Jari Ketola
4 Jan 2001 6:05
Motorola spin-off First International Digital announced that it will begin shipping the Irock 680 -player. The Irock 680 player plays back songs in both MP3 and MP3i format.
The MP3i, short for MP3 interactive, is a format deviced by Sondog Network and it integrates graphical data with digital music files. Lyrics, album covers, notes, photographs, advertisements etc. can be shown while the music is playing on the device. If the player does have MP3i support the MP3i files are played back just as standard MP3s are.
At the moment MP3i files can only be purchased at MP3Karaoke.com. There's also a simple beta version of a MP3 Karaoke Player for Windows available at the site. It's more of a technology demo than a player for serious use. You can also download a free copy of the Jingle Bells with karaoke lyrics at MP3Karaoke.com. You can also buy other songs for around $1.50-$3.00 at the site.
Of course having lyrics in MP3 files is nothing new - there even exists the Lyrics3 Tag v2.00 standard for adding timestamped lyrics to MP3 files. Of course MP3i is not compatible with the Lyrics3 standard.
The Irock 680 player will retail at $299 with 64MB of RAM, an FM tuner, a 6-line LCD, built-in microphone, voice recorder, USB-connection and two headphone jacks.
You can read more on MP3i as well as the Irock player at the following sites:
MyIrock.com (opens Jan 5th)
MP3Karaoke.com