Clip Zip Feedback and Feature Request Thread

@jk98 wrote:

Hello tb. Welcome to the forum. I have been pleading for variable speed playback with automatic pitch correction for a long time. I have not used Rockbox since the display items with it look too small, and the interface seems too complex. Is it true that with Rockbox when you change the playback speed the pitch must be changed separately, or does Rockbox automatically correct the pitch when the play speed is changed? besides being worried about possibly bricking a player with rockbox, I am also worried that if Rockboxed it might not play Slotradio cards anymore. does Rockbox have the autoresume feature that the original firmware has?

 

I just edited all my tags to get rid of the v1 tags. It does significantly help speed up refresh rates. It was so easy to do with mp3Tag.

If you truly want the benefits of Rockbox, just go ahead and install it.  Once you take the plunge, you’ll not regret it.  I was hesitant before installing Rockbox also, concerned it’ll brick my clip+, then I installed it on my fuze, the player I could do without if it got messed up and, now, I’m a happy Rockbox user.

Of course, no Rockbox for the Clip Zip (yet).  Also, always a legitimate concern of even a small bricking possibility and the effect on DRM playback under the original manf. firmware.

@marvin_martian wrote:


 

Heh, heh, you said “dongle!”  :smileyvery-happy:

Marvin, you need sleep today!   :wink:

@mags1230 wrote:


@jk98 wrote:

Hello tb. Welcome to the forum. I have been pleading for variable speed playback with automatic pitch correction for a long time. I have not used Rockbox since the display items with it look too small, and the interface seems too complex. Is it true that with Rockbox when you change the playback speed the pitch must be changed separately, or does Rockbox automatically correct the pitch when the play speed is changed? besides being worried about possibly bricking a player with rockbox, I am also worried that if Rockboxed it might not play Slotradio cards anymore. does Rockbox have the autoresume feature that the original firmware has?

 

I just edited all my tags to get rid of the v1 tags. It does significantly help speed up refresh rates. It was so easy to do with mp3Tag.


If you truly want the benefits of Rockbox, just go ahead and install it.  Once you take the plunge, you’ll not regret it.  I was hesitant before installing Rockbox also, concerned it’ll brick my clip+, then I installed it on my fuze, the player I could do without if it got messed up and, now, I’m a happy Rockbox user.

I gotta agree here, about Rockbox. Up until I received the Zip and started testing it, I had not used the OF on my Clip+ in a year or so, and it’s been used a lot in that time and it still runs like a champ.

DRM is not an issue for me…I avoid it.   In JK98’s case, I don’t buy worrying about  that as a legitimate excuse:stuck_out_tongue:, since he has at least four players…surely he can live with the possibility of  just one of them not being to play a SlotRadio card. In fact, he could go to Radio SHack and buy a Clip+ for $30 and Rockbox one of his old ones.:wink:

Except that, not losing DRM capability on one’s primary player or the player that one may be using at the time is a legitimate preference.  DRM files and capability still can be an understandable concern–for library borrowings, Audible offerings, etc.

The player I might consider Rockboxing is my my Clip V2. It is one of my oldest Sandisk players. It doesn’t have a card slot, so it already can’t play my Slotradio cards. My reasons for hesitating about Rockbox is that some mentioned that Rockbox doesn’t have the autoresume feature that the Clip original firmware has. I need the player to remember not just the place in a file, but which file is playing in a series of podcasts. I am also concerned that the display in Rockbox may be hard to read. There is more information on the screen, and each item is smaller than with the original firmware.

As to screens, Rockbox has many different options from screen layouts that users have created–some of them mimic the original Clip screen, in variations.  They all are easy to install/select.  A gallery of screens:  http://themes.rockbox.org/index.php?target=sansaclipplus

@jk98 wrote:

The player I might consider Rockboxing is my my Clip V2. It is one of my oldest Sandisk players. It doesn’t have a card slot, so it already can’t play my Slotradio cards. My reasons for hesitating about Rockbox is that some mentioned that Rockbox doesn’t have the autoresume feature that the Clip original firmware has. I need the player to remember not just the place in a file, but which file is playing in a series of podcasts. I am also concerned that the display in Rockbox may be hard to read. There is more information on the screen, and each item is smaller than with the original firmware.

