Am I that OLD?? Can someone explain the MP3, iPod thingies to me??

[AllyandJack]

I have no idea what they do or how to use them, but I want one. I want a tiny little thing that can hold all of my favorite songs!! I don't want to lug around 50 CDs and my CD player that skips when the car bounces. Help!

First off....what is the difference between an iPod and an MP3 (if any)?

Second, how do I get my music onto it? I have a brand new laptop with all the bells and whistles, so if it's computer related, I should be able to do it.

Third, do I have to pay $200. for the thing AND pay for each song?? That could be very pricey.

Fourth, if I do choose to get one, where do you recommend I get it and what kind should I get? What should I look for in terms of features? I want something relatively simple....just something that plays music!

Thank you for all your help!!!!

 

[Pin Wizard]

No, you're not old and out of it. LOL! You just have more important things to be concerned about...a GOOD thing in my book!

I've seen them at Target and Apple. Couldn't tell you how they work. LOL! I have better things to do also.

 

[jrydberg]

I'm no expert, but I'll give it a shot...

you get music on by downloading to the mp3 player (mp3 is the format of the music file, iPod plays mp3 files)

You do have to pay for the player and then for each song you download.

I don't know anything about which mp3 player to get or where to get it, so can't help there. But I would look at the storage capacity -- and make sure you get an idea of how many songs it can hold *uncompressed*. Most of the promotional materials cite numbers for compressed files which results in lower quality.

 

[oogieboogie]

1. An Ipod is an music player made by Apple that plays MP3 formatted songs. There are different types of song formats, MP3, WMA, etc. The most popular is MP3

2. You save the music from your existing CDs to the laptop's hard drive and then transfer them over to the MP3 player. In the same sense, you can download music from the internet from places like Itunes, Napster, Rhapsody, etc and pay for each song you download (typically $1.00). These downloads get put on your laptop's hard drive then transfered to the player.

In order to transfer music from your existing CDs to the laptop, you will need a CD ripper and encoder software which converts the songs into the MP3 format. There are plenty of rippers and burner softwares out there. The popular one is Roxio's Easy CD Creator.

3. The price of the MP3 player is mostly for the amount of space you get. 15-20gb of hard drive space is enough to keep thousands of mp3 songs. If you're transferring your songs from your own CDs, then the cost if free. If you're purchasing music from the internet, yes you will have to pay per song.

4. Ipod is the most popular one by far. But Dell and Creative Labs have also come out with competing items.
Look for capacity, battery life, simplicity of interface for downloading and transfering.

Hope that helps.

 

[Pugsley]

OK, I’m an expert since I’ve had one for a week now! Last weekend at my company picnic I won a $200 gift certificate to Toys R Us. Everyone was cracking up because I don’t have kids. But after the picnic my fiancé and I stopped in a Toys R Us to see if there was anything we could possibly use. And we came across an MP3 player on sale for $99. So we each got one and we’re having a blast. It’s an RCA LYRA. It’s so tiny and cute (fits in the palm of my hand). It comes with all the software you need and it’s really easy to install it and load it with music. Also it came with 100 free songs to download from e-music but I haven’t done that. I’ve already filled mine up with songs from CDs and I’ve already ordered an additional memory card since I need more space on there. Mine’s supposed to hold about 4 hours of music, but I don’t think it held that much. I’d suggest getting one with more memory (mine is 128MB).

 

[RedxPanda]

just to let you know, it seems the IPOD is outrageously priced.

i've seen double the capacity for half the price from companies such as Creative (the Nomad) and Samsung.

The Creative Nomad was actually the first of its kind i think, it has been out for years. They should all come with a USB cable, or somethign similar to transfer the files from your computer to the MP3 player.

I use "CDex" to rip songs off my CDs and into MP3 files, its freeware on the internet. it should be the top result on yahoo or google.
I also use Ares as a p2p, like napster or kazaa, but its free and i havn't had any adware issues or viruses yet ( lets hope it stays that way)

Also iwould go for a GB capacity, the average song can be 3-5MB
so 1GB would store approx 200-330 songs.