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5376

Living Room / Re: Help me build my new Home Theater PC

« Last post by 4wd on November 08, 2008, 07:13 PM »

Anyways, I will look through diff speaker configs but I am having the hardest time picking out a case. Does anyone have any further recommendations?

-Josh (November 08, 2008, 01:01 PM)

A few questions:

1) Optimally, how many internal 3.5" bays do you require, (including any future HDD expansion) ?

2) You picked out the Silverstone CW02S-MXR which is probably one of the biggest HTPC cases dimension wise.
    Does that mean that external case dimensions are not a constraint, (ie. size doesn't matter ) ?

3) Is a LCD/VFD still just an option or have you decided ?

4) Do you intend to control the HTPC purely from the remote or will the addition of manual controls, (eg. volume knob/buttons, input select, etc), be of benefit ?
    eg. While I tend to use the remote for most things here, (TV, stereo, etc), I always find that sometimes it's more practical to sit right in front of the thing and use the controls on the front.

5) Colour, (black shows dust and fingerprints like you wouldn't believe - matt silver is a better choice) ?

6) Do you want an integrated card reader or provision for one, (externally accessible 3.5" bay) ?

7) a) What front accessible ports do you require, (eg. USB, FireWire, Audio out, Mic, etc), and how many ?
    b) If you want front ports, hidden behind a panel or always visible ?

Probably a few more questions that are relevant but I'll stop there

Also, wrt VFD/LCD it might pay to check up on what the software is like and search for any problems people have been having.

The dominant software/display combination seems to be iMON, (used by Zalman, Silverstone, Thermaltake, Antec and others), but there's also IRTrans, M-Play and probably others.

Case suggestion: Zalman HD160 Plus - plenty of drive bays, cooling layout seems to be very good, front controls/ports, front accessible 3.5" bay if you want to add a card reader later.

NCIX shows it for $261 but no stock, (maybe order in).

5377

Living Room / Re: Need some comparison help on laptop coolers.

« Last post by 4wd on November 08, 2008, 05:20 PM »

Snazy!  Wonder where and how much.  Probably lots more than the $10 for a cheapie on Ebay, but I really like the idea of a speed control.

-TAF2000 (November 08, 2008, 11:25 AM)

Froogle is your friend¹, (yeah, I know it's now Google Products but Froogle sounded so much better).

There's a NC1000 that starts at $36 and the NC2000 starts at $51.

1. Unless you're paranoid or have no search skills 

5378

General Software Discussion / Re: What's on your flash drive?

« Last post by 4wd on November 07, 2008, 07:48 PM »

Lupo Pensuite - is on one of my 2GB flash drives, uses ~300MB.

System Rescue CD - is on another bootable 2GB, also includes an (mainly) unattended XP installation, WinBuilder LiveXP, Acronis Recovery ISO, Hitachi Feature Tool ISO, various bootable floppy images (eg. Ranish Partition Manager, Darik's Boot and Nuke, DOS, etc, etc), PuppyLinux, Damn Small Linux, DOS apps, Windows Apps and a lot more.  All, (well mostly), selected by boot menu, mixture of GRUB4DOS and syslinux.

An Imation Atom 2GB stores encrypted stuff in a secure partition.

And another 2GB is just for junk 

What can I say.....they were cheap 

5379

Living Room / Re: Need some comparison help on laptop coolers.

« Last post by 4wd on November 07, 2008, 07:14 PM »

Zalman Notebook Cooler - On/Off switch, speed control, USB cord storage, etc.

Aerodynamically designed so it'll fly further when you throw it out the window.......

What's not to like 

You sound like my wife - I can't have a mechanical watch running ANYWHERE in our bedroom at night. Otherwise, she cannot sleep! I have to put the things to my ear to hear them...

-Darwin (November 07, 2008, 04:21 PM)

Wives are designed like that....it's so they can pick up the slightest sound of gossip............

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Living Room / Re: Christmas Gift Ideas Under $25... Make a List!

