S9 16GB vs. S9 32GB

[enpfour]

I have been lurking on the Cowon S9 pages for several weeks now while waiting for the 32GB to come out. I've noticed that several other users are having a similar wait. Well, last week I wrote to Cowon support one last time, got the same answer of "No planned release date" as everyone else, and pulled the trigger on the 16GB.

Now that I spent the weekend with the player, I can say it was the right decision. My player now has on it 10 full length movies, encoded at 1008 kbps video that have to my eye excellent quality. That's about 20 hours of video. I also have almost 20 pictures that I downsized to fit the screen's resolution that look great. And I have about 12 full albums of music, most at 196kbps.

The movies total 9GB. The music is 2GB. The pictures are about 2MB. That leaves me with 5GB free. For me, that is enough media to walk around with at one time. I have to take a trip next week from Sunday night to Friday night, and I know 10 movies will be enough. I don't need to carry around my full library of music or video all the time. I have plenty of movies, and the albums that I'm in to right now. 16GB is enough for me.

If there are people on the fence about the 32gb player, hopefully this information about what can fit on 16gb will help. I know there are lots of people with huge FLAC music collections who need more then 16GB. But for me, 16GB is plenty.

[WizeGuyDezignz]

I agree, I've never understood the whole thing about wanting the biggest possible player. Unless you are using your player to watch movies and you are going on a trip for 2 weeks, I don't get it.

Everything that I put on my player comes from my computer or an external hard drive and it is very easy to remove and add media on there. I don't need ALL of my media on my device at one time.

When I get tired of what's on there, I just swap stuff out. When I had my 30gb Zen Vision M, I actually got confused when I had it full. The last year or more I was only using about 12gb's of the 30. So for me the 16gb's is plenty and all I will ever use even though I have upwards of 60gb's of media on my computer.

[flautash]

Good call on 16gb!

Same here, I used to use 16-17gb out of 30 on my old ZVM. It was the 16gb Samsung P2 that made me realize I don't even listen regularly to those 15gb, but max 4-5 at the time.

Now I am heavy on auto-playlist syncronizing with MediaMonkey and I'm quite happy with this solution. I listen to songs based on certain criteria and the player daily updates these songs automatically - without a need to carry 15gb of music all the time.

I wouldn't mind having a 32gb S9 though, but - again - I am very happy with all these 16gb on my S9!

[j3ff1986]

I can fit about 20 full length movies on my 16gb (axxo dvd rips, 700mb a piece). Or 60+ TV show episodes if they average 250mb.

[WizeGuyDezignz]

Originally Posted by flautash

Good call on 16gb!

Same here, I used to use 16-17gb out of 30 on my old ZVM. It was the 16gb Samsung P2 that made me realize I don't even listen regularly to those 15gb, but max 4-5 at the time.

Now I am heavy on auto-playlist syncronizing with MediaMonkey and I'm quite happy with this solution. I listen to songs based on certain criteria and the player daily updates these songs automatically - without a need to carry 15gb of music all the time.

I wouldn't mind having a 32gb S9 though, but - again - I am very happy with all these 16gb on my S9!

What is this auto-playlist syncronizing that you speak of with MediaMonkey? I will have to look into it.

The one thing I miss dearly from my ZVM is how you can map the buttons. I had one of my buttons mapped to play the "Album Of The Day" which was basically an album that the ZVM would randomly play from your player. Is there anything similar to this on the S9?

[iannkt]

Originally Posted by WizeGuyDezignz

What is this auto-playlist synchronizing that you speak of with MediaMonkey? I will have to look into it.

I'm curious also. My S9 is on the UPS truck so I am extremely excited.

[kikutap]

Originally Posted by j3ff1986

I can fit about 20 full length movies on my 16gb (axxo dvd rips, 700mb a piece). Or 60+ TV show episodes if they average 250mb.

I'm also a fan of axxo. good quality rips.

[mgz]

Originally Posted by WizeGuyDezignz

I agree, I've never understood the whole thing about wanting the biggest possible player. Unless you are using your player to watch movies and you are going on a trip for 2 weeks, I don't get it.

Everything that I put on my player comes from my computer or an external hard drive and it is very easy to remove and add media on there. I don't need ALL of my media on my device at one time.

When I get tired of what's on there, I just swap stuff out. When I had my 30gb Zen Vision M, I actually got confused when I had it full. The last year or more I was only using about 12gb's of the 30. So for me the 16gb's is plenty and all I will ever use even though I have upwards of 60gb's of media on my computer.

i personally have over 30gig of music that i listen ot fairly regularly. And would rather not have to cycle through parts of it from my computer to put it on my mp3 player just put it on once and be done.

Additionally if i have 16gig filled with music zero room for anime/movies

[xenarchi]

Originally Posted by mgz

i personally have over 30gig of music that i listen ot fairly regularly. And would rather not have to cycle through parts of it from my computer to put it on my mp3 player just put it on once and be done.

Additionally if i have 16gig filled with music zero room for anime/movies

Sounds like you have made your decision...

[Nagare]

Originally Posted by iannkt

I'm curious also. My S9 is on the UPS truck so I am extremely excited.

Thats what I was told too Mine says delivered on the tracking but it isn't in my hands :|

[iannkt]

Originally Posted by Nagare

Thats what I was told too Mine says delivered on the tracking but it isn't in my hands :|

Ouch ....mine is still out for delivery..but they usually don't deliver till around 5 pm EST so it should be any minute now.

