Warning: Olympus Mrobe Mp3

quad_red

Hey all,
Just in case anyone is considering buying the attractive little mrobe100 mp3 player - DON'T!

It looks great and works quite well but it is locked into Olympus' own software (mtrip) which is quite probably the worst example of pure incompetence I have seen in a long time.

Avoid.

Like the plague.

Quad

kasintahan

Aren't most HD MP3 players locked to their respective software AND PC for transferring music?

Also, many won't let you transfer music back off the devices (only onto them), including your personal recordings!

fenris

A lot of MP3 players are, particularly those that are DRM crippled. Some players claim to be plug and play usb compatible, but that generally means that you can copy files to the player but not play them or that you cannot copy music from the player to a different PC.

The iRivers are not crippled, nor is the cowan iAudio range as far as I know. This is the reason that I have moved from my Rio to a H10 and a IPF895 (both iRiver).

People will thell you that it is really simple to copy music to other PC's with DRM crippled devices, but that advice usually comes down to load up the software, or involved waving dead chickens, hardware resets and selling your hole to santa.

Shane O' Malley

The Rio's are not crippled to their own software. I have used about 5 differnt programs with mine.

drdre

my friend got one today and he said its a **** player. its not worth the money;)

Shane O' Malley

Got one what?

Howie

Heya guys,

I'm the webmaster for mrobe.org - and i can sympathize with your feelings about the m:trip software. I've written a few articles on DRM and m:trip on the website - and i'm keen to see the player one day free from DRM (yes pigs will fly too). But for a music management software it does the job, and does it quite well - a few quirks here and there, one namely the speed of synchronising and cataloguing mp3s... but i've had a look at other manufacturers software (*cough apple*) and i don't see many features on there which the M:Trip doesn't have.

All software has it's beginnings though, iTunes was a POS when it first came out also. Hopefully the 1.06 update for M:Trip will resolve most of the problems.

Anyhow guys, my first time on this site So hopefully see you around more often.

Howie

http://www.mrobe.org
Unofficial Olympus MRobe Users website!

quad_red

Howie wrote:

a few quirks here and there, one namely the speed of synchronising

Man, this is more than a speed issue. The software is really unstable (from my experience using it on three computers. An older (but not THAT old) Dell Laptop where speed issues might be expected and Compaq laptop and Dell desktop that are less than a year old) meaning attempts at sync-ing often fail and the player ends up hung. Now, don't get me wrong - this is not the only player to experience this. But it's hugely frustrating and quickly craps all over the giddy feeling you get when you buy cd and find that transferring them to your portable device is like throwing muck at a wall hoping some of it will stick. :mad:

Howie wrote:

cataloguing mp3s...

This is my girlfriends player but as its locked to one computer and her workplace change machines regularly, so I use my laptop with her player. Her music is all correctly ripped and tagged (visible correctly in Media Player, Musicmatch, Winamp and as a test on my mp3 player) yet some of it still comes up as unknown artist, unknown album etc on the Mtrip.

Also, there are space issues. The mtrip software claims there is just over three and a half gigs of music on the player yet any attempt at transfer leads to a 'insufficient space' warning. Going into my computer and right clicking the mrobe shows that the player IS practically full. There are no photos etc on the player. Where is the extra space going?

Its a constant battle to delete music of the player. Despite being removed from the mtrip playlist and having sync-ed the player and the software, certain albums remain on the player.

When is the new update expected buddy?

Well done on the site though. The mrobe is a beauty and it deserves fans and acclaim but the very mention of mtrip makes me angry!

Cheers for any tips you can give,
Quad

ps. I checked out the site. Very snazzy!! (www.mtrip.org) I'll definitely keep an eye out there.

Howie

quad_red wrote:

Man, this is more than a speed issue. The software is really unstable (from my experience using it on three computers. An older (but not THAT old) Dell Laptop where .....

Yes it certainly is worrysome. I've never encountered that, but then again I haven't pushed it to it's absolute limit... i'd imagine i'd probably have the same result if i dumped 4 and a half gigs of mp3's onto my player all at once. I don't think M:Trip handles 4 gigs worth of files very well... but then again, they said 1.06 was suppose to fix it, so we'll just have to wait and see.

On that note, iTunes was still no better than mTrip when that first came out... so we'll just have to see how this s/ware evolves.

This is my girlfriends player but as its locked to one computer and her workplace change machines regularly, so I use my laptop with her player. Her music is all correctly ripped and tagged (visible correctly in Media Player, Musicmatch, Winamp and as a test on my mp3 player) yet some of it still comes up as unknown artist, unknown album etc on the Mtrip.

Yes i've got that on one or two of my non-english mp3's also.. there's this one album in particular it really doesn't like. I'm going to investigate it and if I can get it occur again i'll be reporting this issue to Olympus HQ.

Also, there are space issues. The mtrip software claims there is just over three and a half gigs of music on the player yet any attempt at transfer leads to a 'insufficient space' warning. Going into my computer and right clicking the mrobe shows that the player IS practically full. There are no photos etc on the player. Where is the extra space going?

Ooo.. that's another issue I have yet to see. I'll make a note of it, and post it on mrobe.org forums... when we get a sufficient list happening, i'll see if we can make contact with one of the developers to get this thing sorted out once and for all.

When is the new update expected buddy?

No ETA yet, which is disappointing, all i have is a confirmation of an english version in testing right now. When i know i'll post it up on mrobe.org.

Well done on the site though. The mrobe is a beauty and it deserves fans and acclaim but the very mention of mtrip makes me angry!

ps. I checked out the site. Very snazzy!! (www.mtrip.org) I'll definitely keep an eye out there.

Thanks for props buddy ! I started up the site out of frustration.. and it looks like things are actually happening for us now.

Cheers

Howie

Howie

Gidday,

M:Trip 1.06 for English was officially released today.

m-trip software update
Fixes bug with displaying music files in correct order when the number of tracks is larger than 800; provides faster starting and loading time for large numbers of music files; added compatibility with music files including other (non-native) languages in the music information; improved software to display the [Recently listened to] music in correct order in the music list. (8/05 - 10.3MB)

Check it out at http://www.mrobe.org

quad_red

cheers