40 GB mp3/wma player 155 euro

Offalycool

I was givin one of the One4all vouthers for christmas, but didn't see anything I wanted in the sales. I was in Argos today and found This music player/harddisk for a great price (155 Euro), at least for a retail store. The new catalog is out this week, I think the player is a new addition. Lithium battery with a life of 10 to 12 hours- recharge takes 3 1/2 hours. It's not the most stylish looking thing, and is about the size of an old walkman. But I think it looks kinda retro, I like it. Grab em while there hot. Take a Look at this pic, not exactly like my one though -no camera!

Its a Venturer!

Endurance Man

Hmm, interesting, do you have a make/model number ?
No question, this thing looks horrible , but then im not to concerned with that tbh.

Offalycool

It's totaly cool.

Venturer HDD Digtial Audio Player, rechager, crap headphones, usb lead + cd for win98- compatability problams

The no. on the box is 513/3312d and there is a number on the manuel (on a sticker) HDP3202bs. Sorry I cant remember the catelog no. If u go to Argos, It's in the new catelog, at the end of the mp3 player section. It's got a small little box devoted to itself with the heading '40 gig players'. It's posativly the best value for money in the rag for music players! + Lady said it was strange that it wasn't marked down to be non returnable! u can have a look at it before u buy, just ask.

mickymg2003

No that was is the xmas catalogue for round the same price it massive but light. Your gettin what you pay for.

irishpal25

my friend got one of these. its bigger than an old walkman. if you dont mind having a huge bulge in your pocket its ok.

Endurance Man

irishpal25 wrote:

my friend got one of these. its bigger than an old walkman. if you dont mind having a huge bulge in your pocket its ok.

They must be using a 3.5" hdd :eek:

Offalycool

Yes, it is big. But I don’t think it’s a 3.5 HD.. Maybe I am wrong, but it’s not as big as my internal HD in my computer, and a lot quieter to. 40 GB’s is worth the extra size. The interface is well designed, and the sound is great. Buy an overpriced Sony or Apple if u like that kinda thing, I myself have various Sony products. Yet I think the value of this product is unbeatable. + its not bigger than an old walkman!

bombidol

I dont think it supports ID2 tags , so prepare for some renaming of ALL you Mp3s. the menus on it are awful.

Offalycool

I Think ur right about the ID tags, but I think the interface is simple and logical.

falipo

so is this worth buying? wat do the id tags affect btw?

Offalycool

I believe the ID tags are information about the track, such as artist, album etc that can be coded into the file, without actually including it in the name of the file. This file name is all that’s available.
The player recognises tracks names and artists.

falipo

so you wont have to rename them? i dont care to usch about tat

Offalycool

I don’t have to rename them. I suppose u shouldn’t have to either.

I dont know what ID2 tags are!

shanethemofo

dont get this it is huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge

Endurance Man

shanethemofo wrote:

dont get this it is huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge

Tbh i doubt that matters to many people including me. My mp3 player is either sitting on my desk or in my bag on my back. This obssesion with tiny gadgets baffles me, why must everything be so bloody small. Cellphones got so small at one stage you could hardly hit the keys, now we are seeing a backward trend with cellphones growing in size everyday.

Offalycool

I just wanted to let anybody interested know that there is a built in mike with good clear sound recording + a line in for recording directly into .wav format.

Agent Smith

can you just drag and drop the Mp3's? like a portable hard-disk?

Offalycool

Yes.. Its just like a portable harddrive. It only recognises mpg, wav and wma files but U could transfer any files you like.. Very handy. Leaving it plugged in all the time (external power required to charge it) would shorten the life of the battery considerably, like any other product with a battery eg. mobile phones.

LegacyUser

If it doesn't support ID tags, as described above then when you browse your music - you just see the file name? How do you categorize the music without tags?

Offalycool

I can explore the contents of the drive by either files/folders, artists, titles, albumbs, Genres + it has a folder for a playlist, recordings and licences (optional - to use Itunes etc).

I was confused as to the nature of ID2 tags, I still dont know what thay are, but I havent really looked to be honest.

I'll say it once more, "I am very happy with this product."

bombidol

Maybe im wrong but my mate got one and i had a look. And it was always by filename which is MAD bogey. Mate if you dont know what an ID3 / ID2 tag is you should really really find out

Offalycool

When I go into the music menu, I can select artists for example, I can then scroll through all the artists on the player. I select one and am presented with a list of all the songs by that artist, represented by their file names. I am sure there are more sophisticated music players with more advanced menu systems and yes I did get what I paid for, 40 GB's. I am happy with it.

