Expansion Options

[zaphanathpaneah]

For anyone who might be interested in buying the D2 when it is released here is an interesting link. It points to an article of an 8gb SDHC card for just 1 1/2 Benjamens. (that's $150 US in laymens terms) So if you buy the 4gb version and buy this 8gb card you could own on the only 12gb Cowon D2 on the block if not in the world.......OK maybe not, but it would be cool wouldn't it.

http://www.engadget.com/2006/12/21/ultra-products-8gb-sdhc-hits-for-150/

[WAI]

Yes... that would be just awesome.

[victorvd]

The D2 doesn't suppprt SDHC. So cards only go up to 4GB.

[mintcheerios]

Is this confirmed or just speculation? If so, then it's a deal breaker for me. I need at least 12gb to replace my X5.

[victorvd]

The Cowon D2 has just popped up on the Korean iAudio hompage. We can now all start dribbling saliva all over the specs:

• 2.5 inch touch screen with a resolution of 320x240 pixels and a colour depth of 16 Million Colours
• 52 hours of audio playback, 10 hours video playback
• 37+37 mW @ 16 Ohm of output power that will kill your eardrums
• MP3, WMA, WAV,OGG, FLAC and perhaps even APE support
• Available in 2GB and 4GB - supports SD cards with up to 4GB
• Dimensions: 78.0 x 55.4 x 16.6 mm; Weight: 91g
• TV-Out

These are the Korean numbers and except DMB I don't think they will be different in the rest of the world.

Source: Iaudiophile (http://www.iaudiophile.net/news.php)

And at a dutch site where it's for sale it says: max 4GB too ("maximaal 4GB" in dutch).

source: mp3spelers.nl (http://www.mp3spelers.nl/index/product?id=221)

[blairh]

yep it's definitely max 4gb, im playing with one now =)

[zaphanathpaneah]

What deo you think of it? I have read the reviews, saw the 3 Videos and it looks like a super great flash player. one more opinion wont hurt us. Your thoughts please.

[timms]

yep it's definitely max 4gb, im playing with one now =)

hey, does the card show up as a separate drive on the player?

and does anybody know if the sdhc cards are the same size, would a firmware upgrade make sdhc possible.

[blairh]

i love it! the gui is brilliant, and touch-screen makes it so easy to use. the battery life is brilliant - i've only charged it once since i got it!

I think that the D2 is the model that will really make Cowon stand out in such a crowded market. Great battery life, great sound, great features, and a brand new interface idea... shame it wasn't ready for Christmas, but I'd say it'll be a great seller in 2007.

timms, have a look at the videos that Kevin Kang from Cowon made.. you can see them on the iaudiophile website. that shows the gui well, including how the sd card is displayed.

[BaT86]

It's not sure at all it will or will not support SDHC...

This was answered by Cowon:
"There are many 4GB SD cards, and we are not sure if COWON D2 will be compatible with SDHC cards or not."

These are their words...so let's wait ^_^...obviously i hope it will [biggrin]
it would be very nice...

[zaphanathpaneah]

SDHC is newer but it has been around at least 6 months which puts it still in the D2's development stage. Why did Cowon decide not to offer SDHC support? Is it electronically impossible to do yet keep the device small? Is it battery life performance? Is it $$? (you know ...to keep the device affordable)

I saw in the wild a 16gb SD card and of course it is SDHC. With memory size capped at 4gb for the D2, SDHC support would have made it possible to have a 20gb flash player that would out perform the x5 20gb.

It's a shame though.

[victorvd]

Yeah blairh. How did you get it? Do you live in Korea?

Could you anwer some questions (I already asked some but ok)?
Please watch you battery life a bit so you can tell us more about it?
How strudy is it?

[pixels]

I really hope it supports SDHC. Would make this player untouchable and very expandable.

[residentour]

I know SDHC is for capacities greater than 2Gb.So 4gb SD should be a SDHC one.And this means D2 supports SDHC IMO.

[pixels]

There are 4GB SD and 4GB SDHC. Same with 2GB.

If you hit up newegg.com, it lists SD as being a different category than SDHC, which further supports this observation.

I believe that having SDHC support will launch this player further into the new age, since SD is very supported, and soon SDHC will be, as the capacities grow more and more (oh how I love technology).

Besides:
This was answered by Cowon:
"There are many 4GB SD cards, and we are not sure if COWON D2 will be compatible with SDHC cards or not."

[victorvd]

Can you let the player start playing directly when you start it?

