46 MA XIMUMPC DECEMBER 2005 DECEMBER 2005 MA XIMUMPC 47
The Digital Audio and Video Player Buyers Guide
The four most important questions to answer before you buy
HOW WILL YOU USE IT?
If you’re just looking for a jogging
companion, there’s no question
about it: You want a flash memory-
based digital audio player. Such
players are lighter, more rugged,
and generally offer a longer battery
life than hard drive-based play-
ers. They’re also much less likely
to expire after a drop or two from
waist-height. With capacities up
to 4GB, there’s ample room for
hours of MP3s.
Hard drive-based players, how-
ever, offer MaSSiVe capacities up to
60GB—which is necessary if you
simply must have your entire music
collection on hand at all times, or if
you want to transport gigs of data
wherever you go.WHAT WILL YOU BE
LISTENING TO?
Thankfully, we no longer have to
worry about players that choke on
MP3s encoded at very high or vari-
able bit rates (VBR)—we haven’t
had that problem in years. But now
we’re faced with online downloading
services that use different codecs
and digital-rights management schemes
that aren’t compatible with all players.
Nonetheless, the choices aren’t tough
ones. If you want to listen to tracks pur-
chased from the popular iTunes music
store, then it’s the iPod or nothing. If you
shop at Napster or other sites that offer
protected WMA tracks, then you’ll want a
player that sports the PlaysForSure badge
on the packaging (note, however, that few
players yet support the other Microsoft
digital-rights management, Janus, which
locks down tracks “rented” on a subscrip-
tion basis from Napster To Go). Of course,
you can always burn your purchased
music to disc and rip the contents to
unprotected MP3s, but the resulting loss
in quality from recompression can vary
from barely noticeable to devastating. If
you just buy old-fashioned CDs and rip
them to open formats, you have none of
these problems.
Sites are beginning to offer protected
video fi les for rental or purchase, but with
their pathetically sparse catalogs, we can’t
recommend any of them at this time.CAN YOU AFFORD TO
UPGRADE THE EARBUDS?
We’re happy to report that bundled ear-
buds have vastly improved in quality—even
some obscure brands have surprised us
with good reproduction and minimal distor-
tion at high volumes. But we still recom-
mend trading up; there’s no easier way to
get better sound from your player. Casual
listeners can get away with $30 earbuds
with bass-boosters—environmental noise
will negate the benefi ts of higher-end
‘buds. But purists should budget for ear-
buds that seat themselves in your ear
canals, blocking out ambient noise and
delivering wider frequency response (see
the accessories section on page 51 for
our recommendations).ARE YOU WILLING
TO RIP AND ENCODE
YOUR OWN VIDEO?
Thanks to the Digital Millennium Copyright
Act, no portable video player (PVP) manu-
facturer offers simple, one-click softwarefor converting your commercial, CSS-
encrypted DVDs to compressed video fi les.
(Even though the courts have ruled that
making copies for backup or personal use
is “Fair Use,” breaking the CSS encryption
remains illegal.) So if you want to rip your
DVDs, you’ll have to download a DVD-rip-
per on your own—and freeware DVD-rip-
pers are vanishing under fi re from the
entertainment industry.
While most PVPs support MPEG-4
video compression, which includes Divx,
Xvid, and WMV, there’s no guarantee that
video you download from the Internet
will play on your particular player. That’s
because video is often encoded using
optional tweaks or nonstandard audio
codecs that some players can’t decode
(which is why we test all PVPs with the
same handful of downloaded videos, to
evaluate how fl exible the fi rmware is with
nonstandard fi les). Another caution: The
processors in most PVPs are unable to play
WMV fi les at resolutions above 320x240.Not everyone needs a $400 iPod. Consider your options carefully when choosing an
MP3 player—there are plenty of them!The Digital Audio and Video Player Buyers GuideThe Digital The Digital Audio and Audio and Video Player Buyers GuideVideo Player Buyers Guide
46 MAMAMAXIMXIMXIMXIMUUUUMMPPPCCDECEMBER 2005
their pathetically sparse catalogs, we can’t
recommend any of them at this time.Act, no portable video player (PVP) manu-
facturer offers simple, one-click softwareDIGITDIGITALALMEDIAMEDIAMEDIAMEDIAPLAPLAYERSYERS