Topic: hack your IPOD to record

[setboy]

http://ipod.hackaday.com/entry/1234000147025394/

i dont know if it works i dont have a ipod just wanted to pass it on

Raphael

[bagtagsell]

whos got the cohones? 

[Tall Adam]

i dont have an ipod but, its only mp3 recording. 96 khz mp3 aint nothin to brag about. also, it doesnt take much balls to do this, if it doesnt work, arent ipods easily reset to their factory settings? that would undo any 3rd party hacks you did. its not like its a physical modification which would void your warranty

[aberg]

I agree. plus, ipods are stupid. so is apple and steve jobbs.

[Tall Adam]

I agree. plus, ipods are stupid. so is apple and steve jobbs.

i will maintain they are stupid until they start supporting flac playback (probably never) and then i might break down and buy one

[Lil Kim Jong-Il]

I agree. plus, ipods are stupid. so is apple and steve jobbs.

i will maintain they are stupid until they start supporting flac playback (probably never) and then i might break down and buy one

Why is apple stupid for not supporting flac? 

Apple has their own DRM scheme, which was required to get the studios permission to distribute content.  They support MP3 and ACC for importing user sourced content.  Flac is not widely used outside our circle and the benefits of lossless compression mean nothing to probably 98% of the consumer public.  So for those 2% of people willing to trade disk space for improved quality, Apple provides their own lossless codec.  Since apple cannot own flac, it makes more sense for them to implement support for a format that they can control since the ipod is not really an open architecture device.

Apple is pretty fucking smart.  Once again they have defined an entire class of personal electronic device and unlike the Newton they are maintaining leadership in that market.

There is a linux distribution that will run on the iPod.  At some point they will add support for additional formats.  Ogg will probably be completed first.  If you want flac support, you can contribute to the development or wait for someone to do it.  Flac support is already in the works.

[scb]

there's an early release of a flac plugin for quicktime that i downloaded the other day.  not for the ipod, but still nice

http://damien.drix.free.fr/qtflac/

[John Kelly]

there's an early release of a flac plugin for quicktime that i downloaded the other day. not for the ipod, but still nice

http://damien.drix.free.fr/qtflac/

+t for that one

I agree. plus, ipods are stupid. so is apple and steve jobbs.

Who the hell is steve jobbs? 

[Tall Adam]

I agree. plus, ipods are stupid. so is apple and steve jobbs.

i will maintain they are stupid until they start supporting flac playback (probably never) and then i might break down and buy one

Why is apple stupid for not supporting flac? 

Apple has their own DRM scheme, which was required to get the studios permission to distribute content.  They support MP3 and ACC for importing user sourced content.  Flac is not widely used outside our circle and the benefits of lossless compression mean nothing to probably 98% of the consumer public.  So for those 2% of people willing to trade disk space for improved quality, Apple provides their own lossless codec.  Since apple cannot own flac, it makes more sense for them to implement support for a format that they can control since the ipod is not really an open architecture device.

Apple is pretty fucking smart.  Once again they have defined an entire class of personal electronic device and unlike the Newton they are maintaining leadership in that market.

There is a linux distribution that will run on the iPod.  At some point they will add support for additional formats.  Ogg will probably be completed first.  If you want flac support, you can contribute to the development or wait for someone to do it.  Flac support is already in the works.

i dont really think theyre stupid for not supporting flac, theres just not enough demand for it obviously. i dont even have an ipod so i dont really care. i would be more likely to buy one if they did though. the only reason to support flac is...why not? i mean, yeah they have their own lossless format now, but that would just mean one more conversion step for me. it would be nice to be able to just dump shows onto the ipod. its not like they have to pay for the license. honestly, i have no intention to buy a portable digital media player of any type until its one that can play my 24-bit flac's of shows. until then, the quality of the CDs of shows which i would burn anyway, are just as good if not better then ipod so why spend so much on a device i have no real use for. i know the likelyness of a 24-bit playback machine is not very high in the near future, so i just dont care till then. listen to my 24-bits at home on my laptop (until i finally can afford dvd-a technology) and CDs everywhere else. my dream playback would be iPod sized, bigger storage capacity, good D/A, 24-bit capability, and digital outs for hookup to a home system, but obviously thats not gonna happen anytime soon. its like people who are waiting for the dream multitrack, 24-bit, stealthable recorder, it's just not in the cards right now.

apple is obviosly not a stupid company, theyre very smart. they used excellent marketing to save a sinking ship over the last few years from the iMac straight to the iPod and iTunes. theyre business moves have been great. i just dont prefer any of their products at this point. but who knows what the future holds...

