PPC instead of Zune/MP3player

[3DPiper]

My daughter has an 8G zune and tonight I was looking at the Zune120s.. Very nice screen, huge storage, simple interface, and responsive- but expensive.

I was wondering if it would be better to just buy an old Tilt (8925) and make that into a portable media player. No phone service at all, just movies and tunes (and wifi).. Worth the effort?

The problem I have with the portable media players now: although audio is pretty generic (mp3), they all have to convert movies to the format they support. All of our DVD library is usually a Divx file.. It would be better to have a PPC as your media player since you could easily play back divx movie files, and probably your whole media library. Plus they all have their own specific cable for charging/synching..

Could I get a stripped down ROM on a PPC with a few apps that would be as simple and responsive as a Zune, but with the flexibility and software library backbone of the established PPC community? Games, drawing programs, etc, would all still work fine without the phone function. Battery life would probably also be very good. I've seen Tilts on ebay going for very cheap.

The only thing I can see the media players have going for them is the larger hard drive units. A Tilt can only take up to a MicroSDHC, which is 16G right now.. NOWHERE near the 120G of the larger media players..

Worth it?

-Matthew

[gearjunkeez]

If you are going to have a separate device - that isn't an actual phone - then I would honestly get the Zune. If you wanted to eliminate having 2 devices, get a PPC since you will have phone and media player in one. I have used my Touch, Mogul, Diamond, and Touch Pro as media players. Movies, TV, and music. 16gb is enough to power through a day or 2, and 32gb is on the horizon.

[havox22]

Originally Posted by 3DPiper

My daughter has an 8G zune and tonight I was looking at the Zune120s.. Very nice screen, huge storage, simple interface, and responsive- but expensive.

I was wondering if it would be better to just buy an old Tilt (8925) and make that into a portable media player. No phone service at all, just movies and tunes (and wifi).. Worth the effort?

The problem I have with the portable media players now: although audio is pretty generic (mp3), they all have to convert movies to the format they support. All of our DVD library is usually a Divx file.. It would be better to have a PPC as your media player since you could easily play back divx movie files, and probably your whole media library. Plus they all have their own specific cable for charging/synching..

Could I get a stripped down ROM on a PPC with a few apps that would be as simple and responsive as a Zune, but with the flexibility and software library backbone of the established PPC community? Games, drawing programs, etc, would all still work fine without the phone function. Battery life would probably also be very good. I've seen Tilts on ebay going for very cheap.

The only thing I can see the media players have going for them is the larger hard drive units. A Tilt can only take up to a MicroSDHC, which is 16G right now.. NOWHERE near the 120G of the larger media players..

Worth it?

-Matthew

depends on how much an old tilt will be

[Laos101]

Wait for Windows 7, MP3 devices are getting nowhere fast, pretty soon Microsoft will unlock it for better homebrew, but I think at that point windows 7 will replace the zune.

[Mutiny32]

Ever look at the Windows Mobile 6.5 UI and them look at the Zune's?

As for video formats, it's rapidly converging to one format that will be accepted on all phones. MPEG-4 Part 10, otherwise known as AVC or h.264.

[3DPiper]

I found a 8125 in the attic, I think I'll experiment with that.. I'll primarily use it as an MP3 player, but the possibility to use it to play videos is a plus..

I'll put Nitrogen and TCPMP/Core on it..

It has a 2G memory card in it now.. Can I update the rom and get a 4G or 8G card in there? 16G would be even better..

Edit: Looks like non-SDHC 4G is the biggest card it will take.. Cheap, though!

-Matthew