« Last post by 4wd on November 07, 2008, 03:05 AM »

(4) A cool hemp shopping bag from Reusablebags.com (these are seriously strong)

-zridling (November 06, 2008, 09:41 PM)

Only if I can smoke 'em   

5381

Living Room / Re: Help me build my new Home Theater PC

« Last post by 4wd on November 06, 2008, 04:36 PM »

This case has been out there for 2+ years or more now, and there are almost no revews on it. That tells me to be careful because the HTPC geeks have not been hitting on this product. There must be a reason. My guess is first the price, and second the aluminum construction.

-phillfri (November 06, 2008, 12:42 PM)

According to someone who made a HTPC with it, it was new in October 2007, which makes it only a year old.

no reviews? There are a few, not many, but each of them positive. I am open to ideas for cases still and this is by no means a finalization.

-Josh (November 06, 2008, 01:33 PM)

The suspension dampened HDD cage should take care of the resonance from any HDD vibration.

A little on the high side for my tastes but I assume you want the six drive bays for increasing storage later?

Also, given they provision it for use with water cooling, (two grommeted holes at the back), it would look really cool with one of these or these sitting next to it

Thats just it, there arent any really DECENT RCA connector speakers for use with these 5.1 systems. Heck, I can't find a set that does 7.1. Is there a way to convert standard red/black style connectors to RCA?

-Josh (November 06, 2008, 08:38 AM)

OK, I'm confused, the normal red/black connectors are RCA......or did you mean convert the normal computer style 3.5mm stereo connectors to RCA?

If you meant the latter then adapters are available almost everywhere, eg. RadioShack
1/8" Right-Angle to Two RCA Plugs
RadioShack Gold Series Audio Y-Adapter

For computer to speakers/amp you usually need 3.5mm stereo plug, (1/8" to the non-metricised), to male red and black, (could be red/white), RCA connectors.

Plus, you can always buy the connectors and roll your own - what I usually do.

Addendum:
What would probably be better though, is choose a surround sound speaker system that can take SPDIF^w input and just use a single TOSLink^w cable.
For example, the Logitech Z-5500 has both a S/PDIF optical and coaxial input so you'll only need one cable to connect to the HTPC.

I'm sure there will be comparable systems from Altec Lansing, JBL, etc.

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Living Room / Re: Help me build my new Home Theater PC

« Last post by 4wd on November 06, 2008, 04:54 AM »

I am presently building an HTPC myself, and my investigations have brought me to pretty much the same conclusions as 4wd on this subject.

-phillfri (November 06, 2008, 03:45 AM)

Thanks, nice to know I'm not spouting rubbish occasionally 

....... Gyration remote control.

Hadn't heard of those before but they look rather good - I had thought of getting some kind of wireless 3D mouse, (sorry, can't recall what they call them).  Then again, maybe use CamSpace, a webcam and wave my arms around to move the mouse pointer and run programs - at least I'd get a workout 

Stay away from the Seagate 750 and 1000 gb hard drives. Failure rates have been very high on these units (read up at Newegg) and they run hot as hell - which means you'll need good cooling and fans make noise. I bought a 750GB Seagate for an external backup unit and I had to put it in an enclosure with a fan. You can burn your fingers if you touch one of those things after they've been running for awhile!

Same as I've found, (heat and noise that is), it's worth noting that on the list of recommended 3.5" HDDs at Silent PC Review, not one is a Seagate.  I think they gave up on quiet and heat in their quest for the all important transfer rate bragging rights.

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Living Room / Re: Help me build my new Home Theater PC

« Last post by 4wd on November 06, 2008, 04:33 AM »

My big concern, now that several have pointed this out, is the graphics card. Is it really going to help me to get an additional card for this system given its intended use? I am not much of a gamer and even when I do game, its on my PS3 or on my workstation computer which can handle most games I am into at a decent frame rate (not top end framerates or resolutions, I dont need the best of the best when it comes to that).

