With Pandora Work Well As A Media Player? (like Mp3 And Mpeg4, Ect..)

[zzaz3]

I've been thinking about getting an iPod or iPhone lately, but I came across this and I was wondering if this would be 'mp3 friendly'. Will the interface be as good as an iPod? I know it's support to support the format of songs/videos I have, but will it be easy to play/listen to them? I haven't heard anything about a hard drive yet. Is there one?

Has anyone mechoned anything about a 'MP3 Player' app to be ported to Pandora?

 

[Phawx]

I hear 100hours of mp3 playback. It will be an awesome media player when the software makes use of the DSP well

 

[WizardStan]

I've not seen anything absolutely specific. Here's what we know:
VLC will be ported, if not right away then soon. MPlayer will be ported, if not right away, then soon. Either of these make for a great option in music and video playback, supporting playlists, intuitive interfaces, everything you could possibly want. You can download and test them for the PC to give them a try. No doubt there will also be others as well to suit any particular taste eventually.
For licensing reasons, an MP3 player won't be included out of the box, but you will be able to download one and install it off the net as soon as you get it.
The MP3 player will have a super low power option whereby you close the lid and almost everything shuts down, yielding up to 100 hours of battery life, in theory. We won't know for certain how long it actually lasts until someone lets it run playing music for a few days non-stop.
Does that help answer your questions?

 

[Azure]

I haven't heard anything about a hard drive yet. Is there one?

There is no hard drive, but you can hold quite a lot of songs on 2 SD cards

 

[Prometheus]

VLC will be ported, if not right away then soon. MPlayer will be ported, if not right away, then soon.

Just to add to this, if I may, XMMS has also been seen running (it's seen close to the end of the video in EvilDragon's " Driving a Matchbox" blog entry), as well.

 

[Xanas]

And it looks like there are debs available for applications like Amarok for arm, so I believe most common open source media players won't take too long to be available.

 

[WoD]

Pandora will play anything you throw at it, within reason, but if you're looking for a UI as intuitive and easily accessed as the iPod then you're not going to get it here.

Still, if you don't mind opening up the Pandora and diddling with a possible myriad of different apps it'll do you fine.

Perhaps the devs can or will knock up a super, slick Pandora-optimized UI for quickly accessing media content.

 

[marshal]

There are some "media center" app for the nokia internet tablet. I tested canola 2 and it is pretty nice although not perfect. More importantly it's not open source...

If the pandora is doing good in the future it might be interesting to ask them if they are interested in supporting the pandora. After all the next generation internet tablet from nokia should be coming with the same omap3 processor, so it might take a really reasonable amount of effort to port it.

Beside this in the long run there will probably be more than enough other media player to fill you need.

Video playback is something that should getter good enough when VLC and mplayer are ported. The screen of the pandora will be nice too.
Playing a large number of audio format won't be a problem for sure. But if you're a bit picky about having a very slick interface with album cover and all it might need some more time before you get an application that does exactly what you want.

 

[mazza558]

There's a physical problem with using your Pandora as a music player - the headphone socket is on the front, making it more difficult to fit in your pocket whilst listening.

 

[Trip]

Mplayer was one of the first things to get ported and tested, so it shouldn't be a problem.
There used to be a video on YouTube of a dev board playing Futurama, but I can't seem to find it now

 

[scottm]

I'm hoping my favourite media player (foobar) will get ported

 

[Lorkile]

Well, there is always using the bluetooth for convenient listening. Wireless headphones can be convenient, even with the drain on the battery.

 

[marshal]

There's a physical problem with using your Pandora as a music player - the headphone socket is on the front, making it more difficult to fit in your pocket whilst listening.

I didn't think about that but you're right, it might be a hassle. I guess no design can be perfect anyway.

An Right-Angle Adapter might get around this though. Might be better than nothing.
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.js...rentPage=family

I'm hoping my favourite media player (foobar) will get ported

Foobar has always been closed source and windows only. Foobar on the pandora just won't happen.
I agree it's a great app though. I used it when I was under windows... and still use it in Ubuntu though wine but only for tagging purposes.

 

[Chip]

Well, there is always using the bluetooth for convenient listening. Wireless headphones can be convenient, even with the drain on the battery.
BT radio power requirements are negligible. Possibly less than the headphone amp power requirements.

 

[mali]

Mplayer was one of the first things to get ported and tested, so it shouldn't be a problem.
There used to be a video on YouTube of a dev board playing Futurama, but I can't seem to find it now

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=v9RAPNa-55k
Mplayer on TI devboard

 

[lardman]

QUOTE
I tested canola 2 and it is pretty nice although not perfect. More importantly it's not open source...


I thought it was opensourced recently.

QUOTE
BT radio power requirements are negligible. Possibly less than the headphone amp power requirements.


It's not so much the radio power as the CPU power required to perform SBC encoding (for a2dp).

 

[Chip]

It's not so much the radio power as the CPU power required to perform SBC encoding (for a2dp).
SBC is a very, very low complexity codec. The batteries in your BT headphones would run out 10 times over before the encoding overhead made a noticeable dent in the Pandora's battery life.

 

[satanic virus]

Well, there is always using the bluetooth for convenient listening. Wireless headphones can be convenient, even with the drain on the battery.
BT radio power requirements are negligible. Possibly less than the headphone amp power requirements.

Are you saying having BT turned on (and connected to some wireless plugs) would draw less power than sticking in a set of headphones?

 

[marshal]

QUOTE
I tested canola 2 and it is pretty nice although not perfect. More importantly it's not open source...

I thought it was opensourced recently.



I just checked and according to the official site it's not. Well there seem to be some code source available for some of the component but that's it.
With "Canola is not opensource" written in bold on the developer page I guess it makes it pretty clear we are not going to be able to port it to the pandora.

Source: http://openbossa.indt.org/canola/developer.html

 

[Chip]

Are you saying having BT turned on (and connected to some wireless plugs) would draw less power than sticking in a set of headphones?
I'm not saying that I know it for a fact, but it's possible. As a class 2 BT transceiver, the radio is limited to 2.5mW output. Granted that's RF output and I'm sure the transmitter isn't 100% efficient, but obviously the power requirements for the BT radio are minuscule compared to the 150mW (maximum) output of the headphone amp.