[Lil Kim Jong-Il]

sound like you need a 722 with flac support ;-)

[scb]

i dont really think theyre stupid for not supporting flac, theres just not enough demand for it obviously. i dont even have an ipod so i dont really care. i would be more likely to buy one if they did though. the only reason to support flac is...why not? i mean, yeah they have their own lossless format now, but that would just mean one more conversion step for me. it would be nice to be able to just dump shows onto the ipod. its not like they have to pay for the license. honestly, i have no intention to buy a portable digital media player of any type until its one that can play my 24-bit flac's of shows. until then, the quality of the CDs of shows which i would burn anyway, are just as good if not better then ipod so why spend so much on a device i have no real use for. i know the likelyness of a 24-bit playback machine is not very high in the near future, so i just dont care till then. listen to my 24-bits at home on my laptop (until i finally can afford dvd-a technology) and CDs everywhere else. my dream playback would be iPod sized, bigger storage capacity, good D/A, 24-bit capability, and digital outs for hookup to a home system, but obviously thats not gonna happen anytime soon. its like people who are waiting for the dream multitrack, 24-bit, stealthable recorder, it's just not in the cards right now.

apple is obviosly not a stupid company, theyre very smart. they used excellent marketing to save a sinking ship over the last few years from the iMac straight to the iPod and iTunes. theyre business moves have been great. i just dont prefer any of their products at this point. but who knows what the future holds...

if say the reason they should suport flac is "why not?," then you could also say why not SHN, why not ogg, why not APE, why not a ton of other formats.  flac might be what you want, but to people who aren't us and who aren't into live shows, flac is just another format.

as far as playing back lossless on a portable device like an ipod, I don't even know if i could hear the difference between lossy and lossless on the 1/8 inch output of an ipod or a nomad or whatever.  and 24 bit?  i don't know if it'd be worth it.  cool?  yes.  but that'd have to be one hell of a player to hear the 24 bits on a pocket sized device.  but hey, i'm not saying i don't want one

[AlexNC]

Ok, get back on topic guys. Start another thread if you want to debate Apple's marketing practices.

I think this is huge news. 16bit/96kHz (remember, CD is 44.1kHz) wave recording would be a great addition to the iPod, making it a perfect tool for stealthing shows. Also remember this has just been released. Not too shabby for a beta release. I can only imagine the support will increase as they hack deeper into the iPod.

Here is a cut/paste out of their forum of a guy that did a recording using this hack. He converted it to mp3 to make it downloadable (the original wav was 20 megs). Sounds very good, considering it was done using a crappy PC mic.

Wow, now this is cool!

Ok, for anyone interested in hearing how it sounds, I've uploaded a little 2 minute clip of my slightly out of tune Baby Taylor (so, not the most sonically impressive guitar in the world) being played through a $10 pc mic, plugged directly into the ipod headphone jack.

I recorded at 96 khz, and it produced a 20 mb wav file. For the sake of upload/download time, I converted it to a 128 kbps mp3 file.

Anyway, this ain't too shabby for an easy to carry little recording system.

http://www.buzzsawmusic.com/music/ipodtest.mp3

I'll have to do a comparison running through a pre-amp an decent mic.

Later!
Paul

[RRobar]

I've got a 2nd gen 20 GB iPod I may be willing to give it a try on. Seeing how the podzilla aite says it does not harm the original config or any of the music on it (even though all of it is backed up). I've been wanting to record on this thing since day 1. The site says you can select 44.1 and above (as long as it's 16 bit). I know a digital in would be preferable. But this would be cool if it works.

[wbrisette]

apple is obviosly not a stupid company, theyre very smart. they used excellent marketing to save a sinking ship over the last few years from the iMac straight to the iPod and iTunes. theyre business moves have been great. i just dont prefer any of their products at this point. but who knows what the future holds...

If you ever get the chance to use Mac OS X, and I mean really use it, not just walk into CompUSA and spend 2 minutes "playing with it", I think you would change your mind. Granted I'm biased since I worked for the company for 10 years (no more sadly), but I work on windows every single day at work and have both my iBook and XP notebook at my desk, and rarely does a day go by when somebody doesn't stop by my cube and comment on my iBook (hell, even the IT guy thought it was cool that it ran a flavor of UNIX and was impressed).

Once you use they product, you'll wonder why you beat your head against a rock and used windows for so damn long (obviously my opinon), but that's how I feel every day strapped with using XP all day long. I keep thinking, I can't believe Apple lost marketshare to this...

So, my take... try it, you'll like it... ;-)

Wayne

[spyder9]

Its a shame you can't hack Creative Labs Jukebox Zen 2.0.  It was the last Zen version w/ Firewire.  Plays wavs too.  I use it to playback all my shows.  Better than the Ipod, because of price and sound quality.  Better than the new Zens because the craftmanship is rick solid.  Only drawback: battery is not easily removed.  Have to do a little brain surgery.

You can pick them up used on eBay for around $150.00.

[John Kelly]

Better than the Ipod, because of price and sound quality.

How is the sound quality better?

[Lil Kim Jong-Il]

I keep thinking, I can't believe Apple lost marketshare to this...

