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.