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Those jukeboxes are not a great solution for various reasons: 1: They are huge, 2: They have a finite capacity, you may outgrow 400 slots, 3: They can damage your CDs, 4: They require hours of typing in order to set up the artist, album, and song names, 5: They can glitch and erase all those hours of typing, 6: They have limited functionality for skpping songs you don't like and random playing, 7: they are prone to mechanical failure, #8: they are slow, etc.Using Omnifi and mp3 gives you these advantages:+ You have your entire CD collection available in a small device+ You can copy your music to a portable hard drive so you can take your entire collection to the office or elsewhere+ You can easily copy your music to an mp3 player for enjoyment. #2: They are assuming the same bit rate, so if you really want to stick on this issue, just rip at a higher mp3 bit rate. If you are like me and don't yet understand what mp3 can mean to you, I'll explain it. iTunes and other programs give you a similar choice. + You can shuffle play through artist or genre, which is also a big advantage. This shrinks the file by a large factor without sacrificing any meaningful sound quality and makes the files easier to manage. That way you can fit much more music onto your hard drive or your portable mp3 player, or even copy the files back to CD and get more than 74 minutes of music on a CD. It's easy enough for grandma to use, and that's important because other systems are so complicated that only a techno-geek will be able to work them.What you do with this system is copy all of your CDs to the hard drive on your computer.
The music on CD is just computer files anyway, so all "ripping" really is is "copying" the computer files from the CD to the harddrive. Once you download them Omnifi can play them. Ripping to mp3 allows you to avoid having to deal with digital rights management (DRM) and allows your music to be played anywhere. That's just getting started, but already that is worth the price of admission because you have access to all of your CDs. You don't need to search for your CDs anymore, and you don't need to find handy space to store them.
There is a freeware program called "Exact Audio Copy" that reads the CD and gives you a 100% accurate file, and it gives you a report of any problems that it had so you can be sure, without having to listen to the file, that it made it to your harddrive without error.At the same time you copy the CD, you encode the files to mp3. Da Bomb.Nutshell:This technology is da bomb if you want to enjoy your CD collection at home on your stereo system. That's a great way to pick up old favorite songs without having to buy the whole CD or music that's hard to find. #1, it doesn't matter. That last 10% of full fidelity really doesn't matter. Otherwise you would have to create a custom mix CD, and that's a lot of trouble and it gets old after a few listens. mp3 avoids all of this and it's the way to go.If you're worried about any legal restrictions on this type of activity, just think of all the mp3 players available for sale here on Amazon and that should tell you something. That said, this Omnifi and mp3 technology will deliver sound that is essentially equal to the CD, but it really doesn't matter.
That's a big advantage because I usually only like a few songs, or just one, from any given CD. You use a program called a "ripper" to "rip" your CDs into files on your harddrive. You just need a large hard drive and a computer that is turned on. The Simplecenter software that comes with the Omnifi can do it, as can iTunes and a host of other programs. iTunes is compatible with mp3, so Omnifi can even work with an iPod.+ You can backup your music for safekeeping to DVD+ You can use more than one Omnifi in the home so that you can enjoy your entire collection from various rooms.+ You can delete songs you don't like so that you don't ever hear them. You can easily afford the extra space with today's prices.This Omnifi is an alternative to a 400 disc CD changer jukebox. What matters is that you have your music available in ways that make it convenient to listen so that you will play your music more often.
If not, then it really doesn't matter. The standard is to rip at 128 bits, so just rip at 160 and you're there. If you have trouble, then it's useless. Then you turn the Omnifi on, and you instantly enjoy any CD in your collection.
Do you have a $5,000 entertainment system or $3,000 speakers. Sound quality has never been an issue. Don't listen to anyone that tells you that some proprietary format gives better fidelity than mp3. So far it works OK, but if I have trouble in the future I may have to report back.Detailed review:This is a fabulous system that will allow you to keep your entire CD collection online in your home entertainment system. This way it's always new.+ You can buy songs from web sites like Amazon. In the past this was for unfathomable reasons difficult for a program to do, but now we can get it done. I never explored mp3 because I equated it with piracy, but mp3 can be used legally as well. Sound quality is an issue to people that want to sell you expensive equipment or magazine subscriptions.
Then you replace the CD player in your home entertainment center with this little Omnifi device. Simplecenter gives you a choice to rip to mp3 or to windows media format. If you're still concerned, just punch up a few web searchs on the subject and I think you'll relax.Don't worry about sound quality. I am currently living with the DMS1 for a short time. DRM gives you onerous restrictions like having to jump through hoops to transfer a license when you transfer your music from one computer to another or only allowing you to burn your music to CD a limited number of times, and other evil restrictions.
Your enjoyment of any music, classical or otherwise, will be the same as long as the sound quality is acceptable.
Ripping to any other format is helping Microsoft or whoever lock you in to their solutions, don't tolerate that.
It's the next step in the evoloution of enjoying music.
iPod doesn't support Windows media, and generic mp3 players may not support Apple's AAC format, but everyone will play mp3.
We had the phonograph, then the CD, and now this.The only caveat: It's da bomb as long as it's working well.
Simplecenter, iTunes, and most other programs do this for you automatically.When ripping CDs, mp3 is the way to go, you want to avoid any other format if possible.
You can file them away for safe keeping in your mini-storage warehouse.
Using this system gives you the many advantages of having your music off of the CDs and on the harddrive, yet your music is still available on an easy to use device in your home entertainment center without having to have a computer there, which is largely unworkable.And then we go on from there to many more fab activities.I am a musician and music lover that, as odd as it may seem to you, is just now in 2006 starting to explore the mp3 revolution.
However songs downloaded like this will often suffer from DRM.
To often the system could not find the wireless Lan. Forget it. The software for the PC is probably not made for the latest Xp versions.Much better products now on the market.10 july 2006
It doesn't say anywhere on any documentation for this that it has a limit. The player unit itself is decent, with a nice big screen. It is HORRIBLE and severely lacking. The audio quality is great when the unit is working right. I wish they had just added a "browse music directory" function instead of relying solely on the softwares ability to read metadata from files and build album/artist/song lists that way, particularly if your files are missing metadata information, good luck.
What is that. However, my player freezes up a lot and requires the power to be disconnected for a few seconds to reset it. First, the version included with the Omnifi supports a maximum of 10,000 files. In addition, the server software does a very poor job of indexing and maintaining your music collection. Second, the software eats up 100-150 megs of ram when it is running.
My biggest complaint is with the server software. This is a great concept, but poor, poor execution. The unit also tends to "lag" when you push buttons (ie, you push a button and the unit takes several seconds to react). Save your money and buy a slimdesign Squeezebox. I like how it will display it's "Now Playing" display on a television.
I have one of those units and it is far superior to this thing.
I spent two days trying to make one of these work. No luck.
I sent it back almost imediately. Also there is a limit of 10,000 songs with this product and I have around 15,000. The SimpleCenter software is horrible to use and the on screen interface is clunky. Why. Isn't the point of this device to help you access and manage your music collection. There are much better products than this one. Save your money.
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