Apple didn't lose market share to MS, they lost it to IBM back when big iron was king and the closed architecture didn't help.


Is there anyone making any 24-bit portable?   Even that recordable iPod is 16 bit.  That is when I'd jump in.  I'm with GQJSP in that I don't want to continue to purchase devices limited to 16 bit resolution.  Everything except my car is updated now for high res and it would be nice to do away with down sampling alltogether.

[spyder9]

Better than the Ipod, because of price and sound quality.

How is the sound quality better?

Did a a lot of research on these 2 last year.  A lot.  Checked out all the comparisons that were done.  Read all the experts reviews.  Read a lot of consumer reviews.  Jukebox consistently beat out those in its class for sonics.  Ipod got the nod for sleek design and smart marketing: "It can fit in your pocket".    If you love an Ipod, you are a special person.  My research showed that there are superior products at a cheaper price.  Ipod is just a marketing darling.

Nomad's sound quality rating made sense to me, since they have been making digital audio stuff a lot longer than Apple (ex. Soundblaster).

[John Kelly]

Better than the Ipod, because of price and sound quality.

How is the sound quality better?

Did a a lot of research on these 2 last year. A lot. Checked out all the comparisons that were done. Read all the experts reviews. Read a lot of consumer reviews. Jukebox consistently beat out those in its class for sonics. Ipod got the nod for sleek design and smart marketing: "It can fit in your pocket". If you love an Ipod, you are a special person. My research showed that there are superior products at a cheaper price. Ipod is just a marketing darling.

Nomad's sound quality rating made sense to me, since they have been making digital audio stuff a lot longer than Apple (ex. Soundblaster).

What I'm saying is what about it makes the sound quality better.  They're both playing compressed audio through a 1/8" output, it's not like you're going to hear a whole lot of difference between any of them.

Or is it just that the headphones that come with the zen are better?

[scb]

Better than the Ipod, because of price and sound quality.

How is the sound quality better?

Did a a lot of research on these 2 last year.  A lot.  Checked out all the comparisons that were done.  Read all the experts reviews.  Read a lot of consumer reviews.  Jukebox consistently beat out those in its class for sonics.  Ipod got the nod for sleek design and smart marketing: "It can fit in your pocket".    If you love an Ipod, you are a special person.  My research showed that there are superior products at a cheaper price.  Ipod is just a marketing darling.

Nomad's sound quality rating made sense to me, since they have been making digital audio stuff a lot longer than Apple (ex. Soundblaster).

But as we all know, soundblaster cards are the "low end" cards, so that's not a great argument... 

I've done research and listened to all sorts of products.  The iPod sounds fine to me.  I don't think I need to be a special person to think that. 

There are also plenty of reviews that will back up the claim that the iPod is not an inferior product.

[spyder9]

Opinions: 6 of one, half a dozen on the other.  You can argue it many different ways.  I guess you can say their all good.  Technology has improved so much on mp3 players in the last year, we could discuss this for eons.  Now, its case of what kind of fashion statement you want to make.  Do you want Nikes or Tommy Hilfigers?  They both are supposed to be comfortable to walk in.  Peace.    

[spyder9]

Oh yeah, I use Shure E2c for canalphones.  Killer phones!  May someday upgrade to E3cs, but these will do just fine for now.

[wbrisette]

Apple didn't lose market share to MS, they lost it to IBM back when big iron was king and the closed architecture didn't help.

Actually that's not entirely true. When Apple screwed up the licensing of certain thing to MS, then lost it's court case with MS, that's when it really saw huge shifts in marketshare. Windows 3.x wasn't going to win anybody over. Once MS won the case, it was pretty much free to legally steal as much as it wanted from Apple's interface designs without having to worry about Apple anymore. Windows 95 came out and well that's when huge marketshare shifts came into play.

IBM was busy at this time with OS/2.

The biggest losses in Apple's world over the past several years have been in K-12 education. Part of it is political with IT directors making it impossible for Apple to even bid on contracts (like our local school district), and part of it is Dell who offers schools deals on equipment it had out on lease but has been refurbished. Tough to compete against that model.

Apple now has to win on it's own merits and the iPod is one of the few ways it has been able to have people look at the platform again.

To bring this back on topic a bit more, it's going to be hard for Apple to do some of the things that Creative and others are doing. Not because they don't want to do them, but they had to do some backflips for the record companies in order to get them to license their catalogs to Apple. This means there are some things you just wont see on an iPod, and you know maybe that's not such a bad thing. Maybe we need to stop trying to make these things vegimatics and use them for what they were designed for; that playback. In that area, I find the iPod very acceptable, I use it in the car and at work. In both places I'm not going to hear the difference between most of the units on the market.

Wayne

[Karl]

I just listened to the mp3 posted way above--there are a couple notable concerns.  The recording is in mono.  Also, the waveform does not come above zero at all. 

There also seems to be some HD noise introduced into the recording, very similar to what we hear when we record analog into the JB3.