How to Make Money on the Internet, the podcast. 
MAKE: Open Source MP3 Player Kit.
Jason Calacanis wonders if a Rojas-designed podcast player makes sense. I predicted this would occur to the Engadget folk at some point, that they have a better idea of where a product category should go than the designers they cover. It’s an instance of the paradox that it’s easier for a user to become a manufacturer than it is for a manufacturer to become a user. For what it’s worth, a Winer-Rojas collaboration would be even better, imho.
A slow day in Berkeley with the Andrews family.
Scripting News Annex 
Posted by Koz on November 27, 2006 at 7:31 am
a homebrew MP3 player is something I have been talking to people about for a while. I’d love to try and get my estranged dad out of retirement to look at this – having been quite the techie over the years for audio and data storage and networks. I’m looking forward to scouting around at CES for people on the right track.
The price would need to cover the cost of the decoding licenses to play certain formats – mp3, m4a, flv, swf, etc. – though ogg is opensource. Usually this is done on a per-device price.
Also, I’d like to say that I love MorningCoffeeNotes, but you’re still saving the mp3 at a rate not divisible by 11.025 – this causes the ‘chipmunk’ effect on your podcast when played via a Flash widget (a HUGE provider of av content for many people) – see here: http://podcast.com/show/672/
cheers,
K
[‘I said something wrong, so now I long for yesterday.’]
Posted by Tom Morris on November 27, 2006 at 7:59 am
The other side-effect of using the chipmunk bit rates is that when you listen to them on an iPod, the shuttle feature doesn’t work properly – basically, if you pause and start playing again, the time gets out-of-sync and you have to fast-forward in the file to catch up with yourself. I listened to about 15 minutes of the Cecile Andrews interview, paused the playback and then had to fast forward about three minutes in order to catch up with where I was.
This is something I’ve had before with other podcasts as well. I have no idea why. But it is quite annoying.
Posted by Koz on November 27, 2006 at 8:48 am
Wow. I didn’t know that! Very useful to know too!
I don’t know if Dave is still using his (excellent) Archos to record these (as it will record direct to mp3), if so, there’s a setting on the AudioCorder screen for quality – I reckon Dave has it set to ‘Low’, which is 32kHz. Needs to be set at Medium or High.
To avoid being chipmunked, encode all MP3’s at 11.025kHz 22.05kHz or 44.1kHz.
Though when we chatted with Dave on this podcast, it was actually intentional transmogrification! 🙂
http://blugg.com/cast/2005/03/bluggcast-4-13-mar-2005.php
Posted by pt on November 27, 2006 at 12:29 pm
hey kov, email me i can hook you up with the open source one i have for a discount – there are also some other ones out there, but they’re kinda hard to use and build.
Posted by Tony on November 28, 2006 at 5:40 pm
Uhhhh, I just paused the Cecile podcast and when I hit play again it was exactly where it had left off and the time had in no way had any problems. I’m on an iPod. No idea why you’re having problems but it is definitely not a ubiquitous issue.