-Josh (November 06, 2008, 02:42 AM)

There's nothing wrong with the integrated GPU for your purpose - which is, as you have said from the very first post, is for a HTPC.

The AMD 790G is more than capable, as indeed was the AMD 780G (which I have), the AMD 740G and the AMD 690G - all of which did not have the benefit of dedicated DDR3 that the AMD 790G has.

I don't know why everyone suddenly thinks you want to play games on it.

Why go Integrated with the graphics I think it is a bad idea, By not Integrating them you can get a better graphics card and update when needed.

-Davidtheo (November 06, 2008, 03:30 AM)

There's nothing wrong with the integrated GPU for the purpose Josh wants to use it for BUT if he did find that it wasn't up to scratch for it's intended purpose, (unlikely), then the motherboard also has 2 16xPCIe slots.

Honestly, besides Josh, did anyone look at what the board is capable of?

I'd buy one tomorrow if I could sneak it past the wife.

If the integrated solution is (more than) adequate for his HD en/decode needs, why waste money and space (and noise and heat and reduced airflow) on a discrete solution?

-f0dder (November 06, 2008, 04:00 AM)

Exactly right.

5384

Living Room / Re: Help me build my new Home Theater PC

« Last post by 4wd on November 06, 2008, 12:58 AM »

Now, from what I am reading, you seem to say not to go with the 9950. Is that just due to heat issues? I really don't see this thing heating up that much given it's intended purpose. But again, I could be wrong. Could you give me some more info on this? I want to ensure I make the right decision here.

-Josh (November 05, 2008, 11:24 PM)

The 9950 BE is the current top-of-the-range Phenom and is rated at 125/140W, in fact any Phenom X4 from the old 9750X and above is 125W.

I would check to make sure you get the 125W version of the 9950 if you're going to stick with it, AMD part number: HD995ZXAGHBOX

No point putting an extra 15W into the case when you don't have to.

The new Phenom being released in January will be using a 45nm die process BUT the first ones that are slated for release are 2.8GHz and 3.0GHz 125W desktop versions.  So you'll save nothing by waiting except possibly a bit of money since they'll probably drop the prices on the 65nm CPUs just after release of the new ones.

Considering that the GPU will be doing most of the work regarding decoding, I don't see the CPU getting much load over 10%, so it should be running reasonably cool.

I'm assuming you're going for the 9950 to put the most into any video transcoding you do?

During video encoding, (eg. MPEG2->h.264), the CPU is going to be pretty much 100% across all cores, (assuming an encoder that uses all cores).  At that point you'll find out if the HSF is going to get noisy but it can always be fixed by using a decent aftermarket HSF, (eg. Zalman, ThermalTake, Scythe, etc), assuming it'll fit in your chosen case.

You should also check out Silent PC Review, they review quite a few HTPC cases.

5385

Living Room / Re: Apologies

« Last post by 4wd on November 05, 2008, 09:59 PM »

Looks great but I think the ears could look more like horns.

-Davidtheo (November 05, 2008, 08:13 PM)

Yeah, we're waiting for 40hz to do his thing - since he gave us Ehtyar's Weekly News logo, I've voted him DC team artist 

Seconded:  AYE!!!

5386

Living Room / Re: Apologies

« Last post by 4wd on November 05, 2008, 04:54 PM »

Carol! Awesome design. I want one.

-40hz (November 05, 2008, 09:39 AM)

Actually, if I was any good at paint programs - rather than just adding a pair of red horns I would of deformed the ears into semblance of horns and given them a red blush towards the tips.

Much more aesthetically pleasing - no offense Carol 

5387

Living Room / Re: Help me build my new Home Theater PC

« Last post by 4wd on November 05, 2008, 04:51 PM »

you may want to remember that on board video chipsets share memory with the CPU and OS. a dedicated card might be best.

