Please gang. Don't laugh at me. What is the difference between an Ipod and an MP3?

[phillycard]

I hear so many people toss around both terms alomost interchangibly. What is the main difference?

 

[Brian]

The ipod is an MP3 player but it can also do more than just that. An MP3 player just plays back downloaded music. The Ipods can store music, photos, and now I believe videos. The Ipod has alot more memory, but also costs substantially more.

My 8 year old wants an ipod for X-mas. He's getting an MP3 player.

 

[CardFan67]

I hear so many people toss around both terms alomost interchangibly. What is the main difference?

an MP3 is a audio compression format and Ipod does not play them... If you have an Ipod and a ton of MP3's you can use I-tunes or similar program (aftermarket seem to work much better) and it will convert them to a playable format on the Ipod... Something to do with Mac and licensing.. I can transfer MP3's to my player in about 14 seconds, my son uses an Ipod and to transfer the MP3's to his it takes about 25 minutes.. (roughly 2 gig)... Conversion and then transfer

 

[Brian]

an MP3 is a audio compression format and Ipod does not play them... If you have an Ipod and a ton of MP3's you can use I-tunes or similar program (aftermarket seem to work much better) and it will convert them to a playable format on the Ipod... Something to do with Mac and licensing.. I can transfer MP3's to my player in about 14 seconds, my son uses an Ipod and to transfer the MP3's to his it takes about 25 minutes.. (roughly 2 gig)... Conversion and then transfer

damn. I hate being stupid. Shows how much I know.

Thanks for clearing up my bad info.

 

[Chaz]

MP3 is a file format that compresses audio files.

Music is saved, stored, and played as .mp3 files.


There are also other music compression formats or file types like WMA (windows media audio) or OGG (Ogg Vorbis).



An Ipod is a device that plays music files. Ipod is just the brand name of the device made by Apple.

Other devices are available that play music files including MP3, WMA, etc..

 

[Chaz]

an MP3 is a audio compression format and Ipod does not play them... If you have an Ipod and a ton of MP3's you can use I-tunes or similar program (aftermarket seem to work much better) and it will convert them to a playable format on the Ipod... Something to do with Mac and licensing.. I can transfer MP3's to my player in about 14 seconds, my son uses an Ipod and to transfer the MP3's to his it takes about 25 minutes.. (roughly 2 gig)... Conversion and then transfer

Thanks.

I wasn't aware Ipods don't play MP3s but I am not suprised.

 

[kaesile]

an MP3 is a audio compression format and Ipod does not play them... If you have an Ipod and a ton of MP3's you can use I-tunes or similar program (aftermarket seem to work much better) and it will convert them to a playable format on the Ipod... Something to do with Mac and licensing.. I can transfer MP3's to my player in about 14 seconds, my son uses an Ipod and to transfer the MP3's to his it takes about 25 minutes.. (roughly 2 gig)... Conversion and then transfer

Actually, the iPod will play MP3s natively with no conversion. It specifically has a hardware MP3 decoder. It will convert WMA files before loading. I'm not sure why you've experienced a 25 minute transfer with an iPod before; it might have something to do with the connection interface.

SirChaz's summary is correct. Think of an MP3 as an audio track on a CD, and the iPod as an Apple-branded CD player (= MP3 player). The iPod is a little unique in that it's the most popular MP3 player and will also play Apple-proprietary iTunes.

 

[phillycard]

Based on this, is an MP3 player smart to get, or will it be a dinosaur in 5 years. They seem to be a lil cheaper? which is a big plus for me!

 

[CardFan67]

Actually, the iPod will play MP3s natively with no conversion. It specifically has a hardware MP3 decoder. It will convert WMA files before loading. I'm not sure why you've experienced a 25 minute transfer with an iPod before; it might have something to do with the connection interface.

