Integration of microSDHC card contents into song database

@miikerman wrote:

PP, I don’t know how one would gauge this–perhaps you do.  When I’ve added songs to the microSD card and then inserted it back into the Clip+ and turned it on, I get the familiar “Refreshing” screen.  Would the player say anything different if ones adds to the internal memory?

 

OK, I just added a song first, to the internal memory, and second, to the microSD card in the Clip+.  Each time when I disconnect, I get the idential screen, “Refreshing your media”.   And the same result when I add songs to a removed microSD card and then insert it back into the Clip+ and turn it on.

If you have, say, 10 songs in internal memory, and 2000 songs on the card, you’ll definitely notice the difference.  If the Clip+ only re-reads internal memory, “refreshing” will be very quick.  If it re-reads both internal memory and the card, it’ll take longer.

Again, the Sansa Connect handles this properly.  I’m not sure how.  My guess is that there’s some kind of “dirty” bit on the card that can be read to determine whether the card’s contents have actually changed, and then flipped.

I think the best answer for this is to have the option to disable tag browsing, so there is no delay to refresh the database. When someone changes their mind and decides they do want to use tag browsing again, then the player could rebuild the database.

Maybe I’m in the minority, but I’ve never had a problem waiting how ever long it takes to refresh the database.  Are our lives that busy that we can’t wait a few minutes to use a device?..Uhhh… I guess judging by the comments; the answer is yes.

I’m not in a rush to do anything; so the wait isn’t problematic to me.

@fuze_owner_gb wrote:

Maybe I’m in the minority, but I’ve never had a problem waiting how ever long it takes to refresh the database.  Are our lives that busy that we can’t wait a few minutes to use a device?..Uhhh… I guess judging by the comments; the answer is yes.

 

I’m not in a rush to do anything; so the wait isn’t problematic to me.

Doesn’t bother me either :smiley:

Most likely you guys posted the same thing in my thread in the Fuze board.  :wink:

It has to do with the frequency with which I update the internal memory contents; it’s an inconvenience to me, and given that SanDisk themselves said this would be fixed, I figured I’d just ask regarding the Clip+'s behavior.

I’m glad it doesn’t bother you.  You may also like the flavor of squash.  I don’t.

Message Edited by PromisedPlanet on 09-01-2009 03:47 PM

@promisedplanet wrote:

Most likely you guys posted the same thing in my thread in the Fuze board.  :wink:

 

It has to do with the frequency with which I update the internal memory contents; it’s an inconvenience to me, and given that SanDisk themselves said this would be fixed, I figured I’d just ask regarding the Clip+'s behavior.

 

I’m glad it doesn’t bother you.  You may also like the flavor of squash.  I don’t.

Message Edited by PromisedPlanet on 09-01-2009 03:47 PM

A feature that is important to you, may not be important to others.  That doesn’t make it unimportant.  Sandisk has to balance what is possible to what is necessary or even desirable to most consumers.

It just seems a bit sad to me that instead of celebrating the fact that the clip+ is an awesome unit, filled with nifty new features, we are spending so much time concentrating on what it doesn’t do.

I don’t mean to single you out PP, you are far from the only one…

I just want to thank Sandisk for making a great little player and plan to get one soon! (I recently sold my regular clip and am in need of another little companion)

fuze_owner-GB wrote:

 

A feature that is important to you, may not be important to others.  That doesn’t make it unimportant. 

 

Exactly.  One feature that is important to me, but not important to the people who said “I can wait a few minutes”, is whether or not the Clip+ can determine if the expansion card’s contents have not been altered when it refreshes its database.

 

fuze_owner-GB wrote:

 

It just seems a bit sad to me that instead of celebrating the fact that the clip+ is an awesome unit, filled with nifty new features, we are spending so much time concentrating on what it doesn’t do.

 

I don’t mean to single you out PP, you are far from the only one…

 

The Clip+ looks like a great unit, hence my curiousity and a simple question about the firmware.

 

I’m not “concentrating” on something that the Clip+ doesn’t do, I’m simply trying to figure out what it DOES do.  I.E., does it know to not re-read the expansion card’s contents if only the internal memory’s contents have been altered?  Just a simple question, which hasn’t been answered yet.

 

Peace!

Message Edited by PromisedPlanet on 09-01-2009 04:27 PM

Well, PP, was hoping to make your day but, alas, I won’t be doing it …

I loaded a 4gb microSD card with 3.75gb of music, put it into the Clip+, and turned the Clip on.  The Clip took about 1m8s to read the card and refresh the Clip’s media.  Subsequent reads took between 1m and 1m5s.

I then attached the Clip to my computer and added a song to the internal memory.  Upon detaching, the Clip again refreshed its media, taking about 1m3s.  I repeated this again and it took about 1m5s to refresh the memory.

And so I’m sorry to have to report to you that your disliked glitch still seems to be there:  the Clip+ seems to read and refresh both its internal memory and external memory even if only the internal memory has been added to.

:frowning:

What this also indicates to me is that it can take significant refresh time when adding large storage media to the Clip; if the above can be extrapolated from, up to around 5 minutes for a 16gb card.

Thanks Miikerman. Just curious, what class was your microSDHC card?

Not sure if it was you or someone else in another thread who said it would be a nice firmware feature to turn off database refreshing all together, in case a person intends to only use folder browsing.  That’d be mighty cool.

It’s a Kingston Class 4 card.

(I was happy to see that it worked with the Clip+, as I remember, from awhile back, that people had said that Kingston cards did not play well with the Fuze.)

On first blush, I can’t see SanDisk adding a feature to turn the database off; but then again, if it’s easy enough to implement, who knows?

Sorry that the refresh issue is a problem for you.  I just ordered a clip+ without reservation.  It is about as perfect a player as can be for my needs.

@fuze_owner_gb wrote:
Sorry that the refresh issue is a problem for you.  I just ordered a clip+ without reservation.  It is about as perfect a player as can be for my needs.

But - my god - no stopwatch?!?  

 :wink:

Eh, I’ll probably get one … it’s still a great player, and it’s tough to beat the SQ at this price.

Message Edited by PromisedPlanet on 09-02-2009 09:16 AM

@miikerman wrote:

It’s a Kingston Class 4 card.

 

(I was happy to see that it worked with the Clip+, as I remember, from awhile back, that people had said that Kingston cards did not play well with the Fuze.)

 

 

The Kingston cards were ok for audio with the Fuze, just not video. So you should be fine.

Great to hear–thanks.  And odd as to the Kingston cards/video issue.  The glitchiness of technology never ceases to amaze.

"no stopwatch?!? "

If it had a stopwatch and clock, would you then complain that it doesn’t jave a pedometer? If it has a pedometer then would the complaint be that it doesn’t have GPS?

@jk98 wrote:

"no stopwatch?!? "

 

If it had a stopwatch and clock, would you then complain that it doesn’t jave a pedometer? If it has a pedometer then would the complaint be that it doesn’t have GPS?

Err, I was just joking …

?

It makes sense that they’d have to rebuild the database regardless of which memory the files were added to.  They’re probably rebuilding the database each time since it includes files from both places.  Doing an update instead of a rebuild might avoid this but might require a more sophisticated database structure and more code in the firmware.  Given the low price and small size this seems like a reasonable compromise.

Barry

“Doing an update instead of a rebuild might avoid this but might require a more sophisticated database structure and more code in the firmware.”

Its not just that, it may make the player’s interface much more sluggish.

@promisedplanet wrote:


@marqck wrote:

it should be the same with the fuze, add songs by connecting to computer, after you uplug, “refreshing database” will show…

take out the card, use a card reader to add songs, after you insert the card, it should say “refreshing data base”


 

My point is that the Fuze would re-read the contents of the card even if they weren’t changed, but the contents of internal memory were changed.

 

It doesn’t necessarily have to be the same way with the Clip+, does it? Unless they share the same portion of the firmware that deals with database updates. The Sansa Connect doesn’t do this.

i don’t think the player can know if the contents of the card were changed or not.

maybe SanDisk can just add an option called “refresh data base” and under it you can choose “automatic” or “manual”. if you choose manual, you’ll have the options “refresh internal”, “refresh external” and “refresh both”. what do you think?

Edit: spell check 

Message Edited by marqck on 09-05-2009 01:30 AM

marqck wrote:

 

“i don’t think the player can know if the contents of the card were changed or not.”

 

As I said, the Sansa Connect does this.  I’m not sure how.  Maybe the card contains some kind of hash value of its contents, or a date-last-modified, or something.  Or maybe it’s an MTP function.

 

“maybe SanDisk can just add an option called “refresh data base” and under it you can choose “automatic” or “manual”. if you choose manual, you’ll have the options “refresh internal”, “refresh external” and “refresh both”. what do you think?”

 

Yep, that’d work.  :slight_smile: