Videos sound horrible!

[keal]

I got my O2 today. I discovered that that EQ and other sound settings DO NOT apply to videos. They only work on audio files! So all videos sound flat. You can't enhance them. Why did they drop the ball on this?

My D2 doesn't have that problem. Videos are affected by EQ settings, so they sound as good as music files!

I'll contact Cowon and see what they have to say. If they can't assure me that this will be addressed in an upcoming firmware, I'll put the player up for sale.

EDIT: Went to their Live Support and the online tech acknowledged the video not having enhanced audio. Korean development team was then sent a message. I'll give them a couple of firmware updates and if video sound hasn't improved by then, buh-bye to my O2. Nice screen, but aside from that the OS needs a LOT of work. I'll do a scathing review of my in-the-gym experience with my O2 today.

[Thasp]

The video sound is not a matter of the O2 but rather the source.

If you need EQ, why not look at either the audio in the video, or the headphones as the culprit first?

[keal]

Thasp, it is not the source (the video, which I verified with Cowon's tech support - they asked me what video formats I tested) or my earphones (Etymotic ER-4P, which has very accurate sound). When playing an audio file on the O2, you can apply EQ and other Jet Effect settings to the songs. When playing a video on the O2, the audio isn't affected by the EQ settings.

To put it simply, if you listen to an MP3 on the O2 with basic audio effects, then listen to a music video of the same song with the video's audio at the same bitrate - in fact, if you created a video (which I do often) and you used that exact same MP3 as the video's audio stream, the resulting video would sound flat on the O2 compared to its audio-only version. Because you can't apply audio effects to the videos.

At this point I'll be using my D2 to watch music videos becuase the audio can be enhanced with Jet Effect settings, which is what I prefer :)

[Thasp]

This is still misleading!

Videos sound bad implies that the O2 is doing something that mutilates the quality of the audio in the music video.

EQ and jeteffect does not work with audio in video is a more accurate way to describe the problem.

At first upon reading this I thought, "oh crap, did cowon do something that degrades the quality of the audio opposed to simply playing it back?", when this is clearly not the case.

[keal]

Hmm.. sorry if my saying the sound is horrible is misleading, but it's a very, very important point. If the O2 is being pushed as a video player, the video's sound simply cannot be flat. It's basically untouched sound. People like me, who have a great-sounding D2, will go ahead and buy the O2 thinking it'll be just as good as the D2, and be disappointed.

True, the player has just been released. But when the D2 was initially out, the videos had the option of Jet Effects being applied. If I had to rephrase the thread title, it would be "Videos sound horrible compared to videos on the D2"
I titled the thread to catch the eye of prospective O2 buyers who might benefit from this information, misleading as it may seem. Had I seen a thread like this just a few days ago? I would definitely have passed on the O2.

For comparison, videos on the O2 sound exactly like videos on an iPod Touch. Just basically untouched, flat sound. Not that bad for movies, I guess. But pulse-pounding music videos... it's tough to make it through a song.

[Thasp]

On that point I agree wholeheartedly!