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[stevenf]

With J River Apparently getting into hardware, any chance of a j river handheld media player, that plays everything Media Center plays, i'd certainly buy one.

Stevenf

[JimH]

Thanks for the encouragement.  Matt thinks the same.

We would probably use Rockbox as the OS.  Here's a link on Wikipedia that describes Rockbox.

We've thought about buying used players, installing Rockbox on them, and selling them cheap (under $50).

[BullishDad]

I'd suggest finding a decent mfr of Touch-like devices and working with Rockbox for the firmware/software.  Some of the knock-offs look good, but usually fall way short on the interface.  I've noticed some decent looking devices from Latte (see Amazon/J&R), but one review of the Latte Cafe said it didn't support Playlists.  That's a deal breaker.

Now, an MC interface?  That sounds much better.

[red86]

I've had a number of generic Chinese MP3 players, and while a lot of them are really sleek with design to rival the mainstream, the audio and battery life suffers terribly.  UI is generally equally terrible and unresponsive (especially on touch screens) The most common is a constant low-level hiss on the headphones (and I'm no audiophile like many MC users)

I'd be interested if you could do a Media Center-centric version of the Zii Egg.  It sounds like Creative wants to farm these out to OEMs.  They are selling the dev-kits but I am not a programmer so I passed.

http://www.zii.com/Developer/Landing.aspx

 

[glynor]

I don't know...

Margins on hardware are very thin, and this is a highly competitive space.  The biggest part of what entrenches the established players in this market is the product ecosystem (I need to be able to go to Walmart/Target and buy power cords, compatible external speakers, cases, and other compatible accessories; not to mention wide-ranging software support and applications).  That, and I really think that the lifespan of the standalone handheld media player is very limited (ala Zune and iPod)...

Most devices will likely be moving towards multi-function handheld computers over the next two years or so, similar to the Android and iPhone OS devices available currently.  There will likely remain a market for non-phone handhelds (for those who won't pay a monthly fee to the cell provider), but I think the days of the "Sansa" and "iPod Classic", with no application (or very limited) support are very numbered.

If only Microsoft could come up with a true mobile OS that wasn't such a piece of junk, we might really start to get some competition in the space.  The Zune HD software is a good start, but that device is more of a "traditional" media player, as opposed to a true multifunction handheld computer.  Sigh.... Maybe Windows Mobile 7 and Android 2.0 will finally take us somewhere good, but based on the previous let-downs, I'm not holding my breath.

[Mr ChriZ]

Has JR tried talking to one or many of the smaller handheld manufacturers to get an ITunes alternative out there included with their player.
At present for example Cowon include their own JetAudio player... and it's not all that good...

[stevenf]

What if J River created software for these players, say a slimmed down version of MC 14, or am i being ridiculous?

Stevenf

[JimH]

What if J River created software for these players, say a slimmed down version of MC 14, or am i being ridiculous?

It would be a very big task.  Probably not practical unless we had a large corporate customer for it.