Tuesday, July 29, 2008

How does MP3 player works?

You see them here, there, everywhere! But have you ever really wondered at the technology behind that wonderful music playing contraption? Learn the technology behind one of the most popular gadgets around.

MP3 players use solid state memory, and are very similar to your computer's hard drive. In fact, some of them even double as portable hard drives! What solid state memory does is cut down on malfunctions as they contain no moving parts. They also help to avoid those annoying skips that are oh so prevalent in CD players. They use magnetic based storage, just like your hard drive and floppy drive. This does mean that they are susceptible to corruption by magnets and other devices that have a strong magnetic field (such as speakers or monitors)

The other parts of the MP3 player help to process the data on the drive and translate the 1s and 0s into audio signals. The player contains a microprocessor and controls the functions of the player.

The DSP (digital signal processing) chip is one that does a great deal of the work relating to the music. It is responsible for a few different functions, including loading the music from the drive, decompressing the mp3 (or other format), and convert the music into an analogue signal so that you can enjoy the latest hits. It then goes to the amplifier. This enhances the signal prior to sending it to headphones or speakers.

MP3 players draw their power from batteries, although some can switch to drawing power through a USB port when they have access to a computer. The typical MP3 player will allow you to listen to your music, make play lists, browse through your files, rearrange files, and delete files. As the technology gets more advanced, some also have expanded to let you watch movies, listen to local radio stations, and also store other types of files.

Contrary to the name, most MP3 players can handle a wide variety of music file formats. Format support can sometimes be added in at a later date by the manufacturer, who can issue a firmware update to be downloaded and installed on the player. As a last resort, enterprising people can make their own software, or reverse engineer the drive so that they know how to add the file format support themselves.

You can get music to put on your drive from a variety of sources. Be careful in making sure that your sources are legitimate, however. You wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of a RIAA lawsuit. You can also rip music from your personal CD collection. Most MP3 players come with software that can do this quickly and easily for you. In addition, there are loads of software download sites out there that have free CD to MP3 converters.

MP3 players are almost must have accessories, even for those not heavily into getting the newest gadgets and gizmos. With a capacity of hundreds or thousands of songs, do you really want to mess around with your CD player instead of this?

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