Questions about the s9...

[ultrauber]

Hello, I'm considering an s9 and have a few questions.
-When there is no album art in the tags, what does the now playing screen/album list look like?
-Is the problem with linux bricking huge? I use linux occasionally, for downloading a quick podcast, etc, but not for all my music. Would staying away from linux be the best option?
-How bad is the radio? Is it as bad as the review says it is?
-If I order one in the us, from amazon, will it have an msc mode option, or do I need to install special firmware? Can someone direct me to instructions on how to do this?
-Does the s9 have any special way of seperating podcasts/audiobooks from music? How does this work, is it with the genre tag or a folder?
That's all for now.

[CrowdAds]

[amit]

Originally Posted by ultrauber

-When there is no album art in the tags, what does the now playing screen/album list look like?

It doesn't display anything for album art when it isn't there, that space is just blank.

Originally Posted by ultrauber

-How bad is the radio? Is it as bad as the review says it is?

Radio isn't bad at all, its pretty damn good infact. I've heard radio on many mobile devices, my Nokia mobile phones were best in this till I tried S9 - S9 gets the signal even where my Nokia mobile falters a little.

Originally Posted by ultrauber

-If I order one in the us, from amazon, will it have an msc mode option, or do I need to install special firmware? Can someone direct me to instructions on how to do this?

AFAIK, there's no special firmware - only 2 types of firmware is available for S9 - one is for Korean models & one for rest of us.

Originally Posted by ultrauber

-Does the s9 have any special way of seperating podcasts/audiobooks from music? How does this work, is it with the genre tag or a folder?

2 ways to do this:

1) You create separate folders for both podcasts & audiobooks & then in S9 browser you navigate to those folders to play audio.

2) You tag the podcasts with "podcast" tag & audiobooks with "audiobook" tag & then in the S9 browser you go to Genres & select your tag.

[Testament]

-When there is no album art in the tags, what does the now playing screen/album list look like?

If you have Custom Music UI(Dark Evolution) it displays your current wallpaper, in other words its Transparent.

[ultrauber]

2) You tag the podcasts with "podcast" tag & audiobooks with "audiobook" tag & then in the S9 browser you go to Genres & select your tag.

If I do this, then, will the podcasts also show up when I browse them by artist? Or is the s9 "smarter" than that?

[amit]

Originally Posted by ultrauber

If I do this, then, will the podcasts also show up when I browse them by artist? Or is the s9 "smarter" than that?

AFAIK, if you browse by artist the podcasts will also show up.

[ultrauber]

Alright, then I'll use folder browsing, no biggie. Thanks all, I think I'll buy a 32 gb with my christmas money.

[scowl]

Originally Posted by ultrauber

-Is the problem with linux bricking huge? I use linux occasionally, for downloading a quick podcast, etc, but not for all my music. Would staying away from linux be the best option?

I bought the 32 GB S9 with the expectation that I would brick the thing in a week with Linux. I did have a problem where it wasn't returning space when I deleted files. I reformatted it in Linux and months later I have had no problems whatsoever and I have transferred about 50 GB through it. I use it with three distributions: Fedora 11, Ubuntu 8.0, and Centos 5.2.

But others have bought the S9 and bricked it with Linux in no time at all.

[Syndrome]

The default album art is a grey CD. And you can select MSC mode in the settings of the player, I believe it is set to that as default.

[JunglePimp]

Either it is blank or it shows a default screen depending on the Music UCI you choose.

I don't find the radio to be bad, the sound quality is just decent though.

Mine came with the MSC option enabled, so should yours. It is anyway an internal options for which you needn't install any firmware.

[Olley]

If you can find the album art, save it in the relative folder of your S9 as Cover.jpg. The S9 will use that files for displayed album art if it finds it.

[invertedskull]

Originally Posted by amit

It doesn't display anything for album art when it isn't there, that space is just blank.

Ummm, thats not true. The S9 has a default image of a CD for songs without album artwork. It's a sort of blueish metallic colour thing... I don't know if there is a picture online, but you may find one on the iaudiophile.net site.

[ultrauber]

Originally Posted by Olley

If you can find the album art, save it in the relative folder of your S9 as Cover.jpg. The S9 will use that files for displayed album art if it finds it.

I know, that's not the issue, it's just that I have some fan recordings, etc which don't have art. It does support embedded (id3) art too right?

[Olley]

Originally Posted by ultrauber

I know, that's not the issue, it's just that I have some fan recordings, etc which don't have art. It does support embedded (id3) art too right?

Yes. In MP3 files anyway. I can't get it to display art I've put in FLAC files, so I simply copy the art to the folder on the S9 as Cover.jpg.