gHacks technology news » mp3-player

XNJB: Transfer music to and from a MTP MP3 player on a Mac

Joe — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 23:21:14 +0000

When I switched to a Mac, I did not purchase an iPod for a few months. I previously had a Creative Zen Vision M media player. Unfortunately, this device was not mass storage, but utilised ‘Media Transfer Protocol’. Whilst several pieces of software on Windows provide the facility to move music to the device, OS X or iTunes has no integrated support.

Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) is utilised on a range of devices, but especially so by Creative. Creative Zens (and their variants) utilise the protocol. Whilst the Creative NOMAD isn’t MTP, it too uses an awkward protocol not natively supported by OS X. The infamous Zune (in the eyes of an Apple fanboy) too uses MTP, however, Microsoft make it very difficult to transfer data to.

XNJB is a piece of software that provides a graphical front-end to a libnjb and libmtp: free and open source libraries that allow communication with devices like Creative NOMADs and Creative Zens. Unfortunately, neither support the Zune, due to additional restrictions Microsoft put in place. The libraries work on other POSIX operating systems, like Linux, but XNJB does not.

XNJB allows users to upload and download songs from their media players, for ID3 data to be edited and devices searched. All of this has to be done within the software; it is not integrated into iTunes or Finder.

The transfer of data felt a bit slow to me, but I expect this is primarily due to the messiness of my library and the nature of Media Transfer Protocol.

This software is, however, a useful tool when you first got the Mac. I do, though, doubt you could realistically continue to use a MTP device successfully with OS X. Naturally, you could use it inside Boot Camp or a virtual machine, but in my opinion, that too is not an ideal option.

Compatible devices are listed on their website.

Tags: apple, creative, iPod, libmtp, libnjb, libraries, mac, media transfer protocol, mp3-player, mtp, njb, os x, portable devices, xnjb

Installing Winamp Plugins In AIMP

Martin — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 15:21:01 +0000

If you look around and ask your friends which media player they prefer you will most likely come up with many different answers. Winamp, Windows Media Player and iTunes will surely be on the top of the list with lesser known players mentioned by some of the friends. Most are perfectly happy that they can play music on their computer without having to think about configuring the service first or tweaking it for maximum effectiveness.

AIMP is a music player that might not be mentioned that often. The main reason why that is the case is surely the Russian website that is keeping lots of users at bay. Some might spot the player on download portals like Softpedia and those are usually the ones who stick with it after installing and testing the player.

AIMP comes with an impressive design and functionality that leaves most music players behind. It is low on resource usage, provides an impressive sound, great design, an audio converter, CD ripper and Internet radio ripper among other things.

The official website contains a few plugins and skins that can be added to the player but one feature that the player excels in is the compatibility to many Winamp plugins.

One of the winners of a Ghacks t-shirt mentioned a few Winamp plugins that were keeping him from changing to AIMP. A quick research revealed that it was possible to add the plugins to AIMP as well. He mentioned the following three plugins: Minilyrics, DFX and Ozone.

The principle is basically the same for all plugins:

Download the plugin to the computer.
Try to extract it using a packer. If that is not working install it. All three plugins could be installed without having Winamp installed. Some might require Winamp though.
Go to the directory where the files have been extracted / installed into.
It is usually enough to copy the plugin dll files to the AIMP2/plugins directory. In the case of DFX it is the dsp_dfx.dll, for Ozone it is dsp_iZOzoneFree.dll while Minilyrics requires two: gen_MiniLyrics.dll and MiniLyrics.dll

A rule of thumb. If in doubt copy all files into the directory. AIMP will tell you if something is missing upon activation of the plugin. This is how you do that:

A click on the top left icon will display a menu. Choosing plugins from that menu will open the AIMP Plugin Manager which displays all loaded (meaning active) and unloaded plugins.

New plugins that have been placed in the plugins folder can be activated by selecting them with a left click and clicking on Load afterwards. You will see a message window if something is not right. If the wrong dll has been moved into the plugin directory no plugin will be shown under the Unloaded Plugins tab.

Some plugins, like the DSP ones, require activating in the options of AIMP. A click on the same icon that brought you into the Plugin Manager will also bring you in the DSP Manager. There you can select the Winamp DSP Plugin that has been previously loaded into AIMP.

Not all plugins will work but many will. It is just a matter of trying.

Tags: aimp, aimp plugins, aimp2, mp3-player, music, music player, music software, winamp, winamp plugins

Free iTunes Alternative Froddle Pod

Martin — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 08:03:37 +0000

Most users would probably agree that Apple’s iTunes software is not a lightweight application. To the contrary. The application is huge and some will see it as an overkill if you only want to transfer music from and to an iPod. That’s where iTunes software alternatives come into play.

Froddle Pod is such an iTunes alternative. It certainly is not as feature rich as iTunes but it provides access to the main features that iPod owners need: It can copy music and videos from and to an iPod which is definitely the main feature that any iTunes alternative should support.

The software can also backup and restore all data that is stored on an iPod. Another feature is music normalization for all or selected music on the iPod. It is currently unclear if it supports album art.

Supported are the following iPod models currently: iPod Nano (all), iPod Mini (all), iPod Classic (3rd to 6th generation). No support for the Apple iPhone or iPod Touch yet.

The software did check for and download the Microsoft Visual J# Distributable which takes up 80 Megabytes of space on the hard drive.

Tags: apple ipod, apple itunes, iPod, itunes, itunes-alternative, mp3-player, software

Google Inline MP3 Player

Martin — Tue, 20 May 2008 13:54:11 +0000

Adam Pash is a Senior Editor at Lifehacker and also someone who likes to code. His latest gorgeous application is a Greasemonkey script called Google Inline MP3 Player which, once installed, displays a [Play] link next to each mp3 link on a website. A click on that Play link embeds an inline mp3 player, more precisely Google Reader’s MP3 Flash player, directly in the web page providing access to play the mp3 directly without having to download it first.

The [Play] link changes into a [Hide Player] link which when clicked hides the embedded player again normalizing the website in the progress. This is an excellent way to listen to the first few seconds of a mp3 before making the decision whether you want to download it completely.

The mp3 is actually downloaded to the user’s cache which would mean that it would be possible to grab it right of the cache instead of downloading it again. Great script Adam !

I like this way because I can listen to music directly without having to open an external application, in this case the music player.

Tags: firefox, Google, greasemonkey, lifehacker, mp3, mp3-player, music, websites

Copy random files

Martin — Sun, 18 May 2008 18:26:03 +0000

Mix2Stix was primarily designed to copy random mp3 files from the hard drive to an USB stick or mp3 player to ease the pain of selecting the music manually. It provides a one click solution with a few comfort functions which I will explain later in this article. The user has to set four parameters after program start that define the process.

He has to select the folder from which the files are copied – subfolders are automatically included in the process -, a destination drive or folder, a size that should be copied and the file extension. The first two are obvious while the latter two require a short explanation. Size defines the total size of all files that are copied. If you pick for instance 1000 Megabyte as the size and mp3 as the file extension mp3 files with a total size of about 1000 Megabytes will be copied, never more than that of course to avoid the dreaded disk is full message.

The file extension can be any file extension which means you can also copy avi files, documents, images or anything else that you can think of randomly to the folder or hard drive.It is furthermore possible to add additional file extensions with the “;” separator.

Two optional check boxes are available: Clear Destination Dir deletes all files in the destination dir so that it is empty before the copy begins. Replace Existing Files overwrites existing files without asking during the copying.

The configuration can be saved and loaded which is nice if you want to use the program every now and then to load new files on the device. It is even possible to use it once every day before going to school to start the day with a fresh random selection of your music.

Mix2Stix requires Java which has to be installed on the system. The source is included in the distribution.

