OT (kinda): iRiver iHP-120

[Martin Milner]

I've had the unit three days, so here's my early observations. The first point is that this is really a 40GB portable Hard Disk Drive, with attachments. Loading on music is as easy as copying & pasting around your PC.

1) Uploading CDs is a piece of cake (after Az told me how). I plug the CD into the CD drive, it boots up Windows Media Audio Player, and I click once to copy to the hard drive. This saves it in WMA format. About 70% of the time the artist & track details are found & copied across too. On some CDs (probably lower quality indie ones) this doesn't come across, but you can type it in yourself through the WMA player interface - a nuisance, but do-able and worth it. I've tried finding the details through the internet, and though WMA player often finds them, it doesn't appear to do anything to the actual files despite following the instructions. I'm probably missing something very obvious here, any hints appreciated. Copying to my hard disk takes a couple of minutes per CD.

To put the CD onto the iRiver is even quicker, about 12 seconds per album for me. I have everything categorised by type (ITM, Jazz, Bluegrass etc). Creating my own playlist is easy too, just copy & paste the tracks I want into a new folder & name it. I think this is going to be used a lot, for different moods.

2) Recording through a line-in is less sleek. The unit doesn't make or keep track marks like the MD does, so you end up with one big file. This you can then snip up & rename in a program like Goldwav, but it's not ideal. the unit also cuts out long before the 5 hour limit it states, so if you leave it to record unwatched, you may come back to find it stopped early. Again, I can get round this in time, but it's annoying.

Does anyone have an MD with a USB connection? I'd like to know how that transfers to a PC, as it may be an easier option for me to do it that way, then from PC to the iRiver. I don't want to invest £130 in an MD with a USB and find the same problem, but if it saves me hours of re-recording it'd be worth it.

3) Battery life. 16 hours is good (if it does go that long), but I can imagine camping & walking trips where that is not enough, and I can't get to a mains outlet to recharge. It also means carrying the charger with you (5 volts), which for anyone who has done any hiking knows, is a pain. I vhave a collection of chargers or mains adaptors for MD, Gameboy, portable Digital Radio, Mobile Phone, 2" portable TV and now iRiver. They're all different voltages & connections, and a heavy collection. The MD units have rechargeable batteries, which you can take out & replace with a AA or AAA battery, so you can carry extra batteries with ease for unlimited listening. A standard battery option would have been handy, but we seem to have moved to a society where mains voltage is expected to be available at all times.

4) Live recording. Haven't tried it yet.

5) Using the remote control. One nuisance I encountered with my MD was that if I stoped playback, it would often start again at the beginning of the whole MD. Maybe just my old and battered unit, but a nuisance. The iRiver shuts itself down after a few minutes to conserve power, so you have to press > once to switch on again, and > again to start the track a few moments later. It does start again where you stopped though, even in the middle of a track, and it fades in nicely so as not to assault the ears. That pleases me stupid. For switching to a different album it's a bit crap, and I use the main unit.

5) Earphone socket. The socket on the remote control is slightly recessed (why the heck did they do this???) so if you have earphones with a 90 bend in, as I do, you'll need to use the short adaptor, or use the earphones supplied. Not a big problem, but obviously one they had to get around, and a sensible design would have been better. Hopefully this is something they'll cure in future versions. I'm now looking out for good quality earphones without a 90 degree bend.

6) FM radio. Haven't used it.

Overall:

I can see this unit getting a lot of use, and it's great that I can put ALL my CDs into one unit and still have tons of room to spare, but it won't entirely replace my MD unit.

The design is sleek, better than the yucky white iPod, but I don't like the thumbstick controller any better in real life than in the pics. It works, awkwardly. It's prominent enough to be knocked if you haven't put the lock on, but is recessed enough to be awkward to use while in the leather carry case.

I'm very pleased with the unit, given the reservations above. When and if I need to replace it in a few more years, I trust the dodgy areas will have been attended to, and it will certainly be a doddle to grab everything off this and transfer it to the new one.

[colomon]

the unit also cuts out long before the 5 hour limit it states, so if you leave it to record unwatched, you may come back to find it stopped early.

Actually, I think it's usually the file size limits (195MB for MP3, 795MB for WAV) that usually limit the practical recording time. You might be able to get 5 hours if you used a very low quality MP3 bitrate, but 195MB is just over two hours at the 192K setting, and obviously 795MB is under two hours for a WAV.

3) Battery life. 16 hours is good (if it does go that long)

Battery life is dependent on how much the hard drive is accessed. I haven't tried to work it out precisely, but my guess is 8 hours is more realistic on the MP3 192K setting.

