March 16, 2008 at 02:00:00 PM | more stories by this author
Get your MP3 workout on! Fitness mp3 players are the perfect motivator to prevent boring workouts.
Better yet, plenty of MP3 players available today offer some great workout-worthy extras, such as pedometers and calorie counters. Even an FM tuner is a great extra, since it'll let you tune into the TVs at the gym...and tune out of the sometimes mind-numbing repetition of physical activity.
Some of my favorite choices for fitness include the Sony S2 Sports Walkman, a cigar-shaped player with a built-in pedometer and the ability to calculate calories burned. It even includes clip-on headphones to keep ear adjustments to a minimum. For iPod Nano owners, there's the Nike+iPod Sport Kit, which features a Bluetooth pedometer and some very handy fitness tracking software for recording results. If you're on a budget, check out the 2GB RCA Jet, which includes sport headphones, an FM tuner and both an arm- and wristband--all for just $65.
Of course, there's no reason to confine yourself to the treadmill and elliptical machine--the great outdoors makes the perfect gym. If cycling is your preferred training method, the Oakley Thump Pro is a great choice--it's a pair of sunglasses with the MP3 player and headphones built right in. And for water babies who like the low-impact sport of swimming laps, there's the Finis SwiMP3, a waterproof player that uses bone-conduction technology to relay sound waves to your ears.
MPEG layer 3 is a type of audio codec where processed by significant compression from the original audio source with very little loss in sound quality. The compression up to 12:1 produces a very little degradation. Tighter compression can be achieved, but it will effect in sound degradation results.
A standard is to encode at anywhere from a quality 128 up to 320 kbit/s (near cd quality result). Many people claim that low-rate MP3 files sound better than Real Audio files with similar bit rates. The higher the bitrate(quality), the larger the file.
If the music is going to be streamed from the page (not downloaded first) then the standard is 128 for high speed connections (DSL, Cable) and 24 to 32 for dial-up connections.