The Muppet

The id tag issue is easily sorted . Tag and rename will allow you to batch process the tags and convert from one format to the other.

Goodshape

Any decent MP3 collection should have correctly named folders and files (ie. artist/album/01 - songname.mp3), so I don't see how it's all that much of a problem.

ID2/3 tags, for those that still don't know, tie that information (and more) into the file itself. So while the filename could be something like '2006_04qrr.mp3', if the ID2 tag reads 'Artist: Beatles, Title: I Am The Walrus', then that's what an ID2-capable player will display (where as this thing will just show '2006_04qrr').

Everyone got that?

And as Muppet said, theres plenty of free programs that will rename your files based on the ID2/3 info.

^whitey^

Can someone take a pic of their venturer next to a mobile or something to give me a good idea of the size of the thing.

Cheers.

falipo

^whitey^ wrote:

Can someone take a pic of their venturer next to a mobile or something to give me a good idea of the size of the thing.

Cheers.

id like to see this to

Caco

Goodshape wrote:

And as Muppet said, theres plenty of free programs that will rename your files based on the ID2/3 info.

Ya might find a few good tag editing programs here- http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=231147

All free too, Just look at the audio section!!

Offalycool

I'll try to get hold of a camera, It might take me a little while.

Thanks Goodshape, Invaluable advice.:)

falipo

sound offaly thanks for hooking us up

bombidol

yeah but the MP3 player from what i could see didnt recognise ID2/3 tags. So you were left trying to sort out your MP3s from filename only and the screen was too small / font too big to see the whole file name. It was competley random. MAybe im wrong as i only got to look at the thing for 10 minutes though. hopefully it does support them

Offalycool

I took the pictures using a phone.. sorry about the quality.

A few after points, I have being using this for over a week now and I must point out , The Shuffle feature is a bit lame, often reverting to the same songs in the same sequence, I guess the programing is a bit basic. There is only one playlist, that cannot be reorganized or manipulated using a computer. This is crap, but with all that space, building many playlists using folders is a viable option. I am also having problems playing the .wav format on my computer.. seems I'm missing codex. I have been able to play existing .wav files that are on the machine but I am having problems with my hard drive recently, and this may be responsible.

All in all, I'm still very happy with it, I have all my music hooked up to my stereo, it can be slipped into my bag when I'm on the move, I can move big files with ease and the battery is reliable. I recommend it.

^whitey^

Thanks for the pics. If you think of it not as an mp3 player but as a 40GB portable hard drive that can play mp3's with limited functionality it seems better

cormie

Well it doesn't look as big as this thing I was carrying around, seriously, it was massive!!

Anyway, click here for a great tagging program, with the "music renamer" tab, you can create folders from the id2/3 tags on an mp3, so just say your ID3 tag reads Artist: Mark O'Connor, Album: Heroes, Track: 01 - New Country, you can make tag scanner organise that so it will arrange them in folders so just say you make it do it on the desktop, it will be:

C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Desktop\Tagging\Mark O'Connor\Heroes\01 - New Country.mp3

so on your mp3 player it will be, whatever way you have it organised and whatever drive letter it may be:
H:\Albums\Mark O'Connor\Heroes\01 - New Country.mp3

This will also keep the ID3 tag.

To get these results, enter this code into the format field:

%1\%3\%7 - %2

If you have your music organised in a certain way, you can easily give your music ID3 tags depending on the file path and file name.

For example, if you have your albums organised like so:

C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Desktop\Tagging\Mark O'Connor\Heroes\01 - New Country.mp3

you can tag the mp3 so that the file name will be the track name, the folder that this is in (Heroes) will become the album name and the folder that Heroes is in will become the artists name (Mark O'Connor).

Artist: Mark O'Connor
Album: Heroes
Track: 01 - New Country

To use this, go to the "Tag Processor" tab and put the following codes in the following fields:

Title: %f
Artist: %U
Album: %D
Genre: %E (this will leave the genre tag blank, e for empty)
Year: (I leave this blank) Track: (I leave this blank too)
Comment: (I leave this blank also)

If you want to add in the Genre, Year etc, it's up to you, just use the appropriate formatting, personally I don't see any point in using Genre and a lot of the music I listen to can't be classed into a Genre so I just don't bother. I don't bother with Year or anything else either:)

I would advise making a copy of about 10 or so different mp3 files and putting them in tester locations and paths, run a test batch, check the file names, folder locations, ID3 tags etc, and when you're happy with it, you can do your whole collection:)