SirChaz's summary is correct. Think of an MP3 as an audio track on a CD, and the iPod as an Apple-branded CD player (= MP3 player). The iPod is a little unique in that it's the most popular MP3 player and will also play Apple-proprietary iTunes.

I think you are one of the lucky ones because Steve Jobs claims that you will need to have MP3's converted to AAC's... This is not in an attempt to keep your player from playing MP3's but rather to keep music from Itunes from playing on another MP3 Player.. and from purchases on other sites such as Napter and Real Networks to not be compatible...

"In Jobs' world, you can go to any store you want, so long as it's iTunes. That's not going to fly in mainstream markets and will ultimately cause a morass of incompatibility. The entire industry will bleed if Apple doesn't work with open standards," Glaser said.

RealNetworks operates the RealPlayer Music Store, selling songs in the AAC format using Real's proprietary Helix DRM software. Real's format is supported directly only by one portable player, the Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra, and by four personal digital assistant devices from PalmOne.

It could be my son's version of the ipod, I don't use it, I use and Pocket PC... I just know it is common with all of his friends and himself to experience long conversion times... Much less using secondary software suck as ephod over itunes...

Now you can copy individual songs and playlists from iTunes to your iPod. Just drag the song or playlist to the iPod icon in the Source list. Tip: You must first import audio CD's into iTunes before you can move them to the iPod. If you're having difficulty copying songs to your iPod, click here.

You can also set iTunes to automatically update iPod with selected songs or playlists only. This is useful if you only want to transfer a portion of your music library to iPod.

You can't transfer songs from iPod library to iTunes, but you can use iPod as a hard disk to transfer music files from one computer to another.

I did read on the site that some of the newer releases will play an mP3, but the original will not, and needs to be converted.

 

[BillsCarnage]

I think you are one of the lucky ones because Steve Jobs claims that you will need to have MP3's converted to AAC's... This is not in an attempt to keep your player from playing MP3's but rather to keep music from Itunes from playing on another MP3 Player.. and from purchases on other sites such as Napter and Real Networks to not be compatible...

Actually all Ipods will play MP3's. AAC is a compression format like MP3. I've never heard Jobs say the files have to be MP3 to play on the Ipod. It might have been vice versa - AAC needed to be converted to MP3. When you buy a song from Itunes it is encoded to that it'll only play on Ipods.

It could be my son's version of the ipod, I don't use it, I use and Pocket PC... I just know it is common with all of his friends and himself to experience long conversion times... Much less using secondary software suck as ephod over itunes...

Conversion time will depend on your computer. I don't use the AAC format as it's limited on what it will play on. MP3 is the defacto standard right now. To convert an entire cd to mp3 takes about 5-8min for me. I prefere to use Windows Media player to convert cd's. I've used Itunes, but just prefere WMP.

I did read on the site that some of the newer releases will play an mP3, but the original will not, and needs to be converted.

For an Ipod? Unless it's a very, very, very first gen this is not the case.

 

[CardFan67]

Actually all Ipods will play MP3's. AAC is a compression format like MP3. I've never heard Jobs say the files have to be MP3 to play on the Ipod. It might have been vice versa - AAC needed to be converted to MP3. When you buy a song from Itunes it is encoded to that it'll only play on Ipods.




Conversion time will depend on your computer. I don't use the AAC format as it's limited on what it will play on. MP3 is the defacto standard right now. To convert an entire cd to mp3 takes about 5-8min for me. I prefere to use Windows Media player to convert cd's. I've used Itunes, but just prefere WMP.




For an Ipod? Unless it's a very, very, very first gen this is not the case.

I did not write the previous comments, those were quotes from apple.com and the Ipod support site..

 

[BillsCarnage]

I did not write the previous comments, those were quotes from apple.com and the Ipod support site..

That is bizzare that they'd say that's the only format, but again maybe it was the very first gen ipods. It is a format option when converting a CD but i don't know anyone who uses it.

 

[SouthNZoneFan]

Forget this... I will just laugh at you like you wanted....