Sansa Clip+ feature request / bug fix list

[boechat]

Does Sandisk read ABI forums? Heheh.

[CrowdAds]

[dfkt]

Yes, in fact they do.

[boechat]

Oh really? There are some chance then. I mean, a chance for they to release any improvement for Clip+. Right?

[dfkt]

Well, I'm waiting for Rockbox of course, but it can't hurt if Sandisk's stock firmwares get improved as well. So far Sandisk are the only ones that support Replaygain (to the best of my knowledge) - this is a good start. That's certainly a feature they picked up via forum/userbase requests. Now if they get their implementation of gapless fixed, they're quite a step farther than many others.

[Marvin the Martian]

Originally Posted by dfkt

So far Sandisk are the only ones that support Replaygain

So just how well does it work? I went through and analyzed my entire Mediamonkey library yesterday, in anticipation of my Clip+ that should be here in a couple days.

Will I be able to listen on shuffle mode without having to adjust volume for each track, like I can with my Sony?

[dfkt]

I mostly use dBpoweramp and Winamp for writing Replaygain tags. It works perfectly well. Obviously there were some issues with Replaygain tags written by Foobar, not sure if that was the issue they fixed in the last firmware.

What does the Sony do? Dynamic normalizer? I assume it doesn't have Replaygain support?

[Marvin the Martian]

Right, no RG support. Dynamic Normalizer, from what I have seen, simply turns up the volume on the quieter tracks, to roughly match the louder ones. Even with the Grados , which are pretty revealing, I can't hear any distortion from this process.

[Marvin the Martian]

Originally Posted by dfkt

I mostly use dBpoweramp and Winamp for writing Replaygain tags. It works perfectly well.

Well, mine with MediaMonkey RG tags seems to work just fine.....shuffling now and I have not had to adjust volume once. The custom EQ is better than on my old Clips too...not great, but good enough for mild tweaks to my on-the-go 'phones. It's nowhere near as good as my Samsung 7-band EQ, but it doesn't have a touchpad either!

[SlickWilly]

m3u8 Play List Support for Non ASCII File Names: For some reason m3u8 works fine for non-ascii file names on the original clip, but not for the Clip+. If you create a m3u8 playlist for a set of music files that includes no ascii characters, the m3u8 file looks fine in a text editor, but when you check the playlist on the Clip+, the non ascii named files do not show up....only the ascii named ones.

The only way to get a playlist to work properly (with non ascii file names), that I know of, is using the play list creator when browsing the Clip+ folder in the MS File Browser to create a .pla playlist.

[boechat]

Does it get MediaMonkey support? Fine, huh?

[sampark1995]

Mmm... I've posted this in another thread but, whenever I use the hold function the player automatically restarts itself. When I turn it back on all the setttings (if any are modified) are changed back to their original settings. I don't what's happening, but this is the third Clip+ I've had this month. They've all had the same problem.

[Marvin the Martian]

I don't even know how to enable the hold function. Then again, I don't need it....when it's clipped to my shirt pocket, it never gets accidentally adjusted.

[Marvin the Martian]

I had successful gapless playback of three FLAC albums last night......but I still won't be keeping FLACs on the player. No luck with LAME or wma, but I haven't tried Vorbis.

[oobergeek]

Originally Posted by Marvin the Martian

I don't even know how to enable the hold function. Then again, I don't need it....when it's clipped to my shirt pocket, it never gets accidentally adjusted.

heh...after reading your post MM I starting wondering myself?. So I just happened to have the manual handy and looked it up. Press and hold the HOME button toggles the HOLD function.

[Marvin the Martian]

Originally Posted by oobergeek

heh...after reading your post MM I starting wondering myself?. So I just happened to have the manual handy and looked it up. Press and hold the HOME button toggles the HOLD function.

Hey, thanks!

[roebeet]

Originally Posted by Marvin the Martian

I had successful gapless playback of three FLAC albums last night......but I still won't be keeping FLACs on the player. No luck with LAME or wma, but I haven't tried Vorbis.

My Vorbis encodes are gapless - I used side two of "Abbey Road" as my usual test.

[TPD]

Hey, had the clip for a few weeks now, and I've only got one suggestion for improvement; after selecting artist, have an option under 'Play All' to browse all songs alphabetically, without immediately playing one. Most of the time I listen to an artists discography on shuffle, but when I do decide to put on a certain song I mightn't know which album it's on, and because the songs aren't listed alphabetically it takes longer to find it.

I'm used to that way of doing things from my rockboxed ipod video, hopefully rockbox for the clip+ would be the same if/when it is released.

On the hardware side of things, for the next version of the clip, I'd prefer a dedicated hold switch instead of the long press home button, and a little flap of rubber to cover the end of the microSD card. Neither are terribly important though.

[TheConciseStatement]

Well if no one cares about them expanding the colour range, then out of principle I'm gonna register my support anyway.

This device deserves its rightful place as the ShuffleKiller, and while its aesthetics will never really match Apple's, it's certainly not an ugly player. I think it would help turn up the competition to the consumer market by adding more colours at the other capacities. That plastic plate isn't exactly expensive to recreate with new paints, and even less so if just copying the old colours and sticking it on the 8GB versions. I suppose fewer options on the bottom end is more justifiable because... well that's the cheapest one and you get what you pay for. But I think confining people to black does matter to Joe Public more than features sadly.

The only thing the awful 3d Gen Shuffle has going for it is looks (it's certainly not practicality). In every feature respect the Clip+ outclasses it. By adding lots of more colours, I think that might be a way for it to break into an even broader market - especially a pink version like last time, for the girls (a bit sexist, but it's true).

They probably won't change their mind, but personally I think a Nano-like range of colours would provide it with a bit more publicity and advertising clout. Even after the glowing reviews, it seems the player still needs it.



TCS.

[TPD]

I've thought of another area in which the software is lacking; when using shuffle, the player seems to pick a song at random from all songs in the current list. Which means it can repeat the song you've just listened to.

I think it would be better if the shuffling was done once the first song plays, for the entire list.

That way the song you've played wont be repeated until everything else has played, and you can use forward/back to skip to a song confident that it will actually appear.

[ultrauber]

I'm not sure if this is possible, but if you insert an msd then plug the clip into a computer, it has to refresh the database before it connects. This is kinds lame because it's very possible that you want to alter the files. Then you have to sit through 2 database refreshes instead of one.