[moxy]

My two cents: I kissed my iRiver on my way home from the Catskills, that's how happy I was with it. Of course, I never had a recording device before, and I was high on the Catskills Irish Arts week...

Anyway, I love my iRiver. I've got the 20G model, have all my CDs on it plus a bit of live recording from the Catskills and from local sessions here and plenty of room to spare. I just need to find out if I can charge it with a simple adaptor when I go to Ireland...

I really like the A-B feature it has - that's useful when I'm learning a new tune. I press the A-B button at the beginning of a section I want to learn, then press it again at the end of the section (thereby telling the iRiver the A and B points between which I want to loop). Then it loops that section over and over until I ask it to stop. That's an AWESOME feature for learning new tunes.

[ChrisLaughlin]

Here's a good tip about the remote control. The remote control cable is long and if you plug headphones into it it can be way too long. A solution is to just plug the headphones into the line-out jack while keeping the remote connected as normal. The remote will remain fully functional and the sound comes through just fine, with volume control, through the line-out

Chris

[Martin Milner]

Actually, I think it's usually the file size limits (195MB for MP3, 795MB for WAV) that usually limit the practical recording time.

Ah, good tip, thanks Coloman, I was using WAV, I'll switch to MP3.

[Azalin]

Martin,

I don't think you'll find any MD that can download stuff to your PC (for anti-piracy reason). You'll find MDs that use USB to upload stuff to the MD from the computer but not the other way around. That's another reason why I needed something like the iRiver, to transfer 5 hours of music on my computer it takes 5 hours with the MD, and 1 minute with the iRiver. There's a big difference here. I don't even think the iPod allows downloading stuff from the iPod to a computer.

[Azalin]

Actually, I think it's usually the file size limits (195MB for MP3, 795MB for WAV) that usually limit the practical recording time.

Ah, good tip, thanks Coloman, I was using WAV, I'll switch to MP3.

And don't forget to play with the bit rate, the less quality the less space it takes on your hard drive. But for a CD you might want good bit rate. For session recordings I'm using 128kpbs I think and it's good enough for me.

[Caj]

o For the life of me, I couldn't figure out how to DELETE a track after recording it. That was a colossal pain in the keisteroo: even a cheapo tape recorder lets you tape OVER something. And of course, an MD recorder lets you slice & dice tracks, rename and reorder them, etc.

Well, there again some problems for others are not problems for me, but it's true that a delete function would be great. I personally have my WHOLE collection of CDs on my iRiver and it takes about 3GIG. I've got 17 GIG left to record live stuff, this means about 600 hours of recording.

It's not running out of space that's the problem. It's wading through all the data you can't delete, edit or crop. At IAW you can easily end up recording hours of material each day, and what you need for tomorrow is buried in a bunch of huge files all named VOICE0??.MP3.

I guess, tho, that the real reason I was steamed about not being able to delete tracks was that I considered that such a basic and obvious thing for a piece of consumer electronics --- pretty much any piece of consumer electronics that involves recordable media. My digital camera lets me delete pictures, and if it didn't I would be similarly amazed.

Believe, with 600 hours of theorical recording, I really don't bother with a delete function, even if I had one, 'cause at the end of the day if I want to delete stuff I'll use my mouse and Windows file explorer on the iRiver, not some menu function. With 600 hours I can leave for three months and tape everything I need without any need for transfer.

Neither of those options are exactly available to someone at a festival. I'm in the middle of nowhere for a week with just a recording gadget, so no interfacing to a computer at the end of the day. And I can't simply wait til I get home to sort it all out, because I am actually taping lessons each day for the next day. I need to be able to navigate half-decently on the gadget itself, without help from a PC.

Caj

[Martin Milner]

Actually, I think it's usually the file size limits (195MB for MP3, 795MB for WAV) that usually limit the practical recording time.

Ah, good tip, thanks Coloman, I was using WAV, I'll switch to MP3.

And don't forget to play with the bit rate, the less quality the less space it takes on your hard drive. But for a CD you might want good bit rate. For session recordings I'm using 128kpbs I think and it's good enough for me.

I tried Col's tip - I discovered that three attempts using WAV format all cut out after about 1 hour 25 mins. Using MP3 at 128kbs, it cut out after about 3 hours 25 mins. The file size was near identical at 195MB, WAV or MP3. If I drop the bit rate another notch to 112kbs or even 96kbs and try again tonight, I should be able to get a whole MD on LP4 recorded onto the iRiver. I have a lot of voice tapes I want to transfer, and quality has not suffered so farat 128kbs. It still requires snipping into bite-size portions on the PC, but that's not a biggie. Once I've worked out a system, it's just a matter of setting it to run and leaving it overnight. Every night for about the next four months. Then I have all my old albums on tape from my Uni days, they may as well go on too!

