Comments on: I’m Done with iPods. http://www.timbertank.com/blog/2008/11/04/im-done-with-ipods/ The interweb blog of Kim Te-Ching Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:12:27 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Garrett Albright http://www.timbertank.com/blog/2008/11/04/im-done-with-ipods/comment-page-1/#comment-593 Garrett Albright Wed, 05 Nov 2008 15:08:45 +0000 http://www.timbertank.com/blog/?p=362#comment-593 Re: DRM'd music from the iTunes Store: Yes, most of the music is DRM'd, but the iTunes Plus songs, which have a little plus sign next to their listings in the Store, do not have DRM and are encoded at a higher bitrate besides. They're still in AAC format, which not every digital media player will be able to play, but they do not have DRM. Re: Video on iPods: Yes, you must convert it, but that's hardly unique among portable media players. Few of them have DVD drives. Handbrake is a nice open-source tool for ripping video into a wide variety of formats, including iPod-friendly ones: http://handbrake.fr/ Since the headphone jack broke on my iPod and I decided I didn't want to pay full price for a replacement, I bought and have been quite happy with a Sansa Clip 4GB. Sansa's product line seems to be quite solid. Also, I've been quite happy with Amazon MP3 as a source of DRM-free music of good quality (256kbps) at a reasonable price. Re: DRM’d music from the iTunes Store: Yes, most of the music is DRM’d, but the iTunes Plus songs, which have a little plus sign next to their listings in the Store, do not have DRM and are encoded at a higher bitrate besides. They’re still in AAC format, which not every digital media player will be able to play, but they do not have DRM.

Re: Video on iPods: Yes, you must convert it, but that’s hardly unique among portable media players. Few of them have DVD drives. Handbrake is a nice open-source tool for ripping video into a wide variety of formats, including iPod-friendly ones: http://handbrake.fr/

Since the headphone jack broke on my iPod and I decided I didn’t want to pay full price for a replacement, I bought and have been quite happy with a Sansa Clip 4GB. Sansa’s product line seems to be quite solid.

Also, I’ve been quite happy with Amazon MP3 as a source of DRM-free music of good quality (256kbps) at a reasonable price.

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