Playlist and Shuffle functionality?

[NeedMusic]

I'm really thinking of buying this beautiful player, but I have some questions before I take the plunge and shelling out at least $180.

1. How is the playlist functions for this particular player? Can I create playlists and add/remove songs from that particular playlist? Does it work well? I understand it has a "favorites" option. How does that work?

2. Shuffle. How is it, and does it repeat songs? I had an iPod touch and the shuffle along with playlists worked fantastically. It remembered where I left off, and did not repeat songs after I turned it back on and off. (Unlike the Zune >_>) This could make or break the buying decision of the S9.

I have a zune 8 right now, but I'm going to return it because the shuffle along with playlisting is just terrible. I like the sound quality of it, but don't really have the audiophile ears. I can usually tell the difference between an iPod though.

Thanks!

[ChickenDuck]

In my opinion, playlist support is a little weak on the D2. This is a little complicated if you aren't all that familiar with the product, but I'll try to explain. Playlists are really only supported if you put the device in what is called "MTP" mode instead of "MSC" mode. This mode defines how the device shows up when you connect it to your computer. In MSC mode, it just shows up as a plain old USB drive, and you just create folders, drag songs into folders, and so forth. MTP mode is Microsoft's "Media transfer protocol". In this mode, you can use Windows Media player, among other programs, to set up playlists on the device. You may have troubles using this with a Mac or a Linux machine, and in fact some people have had a hard time getting it to work on a PC since Microsoft has changed the MTP standard a couple of times and broken some programs, like Winamp, that used to work just fine.

Also, it is important to note that MTP mode is not available with version 3.XX firmware, only version 2.XX. I don't know why this is, but the option to switch the device just isn't there in 3.XX. So why would anyone want 3.XX? Because 3.XX is required to run all the flash skins that people on this forum have created. In version 2.XX, you are quite limited in how much you can change the appearance.

I use playlists heavily for listening to music too, and what I do is have a separate folder for each playlist. I run version 3.XX firmware since I really like the skins created by the users of this forum. The shuffle function works well - you can make it repeat all the songs in just a single folder, and I haven't found it repeats too badly. The disadvantage with this approach is that if a song shows up in 4 playlists, then there are 4 copies of it on my flash card, which obviously cuts down on the capacity quite a bit.

I really like the player overall though - the skins people have created are much nicer than the ones that come on any of the other players I've seen out there, such as the Zen. The touch screen feature is very cool too, and I think it works quite well. I would recommend that if you get one, and you have lots of different playlists, get a really large SD card so the extra space required for duplicate song copies doesn't cause you problems. I have an 8GB but I think I will soon be upgrading to 16GB or more.

[NeedMusic]

In my opinion, playlist support is a little weak on the D2. This is a little complicated if you aren't all that familiar with the product, but I'll try to explain. Playlists are really only supported if you put the device in what is called "MTP" mode instead of "MSC" mode. This mode defines how the device shows up when you connect it to your computer. In MSC mode, it just shows up as a plain old USB drive, and you just create folders, drag songs into folders, and so forth. MTP mode is Microsoft's "Media transfer protocol". In this mode, you can use Windows Media player, among other programs, to set up playlists on the device. You may have troubles using this with a Mac or a Linux machine, and in fact some people have had a hard time getting it to work on a PC since Microsoft has changed the MTP standard a couple of times and broken some programs, like Winamp, that used to work just fine.

Also, it is important to note that MTP mode is not available with version 3.XX firmware, only version 2.XX. I don't know why this is, but the option to switch the device just isn't there in 3.XX. So why would anyone want 3.XX? Because 3.XX is required to run all the flash skins that people on this forum have created. In version 2.XX, you are quite limited in how much you can change the appearance.

I use playlists heavily for listening to music too, and what I do is have a separate folder for each playlist. I run version 3.XX firmware since I really like the skins created by the users of this forum. The shuffle function works well - you can make it repeat all the songs in just a single folder, and I haven't found it repeats too badly. The disadvantage with this approach is that if a song shows up in 4 playlists, then there are 4 copies of it on my flash card, which obviously cuts down on the capacity quite a bit.

I really like the player overall though - the skins people have created are much nicer than the ones that come on any of the other players I've seen out there, such as the Zen. The touch screen feature is very cool too, and I think it works quite well. I would recommend that if you get one, and you have lots of different playlists, get a really large SD card so the extra space required for duplicate song copies doesn't cause you problems. I have an 8GB but I think I will soon be upgrading to 16GB or more.I'm confused, are you talking about the S9 or the D2? Because I know the S9 does not have an expansion slot.

