car stereo and ogg

[stu]

	Anyone who knows better, feel free to correct me on this if I'm wrong...
	My son has gone through a few CD players over the years, and it's been my 
experience that almost all of them WILL play OGG files. The same seems to be 
true with playing audio files in most home CD/DVD players as well (Look at 
any commercial audio CD filesystem in your computer, and you'll see OGG files 
are present on them as well). So, why does it seem to be kept such a secret?
	I was shopping around for a PMP that played OGG files this Christmas, and had 
very limited success. Here's as much of an explanation as I could figure out 
from the research I did on the matter.
	I seems that the DMCA, which is the law that makes it illegal to copy any 
copy protected digital material for pretty much *any* reason, relies heavily 
on DRM to enforce it. DRM is basically a MicroSoft invention, and MicroSoft 
refuses to work with open formats like Ogg/Vorbis because they cannot control 
the open source development of them. Since MicroSoft controls 95% of the 
desktop market, that makes it essentially *illegal* to sell or promote 
Ogg/Vorbis friendly hardware in the U.S. of A. no matter how popular the 
format is in the rest of the world. It's a grey area to be sure, but grey 
enough that US merchants won't touch it.
	If I want an Ogg/Vorbis compatible PMP, I'll likely have to order one from 
England.

On Monday 25 December 2006 6:48 pm, der.hans wrote:
> moin moin,
>
> I've been looking for a car stereo that plays ogg for my $gf for a long
> time. Mostly, I haven't been all that serious, but in the last couple of
> month I decided it was time to finally replace the borken unit she has.
>
> I started with the list from xiph.
>
> http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/StaticPlayers#Car_Audio
>
> Doesn't look too promising. I searched for several of them online, but was
> unable to find them available.
>
> I finally broke down and went to a couple of stores. I found nothing that
> mentioned ogg, vorbis or flac. Hadn't expected to.
>
> Found no one that had heard of them either. Hadn't expected to. One of the
> sales guys at a Best Buy suggested I bring in a CD and try it.
>
> Finally got a chance a few days ago. I went equipped with a CD of ogg I've
> burned ( and it turns out I also got some mp3s off a podcast I grab ), a
> USB thumb drive with ogg from a local band ( www.TravelerMusic.com ) and
> an SD card with a mix of ogg and mp3.
>
> Haven't used CF for so long I didn't have any with me.
>
> I walked into another Best Buy and after getting permission from the sales
> guy I started sticking my devices into decks they had up for display. As
> it turned out the 3 I tried all worked. Well, for some value of worked.
>
> All 3 had USB ports. First I tried the less expensive of the two JVC units
> with USB ports. Stuck the thumb drive in and Traveler came up, no
> problems. I was amazed.
>
> Next I tried a pioneer, I think. It also worked. Finally I tried an
> insignia ( turns out this is the Best Buy in house brand ). That also
> worked.
>
> I tried the CD in all three. The Insigna model played off off the CD just
> fine. The other two only played the mp3s :(. The Insignia also has an SD
> slot. off played from that as well. I was sold.
>
> Insignia's NS-C5111 CD Car deck
>
> http://www.insignia-products.com/pc-127-16-insignia-40w-x-4-ipod-ready-cd-d
>eck-with-cd-rrwmp3wma-playback.aspx
>
> Best Buy also offers a 4 year replacement warrantee for $20. $gf now has a
> car stereo that's warranteed to play ogg for 4 years. At that point either
> ogg support will be easy to get or it'll be irrelevant.
>
> She's overjoyed about the new stereo and happy that she'll be able to
> create her own mobile collections because she knows how to use thumb
> drives and SD cards.
>
> It looked like all 3 were picking up the tags from the files. I'll test
> the Insignia more once we have it installed.
>
> ciao,
>
> der.hans

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  GNU/Linux needs people who can tell as they do.