MP3 for Voyage

[Titanium S1 111S (gla)]

As I have mention to some of you I’m heading off to St Lucia (by saily boat) in a couple of weeks time and am trying to get everything I’ll need together.

I will be standing night watches from time to time and will have lots of time to kill generally. I had thought that a few audio books on MP3 would help keep me awake and pass the time. I have done a bit of searching and have found a couple of web sites which do not charge for stuff which is out of copyright, if anybody knows of any good free sites let me know.

My real problem is that your average book is about 10 hrs or 0.5 gig. Two questions:

1) does any body know whether there is a way to sample / compress the files and still listen to them on an MP3, it occurs to me that the sound quality you need for music will be much higher than you need for spoken word so it should be possible and;

2) (probably a question for Shug or AndyG) which MP3 should I buy to take with me to store say 50 – 100 hrs of spoken word and say 150 music tracks on without spending a fortune. Plan is to get from AMP3 if possible.

Any advice appreciated

[Shug]

Heh, I log on for the first time in ages, and there's a question

Righty-ho - in answer to your first question, yes, absolutely. You can resample the MP3 into something smaller and in mono - most people will find 64kbps MP3 perfectly fine for voice (think Medium Wave Radio) Lots of freebies to do this on the web, but something like this http://www.dbpoweramp.com/ would do the trick well.

As for Audiobook specific MP3 players. I assume you've seen the Audible website? They offer audiobooks in a specific format, which keeps them small, but gives great quality. Players supporting audible also let you bookmark things so you can go right back to where you left off.

Personal favouirite from the Audible compatible stuff is the iRiver Clix 2 - stunning sound quality, simple to use, small and it's even pretty

http://www.advancedmp3players.co.uk/sho ... .2524.html

If you're definately going down the freebie books route - you can get some great 8GB players now for not huge wads. 8GB would be plenty for what you want to do. Check these:

iRiver X20 8GB - £139.99
http://www.advancedmp3players.co.uk/sho ... .2195.html

Sony NWZ-A818 (Video Walkman) - £129.99
http://www.advancedmp3players.co.uk/sho ... .2619.html

Creative Zen 8GB - £119.00
http://www.advancedmp3players.co.uk/sho ... .2632.html

[Titanium S1 111S (gla)]

Thanks Shug, I’ll have a go at the compression this evening. I did spot audible but am basically too cheep to spend £60 or £70 on audio books when I can pick them up for free and if that means I have to spend a bit more on a player then at least I end up with a player which I can use for music. While the audio book idea is what is prompting me to buy I don’t think I’ll use it for that after the trip.

I’m going to have to spend a wee bit of time looking through the web site to try and figure out what I want. Stupid question I know but you seem to get a lot more storage for your cash with say the Archos 404 or am I missing something? Also you seem to get a whole lot with the ipod classic 80Gb but I assume the problem with that is that you are tied to I-Tunes. I suspect that I’m just looking at storage to the exclusion of everything else and missing something important.

The help is much appreciated and I will probably pop into the galleries to have a chat in the next few days.

Thanks again.

[Shug]

The issue with MP3 player capacities at the moment stems from the fact that you have 2 different storage medium in them:

Hard Drive - cheap per GB, but heaver, more fragile and power hungry

Flash - solid-state, so robust, no skipping and light, but more expensive per GB.

More and more, flash players are becoming the norm, as the memory gets cheaper. Apple are one of the few still making hard drive players, but I personally don't rate the sound quality and the build quality speaks for itself (how many folks iPods do you know who have packed up)

Everything I mentioned has flash memory - in my mind, better for hols as they are lighter, give better battery performance and tend to be more reliable.

[Stewart]

Zune

30GB and video capability. Unfortunately only available in USA. I think I paid about £130 in March. Between a new model coming out and the weakness of the Dollar you could probably get one for about £100 - if you knew someone who is the USA at the mo' and due to be home before you go.

Mine was great on the last trip to the US as the inflight entertainment was fooked so I ended up watching back to back Two and Half Mens.

[s333fee]

Cool,

Love sailing great fun having been doing for 25 years. where are you leaving from, how long will it take, most I've been at sea is 14 days, longest onboard without getting off and setting foot on dry land was 25 days.

What type of yacht details please.


S333FEE Support team

[pete]

Ipods are great as they let you speed up the playing of audiobooks but they struggle to play long files which is a pain in the arse, especially as you will only notice halfway through the book when it refuses to play. I've got round it by running them as playlists.

