DRM, Killing Your MP3 Player’s Battery
Posted by Stretch | Filed under Gadgets, Music, News
Currently Playing ~ Prince Of Darkness | Megadeth | Risk
What’s the suggested battery life on your MP3 Player? 8 hours? 18 hours? It all depends on what you are listening too. Since music today is being overrun by DRM, your battery life just took a big hit.
In the real world, there are plenty of factors that will help drain your battery much quicker than you’d like. For example, while the iPod’s 14-hour audio-only rating is acceptable (the first iPods had 8 to 9 hours per charge), I never get that many hours, and in fact, I average less than 8 hours. My battery isn’t dying prematurely; rather, I like to have my screen on and browse photos, as well as watch an occasional video and crank the volume up.
Those who belong to subscription services such as Napster or Rhapsody have it worse. Music rented from these services arrive in the WMA DRM 10 format, and it takes extra processing power to ensure that the licenses making the tracks work are still valid and match up to the device itself. Heavy DRM not only slows down an MP3 player but also sucks the very life out of them. Take, for instance, the critically acclaimed Creative Zen Vision:M, with a rated battery life of up to 14 hours for audio and 4 hours for video. CNET tested it at nearly 16 hours, with MP3s–impressive indeed. Upon playing back only WMA subscription tracks, the Vision:M scored at just more than 12 hours. That’s a loss of almost 4 hours, and you haven’t even turned the backlight on yet.
Hope you don’t leave the charger home next time you go on al long trip if you have alot of DRMed music.
Via Engadget
One Response to “DRM, Killing Your MP3 Player’s Battery”
-
DRM Does/Doesn’t Shorten Player Life by Elliott Back Says:
April 8th, 2006 at 12:10 am[...] Inside Stretch [...]
