Only ONE entry per person will be eligible for the drawing. (We will count the FIRST entry received.)
3) You must not be an employee of CBS Interactive.
4) You must live in the United States.
5) Entries must be e-mailed to mp3insider@cnet.com with the subject line "iPod Classic Giveaway"
5) Entries must be submitted by 11:59 P.M. PST Friday, October 10.
7) To be eligible to win, you must answer the following question correctly: In the one of Donald's iPod Classic videos, he uses a White Stripes song to demonstrate the Genius feature. What is the name of that song?
Donald Bell is CNET Reviews' senior editor for MP3 players and portable audio, and one half of the MP3 Insider blog and weekly podcast. He also likes getting his hands dirty with digital audio tools for musicians and DJs.- Topics:
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Donald Bell is an electronic musician, a veteran record store employee, and a fearless hardware hacker. He's also CNET's Senior Editor for MP3 and digital audio.
Jasmine France is CNET's resident digital audio doyenne, writing and editing product reviews, crave blogs, and feature stories on all things MP3. And if you need advice on headphones, she's your girl.
p.s. Great show
Once you have the podcast in the proper folder, if you come back to it after having stopped in the middle the player will have options to resume or start from the beginning.
My biggest gripe about this is that in an audiobook with multiple files, it doesn't remember which file you were last in, so you have to remember the proper file to get to the resume option.
This functionality may have come with a later firmware revision, so make sure you update that.
Also, the Clip in the firmware just released in the last couple of weeks also got added codec support just like the Fuze did. Additionally there are 8 GB Clips showing on Amazon and selling in some countries already.
I love my Clip for audiobooks and podcasts due to the way it does handle file resumption.
I have learned how to create smartlists to manage my podcasts on my I-Pod but I still get frustrated that even the I-Pod does not handle my podcast subscriptions a logical and useful manner.
Possibly on this or another CNET forum contributors could create a wish list for a player that is designed to play podcasts. My immediate contributions include:
A player that understands that a podcast is a file that only needs to be played once and then can be deleted.
A player that lets me manage different podcasts in different ways. For example with a daily financial podcast (such as the Wall Street Journal morning report) I want to hear today's report (not yesterday's report that I didn't have time to listen to). On other podcasts it is important that I listen to them in order (such as MP3 insider). Some podcasts are not worth listening to if they are more than a few days old. I want to put a 3 day expiration on those podcasts. Some podcasts are OK to listen to for weeks after they are posted. I want to keep the last 5 episodes of those with those podcasts being eliminated after I have heard them or after they time out.
I want a delete button. When the podcast gets boring I want to dump it - not have it remain in my player to relaunch at the bookmarked spot every time I restart my list of unheard podcasts.
I want a skip ahead button on the player. Similar to a DVR jump ahead button I want to advance by 30 second increments (or 1 minute increments). More and more podcasts are inserting commercials into the stream and it would be convenient to skip ahead easily. The fast forward feature on the I-Pod is pretty touchy and hard to use with precision.
I listen to podcasts in my vehicle and while I am working. I don?t need a big, fancy screen. I do need convenient controls on the player that don?t require me to focus on the player to operate.
Possibly I could come up with a few other ?wishes? for a dedicated podcast player but I would love to hear what other podcast listeners want in their players. Possibly our wish list will encourage a programmer to develop a player with features that work for those of us who use MP3 players to listen to podcasts and audio books.