-mjcummings (November 05, 2008, 03:52 PM)

You may want to have a look at the board he's chosen, it has it's own dedicated 128MB of DDR3 - and even if it didn't, (from the perspective of actually having a board with the previous GPU and shared memory), it won't make any difference.

The onboard GPU is the fastest available - it's equivalent to the Radeon 3400 series.

It can even run quite a few 3D games, while I don't get into benchmarking, a 3DMark06 > 2000 is rather excellent for onboard graphics.

Also, you can add a cheap Radeon 34xx series PCI-e card and run them in Hybrid Crossfire to get about a 40-60% increase in GPU processing grunt.....not bad for adding a card that costs about $30.

5388

Living Room / Re: Help me build my new Home Theater PC

« Last post by 4wd on November 05, 2008, 06:05 AM »

#1 by far - getting the QUIETEST components i could.  people always seem to overlook this, but bleeding edge graphics cards and hard drives are LOUD.  power supplies can be too.  For a multimedia pc i think youd be better off with slower cpu and lower powered graphics card that are quiet. just my 2 cent.

-mouser (November 05, 2008, 02:56 AM)

Josh is using the integrated graphics on the board, more than capable of handling any format and fanless.

Can you recommend a good case with a VFD display? What exactly is it?

-Josh (November 05, 2008, 03:40 AM)

VFD - Vacuum Fluorescent Display^w, most commonly seen on VCRs.

For example, the Silverstone LC16M I mentioned previously.  You've also got the ThermalTake DH101 and Bach, Zalman HD135 among others.

Most manufacturers provide software for the display to interact with MCE.

There's also aftermarket VFDs, eg. ThermalTake Media LAB, there are others.

What you need to find out is exactly what you want to display and whether the supplied software is able to do it.

As can be seen above I have decided on the hard disk drives as well. 1x 10000RPM OS Drive (Western Digital) and 2x Seagate Barracuda's in a RAID 1 config for the data portion.

Thoughts?

Yeah, Seagate's are loud compared to Samsung and WD.  WD also has the highest MTBF rating, eg. Barracuda 7200.11 @ 750,000 hours; WD AV @ 1,000,000 hours (33% higher longevity).

5389

Living Room / Re: Apologies

« Last post by 4wd on November 05, 2008, 01:06 AM »

I think you need a T-shirt that more reflects the helpful nature of the site and leaves people in no doubt as to who runs it.



Edit: Eyes as requested, (didn't go OTT).

I don't do 'sweet'.......sorry 

5390

Living Room / Re: Help me build my new Home Theater PC

« Last post by 4wd on November 04, 2008, 06:06 PM »

4wd: ah yes, I had not considered the energy-efficient CPU versions - shame on me. Remember that it's not just about MHz though, the intel CPUs have higher IPC (or lower CPI ) than the AMDs.

-f0dder (November 04, 2008, 02:27 AM)

You are forgiven    Actually, I believe quite a few people use the 4850e X2, (45W), in the GA-MA78G(P)M-DS2H for HTPCs because it's even more frugal and quiet.

I'm actually thinking of just getting the 9350e because I've kind of grown out of the brute force approach.  And this is for my general purpose/video encoding/gaming machine.

Josh, for HDDs I'd recommend either Samsung or the Western Digital Green Power series.  Both are noticeably quieter than anything Seagate produces and use less power.
Just for interest, yesterday I had a play recording various HDTV broadcasts and found you need to store approx. 100-130MB/minute.  That's only 2MB/sec for a single channel recording, well within the capability of even the slowest HDD currently on the market.
What will affect it more is when you're recording two channels at once, then seek times come into play but I would still expect any current HDD to present no problem to that.

Addendum: Just remembered, WD have HDDs specifically designed for use in AV equipment - WD AV and the WD AV-GP.

I know you've said you're not that bothered with a display but you might find it useful when you just want to listen to music.  A VFD display should give you enough info to allow you to navigate directories to get to your MP3/OGG/WMA files, provide info on what is currently playing, indicate whether there's any email waiting, system status, etc, etc without having to turn on a monitor/TV.  They're a lot cheaper than an LCD and don't add that much to the cost of a decent HTPC case.

