New M3 owner - starter questions

[Vladi]

Hi guys,
Just got my M3 and very excited by it so far. It really is a beautiful piece of equipment. But I have a few questions for the experts to make sure I get the most out of it.

1. What file compression should I use for ripping/downloading tracks? Ive heard FLAC and Ogg are good but what are their pros and cons? Are FLAC files huge? Im on a college network so download speed shouldnt be a problem.

2. Do I have to add all previous firmware updates to my M3, or will the latest one include all previous updates?

3. Is there any major error I should avoid? Like, you know, throwing my M3 against a brick wall or the like? ;)

Any other advice at all is also very welcome,

Thanks.

[jimbo]

hi
1. flac is lossless so the files are bigger than ogg's or mp3's but lossless ;) the con on ogg's is that they use more system resources while playing so the battery of your m3 will get empty sooner!
2. no just download the latest firmware it's enough!
3. i wouldn't go swimming with my m3 ;) but also unplugging it while in use or not removed/unmounted isn't a good idea...

[Lsportline43]

hi
1. flac is lossless so the files are bigger than ogg's or mp3's but lossless ;) the con on ogg's is that they use more system resources while playing so the battery of your m3 will get empty sooner!
2. no just download the latest firmware it's enough!
3. i wouldn't go swimming with my m3 ;) but also unplugging it while in use or not removed/unmounted isn't a good idea...

You say unplugging it while in use is not a good idea? What do you mean by this? Do you mean while it is charging or when it is connected to the computer through USB? So do you mean unpluggeing the power adapter or do you mean unplugging the USB cable without "Safe Remove" feature that Windows uses?

[philthy]

I believe he means removing the device from USB while it's still connected in Windows.
Always use the remove hardware Icon in your system tray and you'll be fine.
Not doing this can scramble your file system (same with all UMS hard drives not just the M3) I've done this and it was a pain to sort out.


(Format Hard drive and re-flash firmware seems to sort it out, if you make this mistake! :-)

[HeartOfDarkness]

Or you can deactivate, in the device manager, the "delayed write operations" feature and you'll be able to unplug it whenver you wish to without messing anything up. :-)

A FLAC-compressed (level 0 to 2) 70 minutes CD will amount to something akin to 400 MB, which is an improvement over a WAV file but still pretty huge. The Ogg equivalent of a 128 kbps rip (that doesn't really apply to Ogg, but well) will indeed give you a much better quality than a mp3 but will shave a couple of hours off the top of the regular 10-11 hours of battery life.

I personnaly mainly use 256 kbps mp3s with my M3 40 GB.

[Lsportline43]

Or you can deactivate, in the device manager, the "delayed write operations" feature and you'll be able to unplug it whenver you wish to without messing anything up. :-)



That'll really work? Is it that simple? What does this do?

[HeartOfDarkness]

lol Yes it does. It basically disables the "caching" functionnalities for your removable drive, so that when you tell it to write or read something to or from it, it does it right away. Therefore when it says it is done, it is actually *really* done.

If the read/write-cache ("delayed write") is enabled, Windows will perform the operations at a time it feels is "better" performance-wise. Which is rather useless with such drives anyway, and on modern machines (well, useless compared to the hassle of disconnecting manually). What you do when you cleanly "disconnect" your drive using the Windows system-tray icon is "flush" all cached data to the drive, hence insuring that all data to be read or written from and to the drive is actually read or written.

Hope that was, even if only a little bit, clear... :-D

[EllenIaudio]

Maybe a stupid question, but: where can I find the 'device manager'???

[Lsportline43]

lol Yes it does. It basically disables the "caching" functionnalities for your removable drive, so that when you tell it to write or read something to or from it, it does it right away. Therefore when it says it is done, it is actually *really* done.

If the read/write-cache ("delayed write") is enabled, Windows will perform the operations at a time it feels is "better" performance-wise. Which is rather useless with such drives anyway, and on modern machines (well, useless compared to the hassle of disconnecting manually). What you do when you cleanly "disconnect" your drive using the Windows system-tray icon is "flush" all cached data to the drive, hence insuring that all data to be read or written from and to the drive is actually read or written.

Hope that was, even if only a little bit, clear... :-D

Well thanks for the attempt to make me understand. I'll just take your word on it and do what you say.=D

[fezzzik]

So, I have a problem where despite using the safe remove option, my M3 screen never says safe to remove, or whaterver. So in order to fix I'm trying the format previously mentioned, and I have 2 questions:

1. it says it will erase all info, that doesnt include sys files, etc. I'm assuming it means just stuff I've added?

2. What is "flashing" firmware?

[jimbo]

"firmware flashing" means updating your firmware...

[MasterAv]

Where exactly is this "delayed write operations" option? Is it under USB properties? I'm on windows2000 if that makes a difference. Thanks in advance!

[little a]

Where exactly is this "delayed write operations" option? Is it under USB properties? I'm on windows2000 if that makes a difference. Thanks in advance!


does the player register as another drive with windows2000? i read a post (elsewhere) which hinted (vaguely) at the necessity of XP- TIA for the clarification

a

[jw0613]

don't unplug and replug ur remote too much...
bad things may happen... and i mean baaaaaaad things...
*shudders*