Chris - thanks, I'll use that tip too, though of course not when the unit is in the leather carry case.

I have no problem not having a delete function - this is definitely a unit you need a PC to use anyway, and that makes it a piece of cake. I did get frustrated by the button functions, a short press or a long press do diffferent things, and I spent ages trying to record before I realised I was holding the button down too long.

[Azalin]

The real problem with the iRiver for me is the size, if I could get something as small as the iRiver flash memory player, but with the same storage (20GIG) I'd buy it right away, but it will take a few years before they can manage to make tiny memory cards that can hold more than 10GIG.

[beowulf573]

Does anyone have an MD with a USB connection? I'd like to know how that transfers to a PC, as it may be an easier option for me to do it that way, then from PC to the iRiver. I don't want to invest £130 in an MD with a USB and find the same problem, but if it saves me hours of re-recording it'd be worth it.

You can't, and that's my only real problem with MD recorders. The USB connection is for moving tunes from the PC to the MD recorder, not the other way round.

Sony said they were going to allow it with the new HiMD recorders, but it seems to be crippled in other ways.

Thanks for the followup, as I thought my only issues with the iRiver devices would be 1) a bit rough in the user-interface dept, 2) you can't create tracks on the fly.

[Martin Milner]

External Recording:

Did my first external mike recording yesterday. I did get a couple of high pitched clicks. Though no great issue since I'm not recording for professional use it'd be nice if they weren't there. It didn't seem to matter how long the track was either. It almost sounded like a build up of static being released. I'm impressed with the quality of the tiny mike.

Odd that they show playback level, but not recording level where it is actually useful. Somethign they could easily have designed in. Another useful feature would have been a track mark button, like on an MD, to split recordings up quickly & easily.

Line in: 112kbs MP3 came out at 3 hours 34 minutes and 4 seconds. Still not quite enough for a whole MD at LP4, but still no loss of quality (for voice recordings). I'll try again at 96kbs tonight.

[Jens_Hoppe]

I have been referring back to this excellent thread on a number of occasions, since I am still considering getting an MP3 recorder.

The iRiver H-120 discussed sounds yummy, but I have come to the conclusion that the HDD-based, multi-gigabyte devices don't suit my needs exactly. I would need the recorder for occasional session tune grabbing, but would have no problem doing frequent transfer of files to my PC.

Can any of you iRiver experts give me some advice on which iRiver (or other brand for that matter) model would suit me, given my preferences below:

- direct MP3 recording.
- recording quality is not much of an issue but should at least be decent.
- external microphone and stereo recording possibilities would be nice, but aren't a must.
- flash ram based, 512 or 1024 MB.
- smaller, lighter, handier than H-120 or other HDD-based devices (for portability reasons, as well as to make it less "intrusive" when recording, say, in a session).
- USB 2.0 connection to my PC, with the device preferably acting as just another external disk drive when connected (ie. not proprietory software involved). Direct Windows file explorer drag-and-drop of MP3-files to and from device.
- fancy features, such as color displays are not a priority for me.
- must have reasonably good battery life.


The iRiver iFP 700 and 800 series models look nice and small, but I am worried about sound quality of recordings since this doesn't seem to be a focus for these models.

The iFP 900 series looks more bulky (but actually weighs about the same as the models mentioned above), has external microphone support and noise reduction features. Annoying color display!

However, all the 512/1024 MB flash models are rather expensive...

So, experts, which model is the model for me? 700/800/900 series, or something else?

And is my belief that a gig of memory will be sufficient naive in the extreme?

Thanks,
Jens

[Azalin]

Last time I checked, all of the flash-memory based iRiver models had some built-in defects, people were complaining of background noise heard from the device, and people at iRiver were saying it was the best they could do on a device that small, and blablabla... Also, as far as I know, the device didnt become an external hard drive when plugged it, and it recorded in an internal format which was NOT MP3, you need to convert it from their internal format to MP3.

I checked a lot for memory based MP3 recorders, and it's still chaos out there. Most of devices arent optimized for recording like the iRiver 120 is. A good site I check from time to time is etronics.com, they've got plenty of MP3 players and it gives you a good idea.

You can be sure that as soon as a good 1GB flash player is available which can record in MP3, I'll buy it.

[Jens_Hoppe]

and it recorded in an internal format which was NOT MP3, you need to convert it from their internal format to MP3.

By golly, you are right. I just looked through the iFP series manuals, and they all record in an internal ".REC" format. Yikes.

Ah well, time to re-evaluate.

You can be sure that as soon as a good 1GB flash player is available which can record in MP3, I'll buy it.

And tell us about it, please.

Cheers,
Jens