Tags: copy, file, java, mp3, mp3-player, random files

Sync any mp3 player with iTunes

Martin — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 07:47:12 +0000

If you want to use iTunes Apple wants to make you believe that you need an iPod or iPhone. That’s not the complete truth and there are numerous ways to use iTunes with other mp3 players and even mobile phones or handhelds like the PSP. Before I explain the how I would like to talk about the why; Why would someone want to use iTunes for his mp3 player. The argument that comes to my mind is the iTunes store. Another one would be that you switched from an iPod to another mp3 player and want to continue using iTunes.

The software that connects mp3 players, mobile phones and handhelds to iTunes is called iTunes Agent. Three devices are already configured in iTunes Agent. A Generic Player, Sony Ericsson Walkman Phone and the Sony PSP. New devices can be added with ease to the configuration and are recognized by defining a specific folder of that device in the configuration. For the Sony PSP that folder would be PSP for instance.

Might sound complicated but it is not. Just look at the folder structure of your device and use the information you discover. Other values that have to be added are the path of the music folder on the device, the synchronize pattern and the association with a playlist.

The devices can then be synchronized using the system tray. A right-click on the iTunes Agent icon opens a menu that offers synchronization.

Tags: apple, iPod, itunes, itunes agent, mp3, mp3-player, music player, sony psp

Teac MP-450 by experience

Tobey — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 11:00:57 +0000

I’d like to share my view of a very fine low-end (maybe mid) personal audio/video player I’ve bought recently, the Teac MP-450. I was lucky enough to get a 40% sale on it in an online store so that I got an awesome player for a really low price, great deal indeed. Nevertheless, even if you have to buy it for the usual price at about 100-130$ (1GB version), it’s still worth the money I would say. Now to the main features.

Although some reviewers expressed their doubts about its design, especially the placement of the buttons when compared to the high-end devices, I must say that I actually do like it and don’t have the least problem with the easy navigation at all. There are 3 color versions of this smallish block that you can choose from – black-silver, graphite and pink.

Since the size is really tiny (70 x 43 x 11.5 mm), you’d have no trouble carrying it anywhere.

The supported formats are MP3, WMA (DRM 9&10), AVI, JPG, TXT, VRA which is enough to have fun with it. Videos need to be converted to a particular AVI format/size to be played on a 2-inch display with 262 000 colors. Details in the videos played on this device are fairly sufficient to watch just about anything on the go in a very good picture quality. Images can be of any size. Listen to the radio using built-in FM tuner, read lyrics or any other text file in a text viewer or record the surroundings using a miniature mike inside the device.

Just note that the quality of recording isn’t too high if you don’t put it near the source so that you shouldn’t be disappointed later on. Built-in Li-Pol accumulator can support this device for up to 15 hours and can be recharged very quickly via USB link (standalone recharger is not included in the package). I’d also recommend buying other earphones than the default ones because they lower the playback quality a little bit.

Other functions of this player would be support for ID3 tags, 8-mode equalizer including one dedicated to your custom settings, 3 bookmarks in text files, support for language study (meaning several ways of repeating) and a single preinstalled game – Tetris. For its price/function rate this little entertainer is a very good choice and has been serving me very well for several weeks. I don’t have a single complaint myself.

Tags: mp3-player, music, Teac, Teack MP-450, video

Winamp 5.5 lite vs. XMPlay Memory Management

Martin — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 06:46:05 +0000

A new beta version of Winamp 5.5 has just been released as usual in a full, pro and lite version. Winamp lite is basically a music player supporting many different audio formats while the other Winamp editions support video playback, cd ripping and an integrated browser to browse sites like Shoutcast.

I never quite understood why someone would use Winamp to play videos because this functionality was introduced into Winamp when several other great software video players like VLC, Mplayer or BSPlayer were already in existence. I therefor decided to compare the lite version of Winamp 5.5 against my favorite music player XMPlay.

The Winamp executable has a file size of roughly 2.2 Megabytes while XMPlay one of 340 Kilobytes. The XMPlay folder has a size of 1.9 Megabytes after installation while Winamp’s folder one of 6.6 Megabytes. The first noticeable difference can be found if you open both players without a song and take a look at the Windows task manager.

