IMP/PMP FAQ's

[Big D]

This forum is for people to quickly and easily find information, and is not a discussion forum. If you have a question then please ask it in the relevant support forum.

Anyone may write an FAQ. It needs to answer a specific commonly asked question and not already be posted here. If you write an FAQ please post it here and PM a mod/admin to lock it.

Thanks

[KurgerBing]

This seems to be asked a lot so here goes:

To upgrade your firmware on the iriver PMP-100 series (PMP-100, PMP-120, PMP-140):

1. download the latest firmware file.
2. Unpack it (usually a zip file)
3. Connect your PMP to your computer.
4. Copy the .tar file (called pmp100.tar or something like that) from the files extracted from the zip file to the root directory on your PMP.
5. On your PMP, go to Setup > System > Firmware Upgrade
6. Select yes, you want to upgrade.
7. Do not touch your PMP until it says you may power off.
8. Reboot.
9. Your PMP may be in a different language when you power on, do not freak out. If so, navigate to Settings again and select the first icon. Hit right a few times and select a different language. Reboot. Repeat until you get english.

Hope this helps.

[andrewmel]

there are two really well thought out answers to this, both saying the same thing, but slightly differently, so i will present them both.


Posted by Exo October 2 2004

The manufacturers state that 1GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes (using base 10 "Decimal"), where-as Windows states that 1GB = 1,073,741,824 bytes (using base 2 "Binary"). Thus, a 40Gb HD in Windows would be just over 37Gb

In addition to this...

Some of the space is lost with the partitioning of the drive, setting the allocation tables and the like. This loss is more evident in High Density Floppy Disks; Unformated they have a 2Mb cappacity but when formated (IBM/DOS) they are limited to 1.44Mb, the same thing applies to HardDrives.


Posted by Zidric Feburary 14 2004

It's normal, thats what it's supposed to be.

It has to do with the way manufactures define a Gig. Most define it as 1 billion bytes. Most of the times you'll see it in the fine print "1gb is defined as 1 billion bytes" . IriverAmerica says (in the fine print at the bottom of the page) "1GB equals 1,000,000,000 bytes, not all drive space is available for file storage".

In actuality 1gb= 1,073,741,824 (1024*1024*1024), 1024 mb in a gb * 1024 kb in a mb * 1024 bytes in a kb

1 billion * 20 = 20 billion bytes is the size of the ihp-120's hard drive

20 billion divided by 1073741824 is 18.626...

Therefore the hard drive size is 18.626 'real' gigabytes as far as Windows (and your files) are concerned.

The approx 0.026 GB will probably be used up with the overhead for the file system. (FAT)

You can see this by opening my computer - Right Clicking on the IHP Drive - Go to Properties, and look at the Capacity. My IHP-140 Says 39,989,706,752 Bytes 37.2GB.

So who the hell picked 1024? Well it has to do with binary. A binary table looks something like this:

1024 512 256 128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1

1 is represented as 1
2 is represented as 10
3 is represented as 11
4 is represented as 100
5 = 101, 6 = 110, 7 = 111, 8 = 1000

and so on...

You only can have 1 state, its either off or on (1 or 0). Notice the table numbers double as they go up. Anyways there's alot more to it and i'm probably rambling way over your head. If you want to check it out do some searches on google.

You can think of it like Ram size. Most people say "My computer has a gig of ram", actually its 1024. Ram comes in 256, 512, 1024... (old ram came in 8, 16, 32, 64, 128 etc.)

The short answer is it's normal, guess thats all you really needed but I thought I would let you know why.

That and SS is right, Windows likes to play tricks on you... DOS usually gives you a better answer (but not that msdos prompt crap they pawn off as DOS in windows).

Hope I didn't confuse you even more..




Wow, that search function is handy isnt it?

Hope these helped.

a

[andrewmel]

There are four ways to speed boot time.

1) Have less songs.

More songs, slower boot time, but as we have hd daps we want more songs so onto the next one.

2) Improve your FAT table layout

As you add more and more songs, and delete some the directory structure and the FAT becomes more complex. This simple, if slow, procedure will speed that up. I culled this from a post by Mr. Anderson, who improved it from an earlier post....