[Uphaillife]

umm.. chickenduck, this is the S9 section not the D2 section...

1. Playlists is pretty much explained in chickenduck's post (even though the S9 and D2 are different players). They have the same idea. The playlist on this thing is horrible. However favorites work quite well. Just play a song and theres an "add to favorites" button on the bottom. Or if you're just browsing through your music, you can do it from there too. What I would HIGHLY suggest as a substitute for playlists is just making folders and throwing the songs in them. The S9 plays only that folder which kind of makes the "Playlist" effect. It's not the best (because you can't have 1 song in 2 playlists), but it works

2. Shuffle works well. Turn it off, turn it on and it remembers where you left off. Yes it repeats songs too.

When you get your S9, it's going to kill your ipod's music quality. No lie.

[DAPmagic]

umm.. chickenduck, this is the S9 section not the D2 section...

What I would HIGHLY suggest as a substitute for playlists is just making folders and throwing the songs in them.

I've always been confused by the playlist question. But, I guess it's because I've always had players that supported browsing by folders. So, your idea has ALWAYS made sense to me. But, I guess if one is not used to players that work this way, then playlists are the way to organize music.

I realized this when I bought a Sansa Clip and couldn't sort music using folders. If I made a folder of assorted songs by various artists, I could only find them under the individual artists and albums. When I realized that creating playlist would solve the issue, I started making playlists. It worked like a charm.

But, for any of my Cowon players, folders work best for me. [thumbsup]

[ChickenDuck]

Oops, sorry about the D2/S9 confusion! Hope the info helped anyway...

[NeedMusic]

Alright thanks guys. I think I have better understanding of the player now.

Still hasn't swayed me to get it though, but we'll see. :)

[finalx233]

I must have not played with my player enough. Where is the shuffle function? Does it work with all the music you have on the player?

[Uphaillife]

yes. of course it has shuffle function.
sorry if this is offensive to anyone but is there really a player WITHOUT shuffle? i mean thats like one of the most important things in a player!

@finalx233: go to music menu, flip to the square with a +, the bars, and the g-sensor suspender, press the second one from the left, a pop- up menu should come up.press the one with 2 arrows going in a straight line. those arrows shold now cross each other. thats shuffle.

[bdroc]

I must have not played with my player enough. Where is the shuffle function? Does it work with all the music you have on the player?

if you choose music by artist or album or genre etc, it will not shuffle all of the music on the player, just stuff in each category, but you can sort your stuff through folders...so filenames show up, and if all your music is in the music folder, then it will shuffle your entire library.

[zantoz24]

if you choose music by artist or album or genre etc, it will not shuffle all of the music on the player, just stuff in each category, but you can sort your stuff through folders...so filenames show up, and if all your music is in the music folder, then it will shuffle your entire library.

Actually, if you choose music by song, you will access to the list of all songs in your player, there you can shuffle the entire library, it’s not necessary to put all the music in one folder.

[NeedMusic]

So to summarize, shuffle works well, does not repeat the same song after turning off and returning to now playing screen. And favorites work well as a on the go playlist of some sort.

Am I correct?

[Uphaillife]

correct.

[iMegabyte]

The S9 plays only that folder which kind of makes the "Playlist" effect. It's not the best (because you can't have 1 song in 2 playlists), but it works

Isn't this possible by making some kind of "shortcuts" to the song files? And putting the shortcuts in multiple folders?

It works in Windows Explorer anyway.

[Uphaillife]

@iMegabyte. That sounds like a very ridiculously INGENIOUS way to do it. :) I might try that actually. I shall report to you when I do it.

[iMegabyte]

@iMegabyte. That sounds like a very ridiculously INGENIOUS way to do it. :) I might try that actually. I shall report to you when I do it.
I only see solutions, where others see problems. :P[cool]
Yeah, that would be great. :)

[popozao]

bump.

Is anyone testing out this potentially simple yet ingenious solution to the S9's perhaps most aggravating flaw?

Surely there's some kind of shortcut marker file someone can devise to redirect the S9 to the actual music file. This way, we could create folders with these shortcut files, which could serve the function playlists have.

I suppose the trickiest thing is to get the S9 to stay within the current 'playlist' folder even when the shorcut files instruct it to search for the music files in a different folder.

Anyone tinkering with this idea? It's the one main thing keeping me from getting the S9. (D2 screen just cracked [mad])

[Uphaillife]

well you can come and get your S9.
Claw made an unlimited on-to-go play list support. its a UCI thing, so there isn't any true support for playlists, but it still works like one. :)