 

 

I recently switched to one that I find just as easy to read, if not more so, than  the original…I haven’t used any other theme since.

http://themes.rockbox.org/index.php?themeid=1323&target=sansaclipplus

Very easily installed with the Rockbox Utility installer.

@miikerman wrote:

Except that, not losing DRM capability on one’s primary player or the player that one may be using at the time is a legitimate preference.  DRM files and capability still can be an understandable concern–for library borrowings, Audible offerings, etc.

 Absolutely, it’s a legitimate consideration, especially since it apparently has been reported that that has happened.

@jk98 wrote:

The player I might consider Rockboxing is my my Clip V2. It is one of my oldest Sandisk players. It doesn’t have a card slot, so it already can’t play my Slotradio cards. My reasons for hesitating about Rockbox is that some mentioned that Rockbox doesn’t have the autoresume feature that the Clip original firmware has. I need the player to remember not just the place in a file, but which file is playing in a series of podcasts. I am also concerned that the display in Rockbox may be hard to read. There is more information on the screen, and each item is smaller than with the original firmware.

 

 

With rockbox installed on the original Clip V2, is there a dual-boot, like on the fuze?  If there is, then you may not lose any functions of the OF other than what you are already aware of, although you may want to look into that.  If all goes well with the install, and you find you don’t like rockbox, you can just boot into the OF. 

Sometimes, after charging my fuze and then disconnecting it from the computer, it’s still in the OF so I just use that instead of shutting down and rebooting into rockbox.   When I’m in the OF, it resumes where I left off the last time I used the OF, and the same for rockbox.  In rockbox, after booting up, it doesn’t go directly to where I left off, it goes to a menu where I have to select “resume playback”.  This is for music files.

The button and mic on my headphones sits right at my chest.  That is very convenient.  I’ve seen the r/c dongle and I agree that would be fine as well.  Since the Clip is so small, it might turn out that the dongle won’t add much convenience.  Even now, I just have to reach down to my belt to control my Clip!

@marvin_martian wrote:


@jk98 wrote:

The player I might consider Rockboxing is my my Clip V2. It is one of my oldest Sandisk players. It doesn’t have a card slot, so it already can’t play my Slotradio cards. My reasons for hesitating about Rockbox is that some mentioned that Rockbox doesn’t have the autoresume feature that the Clip original firmware has. I need the player to remember not just the place in a file, but which file is playing in a series of podcasts. I am also concerned that the display in Rockbox may be hard to read. There is more information on the screen, and each item is smaller than with the original firmware.

 

 


I recently switched to one that I find just as easy to read, if not more so, than  the original…I haven’t used any other theme since.

http://themes.rockbox.org/index.php?themeid=1323&target=sansaclipplus

Very easily installed with the Rockbox Utility installer.

^^^

+1  Switched to that one myself.  Very easy to read.

The biggest issue I have with the Clip Zip and previous models is the media refresh. To put it simply, this should be completely eliminated. Period. Yes, I’ve read the forums, updated the tags, reformatted, updated the firmware, etc…, but that’s all just trying to minimize an issue that shouldn’t be there in the first place. Some people are happy to reduce their refresh time from 20 minutes to 2 minutes or whatever but for me that’s still 2 minutes too long. Whatever process the device needs to do should be done in the background, or while the media is being synced. We want to unplug the device, press play, and enjoy our music/podcasts/audiobooks.

Other than that, and some issues already mentioned like the missing “Play All” and song count display, the Clip Zip and previous model players are pretty fantastic.

+1. Having had some audiobook issues this morning and needing to try transferring content repeatedly to the player, I am very tired of refresh delays today, with a 16GB microSD card installed . . . .

