Timo Jyrinki timo.jyrinki at gmail.com wrote on Mon Mar 17 12:43:18 CET 2008: >> I have yet to come across any media file that I can't play on my N800; >> it plays ogg, wav, mp3, wma, wmv, xvid, etc. > >It does not play eg. ogg, I was discussing out-of-the-box >functionality, ie. what the vendor supports which is the only thing >that matters in the big picture. I also mentioned that the vendor >actively rejects open media formats, which is also true as seen in the >HTML5 preparation discussions in addition to refusing to support those >formats in devices. > >> It even plays some Web media that my desktop kubuntu machine won't. > >Yes, it plays many closed, proprietary formats out-of-the-box, but >none of the open formats like ogg vorbis, ogg theora, flac, speex, >dirac. So it does not play any of my music out-of-the-box, and I'd >prefer to support vendors that support those formats.
You're speaking with forked tongue here: no other device plays all those out of the box either, including full Linux desktops. Frankly, since no commonly available consumer device is capable of playing most of them under any circumstances, I'm not sure why that's a consideration anyway. I personally am not interested in having to store my media in 15 different formats just so I can say I'm using an open format. If I can't drag and drop the same file onto each and every one of my devices and have it play perfectly, I'm not going to bother. And "lossless" formats are a joke. They use such prodigious amounts of storage space that there's really no point at all. Just use the original media! And if you don't own the original media, you're either a thief or you've been ripped off yourself. (Can you say, "iTunes"?) Ogg support is a few taps of the stylus away for IT OS2008. It's no harder than simply starting an app. You're way exaggerating the situation. You also deliberately left out xvid, which OS2008 plays through mplayer, also only a few taps away. As for the Neo, the reason it's taking them so long to "verify" the hardware is because they won't leave it alone long enough to get a decent idea of its reliability. They aren't simply making certain the existing design is ready, they keep making major changes. For example, what they've done with the 850MHz vs. 900 MHz situation. Every time you change the functionality, you have to recheck areas that were perfectly fine before, and having two different versions is going to complicate matters further. (And the 850/900 issue is another one that shouldn't exist: if they would use the quad-band gsm as a quad-band instead of crippling it, it would be a whole lot better for everybody.) Meanwhile, they keep going to major conventions and making all kinds of announcements, but those announcements turn out to not be quite in line with reality. If they want to keep everything behind closed doors, fine, but then keep it that way. Don't keep making public announcements. Vaporware is not the way to attract customers. _______________________________________________ OpenMoko community mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
