slotRadio on Sansa Fuze!

this is basically sansa’s way of itunes… im not gonna pay for music i can download for free. period .

@reesehugg wrote:
this is basically sansa’s way of itunes… im not gonna pay for music i can download for free. period .

Hope you’re not talking about illegal downloads…that is not allowed.

My question is this…

Now that the new update moved the SlotMusic to the first tier of the menu.  I am wanting to create my own version of a SlotMusic chip.  I have purchased a 8 GB chip and have most of my music on my computer system and downloaded to my FUZE to listen to.  One of the features they are talking about is that slotradio and slotmusic are DRM free.  So are my music files.  I just want to same them on a chip too.

Maybe just maybe I will be able to figure out the format.  There is no way I am going to buy one of the chips at BEST BUY @ 45.00 a chip.  It would have to be in the collection format I would love before I spend 50% of what the player cost for 1 chip.

i think you have to buy THEIR chips. .  :frowning:

@reesehugg wrote:
i think you have to buy THEIR chips. .  :frowning:

No, you don’t. You can load your own music on a microSD card and the Fuze will play it just fine.

@marquis6461 wrote:

My question is this…

 

Now that the new update moved the SlotMusic to the first tier of the menu.  I am wanting to create my own version of a SlotMusic chip.  I have purchased a 8 GB chip and have most of my music on my computer system and downloaded to my FUZE to listen to.  One of the features they are talking about is that slotradio and slotmusic are DRM free.  So are my music files.  I just want to same them on a chip too.

 

@Maybe just maybe I will be able to figure out the format.  There is no way I am going to buy one of the chips at BEST BUY @ 45.00 a chip.  It would have to be in the collection format I would love before I spend 50% of what the player cost for 1 chip.

 

 

Ah, it’s an economy of scale issue then?  Just because the player is inexpensive, the media on it cannot be expected to be discounted.  You’re purchasing two different products, you see.  The SanDisk player is an incredible value if you really think about it.  The wee machines cost slightly more than a service “contract” or extended warranty for some other players.

Yet we cannot expect a music vendor to radically discount their product, as we’re dealing with a different entity in this case.  Don’t get me wrong, as I have a serious bone to pick with the record labels here too.  Case in point:


In the eighties, when the Compact Disc debuted, it cost $1.01 (remembering the article, it’s been a long time, so bear with me- the numbers were so surprising that I committed them to memory) to produce a vinyl LP in its cardboard jacket.  A Compact Cassette in its wee box cost $0.17, and a CD, in the jewel box, cost $0.11.  The topic of the article was the demise of the Long Playing Record, and the economic realities of the time.  Never mind that the average listener could pick up a CD transport cheaply, the discs were small and convenient, et cetera.

The scariest part in my mind was the margin involved: At the time, an LP sold for $7.99 average, close to the cassette, but the CD debuted at $24 and dropped to about $17.  Interesting, the venerable CD never dropped until many years later.  Look at the average CD price in its most economical venue, the Internet.  If you wish to please the accountants, please factor-in shipping to adjust the actual price.

Download prices have been based upon the CD, divided by the number of tracks.  Yet the record labels don’t have to produce anything more from an end product standpoint only than a single server connected to the internet.  Please factor in the following costs to be fair to them.  Now this is just the end product, for a fair comparison against the numbers in my wrinkled brain.  Let’s see, server consumption in terms of kw/h, heat dissipation in BTU/h and the requisite cooling, illumination of the computer room, again a few more kw/h, and the lease on the few square feet of computer room floorspace.  Yes you can add incidentals, the dillweed that checks whether the machine is still plugged in, and the dweeb that spilled a Pepsi on the generic keyboard, necessitating a replacement, if you wish. 

Do you care to venture a guess at the end cost compared to a physical product.  I wish to maintain my sanity, so I won’t.


Hey, cool!  I made my own little sidebar.  Back on point then?  The SlotRadio and SlotMusic experiences and interface are quite different.

SlotMusic is fun, and you get a bulletproof metal-framed tank of a player to boot, with an absurdly simple control arrangement.  If you add up the individual components, you’ll be pleasantly surprised.  It comes with a battery, headphones, and a µSD card installed.  It’s surprising that they actually include a complete album into the deal.  DRM-free 256kb/s resolution MP3 too.

The SlotRadio concept is a wee bit different.  Back to the cost issue we must venture: the record labels have negotiated with SanDisk to provide a “captive” version of their product at a fraction of the current retail price.  Again, think of economies of scale.  How much is 1,000 songs at current download prices?  I’ll wait until you can find that pocket calculator, shake the beads on that abacus, or go to the Start button on the PC, selecting Accessories > Calculator.

The negotiated deal is for pennies per song, and there are a lot of them on that µSD card.  The tradeoff is that you can’t randomly select a specific song.  If you could do that, why would you purchase the valuable individual track?  Thus, the songs are arranged like in radio.  For the younger crowd, that means “streaming audio off the Internet”.

In my younger days, I’ve had friends in the broadcast both, and in the transmitter engineer’s chair.  To the chagrin of the station manager and the owner, I have participated in practical jokes in both venues, things that have popped up on the air.  But I digress.  You cannot have complete control over the access of the SlotRadio card, other than selecting a new “channel”, skipping forward, and having a look at the current track information.  Come to think of it, I like being able to snap forward if the current song is irritating.

Changing the song used to involve a phone call.  And I sometimes got a freshly cued track that they knew I detested, with the gain adjusted slightly.  Thanks, man.  It was fun, nevertheless.  I won’t admit to any of those things found dangling from the tower, colored bulbs installed in the coil “hut”, or guy wires happily draped with flags and balloons appropriated from the local car dealership.  Or tape cartridges mislabelled, LPs with wrong labels…I wouldn’t dream of doing such things.

Bob  :smileyvery-happy:

Message Edited by neutron_bob on 10-20-2009 09:50 PM

@gwk1967 wrote:


@reesehugg wrote:
i think you have to buy THEIR chips. .  :frowning:


 

No, you don’t. You can load your own music on a microSD card and the Fuze will play it just fine.

True, but . . . it won’t be listed under the SlotMusic icon as it appears marquis wishes it would be and is wanting to hack a way for it to.

If you load your own music on a valid SlotMusic card, you can access it from the main menu under the SlotMusic icon.  It’s also available using the regular artist / album / song navigation method.

Bob  :wink:

@neutron_bob wrote:

If you load your own music on a valid SlotMusic card, you can access it from the main menu under the SlotMusic icon.  It’s also available using the regular artist / album / song navigation method.

 

Bob  :wink:

Well, that’s certainly one way to do it (filing up the excess space on the card with your own music), but marquis said he has already bought an 8GB card (regular) and refuses to spend the money they want for a SlotMusic or SlotRadio card.

These SM / SR cards have their own integrated files for each format.  The Secure Digital component protects them from sleuthing.

It would be fun to try “cloning” an SM card…  meaning that the Fuze identifies it as a mounted SM card.  Separating the songs into an individial GUI selection is kind of cool, quicker than selecting a playlist, I guess.

Bob  :smileyvery-happy:

@neutron_bob: is it true the moderators here don’t enforce staying on topic? I’ll only reply that an album over 30 years ago retails for the same as one now. If your wage stayed the same over that period let us know. I’m an accountant. There’s been general inflation during that period.


It would be interesting to clone the card and yet all we’d end up with is a card with secure music stored in a proprietary file system. I don’t think it’s going to be possible to add anything to that sealed-off container which uses most the capacity of the card.

I was much happier with the SR card at $40 than seeing it now at $50. I won’t soon get another, since the selection of genres is too limited.

Message Edited by shelded on 10-18-2009 01:42 PM

I eagerly await more genres for the SR lineup, like Jazz.

The SR card only has about 64MB open for additional music, as it’s pretty filled up.

As an accountant, I’m sure you’ll appreciate the dramatic increase in margin, despite inflation, even for the venerable CD…much less downloads.  I began my CD collection with the first available CDs, at $24 each, in 1982 dollars.  SlotRadio is a good deal per track, as a handy song mix.

Bob  :smileyvery-happy:

@neutron_bob: Jazz card would be great, but it scares me what variety would be there, just as “classical” is sure to be such a mixture of good and bad. I was interested to see they have a health and fitness one which has some decent music on it if you can stand mono-tempo :slight_smile:

I suppose you know, margin is what profit remains after selling and paying one’s costs. What I do “appreciate” is that there has been a _decrease in unit margin due to decreased sales price and increased unit costs. _I think you underestimate the delivery costs of the digital media and that it costs more than that 27-yr-old CD did; however, I think we both are speaking out of ignorance. There is an awful amount of debate nowadays about what it costs to provide a megabyte to a user. The slotradio SD card is, I think, a fairly expensive cost of production.

Did someone around here say they would not mind paying an extra ten bucks for these things? They launched at a pretty good price, and I find it impossible to believe they sold so well that the Sansa ppl decided they could shove the price higher. Well, I can outwait them for the price to fall again.

I think it did go back to $39.99 - and - there’s a new Sony Music Classical card too! :slight_smile:

Message Edited by Sansational on 10-28-2009 12:01 AM

I added SlotRadio to my Sansa Fuse a while ago (easy to do, and it works great).  The first card I put in was the Oldies card.  My family thought it would be a great idea to give me cards for birthday presents, so I have Oldies, Country, 70s-80s Rock and Classic rock.

You probably know this, but when I take out a card and replace it with another, then put the other card back in - - it starts where it left off.  I thought it would start over, and I’d be playing the first songs on the cards over and over.

I would also like a Jazz card, a Classical, and a Standards (Sinatra, Miller, Etta James) card.

I actually like the random mix.  When I want specific music, I have everything on my computer and paste it into a micro SD card.

Don’t mean to be babbling on, I just really like the convenience of random music that I don’t have to spend hours creating.

Great product.

Ed

Message Edited by edgraham on 11-13-2009 09:10 AM

@Sensational: Thank you, I’ve found on Rip Shack and on slotradio.com that the cards are $40 again. When you posted a few weeks ago that change had not hit the web sites. Some cards were $50, mostly the new ones.

So, I guess we have out-waited them. You all may resume buying the cards now. :slight_smile:

I have not yet made it entirely through every track on my Rock card, and I have heard the 2-second “ad” twice, once on each of two tracks. This silly card stays in the player almost all the time instead of my 8GB personal collection because it is so simple. Not because I love every tune, but because it’s “good enough.”

shelded wrote:

@Sensational: Thank you, I’ve found on Rip Shack and on slotradio.com that the cards are $40 again. When you posted a few weeks ago that change had not hit the web sites. Some cards were $50, mostly the new ones.

 

So, I guess we have out-waited them. You all may resume buying the cards now. :slight_smile:

 

I have not yet made it entirely through every track on my Rock card, and I have heard the 2-second “ad” twice, once on each of two tracks. This silly card stays in the player almost all the time instead of my 8GB personal collection because it is so simple. Not because I love every tune, but because it’s “good enough.”

On the “Good Enough” revolution, from Wired Magazine:

http://www.wired.com/gadgets/miscellaneous/magazine/17-09/ff_goodenough

Interesting read.

Thanks for the Good enough article.  I worked on the First Flip Video while I was at Pure Digital,  FYI.

  

The nice thing about the tech is that the good enough becomes really good given time, cost reduction, and effort to improve by smart engineers.

Newest Flip Video Mino is awesome. 

Cheers,  SansaFix 

So. How do I get the SlotRadio icon off of the dock? It’s a rhetorical question. Nevertheless, I didn’t buy an MP3 player to have something marketed towards me.

/transitions to Zune

It’s interesting to read how many think a music player would be unwanted if it didn’t allow you to choose the tracks, or to go back. I know I don’t like the idea of the iPod Shuffle, but I see plenty of coworkers using these, as well as folks at the gym.

For myself, I prefer the Fuze, but my SO just wants me to load up music for the car or for long morning walks. As has been noted, most on this forum are not the intended buyers of slotRadio, but for those who don’t want to mess with software and who don’t want to rely on others to fill their microSD needs, these cards and players might be just the thing.

It takes me time and effort to fill the 8GB of a Fuze with hits of a particular era, and I’m glad that there are websites listing such things so I can put the music together. I own more compilation CDs than is probably good for a person, and I’m thinking about reflashing one of the Fuzes and enabling the slotRadio icon, so she can give the cards a try…