Silverstone are arguably the most popular when it comes to HTPC enclosures.  But there's also Zalman, ThermalTake, CoolerMaster, etc - the one thing I do recommend though is, unless you have a preference for black, get silver - it will save on an awful lot of dusting 

Also, a question I have been pondering, would it be best to run 64-bit or 32-bit? This will be a specialized PC and won't require any special applications besides snapstream and tversity. Thoughts?

-Josh (November 03, 2008, 07:03 AM)

Apart from giving you access to the extra 512MB of RAM you lose using 32bit, (assuming 4GB), AFAICT there's no advantage to using a 64bit system because both TVersity and BeyondTV are only 32bit aren't they?

5391

General Software Discussion / Re: What application is stealing my keystrokes?

« Last post by 4wd on November 04, 2008, 05:46 PM »

Can't you run Process Monitor, hit the shortcut combination that's being stolen and see where it leads?

You might need to filter a lot of crap out of Process Monitor's output.

5392

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: BeyondSync $10

« Last post by 4wd on November 04, 2008, 03:58 AM »

Just a note, BeyondSync Pro is currently up for grabs on GiveAwayOfTheDay if anyone wants to play with it.

5393

Living Room / Re: Swoopo - A New Take on Online Auctions, or a Scam?

« Last post by 4wd on November 04, 2008, 01:49 AM »

(And what's with the "100% off" banner? Are they saying this cash used to be worth $80,000? Or that you can win it by bidding $0.00? Neither makes any sense.)

-Jimdoria (November 03, 2008, 09:32 AM)

  100% off of anything is always going to be nothing, so I'm not quite sure where you got $80,000 from.

My guess is that the "100% off" applies to it's initial starting price which was $0.00

Reading the page that jgpaiva pointed to, as is said by the current last comment on that page, the only way to win on Swoopo is to win blocks of Free Bids and then use those to collect more and more.  Then use all those free bids to win what you want, constantly topping up by winning more blocks of free bids.

5394

Living Room / Re: Help me build my new Home Theater PC

« Last post by 4wd on November 03, 2008, 10:20 PM »

I say intel CPU simply because they have the best performance. AMDs might have better performance/price ratio (haven't checked up on prices lately), but the intels perform better - especially on things like SSE instructions, which video codecs tend to use. Also, last time I checked, intel CPUs didn't lead just wrt. performance, but also had lower power consumption than the AMD offerings.

-f0dder (November 03, 2008, 08:35 AM)

For this application it actually doesn't matter which CPU that much, there's no version of either an Intel or AMD CPU that can record even one video stream encoding h.264 on-the-fly.  If you think decoding h.264 is CPU intensive, you haven't seen anything until you try encoding it especially at HD resolution.

However, recording two normal HD MPEG transport streams will present no problem, RAID isn't required in my experience.

Also, I prefer intel chipset on the motherboard, for stability reasons. I've had troubles in the past with other brands. Situation is probably better nowadays, but once burned twice shy.

The only chipsets I've ever had a problem with are nVidia, (especially, I'd no longer even consider an nVidia chipset), or VIA - I've found the chipsets made by the respective CPU manufacturers work well.

Haven't looked into getting codec acceleration from graphics cards, but afaik both intel and AMD/ATI integrated solutions offer HD acceleration now. Probably worth looking into, even if you go for a quadcore CPU; at least last time I checked, H.264 encoding was pretty expensive CPU-wise, and even with optimized codecs like CoreAVC, decoding full-HD took it's toll as well.

As I mentioned above, AMD/ATI current integrated GPU, (especially now as it includes dedicated DDR3 - no UMA), is at the moment the best at decoding pretty much anything you can throw at it.

Also, last time I checked, intel CPUs didn't lead just wrt. performance, but also had lower power consumption than the AMD offerings.

