Clip zip art

[BruceBanner]

I just got my sansaclip zip and was very happy to hold it in my hands.

On paper this was my perfect mp3 player, a clip+ and fuze having sex and the clip zip child was born lol.

But having turned it on I have to say I'm quite disappointed in the LCD screen.
Size wise its fine, but its resolution is just too lame to really do album art justice (unlike apples ipod nano 6th gen which has a lovely resolution for a similar sized screen).

So now im wondering, most of my art is 500x500, or 600x600, indeed some art is failing to load (probably too big). Perhaps I should try a lower resolution art, will the picture look better?

What's peoples take on this? Can album art be resized to a different size that will look better than what I'm getting with 500x500 and 500x600? Or will it make no difference?
Also, how is art being read, by file or folder.jpg? I ask as I might set foobar to use file art (500x500) and just simply change folder.jpg to 100x100 etc which is a far easier task.

Bruce

[Marvin the Martian]

To display at all, the filesize of the image has to be less than 100kb, regardless of whether it is 200x200 or 600x600. I always embed, I never do the folder.jpg method. The early version of Rockbox seems to use the screen to better effect.

[Phixion]

I have to say I checked out the Sansa Zip before buying the Sansa Clip+, the screen really turned me off, it looked pretty cheap and the resolution was very low.

I know the Clip+ isn't any better, but at least it isn't trying to display album art!

[BruceBanner]

Originally Posted by Marvin the Martian

To display at all, the filesize of the image has to be less than 100kb, regardless of whether it is 200x200 or 600x600. I always embed, I never do the folder.jpg method. The early version of Rockbox seems to use the screen to better effect.

Gotcha, i'll have a look at my art and make sure its under 100kb. Are you saying rockbox is already out for clip zip in some form, beit beta?

Don't get me wrong, I'd rather have the zip screen vs the clip+ screen even if the art looks a bit muddy etc, but to me it seems a little daft to got to all the effort of changing the screen of the clip to only use summin naff. I'd pay an extra $30 for a better screen put it that way.

PS This was a gift for me, otherwise i prolly wouldn't have bought it as the clip+ is doing me fine. I'm jealous of people living in areas where they can 'check it out' before buying, for alot of people I think they have to rely on reviews and forums before deciding then just take the plunge.

[BruceBanner]

but still, if i resized art to 96x96 would the art display better do you think? Might try it. Anyone know how the zip is reading art? embedded in file or .jpg?

[TexasRockbox]

Both. Embedded, folder.jpg, maybe something else also.

[BruceBanner]

ok, if thats the case do u know what order it prefers to find art? hmm..

[Marvin the Martian]

Originally Posted by BruceBanner

Gotcha, i'll have a look at my art and make sure its under 100kb. Are you saying rockbox is already out for clip zip in some form, beit beta?

Yep.
http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum...ad.php?t=66292

http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum...ad.php?t=66314

[Mikerman]

Yes, its usable and do-able--but again, it's still beta (or even alpha?). Never keep your only copy of data on the player in that circumstance, and always be prepared in case something happens . . . . (In other words, probably don't install the beta/alpha firmware on your only Xmas gift for your child . . . .)

[MojoPatrol]

Hi Friends!

I've been having some issues with the Sansa Clip Zip in regards to it displaying album art.

To provide context. It's a 4GB Sansa Clip Zip and I'm running the latest firmware (V 1.18). All my music thus far is stored on an external 8gb Sandisk MicroSD. I have not rockboxed the player and have made sure that all album art (whether within the album folder or embedded within the file info) is no larger than 100kb and when stored in the album folder is named folder.jpg

Yet, I still seem to have issues with which files will display album art. Normally after I've loaded songs onto the SD card and I disconnect it from the computer I have to restart the player to get the album art to display on some files, and sometimes when I just turn the player on (static) then certain tracks won't display album art (so it's a bit of a craps shoot)

Oh, I'm also using MP3 tag to add album art.

It's nothing major, I bought the player simply for music, but it is a bit annoying when you spend a bunch of time reformatting all the album art in the hopes it will actually display.

I'd be interested to get people's methods of how they manage to get album art displayed permanently.

Thanks for the input!

[cbomb]

I was using the mp3 tags for covers, but decided I wanted to use some space, so I made a script (on linux) and stripped off the covers from the tags and instead put folder.jpg in each album's folder - I have Artist/Album directories. Anyway, it worked both ways without issues on OF and rockbox. Just try both methods and see if it works.

[WalkGood]

Originally Posted by Mikerman

... (In other words, probably don't install the beta/alpha firmware on your only Xmas gift for your child ...)

hmm that's exactly what I did, makes for one great kid gift but I did gift two gifts at least

*I’m not sure if it’s still considered beta, guess it could be, but it is listed on the current build page here. Also the USB connect for rockbox is working great now so no reason to ever boot to OF. Sure there is a risk of bricking your player and AFAIK there isn’t a recovery method but still worth the minimal risk for those that prefer rockbox over the original firmware IMHO. The manual isn’t completely up but you can use the Clip + manual for features, more info here.

[Marvin the Martian]

Originally Posted by Mikerman

Yes, its usable and do-able--but again, it's still beta (or even alpha?). Never keep your only copy of data on the player in that circumstance, and always be prepared in case something happens . . . . (In other words, probably don't install the beta/alpha firmware on your only Xmas gift for your child . . . .)

Originally Posted by WalkGood

hmm that's exactly what I did, makes for one great kid gift but I did gift two gifts at least

*I’m not sure if it’s still considered beta, guess it could be, but it is listed on the current build page here. Also the USB connect for rockbox is working great now so no reason to ever boot to OF. Sure there is a risk of bricking your player and AFAIK there isn’t a recovery method but still worth the minimal risk for those that prefer rockbox over the original firmware IMHO. The manual isn’t completely up but you can use the Clip + manual for features, more info here.

Mikerman has always been a Negative Nellie in regards to Rockbox on Sansas...even though he says he has a "much earlier version" on an old iRiver player....lol.

I'm with you, WG....no more OF for me.

[skip252]

When I was using the OF and the latest firmware I had 100% success displaying album art following this setup:

• Baseline, not progressive, .jpgs.
• One jpg named "folder.jpg"(no quotes) in the same folder as the album
• Jpg file size no larger than 85 kb
• Jpg dimensions no larger than 500x500
• No embedded artwork

Following those guidelines my album art displayed reliably regardless of sound files type or location. It didn't matter if the file was on the internal or external memory. No boot beyond the initial database refresh was needed. The folders\files were transferred in MSC mode using drag and drop.

[BruceBanner]

Originally Posted by MojoPatrol

It's nothing major, I bought the player simply for music, but it is a bit annoying when you spend a bunch of time reformatting all the album art in the hopes it will actually display.

I'd be interested to get people's methods of how they manage to get album art displayed permanently.

Thanks for the input!

My guess is you have some art imbedded into the file and that art is larger than 100kb whereas the folder art is still less. I used Tag&Rename to check my art and indeed I did find the odd song or album where I had corrected the folder.jpg to being 500x500 and less than 100kb yet it still had some old art imbedded in the file. I have also noticed when using Tag&Rename that you can delete imbedded art within the file only to realise that there is MORE art still embedded (I have deleted over 3-4 arts within one file before its clean).

I would take note of what tracks are missing art and look at the tags deeply using tag&rename or some other good tagger.

[WalkGood]

Originally Posted by skip252

... No embedded artwork ...

FYI all my embedded album art worked fine but I only spent a few minutes on the Zip OF. Can't remember if mine came with .15 or .17 on it, tried the old specs for e200 series IIRC and had no problems.

[skip252]

It mostly worked both ways for me too, WalkGood. But it was like like with MojoPatrol, it wasn't 100%. Mostly I wasn't working with my library when I was in the OF. I didn't know how the files were tagged or what program did the tagging but they all had embedded album art and quite a bit of it didn't show.

I was helping some technically challenged people get setup and wanted to give them a set of 100% guidelines. Their tags were in bad shape and they weren't much interested in getting them right. So we worked out what I posted here. That was on the 01.01.17 firmware.

I just sorted their files out by Artist Artist\Album\ Track# - title and used the Rockbox Album Art extractor to create a folder.jpg for each album at first. They mostly worked but some didn't. Once I used foobar2000 to strip all the embedded artwork they all showed reliably.

I think what BruceBanner says might be what happened. The additional artwork seemed to interfere with any of it showing.