* Make a full backup of your H320/H340 on your PC.
* Delete all files... also hidden (Recycle Bin can be removed if you use the "TweakUI" tool - link: http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/tweakui).
* Open a commando prompt START->Run->write "cmd" and press enter
* Go to your H3x0 backup drive (write "help cd" if you are lost here [img]images/smilies/icon_smile.gif[/img]) - Check out this tip BTW link: http://www.tech-recipes.com/windows_tips232.html
* Now copy your "folder structure" from your "H3x0 backup" to the your "H3x0-drive" (i.e. E: ) by

C:\H140-BACKUP> xcopy . E: /T

* Verify with a defragmentation program (i.e. "OO defrag") that your folders are positioned at the start of the harddrive.
* If not then try to delete the folders (maybe copy some random big files and delete them again) and do the xcopy folder structure copy again (FAT32 file positioning is strange)
* Copy all your files and music back to your H3x0 by

C:\H140-BACKUP> xcopy * E: /S

or use Total Commander (Windows Explorer does not copy in correct alphabetical order)
over:
> xcopy * <ihp drive>: /S

3) Turn the database function off.

4) Defragment your players hard drive.

a

[Astec]

Step by step guide to getting it back into english.
1.power on
2.Press right 6 times on newer firmwares(applicable to all users of 2.04 firmware) (press right 5 times in ones that dont have text feature)
3.press select
4.press select again
5.press left 11 times then hit select
6.a menu will open hit select one more time
7.turn the player off and on again your now back to english.

If this didnt work run through the steps up to step 5, instead of going 11 left go 1 left or right, unless you can make it out on screen then select english and reboot.

/Edited to reflect the addition of the text function.

[Astec]

So far so good and here are the sync times I get using the following encoders. the sync is regarded after 1hr of playback without FF RW or pausing. so you may get different results with adjustments

DVDx - I could not get 2.3 but 2.2 works ok sync is of the region of 2seconds out, a usable programme but a bit heavy like Vdub for timid users.

Vdub - Not bad overall, takes ages to set up, sync is about 2seconds out.

PDE - Great programme simple to use if you have the player settings sheet infront of you, sync is 0.5 to 1.5 seconds out (it appears to be movie related)

iRiverter - Easy as hell to use, sync consistantly 1second or less out.

Other settings
Using the latest DivX codec is crap as it gets very bad upwards of 8 seconds on some files, thats very bad no matter what you are watching.
System load, it appears that the more work the PC does the worse the file is, this may be just errors but a PC just encoding seems to work best.
Loading direct to the player, I tried and sync gets worse on the programmes listed.

The programmes above are the best free ones I tried, the others had either too much to set up and no way to save the setup or where so bad/failed etc that they dont even deserve a mention.

Still playing around with settings, as per last night I think I found out how to sync properly (or damb near close) I will update on this once I confirm it using my method of testing.

My recommendation of iRiverter being the best may not be best on all machines so try a few different programmes.

On a final note I would be interested if I get a chance to trial the encodes on several different spec machines such as a celeron 600(my sisters) and see if that makes a difference.

[Astec]

After this comming up a lot on this and other sites I decided to write this to solve any confusion.

PMP Pros
* Support for a wider range of music formats.
-MPEG 1/2/2.5 Layer3 (In laymans terms mp3)
-WMA (microsofts supported format)
-WAV (Unprocessed sound)
-ASF (Audio)
For more info on any of these try Dreamtactix audio 101s here

* Support for a wider range of video formats.
-AVI
-ASF
-MPG

* Higher overall resolution of 640x480 (only seen using video out)

* Same weight as the PMC

* supports both BMP and JPEG image viewing at higher resolution than the PMC. It also supports zooming in the pictures and rotation.

*works on a larger selection of systems
Windows 98SE/ME/2000/XP
MAC OS 9.2.2 or higher / Mac OS 10.2 or higher
Linux (some users have theirs running on)

PMC Pros
* Longer audio battery life of 12 hours compared to 10 on the PMP.

* More EQ settings available.

* supports PLAY FOR SURE.