What sort of books are you looking for? I've got quite a few on the other pc as i listen to them when I am working on the house and used to listen to them when I used to drive up and down the Mway so even have some on cd.


I could maybe stick a few on disc if you want and post them.

Otherwise cough torrents cough. I wouldn't recommend thepiratebay.org and azureus for example due to the legality issues. Nor would I suggest googling "torrent <bookname> audiobook".

Pete



(I've got some sci-fi, some Pratchett, Harry Potter, some thrillers. PM me with what you like and I'll have a look)

[tenkfeet]

I did Ardrossan to La Coruna in Spain back in March and finally got off in Faro . F**k me sailing is boring but it was an experience especially the Bay of Biscay Toughest thing I have ever done , S333 how you did 25 days I dont know.

Back on subject , I found stand up comedy really helped during the night when you need a lift, any comedian . Audio books even music could be a bit hard a three in the morning. Also radio 1 live lounge cd on repeat

Enjoy your trip.

[Titanium S1 111S (gla)]

Thanks to all for advice.

Everything I mentioned has flash memory - in my mind, better for hols as they are lighter, give better battery performance and tend to be more reliable.

Sounds like that’s what I want then, fragile things don't survive me for long.

30GB and video capability. Unfortunately only available in USA. I think I paid about £130 in March. Between a new model coming out and the weakness of the Dollar you could probably get one for about £100 - if you knew someone who is the USA at the mo' and due to be home before you go.

Mine was great on the last trip to the US as the inflight entertainment was fooked so I ended up watching back to back Two and Half Mens.

Sounds ideal but I doubt I could get one in the next week and a half so looks like i'll have to pay the same or more for a one with less space etc. Annoying but I guess thats life.

Love sailing great fun having been doing for 25 years. where are you leaving from, how long will it take, most I've been at sea is 14 days, longest onboard without getting off and setting foot on dry land was 25 days.

What type of yacht details please.


S333FEE Support team

Suppose I’ve been sailing for 25 odd years too, must have started when about 5. Sail on the Clyde and do most of the weekend racing events during the summer in a First 42 although I've crewed on lots of boats over the years.

Leaving from Grand Canaria as part of the World Cruising Club ACR. Not quite sure how long it will take because i don't know how fast the boat is. Its a 70 foot one off called "If Only" very much a cruiser rather than a racer so don't expect it to be fast, say 18 to 20 days. Our progress will be shown by daily plots of Google Earth if you are interested.

I did have an offer of a place on a J125 which as you probably know is a 40 foot dingy but recond that I'm too young to die so went with the slow comfy option.

I've been on a few trips over the years, down to the med a few times, back from the med etc but nothing as long as a transatlantic. Where have you been?

What sort of books are you looking for? I've got quite a few on the other pc as i listen to them when I am working on the house and used to listen to them when I used to drive up and down the Mway so even have some on cd.


I could maybe stick a few on disc if you want and post them.

Otherwise cough torrents cough. I wouldn't recommend thepiratebay.org and azureus for example due to the legality issues. Nor would I suggest googling "torrent <bookname> audiobook".

Pete

Thanks for that Pete, i'll be careful not to google those sites. If you have a few and wouldn't mind sticking them on a CD or DVD i'd be grateful. Thriller type things or perhaps a Sci-Fi would be grand.

I did Ardrossan to La Coruna in Spain back in March and finally got off in Faro . F**k me sailing is boring but it was an experience especially the Bay of Biscay Toughest thing I have ever done , S333 how you did 25 days I dont know.

Back on subject , I found stand up comedy really helped during the night when you need a lift, any comedian . Audio books even music could be a bit hard a three in the morning. Also radio 1 live lounge cd on repeat

Enjoy your trip.

Sounds like a good trip, I always recon the best way to see Ardrossan is in the rear view mirror. What kind of boat were you on?

Thanks all.

[tenkfeet]

Boat was a 49 ft cruiser. Quite an old boat (late 80's early 90's)with wooden decks . I am trying to find a pic but I only have onboard shots.

[Dominic]

Have a great trip

[Titanium S1 111S (gla)]

Right, now the proud owner of an Archos thingy courtesy of those nice people at AMP3. Want to put a couple of feature films on and am at a wee bit of a loss.

I have worked out how to use windows media player to get the music files over but am getting nowhere fast with video files. I know I have to look at a file conversion / compression but have no idea how to go about it.

If all else fails I’ll have a look at the Archos instructions on line but I suspect it is quite simple if you know how.

Excuse the ignorance.

Thanks