[mintcheerios]

I have an audio recorder called the Edirol R-09 that recently had a firmware upgrade to support SDHC cards. I always thought the hardware was different making a mere software upgrade not do the trick. It's possible that when they were developing the recorder, SDHC wasn't a completed technology yet, and they opted to make some hardware modifications to accomodate for it in the future with the help of a firmware upgrade.

[timms]

http://www.iaudiophile.net/forums/showthread.php?t=11864
post #3

lets just hope cowon has a little bit of foresight.

[neoxerxes]

I have an audio recorder called the Edirol R-09 that recently had a firmware upgrade to support SDHC cards. I always thought the hardware was different making a mere software upgrade not do the trick. It's possible that when they were developing the recorder, SDHC wasn't a completed technology yet, and they opted to make some hardware modifications to accomodate for it in the future with the help of a firmware upgrade.

Just as I thought. Don't worry people, Cowon are best for releasing quick and significant firmware upgrades, so we will have our beloved SDHC support without a doubt!

[csanantonio]

I was just wondering...would the fact that your media is stored in an SD card hinder the performance of the player in any way? What I mean is, I have been into digital photography for a couple of years now, and it is recomended in some DSLR with high megapixel counts that you get a faster card, since it'll be faster to save the image. Will this same problem show up with this player (especially longer movie clips and songs with high bitrates). If it does, I suppose it wouldnt be too big of a problem for me, since i would just store my movies in the internal memory, and put my songs in the SD card, But I can see this being a problem for other users, especially the ones that plan to use the High capacity cards. Sorry for the Long rant and thanks in advance.

-Christian

[pixels]

I suppose only extensive testing would answer that question.

[timms]

"There are different speed grades available which are measured with the same system as CD-ROMs, in multiples of 150 KB/s. Basic cards transfer data up to six times faster (900 KB/s) than the standard CD-ROM speed. High-speed cards are made with higher data transfer rates like 66x (10 MB/s), and high-end cards have speeds of 150x or higher. Some digital cameras require high-speed cards to record video smoothly or capture multiple still photographs in rapid succession. As of December 2005, most devices comply to the SD card specification 1.01, with maximum speed of 66x. Higher speeds of up to 133x are defined by specification 1.1."

exerpt for wikipedia.

1x is 150 kbps.
suppose a song is 4 megabytes =4000 kilobytes

so 4000/150 = 26.6.

so theoretically. 27x sd card would read an entire song in 1 second.

If cowon makes good firmware. the file should be divided into lets say 150kb parts (or about 12 seconds) and played instantly.

Lets wait and see how much effort is put into this player.

Also, the files on the card better be categorised with the files on the stock flash.

[neoxerxes]

I was just wondering...would the fact that your media is stored in an SD card hinder the performance of the player in any way? What I mean is, I have been into digital photography for a couple of years now, and it is recomended in some DSLR with high megapixel counts that you get a faster card, since it'll be faster to save the image. Will this same problem show up with this player (especially longer movie clips and songs with high bitrates). If it does, I suppose it wouldnt be too big of a problem for me, since i would just store my movies in the internal memory, and put my songs in the SD card, But I can see this being a problem for other users, especially the ones that plan to use the High capacity cards. Sorry for the Long rant and thanks in advance.

-Christian

If you have checked out the 3 preview videos Kevin kindly provided for us on YouTube (if not, they provide great insight and answer many questions that many people are actually asking on this board) then you will see from his demonstration of playing a 200MB+ video clip, for instance, from the SD card (I take it a regular one) you will see the performance right there. There wasn't really any delay when he started to play it as well as when he was seeking during playback. However, I noticed when he was displaying a 1MB+ JPEG there was like a half-a-second delay, which is pretty common I guess across the board of other devices. Also, the unit that Kevin was using was a pre-production model, so the player is likely going to be fine tuned even further.

[blairh]

Yeah blairh. How did you get it? Do you live in Korea?

Could you anwer some questions (I already asked some but ok)?
Please watch you battery life a bit so you can tell us more about it?
How strudy is it?
Hey, sorry I haven't been here for quite a while. I'm the managing director of the New Zealand distributors for Cowon (cowon.co.nz).. so obviously I get demo products from Cowon so I can decide whether or not to launch them here.

The battery life is amazing. Actually I've had the D2 for almost a month now, and still haven't charged it once. That's impressive! Haven't tested it extensively, but seems to me that it would last 55 hours no trouble.

It's very sturdy and strong, feels like a solid product.. I'm really impressed with it. I'd definitely reccomend getting a case for it though, I wouldn't want to scratch that gorgeous screen!!