vB Easy Archive - e815 mp3 player

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e815 mp3 player
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Posted by: twitchyboy

hey there,

Just changed phones and service providers. I've had the moto e815 for about a week now and am trying to decide if I should return it or if there is a solution that I simply haven't found. The problem that is making me consider a return is that most of the mp3s I put on the transflash card aren't seen by the phone and many that are, the phone lists as corrupted. Reformated the card a couple of times (used the pc-the phone chokes when trying to format the 1 gb card). Installed card with phone turnned off, on. Shortened file names. Avoided names with "funny" characters. Transcoded to a lower (constant)bit rate (my default is VBR usually averaging > 210 kbs). Put music in motorola/shared/music, and left it in the top directory. None of these variations seemed to change the fact that only 25-30% of the music on the card is playable by the phone.

Any thoughts?

Cheers,
twitchy

Posted by: nokiaman76

Look under the motorola forums in the verizon one okay look for mark ventura site you have to limit the name you put like poison unskinnybop there is a cetain limit to the characters you put them under okay check out his site it will help you 100 precent it seems like it.

Posted by: nokiaman76

heres the site check it out CDMAFORUMS.COM

Posted by: Mark_Venture

Quote:

Originally Posted by nokiaman76

Look under the motorola forums in the verizon one okay look for mark ventura site you have to limit the name you put like poison unskinnybop there is a cetain limit to the characters you put them under okay check out his site it will help you 100 precent it seems like it.

its Mark_Venture... not ventura...

Basic rules are... Numbers and Letters only in the names... keep file names 30 characters or less... Mpeg 1.0 Layer 3 (as reported by WinAMP's File Info feature) with NO ID tags work best...

File Format's link on my pages has more info....

http://mark.cdmaforums.com

Posted by: twitchyboy

Thanks for the tips,

Mark_venture, i was looking through your page yesterday, that's where I got most of various attempts to make things work. Thanks for your effort (nokiaman's cdmaforums url led me to find your well mannered pissing contest with Anemic-nice to see)

After writing my first post I realized that there was an iteration that I should have tried:
Short names, lower constant bit rate, in the shared/audio directory.

This seems be the ticket (I did remove non alphanumerics from file names too). Playlist function seems a little flakey (if I turn on shuffle it may just play 2 of 10 tracks).

I'll try my higher bit rate MP3s with short symbol free names tommorow.

cheers

Posted by: nokiaman76

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mark_Venture

Sorry Mark it was late for me last night when I wrote that.

Posted by: computerwiz222

You said you put them in the top directory, that is wrong. On the card there shuld be

motorola>>shared and temp
shared>>audio, video and pictures
Temp is empty this is how the card is set up!

Posted by: twitchyboy

Thanks for trying to be helpful. What I said (or attempted to say) was that I tried putting music in either,

"Put music in motorola/shared/music, and left it in the top directory. "

and that the outcome seemed the same regardless of which directory the mp3's were in. From my second post you might see that I began to get some satisfaction after editing the file manes and then putting them in the shared/audio directory.

The final piece of the puzzle turns out to be that the phone's playlists need to be shorter than what I was making them (consensus is somewhere in the 34-40 range). My hypothesis that the variable bit rate/ high average bit rate files were gumming up the works was unsupported by further investigation. What I've done is used a program called MP3 Joiner to quickly turn an album's worth of mp3 files into 1 mp3 file and save to the transflash card with a suitable name.

In the age of cheap mp3 players that support drag and drop of any of my MP3 this seems like a bit of a cludge (but easier than transcoding). I've gat a few more days to consider returning the phone and going back to ipod with skullcandy link to my phome.

You tutorial writing guys (Mark_Venture & Anemic) might consider makiing the playlist limitations more obvious in your guides

Rocking on...

Posted by: Mark_Venture

Quote:

Originally Posted by twitchyboy

You tutorial writing guys (Mark_Venture & Anemic) might consider makiing the playlist limitations more obvious in your guides

Have you read the TRANSFLASH link on my pages???

It states where to put the mp3 files... limits on the file names (number of characters, use numbers and letters only, etc..), limits on play list names (number of characters, must be made on the phone,etc)..

and the FILE FORMATS page states what types of files are supported on the phone... Including suggestions of Mp3 Encoding settings to use

Posted by: twitchyboy

Yes, I did look at your page, and I thought, credited you -from my second post:

"Mark_venture, i was looking through your page yesterday, that's where I got most of various attempts to make things work."

I had cleaned up file names and tried putting in the recommended directory but then when I added all 154 files to a playlist and still the phone would only play a fraction of the music (25-30%). And so it wasn't clear that attending to the file name and directory issues fixed anything until I found refernence to the playlist limitations (I don't remember where).

I did see recomended encoding settings for ringtones but I don't see (taking another quick look) for mp3 playback. I'm now of the impression (if not clear from my last post) that encoding was not one of my problems (there seemed to be three). I found answers to two of my problems before I posted, but because I had three problems I didn't realize what was working or not.

Taking another look at your page- You might want to add that the e815 with currnet firmware will not format a 1gb transflash card. It can be formated on a PC and then the phone will add it's directories when the card is installed and the phone turned on.

So thanks again

Posted by: ScReAmh2O

Marks Link works

Posted by: Mark_Venture

Quote:

Originally Posted by twitchyboy

...I did see recomended encoding settings for ringtones but I don't see (taking another quick look) for mp3 playback.

The rules for encoding for RingTones and MP3's for general playback are the same.

I guess I'll have to add a blurb explicitly stating that. Or change...
For ring tones from MP3 files... to MP3 Files, ringtone or other...

Quote:

Originally Posted by twitchyboy

... I'm now of the impression (if not clear from my last post) that encoding was not one of my problems (there seemed to be three). I found answers to two of my problems before I posted, but because I had three problems I didn't realize what was working or not.

Trust me... encoding does matter...

The phone really likes files that are reported as Mpeg 1.0/Layer 3 (as reported by WinAMP's file info...)... Various other playback problems have been observed/reported by myself and others when the Mp3's stray from that...

Some have reported better luck with Constant bitrate inplace of variable bit rate... Personally, I use CBR, so I can't say for sure this is a problem...

Quote:

Originally Posted by twitchyboy

...Taking another look at your page- You might want to add that the e815 with currnet firmware will not format a 1gb transflash card. It can be formated on a PC and then the phone will add it's directories when the card is installed and the phone turned on.

1gig cards are relatively new. There is a lot of info I should/want to add to my pages, but time does not always permit the updates...

Posted by: twitchyboy

Mark,

Just sent you a private message

Posted by: Mark_Venture

Quote:

Originally Posted by twitchyboy

Mark,

Just sent you a private message

Just responded...

Glad you got things working on your phone...

Just know that some have had success with VBR, MP3's with ID tags and file names that contain other than "numbers and letters only" in the past... BUT those appear to be the exception more than the rule...

There are a lot of "it works for me, so it should work for you" type things... that, well, DON't... and we don't know why...

SO... when in doubt.. we suggest the way that is "known to work for all" which is more or less exactly what I have on my pages...

You might have success deviating from that... but then again.. but more often then not, we have seen people have troubles...

If you are willing to experiment and find other things COOL!! KEEP GOING!!