Dell Digital Jukebox

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The Dell Digital Jukebox or just Dell DJ was a brand name for a series of Digital jukeboxes sold by the Dell Computer corporation.

The Dell DJs were engineered by Creative Technology and based on the same hardware and software platform as their Creative NOMAD/Creative Zen digital audio players. For example, these devices also used a single Texas Instruments TMS320 processor as the main CPU, and the user interface such as the menus, playlists etc was very much the same.

On February 6, 2006, Dell announced the end of production of hard drive players and continued to only sell their flash-based player, the DJ Ditty. Dell spokesman Liem Nguyen commented, "We transitioned our lineup away from hard drives to focus on flash players." On August 24 of that same year, Dell announced that they also discontinued the DJ Ditty in the face of competition from Apple Computer, manufacturer of the iPod, and other MP3 player manufacturers.^[1] "It (DJ Ditty) will end of life and when the supply runs out we will not have a follow-on product to that music player," Dell spokesperson Venancio Figueroa said.

1 Models and history
2 Dell Pocket DJ
3 Dell DJ 20 and Dell DJ 30
4 Dell Ditty
5 First Party Software
6 Third party software
7 References
8 See also
9 External links

[edit] Models and history

A first-generation Dell DJ.

The first-generation of Dell Digital Jukeboxes started out with two models: a 15GB version for about $199 and the 20GB version that cost $250. These initial models featured voice recording; MP3, protected and unprotected WMA, WAV file playback; and use as an external hard drive (pending driver installation).
The introduction of the second-generation of Dell digital jukeboxes began with 5GB Dell Pocket DJ (see below). Features unique to this second-generation of players were its smaller physical size and firmware that achieved Microsoft PlaysForSure certification. Since then, Dell has produced 15GB, 20GB and 30GB versions of their players.
On September 2005, Dell introduced the Dell DJ Ditty, a 512MB flash memory based player. Features unique to this model (apart from its storage medium) were smaller physical size and integrated FM tuner.
On October 11, 2005, it was revealed that, both Sirius and XM (with partner Samsung) will offer an MP3 satellite player that fall. Dell then announced that it would upgrade to a third-generation DJ and Pocket DJ with capability to play XM radio streams pre-recorded on an accompanying dock system. A color screen would replace the monochrome display.
On February 6, 2006, it was announced that Dell discontinued their hard drive based players, and will not release any future models at this time.
On August 18, 2006, Dell discontinued production of the Dell DJ Ditty.

[edit] Dell Pocket DJ

5GB Dell Pocket DJ.

The Dell Pocket DJ is a pocket sized player released by Dell in 2004. It holds 5GB (2,500 songs) of memory for $199, which is the same price as the 4GB Apple iPod Mini, which is now discontinued. The Pocket DJ has a 10 hour battery life and charges through a USB plug either through the computer or electrical outlet.

The Pocket DJ is compatible with many music stores and formats, such as WMA (Windows Media Audio), and MP3. It also sports a blue 160 by 104 pixel screen, although easy for most people to read in the daylight, it can be difficult to read at night, because the blue reduces the clarity of the screen. The buttons also light up on the front, providing easy navigation. The buttons include, Back, Home, Previous/Rewind, Play/Pause, and Next/FastForward.

If you view the Creative Zen Micro, the interface looks very similar, except the Pocket DJ does not have voice recording or FM tuner.

Similar to the iPod's click wheel, the Pocket DJ has a small scroll barrel that can be used to scroll through playlists, etc. When you scroll to a song, you push down on the barrel and a menu comes up asking you if you want to play the song, add it to a playlist, delete it, etc. You can bypass the pop-up menu by pushing the Play/Pause button.

[edit] Dell DJ 20 and Dell DJ 30

A Second-generation Dell DJ.

The Pocket DJ has three siblings: the DJ 20, which holds 20GB of music, DJ 30, which holds 30GB of music, and the new DJ Ditty, a flash based player which holds 512MB of music.

The Dell DJ Ditty Flash MP3 Player.

[edit] Dell Ditty

The Dell Ditty is a small player that has 512mb of flash memory (equivalent to 220 songs recorded at 128Kbps) and a built in FM tuner. It has a small screen showing the currently playing track . Different color caps are available for purchase through Dell. The Ditty has been discontinued as of August 2006.

[edit] First Party Software

Dell supplies two pieces of software with the purchase of a Digital Jukebox: The "basic" version of Musicmatch Jukebox and Dell DJ Explorer. The Musicmatch Jukebox software is used to copy, manage, and transfer music to the Dell DJ while the Dell DJ Explorer allows for the Dell DJ to be used as an external hard drive and provide more intuitive procedures to renaming, reordering, and simply putting songs on the music player by copying and pasting songs from the hard drive into the mp3 player.

[edit] Third party software

Beside the Dell included DJ Explorer program that is use to transfer music and data, there are other transfer and track/file management programs

Free software:
- Amarok is a music player for Linux (homepage)
- Creative Nomad Jukebox KIO::Slave is an integration driver for KDE (homepage) which should also work with the Dell DJs.
- Gnomad is a DJ Manager for Linux (homepage)
- Neutrino is another DJ Manager for Linux (homepage)
- Nomadsync is a DJ synchronization tool for both Microsoft Windows and Linux (homepage)
- XNJB is a DJ Manager for Mac OS X (homepage) note: OS 10.3 and later.
Proprietary software:
- Dudebox Explorer (now known as Deubox Explorer) by Red Chair Software (homepage) is a transfer program for Microsoft Windows. This $25 program includes a file streamer and it can convert your MP3 player into a file server that you can access over the Internet.