The M6 miniPlayer, from

Meizu Meizu Technology Co., Ltd. () is a Chinese consumer electronics manufacturer based in Zhuhai, Guangdong. Founded in 2003 by Jack Wong, Meizu began as a manufacturer of MP3 players and later MP4 players. In 2008, Meizu moved its focus to smar ...

, is a

flash Flash, flashes, or FLASH may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional aliases * Flash (DC Comics character), several DC Comics superheroes with super speed: ** Flash (Barry Allen) ** Flash (Jay Garrick) ** Wally West, the first Kid F ...

-based

portable media player A portable media player (PMP) (also including the related digital audio player (DAP)) is a portable consumer electronics device capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, and video files. The data is typically stored ...

that plays audio files in

MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Orig ...

, WMA, WAV,

FLAC FLAC (; Free Lossless Audio Codec) is an audio coding format for lossless compression of digital audio, developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation, and is also the name of the free software project producing the FLAC tools, the reference software p ...

, APE and

Ogg Ogg is a free, open container format maintained by the Xiph.Org Foundation. The authors of the Ogg format state that it is unrestricted by software patents and is designed to provide for efficient streaming and manipulation of high-quality di ...

and is also capable of AVI video playback (using the

XVID Xvid (formerly "XviD") is a video codec library following the MPEG-4 video coding standard, specifically MPEG-4 Part 2 Advanced Simple Profile (ASP). It uses ASP features such as b-frames, global and quarter pixel motion compensation, lumi ma ...

codec) on a 2.4-inch

QVGA The graphics display resolution is the width and height dimension of an electronic visual display device, measured in pixels. This information is used for electronic devices such as a computer monitor. Certain combinations of width and height a ...

screen. The Mini Player includes an FM tuner, voice recorder, calendar, stopwatch, calculator, a basic

ebook An ebook (short for electronic book), also known as an e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Al ...

reader for TXT files, and two games.

Background

The M6 is from Meizu's

digital audio player A portable media player (PMP) (also including the related digital audio player (DAP)) is a portable consumer electronics device capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, and video files. The data is typically stored o ...

productions. Accordingly, it is only emerging in certain parts of the

world In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...

including the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

, Australia,

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eigh ...

and more. Though the M6 supports many audio formats, the US release did not support MP3 format because of

licensing A license (or licence) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...

issues. Apparently, there are workarounds to the issue with specific

firmware In computing, firmware is a specific class of computer software that provides the low-level control for a device's specific hardware. Firmware, such as the BIOS of a personal computer, may contain basic functions of a device, and may provide ...

upgrades. Recently,

Dane-Elec Dane-Elec Memory was a European maker and distributor of computer memory chips and storage products. The company was founded by David Haccoun and Nessim Bodokh in 1985.http://www.iwr.co.uk/crn/news/2004739/dane-elec-gears-supermarket Activities a ...

has formed a deal with Meizu to provide distribution of the M6. Apparently, Dane-Elec has ironed out MP3 licensing issues. Many

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...

an models distributed by Dane‐Elec have their FM tuner disabled because of EU import duties; this can also be remedied by a firmware update. The M6 has been touted as an “

iPod The iPod is a discontinued series of portable media players and multi-purpose mobile devices designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The first version was released on October 23, 2001, about months after the Macintosh version of iTunes ...

killer” because of its capabilities with respect to its

aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, Epistemology, knowledge, Ethics, values, Philosophy of ...

. One characteristic regarding the Meizu M6 is its ability to function without proprietary

file formats A file format is a standard way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file. It specifies how bits are used to encode information in a digital storage medium. File formats may be either proprietary or free. Some file forma ...

and procedures.

Specifications

The following are some of the more important specifications regarding the Meizu M6:

Software support

File transfer

The M6 is connected to a computer via a USB 2.0 cable, upon which it is typically recognized as a mass storage device (starting with the 2.00x firmware series MTP is also supported). Transferring media files and firmware upgrades is accomplished by simply

dragging and dropping In computer graphical user interfaces, drag and drop is a pointing device gesture in which the user selects a virtual object by "grabbing" it and dragging it to a different location or onto another virtual object. In general, it can be used to ...

. Thus, no proprietary software is needed, allowing it to be a true

cross-platform In computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in several computing platforms. Some cross-platform software ...

media player. It is confirmed that the

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which i ...

2.6

kernel Kernel may refer to: Computing * Kernel (operating system), the central component of most operating systems * Kernel (image processing), a matrix used for image convolution * Compute kernel, in GPGPU programming * Kernel method, in machine lea ...

driver for UMS devices works with the M6.

Video conversion

For converting videos to the required

Xvid Xvid (formerly "XviD") is a video codec library following the MPEG-4 video coding standard, specifically MPEG-4 Part 2 Advanced Simple Profile (ASP). It uses ASP features such as b-frames, global and quarter pixel motion compensation, lumi ma ...

format, Meizu provides a custom version of VirtualDub. There is also a Meizu profile available for another

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

program, Iriverter and Batman Video Converter is available. Mac users can convert with MPEG Streamclip video converter.

Customization and variants

The miniPlayer allows the user to change a few display items such as the background

image An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimensio ...

and

font In movable type, metal typesetting, a font is a particular #Characteristics, size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a "Sort (typesetting), sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of ...

color Color (American English) or colour (British English) is the visual perceptual property deriving from the spectrum of light interacting with the photoreceptor cells of the eyes. Color categories and physical specifications of color are assoc ...

. Unofficially, it is possible to modify the RESOURCE.BIN file to

skin Skin is the layer of usually soft, flexible outer tissue covering the body of a vertebrate animal, with three main functions: protection, regulation, and sensation. Other cuticle, animal coverings, such as the arthropod exoskeleton, have diffe ...

the player with different

icons An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Catholic churches. They are not simply artworks; "an icon is a sacred image used in religious devotion". The most c ...

. A number of stick‐on covers are available which allow the front surface and thumb pad to be colored. Two versions of the miniPlayer were originally produced: * The TP version has a

Toshiba , commonly known as Toshiba and stylized as TOSHIBA, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure systems ...

screen with better color reproduction at the cost of lower

brightness Brightness is an attribute of visual perception in which a source appears to be radiating or reflecting light. In other words, brightness is the perception elicited by the luminance of a visual target. The perception is not linear to luminance, ...

. It is also 2 mm shallower. This model is no longer produced. * The SP version has a brighter and slightly cheaper

Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...

screen. This model is still in production. The two versions have different firmware and the screen does not work if the wrong one is loaded. The RESOURCE.BIN files are the same, however. There was also a special SP edition where the back metal plate would be

black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white ha ...

matte, instead of shiny

metal A metal (from Greek μέταλλον ''métallon'', "mine, quarry, metal") is a material that, when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electricity and heat relatively well. Metals are typi ...

M6SL and M6SE

A slimmer version of the miniPlayer, named Meizu M6SL (M6 “slim”), was released at the end of September 2007. The main difference from the original edition is the decreased thickness—7 mm (like the M3 Music Card) instead of 10 mm and new, better quality,

Wolfson See also Woolf, Woolfe, Wolff, Wolfson and Woolfson (especially for family names). Wolfson or Volfson is a Jewish surname, and may refer to: * David Wolfson, Baron Wolfson of Sunningdale (born 1935), British politician and businessman, nephew of ...

produced DACs.

References

External links

European and United States Distributor Homepage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Meizu M6 Miniplayer Portable media players Audiovisual introductions in 2006