Problems / Wishlist

skaamu1 · 07-31-2007, 05:40

Hi everybody,

I am using the 8 GB version of the iAudio 7 (FW 1.13) with Shure SE310 in-ears and I am absolutely happy with the sound. Nevertheless, there are some issues I noticed and I would like to share them with you. Perhaps the one or other poster has an additional comment. And, if someone from Cowon is reading the post, he might take some suggestions for the next firmware update.

1. The clock does not work in 24h format, but only in anglo-saxion AM/PM format. Should be an easy exercise to get that thing done.

2. When in MUSIC folder mode (which is the more comfortable choice to navigate through bigger libraries), neither the Dynamic Playlist feature nor the Bookmarks work. This is really a pity and should be fixed ASAP. Let me explain the underlying problem: After transferring data using JetAudio, the music files are normally sorted like \genre\artist\album. This absolutely makes sense - if you only have single albums by single artists. Samplers don't really work because JetAudio does not recognize them as "one album by several artists" - as long as they are not tagged like "Various Artists", at least. As my samplers are tagged and named using the convention "Album - Track - Artist - Title", JetAudio creates a structure like this: \genre\artist\SAMPLERNAME\track" for EACH single tack of the sampler (instead of just \genre\SAMPLERNAME). This makes it impossible to select the whole album in FILES mode - but then, at least Dynamic Playlist and Bookmarks work. What I want to say: Where you normally need the DynPL and the Bookmarks most, i.e. for samplers and audiobooks, you can't use them.

3. Although the player supports a lot of formats, audible.com support is heavily missed.

4. Gapless playback does not really work; usually, a gap of approx. 1 second can be noticed between tracks.

5. The file / folder limit should be dropped. Especially audiobooks are normally encoded at very low quality but have a lots of files / chapters and therefore consume a lot of the limit. As long as bookmarking is not supported in both database modes (FILES / MUSIC), the "one file per book"-approach does not make any sense to me.

6. The FM reception is very bad and should be improved.

7. When transferring files using JetAudio, the software sometimes fails creating the folders on the device, especially when the original file name is quite long.

I'd really appreciate if at least some of the problems would be fixed in the next firmware release and I am looking forward to any comments and suggestions.

Best from Hamburg / Germany,

Steffen

GSV3MiaC · 07-31-2007, 06:23

Just to add the music folder mode does not work at all for .ogg (although the tags show fine in file mode).

Not sure I agree that music/tag mode is best for large collections .. it depends how you organize things. If you go \genre\album artist\album you can get to most tracks pretty fast (assuming you have your 'various album' artists under 'various artists').

e.g. S:\country\various artists\country gold CD1\<tracks>.

Of course this may run you into the folder limits, which do indeed need to be fixed.

jancortenbach · 07-31-2007, 06:25

I especially agree with your second problem! Also when you select a file in music mode by browsing through te artists and then the song, it's impossible to configure the 'range' of the shuffle to take all songs on the player, but it will only shuffle between other tracks by the artist... In file browsing mode this is possible by setting the range of the shuffle.

skaamu1 · 07-31-2007, 10:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by GSV3MiaC

Not sure I agree that music/tag mode is best for large collections .. it depends how you organize things. If you go \genre\album artist\album you can get to most tracks pretty fast (assuming you have your 'various album' artists under 'various artists').

This is what I EXACTLY don't have. I spent DAYS to organize my MP3 library on the harddisk, including file name and ID3 tag convention. Basically, it is organized like this:

[root]
|
+-Albums
| +-Artist - Name of album - Track no - Title.mp3
|
+-Samplers
| +- Name of album - Track no - Artist - Title.mp3
|
+-Singles
| +- Artist - Title.mp3
|
...

As you can see, I am not using "Various Artists" at all! I prefer seeing who the performing artist is when listening to samplers or soundtracks. "Various Artist - Rocky Soundtrack - 01 - Eye of the Tiger" does not provide the information I would like to see.

The format I use when transferring the files to the i7 is "\genre\artist\album", which works fine for "Albums" and "Singles", but not for "Samplers". Maybe I should chose another transferring format for them (e.g. "\genre\album") or so, but this will kill the whole structure...

All MP3s are fully tagged, including the genre, that's why browsing through them in MUSIC mode works perfect. When using FILES mode, the long file names make the identification of the actually selected track impossible, as well as grouping files per genre to play them one after the other - unless I browse the whole directory and add them file per file to the dynamic playlist.

Well, if the player had advanced playlist functions like "create playlist by genre", "...by artist", "...by year" or so, no problem at all... But unfortunately, it does not provide playlist functions on that level. As far as I know, it does not even work with .m3u or .pls files, so creating playlists on with JetAudio and transferring them afterwards does not provide a solution as well. Well, another point for the wishlist: Playlist support!

skaamu1 · 07-31-2007, 10:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by jancortenbach

I especially agree with your second problem! Also when you select a file in music mode by browsing through te artists and then the song, it's impossible to configure the 'range' of the shuffle to take all songs on the player, but it will only shuffle between other tracks by the artist... In file browsing mode this is possible by setting the range of the shuffle.

Yes, exactly. From my point of view, the functions in MUSIC and FILES mode should be exactly the same, so switching will become simply a matter of taste.

BTW - does someone have an account at the COWON forums and would like to post our discussion there? I tried to open an account 8 hours before, but I did not receive a notification mail yet.

GSV3MiaC · 07-31-2007, 10:51

I use Mediamonkey for managing the library on the PC, and it has the concept of 'album artist' to sort albums by (where 'various artists' is the one to use for samplers) as well as separate artist for each track.

On the PC I can select/play either way. On the portable device I go with album artist .. I already have to combine many tracks into one (often just one track per CD) to get around the 2000 track limit.

The neat thing with media monkey is that you can store it one way one the PC (actually how you store it isn't really relevant) and you can put it on the player (automatically) different ways - like you can stack it under /<genre> when you put it on the player, or you can synch new tracks to a music/new tracks/ folder, instead of where they would normally go (or 'as well' if you want). You can also xfer the playlists, except th I7 doesn't do that (but my M5L does).

Makes up for a lot of stupidity on some music players! Of course the limits on files/folders are a pain to live with (on the M5L I use Rockbox, so there aren't any limits).

skaamu1 · 07-31-2007, 12:02

Well, instead of the mentioned system limitations, I am really happy with the i7 firmware. I have seen much worse, for example on the Trekstor iMood and the Perstel MP30 I had before.

Maybe switching to Media Monkey would be a solution, although manual work to organize the folders and files systematically on the device seems to be required, too. In fact, JetAudio suits me fine, especially because it also allows me to manage my video files and the internet radio stations I normally listen to. I have no clue if Media Monkey has similar functions and if it will seamlessly integrate with external devices. But I think I will spend some time and give it a glance.

iOlivier · 08-03-2007, 05:07

With firmware 1.13, when i wanted to preset radios i had done a manual scan, and :
When i put a long touch (3s) for scrolling alone, I cannot stop it ! I have to wait that it stops alone, and too much far from the frequence I would. It's very irritating !

Edit :

For the wishlist :
Lyrics of song appear 3 lines by 3 at the same time; I think it would be better if each line came one after the other (but still 2 or 3 lines on screen).

skaamu1 · 08-06-2007, 04:05

Once again my question:

Does someone have an user account for the forum of the Cowon website? I applied there five times now, but I never get an initial password.

I think that it is a good idea to post the wishlist there.

Frominfotek · 12-18-2007, 09:02

Very need show BITRATE!!!

ticoss · 12-19-2007, 04:02

exactly !
maybe not on the main screen, but with an option folder, but i like to see the bitrate of my musics

gethoht · 12-26-2007, 16:32

Number one Wish:

Multiple playlist support(preferably .m3u or .pls, but any way of implementing multiple playlists will do)! This is a function that most modern mp3 players have and I think it's a function that is necessary in order to be competitive.

Also a couple of oddities that I've found. In non-music mode(file/folder, whatever it's called), it sorts alphabetically, but capital and lower case names are separated. As an example, let's say I have "squarepusher - feed me weird things" and "Squarepusher - Ultravisitor", it will not list them sequentially... it will list the uppercase "Squarepusher -Ultravisitor" album, followed by all the other folders that start with a capital S (i.e. Spoon - Girls Can Tell" .. etc... etc.. then list the folders that start with lower case. While this is not a big deal, it's a teeny bit annoying. I can workaround this problem by standardizing my folder naming convention(which I should do anyways). Multiple playlists definitely need to be supported in order for me to continue buying cowon products.

stryd_one · 12-27-2007, 04:28

May I make a suggestion?

I think that the buglist and the wishlist should be separated. It's clear that there are some problems in getting bugs fixed at all, so I think it's a bad idea to complicate matters by hiding the bugs amongst a list of things we'd like. Especially from the programmer's point of view, there's often a big difference.

Best thing to do, would be to have two threads, each with the precise buglist in the first post, and if anyone reports a new bug, a moderator (Sorry to dob you in guys) edits the first post and adds it to the list... either that, or same thing in one thread, with the lists at the top..

07-31-2007, 05:40	#1
skaamu1 Junior Member Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 16	Problems / Wishlist Hi everybody, I am using the 8 GB version of the iAudio 7 (FW 1.13) with Shure SE310 in-ears and I am absolutely happy with the sound. Nevertheless, there are some issues I noticed and I would like to share them with you. Perhaps the one or other poster has an additional comment. And, if someone from Cowon is reading the post, he might take some suggestions for the next firmware update. 1. The clock does not work in 24h format, but only in anglo-saxion AM/PM format. Should be an easy exercise to get that thing done. 2. When in MUSIC folder mode (which is the more comfortable choice to navigate through bigger libraries), neither the Dynamic Playlist feature nor the Bookmarks work. This is really a pity and should be fixed ASAP. Let me explain the underlying problem: After transferring data using JetAudio, the music files are normally sorted like \genre\artist\album. This absolutely makes sense - if you only have single albums by single artists. Samplers don't really work because JetAudio does not recognize them as "one album by several artists" - as long as they are not tagged like "Various Artists", at least. As my samplers are tagged and named using the convention "Album - Track - Artist - Title", JetAudio creates a structure like this: \genre\artist\SAMPLERNAME\track" for EACH single tack of the sampler (instead of just \genre\SAMPLERNAME). This makes it impossible to select the whole album in FILES mode - but then, at least Dynamic Playlist and Bookmarks work. What I want to say: Where you normally need the DynPL and the Bookmarks most, i.e. for samplers and audiobooks, you can't use them. 3. Although the player supports a lot of formats, audible.com support is heavily missed. 4. Gapless playback does not really work; usually, a gap of approx. 1 second can be noticed between tracks. 5. The file / folder limit should be dropped. Especially audiobooks are normally encoded at very low quality but have a lots of files / chapters and therefore consume a lot of the limit. As long as bookmarking is not supported in both database modes (FILES / MUSIC), the "one file per book"-approach does not make any sense to me. 6. The FM reception is very bad and should be improved. 7. When transferring files using JetAudio, the software sometimes fails creating the folders on the device, especially when the original file name is quite long. I'd really appreciate if at least some of the problems would be fixed in the next firmware release and I am looking forward to any comments and suggestions. Best from Hamburg / Germany, Steffen Last edited by skaamu1; 07-31-2007 at 05:47..

08-03-2007, 05:07	#8
iOlivier Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 18	With firmware 1.13, when i wanted to preset radios i had done a manual scan, and : When i put a long touch (3s) for scrolling alone, I cannot stop it ! I have to wait that it stops alone, and too much far from the frequence I would. It's very irritating ! Edit : For the wishlist : Lyrics of song appear 3 lines by 3 at the same time; I think it would be better if each line came one after the other (but still 2 or 3 lines on screen). Last edited by iOlivier; 08-04-2007 at 18:46..

