[ILUG] [OT-ish] Q: iRiver H340, Linux, USB1.1/2.0, comments?

[Sarunas Vancevicius]

On 14:13, Thu 23 Jun 05, Brian Foster wrote:
>  player in an attempt to replace the noise with something
>  rather more pleasant:  my collection of >c.1500 music CDs.
>  since I am a bit of an audiophile, I _insist_ on a high
>  generally been ripping my CDs to Ogg Vorbis (albeit some

Just a warning, ogg files drain battery faster than mp3s.

>   ergo, I am looking for a large capacity (i.e., HDD),
>  Ogg-capable, good fidelity ???mp3??? unit, which can be used
>  with Linux over USB (1.1 ?).  that search keeps leading me
>  back to the iRiver H320 (20GiB) and H340 (40GiB) units.
>  so, since my searches keeping leading to the same place,
>  I am now looking very closely at the H340 (International
>  (not US) Version).

Bough a H320 yesterday, it works perfectly on Ubuntu Hoary(plug in
the cable, and H300 icon appears on desktop) and FreeBSD 5.4. From 
a quick test, I get copy speed of ~10MB/s from mp3 player, so its on 
USB2.

>   does anyone have any experience with either unit (H320
>  or H340)?  any comments?  or suggestions?  is there an
>  alternative I should seriously consider (the iRiver's

So far I'm happy with it. Plays videos very decently(watched an
episode of Family Guy with no problems yesterday), but you need
iriverter to encode the video to the right resolution. 

With the case, it is a little thick -- its not very easy to put/take
it out from jeans pocket. And it was rather uncomfortable to keep it
in my jeans pocket on my way home on a crowded rush our Commuter train
today.  Hopefully, a remote will help. You can get LCD emote from H100 
series and H300 (but its not an LCD AFAIK). I think its around $50 on
ebay.

Having ID database slows down the boot time dramatically, and all
you get scroll through all of your Artists, Albums and Genres.

I organised my music collection(30GB) few days ago using
TDT(http://tdt.sourceforge.net/) -- but its Windows only, using 
first_letter_of_artist/artist/album hierarchy. But I think I'll
switch to Alphabet sections (ABC, DEF, etc) hierarchy cause it is 
slow to get to the end(requires 3 screen scrolls). See
http://www.misticriver.net/boards/files/File_FAQ.php this for more
info.

An alternative is Cowon iAudio X5, it was recently released, and
from the reviews its better -- by that, it means has more features,
even better sound quality(don't know if you can actually notice the 
difference), nicer slimmer scratch proof design, USB2OTG, on the 
fly play lists, a _real_ shuffle, and so on. There are few cons, 
like proprietary connector, smaller and lower resolution screen, 
lower battery life for non L models, left placement for the earplug
socket. Read the reviews and forums at misticriver.net for more info
about it.

>  seem to consistently score very highly in terms of audio
>  quality, which is of considerable importance to me!  only
>  nuisance is I haven't seen / tested one, so I do not know
>  how well they actually agree with me....  ;-(  )?

I'm not an audiophile, so I didn't really notice a difference between
sound quality on a cheap earphones on my desktop vs iRiver with
default earphones. One of the guys in Peats in Parnell Street has
one, so drop in and check it out (there isn't very big price
difference between Peats, komplett.ie and mx.co.uk, 299 vs 289
ex delivery vs 286 inc. delivery). 

>   one specific question about the H320/H340:  apparently,
>  they have two (2) USB ports, which I consistently see
>  called a 1.1 (data?) and 2.0 (media?) port.  whilst none
>  of the sites I've looked at have been clear, they give
>  the impression the 2.0 port cannot be connected to 1.1
>  (i.e., my Linux box).  this not only does not match
>  my previous impression (I _thought_ USB 2.0 was fully
>  backwards compatible with 1.1, just faster if the peer
>  was also 2.0);  it also suggests I won't be able to
>  download my ripped CDs to the H3x0 from my Linux box
>  (which is obviously no good).   I want to believe the
>  sites (or at least my reading of them) is confused,
>  but can anyone clarify?

heh, I got confused. I think the Data port is only for connecting
digital cameras, etc, so because its a 1.1, digital camera USB 2.0
should work in 1.1. Not exactly sure.

I *can* copy from/to player connected using usb cable to Media/Host
port.  

>   also, I assume there are USB cables with a ???normal???
>  sized USB connector on one end and one of those mini
>  connectors on the other end?  (I've never seen these

Yeah.

>   how long do the HDDs in "mp3"s last?  I have read
>  some reports that the iRiver H320 (at least) seems
>  to be quite rugged (it is on the large and heavy
>  side  ;-\  ), but haven't seen any info on the
>  expected lifetime of the HDDs?  (I assume that is
>  the part most likely to fail and hardest to fix.)

Have no idea. You can always open it up and change the hdd.

>   any suggestions on a competent reliable source in
>  the EU who takes orders in English, and will ship
>  to France?  (and who can supply English manuals?)

mx2.co.uk? Or buy from komplett.ie, get it delivered to a relatives
address and get him/her to send it to you? Or get it in Peats (I
think O2 Experience have H300 series - I know they do have H10) and
get him/her to send it to you? 

HTH, 'cause I did spend a weekend reading about H300 and X5...

> cheers!
> 	-blf-

Sarunas

[I sent this yesterday evening, but mailserver was being upgraded
so it bounced back, re-sending the reply today]