Playing MP3's off of DVD-R

Although I am admittedly a bit of a gadget geek, I think the web needs another gadget review blog like it needs another directory of real estate agents...  However, when a gadget with the right features is particularly hard to find, I will shout about it.

The result of my month-long quest to find a DVD player that will play shuffled MP3’s off of a DVD-R has resulted in the LG LDA-511.

Many players claim to support MP3’s.  My three-year-old Panasonic was one of the first, but chokes on anything but 128 kbps encoding. (I prefer 192.)  The newer ones play all MP3’s but none except for the LG will only play them off of a CD-R, limiting you to seven or ten albums.  Many - like the players from Sony and Philips - don’t offer any kind of an MP3 shuffle option!  Can you believe it?  These machines will let you shuffle chapters of a DVD movie (why would you want to do that?) but not MP3’s...

So the Holy Grail is a player that will let me put 4.7 gig of mp3’s (100 albums) with shuffle.  Enter the LG.  Note that shuffle only works within a single folder.  At first I thought this was a little annoying because you have to put all the mp3 files into the root directory on the DVD project - you just can’t drag your album folders from your hard drive.  Upon further reflection, this "feature" allows you to have many different genre’s on one DVD-R by putting each one in its own folder.

It also comes with the latest outputs: optical digital audio, coaxial digital audio, composite video, S-video, component video, stereo audio and HDMI.  But wait - there's more!  The unit includes a built-in flash media player that supports Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO, MultiMediaCard, Secure Digital, xD-Picture Card, CompactFlash and Microdrive.  Yes you can play your MP3's from them.  Wow!

This player is so cool - I think it would be worth putting a setup in my office (maybe w/ a little LCD screen.)   Yeah, it’s not portable, but having a juke-box of 1000’s of albums at your fingertips is way cooler than an iPod with limited storage.  When you want to add to the library, just burn another DVD-R...

My last phone was an LG.  My current phone is an LG, and expect my next one will be.  (I also drive a Korean car come to think of it...)  As you can see, I’m becoming a fan of Korean products!