12-26-2007, 16:32	#12
gethoht Junior Member Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 2	Playlist support please! Number one Wish: Multiple playlist support(preferably .m3u or .pls, but any way of implementing multiple playlists will do)! This is a function that most modern mp3 players have and I think it's a function that is necessary in order to be competitive. Also a couple of oddities that I've found. In non-music mode(file/folder, whatever it's called), it sorts alphabetically, but capital and lower case names are separated. As an example, let's say I have "squarepusher - feed me weird things" and "Squarepusher - Ultravisitor", it will not list them sequentially... it will list the uppercase "Squarepusher -Ultravisitor" album, followed by all the other folders that start with a capital S (i.e. Spoon - Girls Can Tell" .. etc... etc.. then list the folders that start with lower case. While this is not a big deal, it's a teeny bit annoying. I can workaround this problem by standardizing my folder naming convention(which I should do anyways). Multiple playlists definitely need to be supported in order for me to continue buying cowon products.

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07-31-2007, 06:23	#2
GSV3MiaC Ancient Cranky Technocrat Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Shropshire, England Posts: 1,348	Just to add the music folder mode does not work at all for .ogg (although the tags show fine in file mode). Not sure I agree that music/tag mode is best for large collections .. it depends how you organize things. If you go \genre\album artist\album you can get to most tracks pretty fast (assuming you have your 'various album' artists under 'various artists'). e.g. S:\country\various artists\country gold CD1\<tracks>. Of course this may run you into the folder limits, which do indeed need to be fixed.

07-31-2007, 06:25	#3
jancortenbach Junior Member Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 3	I especially agree with your second problem! Also when you select a file in music mode by browsing through te artists and then the song, it's impossible to configure the 'range' of the shuffle to take all songs on the player, but it will only shuffle between other tracks by the artist... In file browsing mode this is possible by setting the range of the shuffle.

07-31-2007, 10:51	#6
GSV3MiaC Ancient Cranky Technocrat Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Shropshire, England Posts: 1,348	I use Mediamonkey for managing the library on the PC, and it has the concept of 'album artist' to sort albums by (where 'various artists' is the one to use for samplers) as well as separate artist for each track. On the PC I can select/play either way. On the portable device I go with album artist .. I already have to combine many tracks into one (often just one track per CD) to get around the 2000 track limit. The neat thing with media monkey is that you can store it one way one the PC (actually how you store it isn't really relevant) and you can put it on the player (automatically) different ways - like you can stack it under /<genre> when you put it on the player, or you can synch new tracks to a music/new tracks/ folder, instead of where they would normally go (or 'as well' if you want). You can also xfer the playlists, except th I7 doesn't do that (but my M5L does). Makes up for a lot of stupidity on some music players! Of course the limits on files/folders are a pain to live with (on the M5L I use Rockbox, so there aren't any limits).

07-31-2007, 12:02	#7
skaamu1 Junior Member Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 16	Well, instead of the mentioned system limitations, I am really happy with the i7 firmware. I have seen much worse, for example on the Trekstor iMood and the Perstel MP30 I had before. Maybe switching to Media Monkey would be a solution, although manual work to organize the folders and files systematically on the device seems to be required, too. In fact, JetAudio suits me fine, especially because it also allows me to manage my video files and the internet radio stations I normally listen to. I have no clue if Media Monkey has similar functions and if it will seamlessly integrate with external devices. But I think I will spend some time and give it a glance.

08-06-2007, 04:05	#9
skaamu1 Junior Member Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 16	Once again my question: Does someone have an user account for the forum of the Cowon website? I applied there five times now, but I never get an initial password. I think that it is a good idea to post the wishlist there.

12-18-2007, 09:02	#10
Frominfotek Junior Member Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 5	Very need show BITRATE!!!

12-19-2007, 04:02	#11
ticoss Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 2	exactly ! maybe not on the main screen, but with an option folder, but i like to see the bitrate of my musics

12-27-2007, 04:28	#13
stryd_one Member Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 85	May I make a suggestion? I think that the buglist and the wishlist should be separated. It's clear that there are some problems in getting bugs fixed at all, so I think it's a bad idea to complicate matters by hiding the bugs amongst a list of things we'd like. Especially from the programmer's point of view, there's often a big difference. Best thing to do, would be to have two threads, each with the precise buglist in the first post, and if anyone reports a new bug, a moderator (Sorry to dob you in guys) edits the first post and adds it to the list... either that, or same thing in one thread, with the lists at the top..