* Runs in a windows based environment

PMP cons

* Crashes quite often on some firmware.

* Often difficult to get good audio/video sync.

PMC cons

*Fails to support formats outside of MP3 and Windows media files. This will limit the amount of files that can be played without conversion.

* No FM radio

* No support for Linux or Mac systems.

* more expensive to buy due to the Microsoft software

* not available outside the US

Overall the PMP offers a bigger selection of features but a less simple to use interface, this said anyone who has spent time organising their computers files in "my computer" will easily adapt to the PMPs interface. The PMC however with its longer audio life offers many advantages. If you intend to use the Video out the PMC is lacking due to its resolution will stop looking good on screens bigger than 14 or 15 inches. The PMPs 640x480 support offers good crisp images on TVs up to and beyond 21 inches. The PMP also has the hope of Games which is yet another postitive over the PMC.

Please dont message me to add things to this comparison as the information is based upon the 2 devices if both support something I excluded it, my goal was to outline the main differences and to define the clear cut pros and cons. All information is from iRiver sources.

Information on the 2 players from iRiver internation can be found here

PMP

PMC

[SoulEata]

Does the PMP-1xx support downloaded music which has DRM Protection?

Answer

DRM stands for Digital Rights Management and is a software based method of protecting music files. This protection sets a time of use restriction on a given file requiring you to pay money to keep the music. Having DRM support means you can play copyrighted music acquired from an online service like Napster, or any other online service where you PURCHASE music.


Simply put you cannot use DRM on the PMP you will have to use a method to bypass it. Please do not ask on the site for ways as we are not allowed to link you to any methods.

Wikipedia has a much longer definition, see for extended reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management

edited slightly sdz
edited even more A

[SoulEata]

[Q] How Do I remove the Recycle Bin from my player's drive??

Answer:

Windows by default creates a Recycle Bin on your H3XX. Any time you delete tracks from your player they are in all reality just moved to the Recycle Bin and not truly removed from your player. To free up space in your machine it is a good idea to periodically empty your recycle bin. Better yet it is best to stop Windows from making a recycle bin in the first place.

The following procedure will allow you to disable the automatic creation of a recycle bin on your player while at the same time keeping the recycle bin on your PC active.


Go to your desktop, and right-click the Recycle Bin.

Select the 'Properties' menu.

Under the 'Global' tab, click the 'Configure drives independently' box.

Next, click the H300 tab.

Finally, check the 'Do not move files to the Recycle Bin' box, and click OK.

This will stop Windows from sending any deleted tracks to the bin and will not effect how your PC functions. At the same time it will keep your player's storage space at it's maximum.

Voila!

[Astec]

My language did not change when I told the player to. I followed the instructions posted but it didnt work.

This is simply a matter of you didnt restart the player, simply doing this will load your chosen language. If its still not right move in any direction through them and select the next one eventually you will find a font that you can make out and work out whats what to load the language you prefer.

[Astec]

Below are a list of images that may be of interest to both Owners of this amazing machine and also potential buyers. Remember the PMP 120 is silver the only difference between the 2 players is the Hard drive and colour of the shell which on the PMP140 is champaign. There are a lot of images here but I have selected the best ones about the web to let people see this under stated player. I hope H100, H10 and H300 owners will do the same for those sections as there are a lot of worthy images out there.

PMP overview

http://arena.nikkeibp.co.jp/rev/av/20040914/109446/
-Some good images of the PMP from all angles

http://digi.163.com/04/0720/14/0RO7DEJE001618SB.html
-More all angle shots of the PMP

http://pmw.sorobangeeks.com/review_pics/6/19.jpg
-PMP underside (smooth underside is the PMC)

http://www.austinv.com/cpg121/albums..._inside_09.jpg
-The 40Gb drive in the PMP

Comparisons Images

http://hard.shangdu.com/digit/memo.php?id=5180
-A small selection of comparison pictures sized up to the PMP

http://www.mstation.com.au/iriver/PM...cord_small.jpg
-A PMP compared to one of the IFP range

http://img.zol.com.cn/article/2/614/liU1r8vQm0MrQ.jpg
PMP beside a HP Ipaq

In the Box

http://kakaku.aol.co.jp/akiba/pictur..._pmp120_05.htm
-All the bits that are in the box (L to R - USB cable, power plug, Line in cable, Composite cable [For TV out], headphones, above these is the international case [US is the same but black], Missing is the manual and USB to go cable)

http://kakaku.aol.co.jp/akiba/pictur..._pmp120_08.htm
-As the PMP came in the box

-How the box looks in australia, the UK version is green for the 140 (I dont know about the rest, if you happen to have an image PM me and I will update this)

Final Vs Prototype

www.joko.jp/isbn/ electronics/B0002Y3N4E/
-What the official version of the PMP looks like

http://www.disking.co.uk/images/PMP%20-%20120.jpg
-What the prototype looks like (beware a lot of sites show this one not the final design), note the help button has moved and become silver, D pad is now composite and a few labels have moved.

http://www.pocketpcrussia.com/public..._iriver_01.jpg
-Im not sure but I believe this is an early prototype of the PMP/PMC that iRiver used to see what it was like (I beleive it is a PMC but not 100%)

PMP in Use

http://www.op.co.kr/ii/t4/imgh/th200...c2ca0b4ab3.jpg
-What the PMP looks like playing a song

http://www.op.co.kr/ii/t4/imgh/th200...c2ca1445d5.jpg
-PMP using browser mode

http://arena.nikkeibp.co.jp/rev/av/2.../109446/05.jpg
-PMP in the hands (nice image to see what its like to hold)

http://www.pvp4u.com/images/iriverpmp140.jpg
-Booting

http://arena.nikkeibp.co.jp/rev/av/2.../109446/06.jpg
http://arena.nikkeibp.co.jp/rev/av/2.../109446/07.jpg
-PMP after boot selection mode

http://img.zol.com.cn/article/2/620/li7FasXNQs19k.jpg
PMP on its stand

PMP in Movie Playback

http://www.op.co.kr/ii/t4/imgh/th200...c2ca761a97.jpg
-PMP playing back a wide screen film

http://www.zjol.com.cn/pic/0/00/00/54/5412_570121.jpg
-Full screen video playback (the menu has gone as normal after a few seconds)

PMP Opened
To stop you tinkerers!!

http://www.austinv.com/cpg121/thumbn...bum=113&page=1
DAP reviews disection page.

Odds and Ends
These dont really fit in the above

http://tech.tom.com/2118/2121/200493-122547.html

http://nv2sversailles.nexenservices....pmp%20good.JPG

These images I hope will help people to consider the player.

[SlimmerSumo]

Symptom : When you try to safely remove your iRiver Player using the "Safely Remove Hardware" in the tool tray (in Windows, bottom right) you are often asked to "try later" as the drive is busy

Possible Cause : MusicMatch Jukebox is running in the background

Diagnosis : Search open processes using Task Manager and see if mim.exe is running.

Solution : Uninstall MMJB or stop the process mim.exe before using the safely remove hardware function.

Other Causes : Using Windows Explorer search for each open process identified in task manager and consider if these may be accessing your iRiver. Applications like Virus checkers may be doing this, but normally they will not constantly access the drive and you will succeed in stopping the drive if you try later.

[andrewmel]

You can find links to the latest firmware here

HDD Audio/Video :: Firmware Links

a

[Astec]

Unlike the H3xx and 1xx models the PMP has a removable battery pack on it. This means that you are not required to discharge it completely (generally a bad thing for any lithium based battery). Simply remove the battery from the player for a few minutes and reattach the internal system for the bettery meter should reset and work fine again.

[ShamrockMan]

Disassembling the PMP guide

[seadzz]

How do I determine the right codec and bitrate for me or what is AXB testing?

Answer:

To determine the best codec that gives you the right balance between file size and audio playback quality is the source of great debate. There is no right codec or right bitrate for universal use since everyone has different needs (flash players vs. HD owners) and everyone has slightly different hearing. Men by nature have a slightly lower response to high frequencies (thanks to mother nature) and exposure to loud sounds over a prolonged period (jet blast, jackhammers, subway noise) also tends to degrade your hearing.

ABX testing is a method where you compare a reference sample against a test subject. If you know the name of the test subject that can bias things since it is easy to cheat. You need this test to be blind and using an ABX test tool makes sure you can’t cheat.

I have found ABX testing the best way to determine which codec sounds best to me and what bit rate to use. I thought I’d share how to do this test and what tools are required. It is not difficult and without some real tools your test can be biased since you are not doing it blind.

Tools:

There are many out there but the best (easy for me to use) is foobar 2000. If you don’t have that player yet go here and get it.

http://www.foobar2000.org/foobar2000_0.8.2.exe

You will also need the ABX tool plugin (is a dll file that you download and add to the foobar directory). It is located here.

http://www.foobar2000.org/foo_abx.zip


Procedure:

Take a CD you know well and identify one track that is not complex but has much detail, piano, violin, female singers, harpsichord or organ music is what you are looking for. You do not want hard rock, garage metal, screaming RAP music for this test….even if that is your favorite music please do not use it for ABX testing since all that screaming and banging will mask shortcomings and artifacts in the codec\bitrate. Again, soft passages with large differences from silence to a given detailed sound are what you are looking for.

Next rip the test track into a WAV file…..save it to a place where you can find it….desktop is a good idea. You then encode this track into a few differing codecs and differing bitrates. To keep from going nuts I recommend only using one codec at a time and use large bitrate spreads. Use 128 as a baseline and then jump to 160 and another at perhaps 192 or 224. You can fine-tune the bitrate later but your first pass should be at eliminating bitrates that sound like POS.

Once you have encoded this wav file into a few differing bitrates (make sure you name the files differently….use 196.mps or 128.org to keep things organized) you can move on to the setup process.

Click on foobar and open the player. Click preferences (upper left) and look for ABX Test. Open that up and unclick the normalize option. Save and shut foobar down.

Restart foobar and locate the tracks you want to test (only two at a time) and import them into the player. Make sure you hit the stop button since foobar will automatically start playing the imported files. If you downloaded and installed the abx.dll file correctly you should be able to highlight the two files to test by first clicking on the top file then hold the shift and arrow down key. With both files highlighted RIGHT CLICK the files. A dialog box will open, scroll down to the ABX test option and click it.

Files will automatically be loaded into a new window and ABX tools will popup. Now you can move on to finding a good part of the test track to use. You really only to use a small segment of the subject file…..no more than ten seconds. If you try to use the entire file you will go nuts. Listen to the track by pressing the A or B button and set a start and stop position on the track….again you only want a small file segment.

Once you have this segment selected listen to both A and B. then listen to X and Y. You will be trying to identify if A=Y or X and is B = X or Y. Once you think you have ID’s the track as being X or Y select the next test. This will take your impute and bring the result down 1/1 would mean you ID’s it right 0/1 would mean you blew it. Do this a number of times and the tester will tell you if you are correct or if you are guessing. If you correctly ID a file a number of times your probability of guessing % will approach zero. If on the other hand you are wrong a lot you will see a high % chance you are guessing. The foobar tools will randomly mix up the X and Y track to prevent cheating thus making it hard to beat and will give you results that have real value.

I have used this approach to test enhanced versions of ogg and LAME against the original WAV with surprising results. On testing OGG files encoded at Q8 with two differing versions I got a 9/10 result, which tells me that I can ID the two.

When I try to tell the difference between the improved ogg version from the WAV things go to !@#$ fast. Test result look like 5/10, which is a 50-50 chance I am guessing.

I hope this helps you get where you want to go in the wonderful world of encoding.

enjoy the music,

sdz

[SoulEata]

[Q] Will defragging hurt my device?

Answer: No

Defragging, short for defragmenting, is the reorganization or reallocation of the storage on a computers hard disk by bringing together files or parts of files to optimize the machines performance.

Every time files are added or deleted on a drive, fragments are created.

It is perfectly safe, and even recommended, to defrag your iRiver device.

[andrewmel]

Also, make sure all Directory windows are closed.

a

[andrewmel]

To make this really really clear

DONT POST QUESTIONS HERE!!!!!!