-f0dder (November 03, 2008, 08:35 AM)

The lowest Intel C2Q is the Q8200 @ 95W, AMD is the 9150e or 9350e @ 65W.  Yes, the Intel is running 300-500MHz faster but since this is a HTPC whose main function is recording/playback, (preferably as quietly as possible), one of which is mainly dependent on the I/O subsystem and the other on the GPU, the extra MHz aren't that much of an issue.  My old Opteron 165, (1.8MHz dual core), had no problems recording two HD broadcasts at the same time and would still play MPEG2 or MPEG4 ASP, (with no hardware acceleration), without causing frame drops.

5395

Living Room / Re: Help me build my new Home Theater PC

« Last post by 4wd on November 03, 2008, 06:19 AM »

4wd, after reading up on your board. I decided to go one up and push to the GigaByte GA-MA790GP-DS4H board. For the cost difference, I feel it might be worth it to further invest in a higher capability board. Now, the case is my next big obstacle to tackle along with CPU and RAM. The NIC on this board is integrated and will suite my purposes unless someone can tell me of another card which might yield some sort of performance increase.

-Josh (November 03, 2008, 12:11 AM)

Not my board   I have a GA-MA78G-DS3H - I wanted the extra SATA port and the 790 boards weren't out yet.

For RAM, I'd go with any of the 2GB 800MHz modules they list in the QVL.  I currently use a pair of Apacer 800MHz 2GB DDR2 sticks in mine and while they aren't the fastest they work with no problem.

For CPU, I'd go for the 9150e or 9350e I mentioned earlier, Quad core CPUs at only 65W.  Or get a 4850e X2 now and look to upgrade when the new Phenoms start appearing around January.

The only way you could get a performance increase over the internal Gigabit NIC is to go for one of Gigabyte's DQ6 series, (in Intel or AMD), which add what they call teaming.  Another way to say they gang the NIC ports to effectively double, (or quadruple if it has four ports), the bandwidth making it a fair bit more efficient.

Also, the remote control I am learning comes with the FusionHDTV Card. Does anyone have any input on another remote which might function better and provide support for both Windows MCE (Vista) and controlling the Fusion Card?

If I had to choose a remote it would probably be along the lines of ATI's Remote Wonder or, (since you're going to use BeyondTV anyway), SnapStream's Firefly.

RF is always preferable to having to use line-of-sight infrared.  This means you can possibly shuffle music from other rooms depending on the range you get due to wall construction, etc.

For the case it comes down to one simple question to start with:
1) Display or no display?

If yes, VFD or the latest touch screen 7" LCDs?

Once you've worked out that, then you can work within the limits set by the case layout.

5396

Living Room / Re: Help me build my new Home Theater PC

« Last post by 4wd on November 02, 2008, 01:02 PM »

Not too much to suggest other than to get the best quality RAM you can afford. Most of the really oddball problems you will encounter will ultimately be traced back to a bad stick of RAM.

I've had very good luck with the Crucial and Kingston brands. They are what I use in most of the server-build projects I'm involved with. I have never had any problems with either brand.

-40hz (November 02, 2008, 12:10 PM)

Actually, I'd suggest getting RAM that has been tested with the board by the manufacturer and listed in the QVL for that board.

On the subject of motherboard, one that seems popular for HTPC applications is the Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-DS2H.  The integrated ATI HD3200 GPU was the fastest onboard GPU up until the release of the new ATI HD3300, (AMD 790G chipset), and will decode anything you can throw at it.  And it does this without a fan, so it's very quiet.

The updated GA-MA78GPM-DS2H, ($110 @ Newegg), adds 128MB of DDR3 SidePort memory and fixes some HDMI interaction issues with Sony Bravia TVs.

Coupled with an AMD 4850e X2, ($60), or a Phenom 9150e/9350e, ($140/$170), should make a quiet HTPC with plenty of grunt but without having to buy a graphics card.