[WizeGuyDezignz]

Originally Posted by mgz

i personally have over 30gig of music that i listen ot fairly regularly. And would rather not have to cycle through parts of it from my computer to put it on my mp3 player just put it on once and be done.

Additionally if i have 16gig filled with music zero room for anime/movies

This is not a sarcastic question and is serious, but do you listen to music for most of the day?

[flautash]

Originally Posted by WizeGuyDezignz

What is this auto-playlist syncronizing that you speak of with MediaMonkey? I will have to look into it.

The one thing I miss dearly from my ZVM is how you can map the buttons. I had one of my buttons mapped to play the "Album Of The Day" which was basically an album that the ZVM would randomly play from your player. Is there anything similar to this on the S9?

Here's the deal. You create playlists based on various criteria on you MediaMonkey audio manager. Here are few examples: songs I haven't listened to last 3 months, songs with a highest playcount during last 15 days, 15 songs with a 5-star rating, 200 minutes of last published podcasts you're subscribed to, 21 last played song, new music from last 19 days, 173 minutes of random rock genre music, 17 classical genre compositions, 4 last filmspotting podcasts, 9 random songs from The Clash... and so on..

The idea is that you select criteria for your music and MediaMonkey does the math based on the statistics from ID tags. There is no manual transferring of music etc, just syncronizing according to given criteria. This way my music experience keeps being fresh and interesting...

One more thing: in order to be able to run dynamic playlists and mediamonkey, you have to switch to MTP. Then again, it is not so hard to switch between MTP and MSC. One tap, right?

[SansaRulez83]

Originally Posted by flautash

songs I haven't listened to last 3 months, songs with a highest playcount during last 15 days, 15 songs with a 5-star rating, 200 minutes of last published podcasts you're subscribed to, 21 last played song, new music from last 19 days,

Do you listen to a lot of music on your computer? I don't think that the S9 has the ability to track the number of times your songs have been played or let you rate them. I don't listen to the music on my computer, I prefer it to be portable all the time even though I'm not out and about that much. The music's just there for backup.

Also, my heart goes out to the guy that said Fedex says they delivered his S9. You should get their asses on the phone right away! Make sure you check the front door again though!

[speedsterdm]

Originally Posted by flautash

Here's the deal. You create playlists based on various criteria on you MediaMonkey audio manager. Here are few examples: songs I haven't listened to last 3 months, songs with a highest playcount during last 15 days, 15 songs with a 5-star rating, 200 minutes of last published podcasts you're subscribed to, 21 last played song, new music from last 19 days, 173 minutes of random rock genre music, 17 classical genre compositions, 4 last filmspotting podcasts, 9 random songs from The Clash... and so on..

The idea is that you select criteria for your music and MediaMonkey does the math based on the statistics from ID tags. There is no manual transferring of music etc, just syncronizing according to given criteria. This way my music experience keeps being fresh and interesting...

One more thing: in order to be able to run dynamic playlists and mediamonkey, you have to switch to MTP. Then again, it is not so hard to switch between MTP and MSC. One tap, right?

Quick question regarding MTP vs. MSC. Can you still browse music by ID3 tag if the Cowon is in MSC mode?

[I-Noue]

The S9 16GB would be nice, but it doesn't have the versatility the 32GB has... That's why i prefer the 32GB version and why i would wait for it(not soooooo longer, of course).

[flautash]

Originally Posted by SansaRulez83

Do you listen to a lot of music on your computer? I don't think that the S9 has the ability to track the number of times your songs have been played or let you rate them. I don't listen to the music on my computer, I prefer it to be portable all the time even though I'm not out and about that much. The music's just there for backup.

Also, my heart goes out to the guy that said Fedex says they delivered his S9. You should get their asses on the phone right away! Make sure you check the front door again though!

S9 in MTP mode has the ability to track the number or times your songs has been played. Rating itself is something you do in the MediaMonkey (MM), if you wish. You can as well install a script on your MM that automatically rates songs based on several of your music listening habits parameters. Ratings would be good to have in Cowon FW though, that is something I miss from my ZVM or Samsung P2. It helps optimizing and cleaning up your active audio collection..

[flautash]

Originally Posted by speedsterdm

Quick question regarding MTP vs. MSC. Can you still browse music by ID3 tag if the Cowon is in MSC mode?

Browsing by tags is of course possible in MSC mode.

Playcount and playlists management are not possible for S9 in MSC mode though, AFAIK.

[Olley]

I haven't found a reason for more than 16gb of media yet either, except on my iPod Touch. The Touch of course has an Apps store, and as the category sales leader benefits from several easy options to get movies onto it. I've got more than one "one-step" DVD to Touch choice, yet the only one I've found to go one step from DVD to a movie on my S9 take several hours (longer than the movie is) to do the conversion. If they would add MP4 playback (480x320) on the S9 then all those Touch options would work for my S9, and I'd be after a 32gb model as well. The growing list of flash apps is promising. The Korean makers need to sponsor a Flash App store for 480x272 touchscreen devices. Together it could become a decent competitor to the Touch App store. Samsung already has one in the works for the EU and asian countries.

[SawaFish]

Originally Posted by Olley

...

Use SlySoft's CloneDVDmobile, rather easy to configure and fairly quick. It also supports converting to the MP4 format for iPods etc. Just choose the generic DivX option with ~1000kbps and a good resolution and you should be fine.