JK 98,

Rockbox has a great interface for speed control.  Hold down the play button and the speed interface comes up.  Then it’s right for faster, left for slower, up for increase the pitch, and down for decrease the pitch.  Increasing the speed doesn’t increase the pitch, so you’d need to both increase the speed and the pitch seperately in order to go chipmunk, although I suppose increasing the pitch without the speed would also make a very nice chipmunk voice.  Then tap the power button and you go back to the playback screen.  

The player can be configured to start playing where you left off upon powering it on, and you can set it to automatically start some set amount of time before you left off, say 15 seconds, to get you caught up with where you were.  This is where it gets annoying though.  Once you have created a bookmark in any of the mp3s in a book it will automatically bookmark the book when the power is turned off, but the player doesn’t start playing from the last bookmark, it just starts playing the file, and the speed settings you were using are kept in the bookmark rather than as a setting for the player, so you have to find the bookmark and play it or adjust the speed every time you turn on the player to get back your speed setting.

One other handy feature for audio books is that you can set it up so that hitting the fast forward or reverse buttons will move you forward or back by a fixed amount of time that you set (15 seconds in my case).  Unfortunately, it applies to everything, not just audiobooks, so if you use the player for music as well then you have to go into the settings and change them when listening to music, or be really annoyed that you can’t switch between songs without going into the track listing, whereas the stock firmware handles audiobooks differently than music, so when you switch between the two everything works the way you expect it to.

Nothing in it is particularly complicated, and not particularly annoying when sitting around with nothing better to do, but you need to figure some things out and a lot of things are more involved than I like to do while driving a car, out for a jog, or using my table saw, as opposed to the stock interface which just works without any effort, other than the whole not having variable playback speed thing.  And the forward/back 15 seconds and no refreshing media things are incredibly nice as well.

How about rename ‘Sport’ to ‘Timer’?

+++ thanks for the clock on the playscreen!

— please add elapsed/remaining time on the music playscreen and track/total no. tracks

cheers!

Rockbox seems too difficult to use while someone is walking around outdoors. I guess it might not be that difficult to use if one is sitting down and wearing reading glasses. :slight_smile:

@jk98 wrote:

Rockbox seems too difficult to use while someone is walking around outdoors. I guess it might not be that difficult to use if one is sitting down and wearing reading glasses. :slight_smile:

The theme I have installed is easier to read than the original firmware.

A nice thing about Rockbox is its theme gallery (choose the one you like), as well as the ability to create your own (or modify one of the pre-existing ones). But if the Clip Zip what’s playing music screen is amended (some might even say “fixed” . . .) so as to add elapsed time and remaining time, and track no./total tracks, I would never have a need to go the Rockbox route. Hint, hint . . . . :wink:

@miikerman wrote:
A nice thing about Rockbox is its theme gallery (choose the one you like), as well as the ability to create your own (or modify one of the pre-existing ones). But if the Clip Zip what’s playing music screen is amended (some might even say “fixed” . . .) so as to add elapsed time and remaining time, and track no./total tracks, I would never have a need to go the Rockbox route. Hint, hint . . . . :wink:

I don’t buy that line for even a minute…you never  installed Rockbox  on any of your Clips or Clip+'s, did you? I’d be shocked if you had, considering how many posts you have made, especially in the other forum, warning of what could theoretically happen if they did install it. :stuck_out_tongue:

One thing to consider…maybe part of the reason the Zip db refresh is a little quicker than that of the Clip+ is that a little more memory is freed up by not having to display that information. Also, say you go to shuffle all, on both players…the C+ will say, for example,  1/952, and the Zip will not. Perhaps this also contributes to the quicker refresh time.

In all honesty, if there was no Rockbox, I would prefer the Zip to the Clip+…the customizable menu is really nice, and I prefer the sound of the Zip to the non-RB Clip+ slightly.  Add RB to the Clip+, and now they sound the same  (with no EQ) but the battery life is better on the C+, especially if you don’t use MP3. Since most of the time, battery life isn’t an issue for me, I am perfectly happy with whichever one I happen to use each day.:wink: