[Biturbos4] [s4] Re: board down ?

[Ti Kan]

John Marshall Harrison writes:
> Sounds (literally) very cool.  Does the PhatBox permit you use pretty
> much any audio compression format?

It supports mp3, wma, ogg, flac and aac.

> Is the ripping procedure
> "proprietary" in the sense that you don't treat it as just a hard drive
> with files copied onto it (requires a proprietary sort of cataloging as
> with the iPod devices)?

The ripping itself is not proprietary.  You can rip with the PhatNoise
application or any other software that produces compatible files onto
your hard drive (in fact I use my own software under Linux).  However
in order for the PhatBox to work with your files, yuo have to use their
software to manage them (and sync them) to the DMS cartridge.  You tell
it where to find your ripped files, and it builds a list of files using
the metadata (i.e., id3tag in MP3, vorbis comments in ogg and flac, etc)
to get the pertinent genre, artist and track info.  You can then define
your own personalized playlists.  During the process of writing to the DMS,
it creates the database that the PhatBox uses as well as the voice
prompt files from the metadata text.  Text-to-speech technology is used
for this (funky, but cool).

The CD software that comes with the Phatbox has the PhatBox Music Manager
which is an older version of the application, but you can download the
new PhatBox Media Manager from phatnoise.com which is much less clunky.
Also, You can download the AT&T Natural Voices software which the PMM
can use to produce much better quality voice prompts (your choice of male
or female voices).

Check http://www.phastnoise.com for info, and also these site for
more cool stuff: 
http://phatbox.sixpak.org/
http://www.tmk.com/PhatVoice/

P.S. I've been ripping CDs feverishly.  Got about 350 CDs on the DMS now
and it still has room!

-Ti