MP3 Players - idiots guide needed!

[CheekyChops]

I am looking at finally getting with the times and buying an MP3 player but am clueless basically.

What is the differecne between a WMA and MP3? I have just been looking at one player that will store 250 MP3s or 500 WMA format songs. Why the difference?

I know I can download songs to put on my MP3 but how to I transfer my existing CDs to it and what format will these then be in?

I like the look of IPods but have read that you can't listen to certain types of file and can't download from certain places etc, is this a problem?

Can anybody recommend a decent MP3 player that will probably only be used on holidays so doesn't need to store my whole CD collection and shouldn't cost the earth?

[Ethel]

The difference is the amount of compression - more data is removed from wma than mp3, but the average person using average players will not detect a difference.

Use Windows Media Player (packaged on every Windows machine, I think) - put your cd in the drive, and click Rip. It will default to wma but you can change the format to mp3 if you prefer.

Your cd tracks will now show in the Windows Media Player library. It is very easy to transfer them to your mp3 player.

I don't like ipod for various reasons - but that is personal preference. I have a creative zen which suits me very well - it has a fm radio too, which I find very useful.

[CheekyChops]

Cheers Ethel, I have a lot of music stored on my PC that I have ripped from my CD's but these are stored ion WMA format, I didn't realise I could change them to MP3!

[ACtheTROLL]

music files can either be
.wav - where 1 hour = 650Mb (about a CD's worth)
or .p3 1 hour = 180Mb
or .ma 1hr = 100Mb

.wav is a file with all the info preserved
if you zip a wav file it will get considerably smaller
however a zip is lossyless ... so when it's decoded ... all the info remains - and the file will expand back to it's original size

lossy compression on the other hand throws some of the info away - permanently

mp3 and wma do just that .... how much info depends on the quality setting (sample rate)

first you sample the tune x times a second ... then you decide which are needed ... and which you can live without
a silence doesn't need many slices ...
just a message to do nothing for x slots - a "twiddly bit" on the other hand needs many more slots because the notes change so quickly.

These decisions are made by a "program" called a codec
the codec also knows how to re-assemble the information so that it sounds OK

All the world uses mp3
but as usual microsoft had to do it their way ... and came up with another codec that makes wma files.
in this case they did do it better and files are considerably smaller for any given quality.

MP3 is still the "accepted" format - like .jpg for pikkies
and - every player still supports it
WMA is more efficient (which matters if you only have a linited space) .... so most makers support that format also

I listen mainly to books ... so I don't need stereo or hi-fi reproduction .... so my mp3s are tiny compared to a single song
(15Mb per hour) - capacity depends on the quality you find acceptable

[Machecoul]

I bought a Zen Touch 20Gb. About 3 years old now and had no problems at all. I have 3500 MP3s stored on it and set to random is quite fun when so many different tracks from a wide variety of genres pop up - I also just plug it in to my DAB radio and can listen to it when I get fed up with the radio.

MP3 players seem to come in various group sizes - round about 1GB, about 5 or 6 GB then over 20GB. If you can put up with the slightly larger size of the bigger GB ones I would go for one of those. You never know when you might appreciate the larger capacity.

My Zen plays WMAs and MP3s - it is not a good idea to convert your WMAs to MP3 - read Ethel's answer about compression. Might be easier to just re copy your CDs as MP3. (You can also set the quality in your copying software - I started at 128 kbs and have now gone to 192 kbs) The bigger the better - but also file size increases.