XMPlay uses roughly 550 Kilobytes of memory in idle state while Winamp lite uses 1.37 Megabytes. I decided to load a seven Megabyte mp3 file into both players. XMPlay was using 2.52 Megabytes afterwards while Winamp 5.5 lite was using 3.88 Megabytes. The difference between both players rose from roughly 800 Kilobyte in idle state to 1.3 Megabytes in idle state with a 7 Megabyte file in the playlist.

I pressed the play button in both players and switched back to the task manager. Winamp 5.5 lite was now using 6.24 Megabytes of memory while XMPlay was using 3.84. The difference rose to 2.4 Megabytes.

Last but not least I decided to see how both players would do when playing Internet radio streams. XMplay was using 3.53 Megabytes while playing a 128 Kbit stream while Winamp used 7.66 Megabytes.

The conclusion is that XMPlay has a far better memory management than Winamp. The real important state is of course when playing music files in the music player and this is where XMPlay really excels. This means, if you really want a “lite” player you should switch to XMPlay instead of Winamp 5.5 lite.

XMPlay Homepage
Winamp 5.5 beta download

Tags: aac, lite music player, mp3, mp3-player, music player, ogg, winamp 5.5, xmplay

Itunes Sync 1.5

Martin — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 08:45:55 +0000

A new version of iTunes Sync has been released today and can be downloaded from the developers website. The software syncs iTunes with mp3 players other than iPods. I’m still not sure why users would want to use iTunes but I suppose it has something to do with the ability to buy music and videos there.

The new version is now available in three languages which are German, English and Spanish. Other changes include reduced memory usage, proxy support, support for the three file extensions wma, wmv and asf, new folder structures and better handling of duplicate playlists.

Itunes Sync should work with most mp3 players on the market, the developer obviously has no way of testing his software with all players available. Some users send in information regarding compatibility with their mp3 player but I suggest you simply try it out and see if iTunes Sync works with your player.

The software has a size of only 450 Kilobyte and requires the Microsoft .net framwork 2.0

Read More:

iTunes Sync Homepage

Tags: apple, iTunes sync, itunes tips, mp3-player

Sync iTunes with non iPod mp3 players

Martin — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 15:11:33 +0000

I do not know why some users swear on iTunes and prefer to use it as their main software for their music collection. The biggest drawback in my opinion is that iTunes was designed to only work with iPods and not other mp3 players from different manufacturers. I personally think that it is a bit way of to install iTunes if you do not own an iPod but apparently some users are doing it.

And one of them decided to write a program called iTunes Sync that would sync the playlists in iTunes with a lot of mp3 players from different manufacturers such as Creative Labs, iRiver and Sandisk. Not all players are working yet but the author is trying hard to implement support for them in future versions.

The software requires only three steps to sync your mp3 player with iTunes. They are:

Setup a playlist in iTunes that you want to sync to your MP3 player

Configure your MP3 player in iTunes Sync by giving it a name, selecting an “identification file or folder�? and selecting a playlist from iTunes

Now just click Synchronize and watch the magic happen!

Tags: apple, creative labs, iPod, itunes, iTunes sync, mp3-player, use itunes with other mp3 players

Add Divx support to your Zune

Martin — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 08:53:32 +0000

The Zune seems really hackable, wonder if that is on purpose or just laziness. Anyways, the following registry hack makes it possible to add Divx movies to your Zune player and sync them successfully. Once that is done the Zune automatically converts them to the native format which makes it possible to view them just as any other video that you have stored on your Zune player. Copy and paste the following lines into a text editor, save it and rename the file extension to .reg afterwards.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Multimedia\Zune\Extensions\.avi]
“Extension.Handler”=”Microsoft.Zune.1.AVI”
“MediaType.Description”=”Video Clip”
“MediaType.Icon”=”C:\\Program Files\\Zune\\ZuneLoc.dll,-736″
“Extension.MIME”=”video/avi”
“AlreadyRegistered”=”no”
“Runtime”=dword:00000007
“PerceivedType”=”video”
“Permissions”=dword:0000000f
“UserApprovedOwning”=”no”
@=”"

Double-click the newly created file and the information that it stores will be added to your registry. You probably need to restart your computer before you can drag and drop divx movies to your Zune player.

