128Mb Mp3 player and their lousy consumer friendly protection

hamster

Annoyance!

I was over in the States earlier in the year and while I was there I took advantage of getting a cheap mp3 player. I ended with a RCA lya rd1080 player (about the size of your normal 3 pin 13-amp plug). For $140, it came with with 128Mb internal and uses 2 AAA batteries (get about 5 hours worth with rechargables). Can add 128-256Mb with external cards. Uses a usb interface.

With the internal 128Mb I was able to add about 4-5 hours of high quality music (more for lower rates etc).

Also able to use as a 128Mb disc (121Mb available) which is handy!

The annoying bit: Have to use MusicMatch software (with plug-in) to be able to upload .mp3s (encoded as .mpy) to be directly playable. Of course you can copy .mp3 up on it like any other file but the player won't want to know.
On the player's memory is a folder "lyra-sys" which contains a special "mp3.exe" which plays these encoded .mp3s.

This is Copyright again getting in the way. Besides the obvious, what is wrong with just:
1) Drag and drop native mp3s onto your player.
2) having a player independent of platform and software, ie Musicmatch. (ie use on windows/ Linux)
3) not having to carry/install the software around with you where-ever you download music.
4) Besides I don't think you could depend on a software company continually upgrading a piece of software to keep with os upgrades. This ties in nicely with 1) above.

Other than that the player IS nice and small and would recommend. A snapshot here. http://lyra1080.tripod.com/
Would be interested to be hear other experiences.


Anyone try anything similar or the bigger heavier versions? ie Apple's IPOD?

hamster

Forgot to mention this detail on the external memory options:
The RCA RD-1080 can take either MultiMediaCards (MMC) or Secure Digital (SD) cards. Both are available in sizes up to 256MB.
Secure hmm....