Digital Trends

gerwin · #1 10-11-2004, 06:48 AM

Recently I spoke to an ex collegue, who left our company for Philips research in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. He had been running around the consumer product labs for 3 months, and he told me this story about the development and marketing of the HDD100:
"They had just made the first version of the player, and now they (the developers) had to ram together some software to make it at least work, so they would be able to show something to the marketing guys. What they came up with was more a 'proof of concept', not intended for the consumer at all. Some big hotshot saw that it more or less worked and said: "That's good enough, put it on the market ". The developers protested, but to no avail. The software, which was in an alpha stage at best, became the official software as we now no it."
So don't blame the developers, but blame the big bosses at Philips that gave us this software for a device that cost me 500 euro (I was an early adopter):
-You have to have administrator rights to be able to run the software.
-Doesn't not run on hyperthreading cpu's (almost all Intel cpu's are hyperthreading nowadays).
-All your mp3's (what is wma anyway?) must be located on 1 partition, having your collection spread on different disks is not accepted by this software.
-Network drives do not count as drives.
-The speed of the usb is completely negated by the slowness of this software.
-Playlist can be made and titles added to them, but only at the end of the list, not in the middle.
-You can repeat albums, shuffle albums and repeat and shuffle albums, but you can not play 1 album 1 time. Duh!
-Every time I startup this thing, I get the 'record options'.
-If I onnect something to it, like speakers, or when I twitch the earphone plugs abit, I get this annoying 'record options again'.
- It still freezes.
This is the last product I'll ever buy from them. I hope one day Sony will take over this company and put all these morons where they belong: in a mental institution or in prision. I also hope they put Solon in charge of this product. He singlehandedly made better software for this thing then they where ever able to do.
In case you hadn't noticed: I'm angry.

chicubs · #2 10-11-2004, 03:16 PM

looks like Im the only one who hasnt really had trouble with dmm...lol!

flautash · #3 10-12-2004, 03:50 AM

Listen, I totally agree the software is as dull as it may be.

Why don't you just install freeware hddtool your HDD100 from http://solonweb.free.fr/ and forget all the problems?

I was freaking out over this Philips software until I installed hddtool. Now it's a piece of cake.

It's really a shame they came up with such a poor software for such a cool machine! I mean the sound is perfect and the looks are killing. Just breath some soul into it; use hddtool and be happy.

take care

paulmarshall · #4 10-19-2004, 05:59 AM

HDDtool is also a good way of sharing music with your mates, as it bypasses DMM's need to transfer files only on the same machine, effectively bypassing the DRM, which is always a good thing >:-).

Altho IMO, a 192kpbs WMA sounds better than a 192kpbs MP3

gerwin · #5 10-19-2004, 06:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by paulmarshall

Altho IMO, a 192kpbs WMA sounds better than a 192kpbs MP3

Maybe it does, but itunes doesn't play wma, nor does my girlfriends ipod. It's just not very interchangeable, just like all those other proprietary formats. Besides, you can only produce wma's with windows mediaplayer, on windows ofcourse. I just don't like these proprietary formats.
(Apple's format is also better then mp3, but will not play on windows, or my HDD )
Imo, ogg vorbis is the best format, but only a handfull of players support it.

gerwin · #6 10-19-2004, 06:17 AM

Ofcourse Solon's software is the way to use the HDD player, but it doesn't (and cannot) circumvent the other shortcomings of this device:
-You can repeat albums, shuffle albums and repeat and shuffle albums, but you can not play 1 album 1 time.
-Every time I startup this thing, I get the 'record options'.
-If I onnect something to it, like speakers, or when I twitch the earphone plugs abit, I get this annoying 'record options again'.
- It still freezes.
But thanks anyway for the support and for giving me the oppurtunity to vent a bit

paulmarshall · #7 10-19-2004, 06:33 AM

Sounds like you might need to take your player for repairs? Is it still in warranty? Perhaps, as the record options screen normally pops up when you put something (microphone, optical lead, poking device) in the line in socket, there may be a short or loose wire or something between the headphone socket & the line in socket?

The thing does crash way too often though, with HDDtool more than DMM, but then DMM has a lot more downsides to it. What annoys me most is that Philips will design a plug for Musicmatch for the HDD60, but not the HDD100, that's just plain lasiness!