Another method would be to rename the divx files to .wmv and add them to your Zune player. Once they appear in the library you would rename them back to .avi and sync it afterwards which should automatically convert the file and make it playable in the Zune player.

sources: Engadget and Zunescene

Tags: avi zune, microsoft, mp3-player, zune divx

1By1 Lightweight MP3 Player

Martin — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 10:22:48 +0000

Many software mp3 players are bloated with features that most users rarely use or even know of. 1By1 is a small, resource-saving software mp3 player – the size of the player is only about 100K. It offers some interesting features that are worth a closer look.

It offers an alternative to using playlists by making it possible to directly play the music of a special folder, this should be nice for most users who do not use customized playlists that use files from different directories. It still is able to use and create playlists of course. 1By1 is able to resume playback at a later time, a feature that is not that common in software mp3 players.

1By1 supports the usual file extensions and offers basic file editing support which includes renaming and copying files during playback. I can see some applications for this lightweight mp3 player, especially on systems that are low on resources already.

I will stick to Winamp light on my main system though because I tend to listen to internet radio a lot and 1By1 is missing that feature. Still, it is a nice player and the directory play option makes it stick out a little bit.

Tags: freeware, mp3, mp3-player, music, winamp, Windows

Add Features to your MP3 Player

Martin — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 14:56:51 +0000

If you are currently unhappy with the features of your mp3 player you might want to take a look at the open source rockbox firmware which adds lots of functionality to your mp3 player including iPods, iRiver and Archos models. A firmware update is of course something that should only be done with extreme precaution because it will void the warranty. Take a look at some of the features that can be added:

support for additional sound codecs such as ogg and flac
support for games such as Doom, Sokoban and Sudoku
support for applications like calculators, battery related and text editors
video support (yes even for ipod nanos 1st gen for instance)
Gameboy emulator

Installing Rockbox is not as difficulty as it sounds. Take a look at the manual pages which contains all the information you need for all supported mp3 players. Again, you should be very careful before you proceed. Everything is explained in detail and it should not be that much of a problem to install the new firmware. The rockbox forums are also a great way to have any remaining questions answered before making the changes.

Tags: apple, features, firmware, iPod, mp3, mp3-player, rockbox, update, video-player

Large List of Podcasts that teach you something

Martin — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 15:32:18 +0000

There are not many people I know that do not have a mp3 player. Many use the player exclusively for music and probably never heard of the term podcasts before. The best way to explain podcasts is to compare them to radio shows. Some hosts talk about certain topics, you listen to jingles, to music sometimes that is played during breaks.

Not all podcasts are like radio shows of course, some look much more like audio lessons, like university courses without the classes. And this is what I will be talking about now. I found a great website that has three large lists of links to websites that offer podcasts that teach you something. That something is either languages, cultur or university courses. It is up to you of course to decide what you want to learn and hear, just download all the podcasts you like and transfer them to your mp3 player. All podcasts are encoded in mp3 format which makes it possible to have even large lessons take up just some megabytes.

Let us take a look at the three possibilities:

Languages: Links to podcasts that teach you 14 languages including German, French and Japanese. Most of the courses are for beginners, I suggest you read the explanation at the website that compiled the list before you download the podcasts.

University Courses: A compilation of links to colleges and universities (US) that offer free podcasts of some of their lectures. You find a wide variety of courses such as law and social sciences.

Culture: Many links to interesting podcasts and even audio texts. Concentrates on art, pop culture and media. Great.

Tags: college, culture, iPod, language, language-courses, learn-language, mp3, mp3-player, podcast, university

gHacks technology news » mp3-player

XNJB: Transfer music to and from a MTP MP3 player on a Mac

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