Integrated Gigabit LAN, 7.1 audio over HDMI until your preferred sound card is available.

A Zalman or Seasonic PSU for quietness and all housed in a Silverstone LC16M case, (that includes VFD and MCE compatible remote - although I'd probably prefer an RF remote).

5397

General Software Discussion / ASUS mobo dead

« Last post by 4wd on November 01, 2008, 08:15 PM »

It's not really a big problem but it is more a matter of principle. If companies offer 3 year guarantees they should be able to honour it and if not offer a new up to date motherboard and include any necessary upgraded hardware.

-Carol Haynes (November 01, 2008, 02:47 PM)

Not coming down on anyone's side here but don't all normal guarantees state: "repair or refund."

They decided it's not economically viable to repair it so they are offering to refund your money - something it usually takes a company a very, very long time to offer, (usually requiring multiple returns of a faulty product  and even then only reluctantly offering it).

Unfortunately, the down side is that if you have purchased items based on that one piece of hardware, you take the gamble that whatever they replace it with will be compatible or, as in your case, if they give a monetary refund that an alternative is still available.  Something that's almost impossible to guarantee with the current pace of innovation.

As an alternative, try looking for an AsRock motherboard if you want to keep the existing CPU/RAM, I think the only two still available are the 939N68PV-GLAN and the 939NF6G-VSTA.

I have two Asrock motherboards and both have been very reliable, (K7S41GX and a 939SLI32-eSATA2).

AsRock are also a subsidiary of ASUS and usually implement features on their motherboards before ASUS does.

EDIT: Just noticed you mentioned the 939N68PV-GLAN up a few posts.  All I can say is my experience with AsRock motherboards has been better than with ASUS, EPoX and earlier Gigabyte boards, (now using a Gigabyte MA78G-DS3H).

5398

Living Room / Re: Things your kids will never know - old school tech!

« Last post by 4wd on October 29, 2008, 05:59 PM »

My first camera:


and it's film:


126 ceased production in 1998.

5399

Living Room / Re: High Capacity Portable MP3 Player

« Last post by 4wd on October 29, 2008, 02:00 AM »

I considered building my own, though the MP3 player would be for train travel, not car travel, so neither this option, nor the other I've seen would work for me. Thank you for the suggestion though.

-Ehtyar (October 28, 2008, 08:23 PM)

If I may ask, which train journey would require a MP3 player with that much capacity?

-4wd (October 29, 2008, 01:32 AM)

Perhaps the idea is to have a decent music base to select from, rather than hearing the same tracks over and over - or having to transfer new music all the time?

-f0dder (October 29, 2008, 01:43 AM)

I think I'd rather have a small player that could take SD(HC) flash cards and just swap them for variety - that's if I could be bothered becoming one of the walking dead.  You know the people walking around not paying attention to anything because they've got earphones plugged in 

Plus I could always use them in the camera in an emergency.

the ghan?
the indian pacific?

-Target (October 29, 2008, 01:48 AM)

I've been on the Trans-Siberian/Mongolian, even that had power points.  Plus the conductor would let you charge using their power points if needed.

highlights one of the silly things about MP3 players in general though - I know storage is (relatively) cheap, but who needs to carry their entire collection (and probably then some) around with them all the time?  There is no known (portable) player that will run long enough to play it all, and even if there was, the likelihood is that you would be sick of it w a a a y before you got to the end (I often am, and FWIW my round trip commute is about 5 hours a day)

Is there anything more uncomfortable than having plugs stuck in your ears all day, (headphones are bad enough)?

5400

Living Room / Re: High Capacity Portable MP3 Player

« Last post by 4wd on October 29, 2008, 01:32 AM »

I considered building my own, though the MP3 player would be for train travel, not car travel, so neither this option, nor the other I've seen would work for me. Thank you for the suggestion though.

-Ehtyar (October 28, 2008, 08:23 PM)

If I may ask, which train journey would require a MP3 player with that much capacity?