[Mikerman]

Originally Posted by WalkGood

*I’m not sure if it’s still considered beta, guess it could be, but it is listed on the current build page here. Also the USB connect for rockbox is working great now so no reason to ever boot to OF. Sure there is a risk of bricking your player and AFAIK there isn’t a recovery method but still worth the minimal risk for those that prefer rockbox over the original firmware IMHO. The manual isn’t completely up but you can use the Clip + manual for features, more info here.

My comment that Rockbox for the Clip Zip was in alpha/beta form was from a bit ago when, well, Rockbox for the Clip/Zip was in alpha/beta form. Much has changed since then and a tremendous amount of progress made--and so quickly (especially compared to Rockbox's earlier days), thanks to the great efforts of the devs. At this point, if the port isn't considered a released port, it certainly would seem to be at least beta/released in status. (The port info. at Rockbox.org still says that the Clip Zip port is unstable--that just feels dated, from what you and others have posted.)

Originally Posted by Marvin the Martian

Mikerman has always been a Negative Nellie in regards to Rockbox on Sansas...even though he says he has a "much earlier version" on an old iRiver player....lol.

Not at all negative, Marvin, and I really wish you wouldn't miscast matters like that. There's a difference between being negative and being candid. And I've had Rockbox on my iRiver iHP-140, one of the earliest Rockbox ports, I believe (and that player being a great early competitor to the iPod--so sad that iRiver dropped its jukebox player line and has gone, well, the way it has), for over 5 years now (well before it even was a glint in your eye? ) -- and actually even authored one of the themes that the firmware included before the architecture was changed to the viewports model (yep, I've been using Rockbox that long as well). I haven't updated Rockbox on my player because, well, it has worked just fine as is, and because I haven't had the umph to learn the newer Rockbox architecture so as to update my theme, which I like (and which is pretty dang good--attractive and extremely informative, yet still readable, even given the screen of the time). In fact, in earlier days, I was compiling Rockbox code (not just downloading the firmware) and adding patches for it for my player weekly or so, if not more frequently when there were attractive code changes.

My only point has been and remains for users and those considering Rockbox just to be aware of a seemingly minimal, slight chance of an issue for the Clip players, as they decide if they want to use the port. Apparently someone at Rockbox seems to consider this a point worth considering, as the Rockbox Sansa AMS port page still includes a prominent disclaimer and warning, especially noting the Clip V2 player version (noting that the risk seems particularly high for certain hardware variants of that player version). http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/SansaAMS

Do I think it's a major issue? Not at all (although the Clip V2 warning is a bit scary). But different users of different tech. capabilities, economic backgrounds, and risk aversions come to websites like this, and I would hate to see someone who can ill afford it end up in deep waters, unwaringly caught up in the true excitement of it all. (Although the kind people here and at Rockbox.org certainly are more than willing to help!)

edit: And now back to our regularly-scheduled programming: the original topic of this thread (sorry for the high-jacking, Bruce!) . . . .

[WalkGood]

Mikerman he's just trying to push you as we pushed him

[Marvin the Martian]

Originally Posted by Mikerman

Not at all negative, Marvin, and I really wish you wouldn't miscast matters like that. There's a difference between being negative and being candid. And I've had Rockbox on my iRiver iHP-140, one of the earliest Rockbox ports, I believe (and that player being a great early competitor to the iPod--so sad that iRiver dropped its jukebox player line and has gone, well, the way it has), for over 5 years now (well before it even was a glint in your eye? ) -- and actually even authored one of the themes that the firmware included before the architecture was changed to the viewports model (yep, I've been using Rockbox that long as well). I haven't updated Rockbox on my player because, well, it has worked just fine as is, and because I haven't had the umph to learn the newer Rockbox architecture so as to update my theme, which I like (and which is pretty dang good--attractive and extremely informative, yet still readable, even given the screen of the time). In fact, in earlier days, I was compiling Rockbox code (not just downloading the firmware) and adding patches for it for my player weekly or so, if not more frequently when there were attractive code changes.

OK, fair enough. Then let me ask you this....why haven't you put it on any of your various Clips? I can understand being hesitant on the original Clips,sure..... but why not a Clip+? You've always bemoaned the database refresh, especially with a memory card inserted, which you can avoid with Rockbox.(especially now with the USB support complete).