What album views can I choose from?

[dagobert]

Hi,

I consider getting the Cowon J3 because it looks like a very sexy and smart device to me to replace my old ipod video. Ive already read the J3 article in this forum and watched a lot of videos, but theres one thing I still don't know. How are the albums shown when I browse through them by tags. Is it just a list or can I also display the album art plus artist, like you know it from Sony players?
I know theres this cover art browser (10 covers per page?!) when you hold the J3 horizontally. But how does it look like vertically?

Greetz and happy new year!

[DSperber]

Originally Posted by dagobert

How are the albums shown when I browse through them by tags. Is it just a list or can I also display the album art plus artist, like you know it from Sony players?

It's just a list. In fact, browsing by any of the tag fields is just a list.

I know there's this cover art browser (10 covers per page?!) when you hold the J3 horizontally. But how does it look like vertically?

Playing a track vertically has the title bar at the top of the screen, which can produce a drop down sub-menu with several player control options on it. Beneath the title bar is the full-size album art image (if any), and below that at the bottom of the screen are the play/pause and skip foward/backward controls as well as track elapsed time progress fuel gauge. The title bar at the top also has touch buttons that allow you to return to the main menu screen, as well as to navigate through track/album/artist/tag lists and Favorites. Tapping on the full-size album art image area produces the file info display (which, unfortunately, is some but not all tag info and some other worthless details... at least in my opinion).

The horizontal mode is referred to as "Matrix Browser", and it's just a list of the cover art for the surrounding 9 albums (i.e. alphabetically before and after the currently playing track's album) for the current album being played (i.e. the album name in the tag of the current track being played). The 2x5 display is (r,c) sequenced (1,1), (2,1), (1,2), (2,2), ..., (1,5), (2,5) to reflect the alphabetical order of the 10 album names/art shown.

So in my opinion, it's not so much a "browser" as much as it's almost more like a "randomizer" based on the currently playing track's album. And tapping on any of these album art images will go directly to that album (still in horizontal presentation), album art on the left side and list of tracks from that album on the right side, vertically scrollable and playable. You'll still be hearing the originally playing track but will be seeing the album you tapped on, though you'll be seeing the tapped album's art and list of tracks... until you tap one of its tracks to change music.

Only when you actually tap on one of the newly displayed album's tracks shown in the list on the right will the tapped track now start playing and the host album be reset to the corresponding album, which is now considered by the J3 to be the "currently selected" album. Rotating the J3 back to portrait mode will now show this new currently selected album's art in full-size at the top of the screen. And rotating the J3 back to horizontal will now have the currently selected album in the "center", i.e. in the (2,3) cell.

Also, you actually HAVE TO BE PLAYING SOMETHING (in vertical portrait mode, using Player, either in play or pause mode) in order to rotate the J3 90 degrees into landscape mode in order have it then change to Matrix Browser mode. In other words, Matrix Browser mode is only enabled as possible when the portrait mode Player itself is active (playing or in PAUSE). So you go back and forth between Player (vertical portrait mode) and Matrix Browser (rotating to horizontal while Player is active vertical).

But when you're just browsing lists through tags Matrix Browser mode is not obtained by rotating the J3 horizontally.