USB-OTG Question

[kingsley]

I found the X5 on sale at a local store yesterday. I am considering purchasing it because of the USB-OTG, being able to drag and drop files from my computer, the dedicated line-out port, and...the price.

I have some questions about the usb-otg feature that I feel would be best answered by someone who owns one of these (and not the employee at the store)

I currently have a 200GB usb harddrive that is about half filled with full albums in mp3 format. The drive is formatted it NTFS, the files are arranged in artist/album folders. I am wondering if I can play from the external usb hard drive directly without first copying the songs to the X5.
Secondly, when copying files from the usb harddrive, if i was to say copy a artist folder would all the subfolders (album folders) copy as well? In other words is directory copying recursive?

Hopefully someone out there can provide some insight
Thanks

[BlueHawk]

The X5 cannot play anything that is not physically on its hard drive.

The X5 looks exactly like a mounted harddrive (UMS operation) when connected to a computer. So whatever your operating system on the PC can do with file copying will operate exactly the same with the X5's harddrive (so it all depends on your file copying commands on the PC).

USB-OTG is intended primarily for copying files from another USB device (such as a digital camera). The X5 acts as a USB host in this mode of operation.

[kingsley]

Thanks. So I am assuming that even though I can't play directly from the external usb hard drive I could copy songs from it to the X5's internal hd and then play them? (I mean without the computer, just the usb drive and the X5). In this scenario is directory copying recursive between the X5 and the USB device?

Also, in terms of playing directly from the hard drive - do any other mp3 players with usb-otg permit this or is it impossible?

[BlueHawk]

Unfortunately, you face another obstacle in that the X5 must be able to understand the drive format and in this case, NTFS is a bit beyond the X5.

However, the USB-OTG can copy from an external storage system as long as it is FAT32 format and the X5 can recognise the device - there is a list on known compatible devices.

Known compatible devices (http://www.iaudiophile.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1461)

I don't know of any players that currently allow playing from an external source.

Note that USB-OTG only supports USB 1.1 transfers from the side USB port on the X5, as opposed to the sub-pack USB 2.0 connection which is used when the X5 is a USB-client.

[Lighter]

Unfortunately, you face another obstacle in that the X5 must be able to understand the drive format and in this case, NTFS is a bit beyond the X5.Not at all. My HD's are NTFS and I have no issues moving files back and forth with the X5. You cannot format the X5 to NTFS, but that's the only limit. I haven't tried directly from my external HD, but if it was USB OTG compliant there wouldn't be a problem. There seem to be very few on the list of tested OTG items.

[BlueHawk]

Are you transferring directly between your NTFS drive and your X5 (without a PC in-between)? In USB-OTG mode, where the interaction is only between the X5 and the USB-drive, where the X5 is the host and the drive is the client, the X5 needs to be able to read the format. The X5 can read my SanDisk Titanium when it is formatted for FAT32. Formatted for Reiserfs or ntfs - can't do it. Just hangs there with the hourglass.

It is different if you are using a PC between the external NTFS system and the X5. Your PC acts as the format reader from the NTFS drive and the format writer to the FAT32 X5 drive.