Software Features
The software that accompanies The Personal Jukebox is all you need to
manage your music library. Management is accomplished on a "Set" and
"Disk" level. "Sets" can more easily be defined as genres. For example,
I currently have the "Sets" Rock, Hard Rock, Rap, Slow, and Classical,
although you may have as many sets as you wish. Within each set you can
organize at the disc level (name of the album, for example) or simply
do as I did and have one disc named "singles" into which you put all
tracks of the current genre. From the software you can set or change
the stored name that appears on the PJB display for each track, the
order in which they are stored, and even copy between sets. One thing I
did not like in the software is that you must alphabetize manually.
Another nice feature is the ability to create virtual playlists. Once
a track is copied to the PJB, you may include it in multiple Sets/Discs
without it occupying any additional space. Finally the question all
pirates wish to know: "Can one copy from the device back to a PC?" The
answer is unfortunately "no", as it violates copyright laws.
Hardware Features
The Personal Jukebox Music Compressor supports all the functions you would
hope to find in any standard CD player. This includes full playback
control (play, stop, pause, ffwd, rwd), volume control, adjustable bass
settings (normal, extra, and super), and shuffle/repeat settings. I
would like to see a backlit display, but unfortunately this is not an
available feature. Shuffle/Random settings can be set for the current
disc, set, or entire collection. This is a very handy feature if you wish
to randomly listen to tracks of a certain genre, for example. The firmware
which controls the device may also be "flashed" similar to updating the
BIOS on a PC. In this manner, the PJB stays up to date and is capable of
inhibiting new features as they are invented.
