[vipra]

Is anyone familiar with the myriad of mp3 players for sale? The iPod is by far the best seller and has the best features, but from what I've read it has a serious drawback- you can't burn the music onto a CD or DVD. I definitely want to be able to burn DVDs, since whatever music I've bought will be lost if my laptop crashes, and I don't have room to store dozens of CDs. All I want to do is store music, I don't care about photos, videos, podcasts, etc. Also, I want lots of memory- the 40GB that iPods have is probably too much, but some of the mp3 players have less than 1GB, and that's probably not enough.
I've noticed that many companies make software that can be used to burn CDs/DVDs- what software is best? Thanks

[cheri1122]

Vipra, I can't offer any help on the Mp3 issue, since I haven't ventured into that territory, except to buy an iPod for my daughter, but I can say that the CD/DVD burning program Sonic is pretty user friendly. I've burned a couple dozen CDs using it, and they don't take up much space at all: 24 on each sun visor, & I'm good for a couple weeks!;)
Another advantage to CDs, is that it's easy & fun to trade music, as Moot & I do. You each get to listen to stuff you've never heard before, and it doesn't cost much to mail a few CDs. It's a nice way to spend some downtime on the road, and a really nice reason to check the mail.:)

[Jayman]

You can also get a car/truck stereo that has a USB port on it. They just started making them this year, so there arent many models to choose from. The one I prefer has the port on the front of the receiver. (I think there are some with the port on the back which would require a wire harness to plug into)

To make a long story short... invest about $29.99 for a USB flash memory drive like the ones here. http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati....asp?CatId=379

A 2GB drive will store about 400 songs assuming your songs average about 5mb each. You put your MP3's on the flash drive and put the drive in the USB port of your stereo and wham bam instant music. :7 That is what I plan on doing when I start driving. But, I will also take my cd's that I have burnt just incase something goes wrong with the flash drive.

[greg334]

OK I see what you are trying to do, I would suggest an iPod with iTunes but a MP3 player is somewhat of a personal preference thing and you may want to check out all the other players before putting out the cash.

Now if it was me, I would get a video iPod, I like the idea of 80gb of space and a good display. I don't like the price though. I used Creative Labs player over the weekend, nice but a pain in the selecting of songs. I tried out my niece's iPod nano, it almost made it into the microwave because it is so small but it is an iPod.

As for burning CD/DVDs for backup and such, I use iTunes (I lost respect for WMP when it would lock my files due to right managmemt and having over [s]2000[/s] 3000 hrs of files on the laptop alone it was a b**ch getting striaght). iTunes I can manage my play lists and burn DVDs if i need to. I also use Nero most of the time anyway to do the backups.