ipods - what do they do

[GuavaHalf]

As someone how still has a stack of LPs (round black things with a hole in the middle) I have not kept entirely up to date with the music download world.

I know that an ipod will play tunes downloaded from iTunes but can they play MP3s downloaded form other sources? Can I use the ipod to store pictures off of my digital camera (eg via USB) and can I view the pictures on the screen of the ipods with a screen? What else do they do?

[theo_wyvern]

you can download the songs from anywhere but they must then be placed in the iTunes library for them to transfer to your iPod.

The newest iPods do indeed hold pictures, again you can download them from your digital camera to your PC, place them in the Itunes library and you can move them over.

besides that they don't do an awful lot. Some other mp3 players have radio's etc built in

[vehelpfulguy]

Bit of background. MP3 is a digital compression format for sound which has been accepted by the industry. There are other formats, such as WMA, that was developed by Microsoft.

ipod is the brand name from Apple, and they do indeed work with itunes. They will play MP3 files but not WMA files.

But an ipod is basically an MP3 player, although some can also do digital pictures and even video.

There are loads of MP3 players from other companies that do NOT need itunes.

If you have the right software you can "rip" the music off a music CD and put it on your PC in MP3 (or WMA) format and then copy it to your MP3 player.

I bought a basic MP3 player from Tesco for �10.00 that just plugs into my USB port and becomes a temporary drive on my PC.

I can then simply drag and drop MP3 files from my PC onto the MP3 player.

There are two main types of MP3 players, solid state, which have no moving parts, or hard disk, where they have a small hard disk inside.

The hard disk ones are generally the larger memory, 20g or 40G, whereas solid state are smaller, 256Mb or 512mb, maybe also 1Gb.

[potterfan3]

My MP3 player can also be used as a memory stick and has a built in microphone

[wideboy]

Forget the iPods and consider Creative (especially the new M versions). Alternatively the Samsung YH-J70 - excellent, just got one myself. It plays mp3s, photos, videos, has an FM radio that you can record from, has a built-in mic for dictation and has a line in for recording your LPs. It even has some simple games, a calendar and memo and can display text files. Add to this the fact that you can transfer photos from some digital cameras onto its 20 or 30GB hard disc to free up your memoru card ..........