I think the hard part for real newbies is that they expect this all to be very compatible, like CDs with CD players. It wouldn’t be such a problem except that people start off with iTunes, which isn’t really designed to be compatible with anything but iPods. Suddenly they have to understand file formats and conversions and directories and all sorts of stuff that never came to play in Apple’s little world.
SyncBack SE (Google for it) could be very useful for people using iTunes and converting everything to MP3 like that. It could easily be set up to just copy over the MP3 files that don’t already exist on the Fuze. The Fuze would have to be in MSC mode.
I started out trying to convert my iTunes music, but found that simply loading the orignial cd’s on to Windows Media Player was the simplest, most straight-forward way to go. It really does seem to work better if you just leave Apple out of the relationship.
@quovadisanima wrote:
I started out trying to convert my iTunes music, but found that simply loading the orignial cd’s on to Windows Media Player was the simplest, most straight-forward way to go. It really does seem to work better if you just leave Apple out of the relationship.
True . . . IF . . . You have the CD’s to rip from. Many people using Itunes downloaded the music, in which case they’re stuck converting since they have no back-up CD. Converting will result in a lower quality sound file since you are converting 1 lossy format to another, but if that’s all you got, you gotta play the cards dealt to 'ya.
If you have CD’s, by all means just rip them again; higher quality and probably about the same length of time. Just be sure to dust’em off first.
I have some tunes that I bought from a snocap store. I burned them onto a cd, but they will only play thru iTunes WITH the cd in the drive - not with just one or the other. I did not realize that I was locking myself into iTunes with them, don’t believe that there were any other options available anyway short of asking the artist to sell thru someone else (yeah, right) & could not buy these songs again if I tried - they’re gone. I would really love to be able to either play them from the cd on my stereo or at least put them on my fuze (preferably both). Would I have to buy a converter program of some kind or something?
Okay, my education continues (translated: I feel really stupid, but am happy to have figured it out at least). I’ll share this for anyone else out there who is also struggling to learn all the angles of working with music files.
I realized that I could right click on the cd file and tell it to open with Windows Media Player instead of iTunes. Then I discovered that while I could not figure out how to more formally transfer the files, all I had to do was right click, copy and paste the music file in the computer’s window for my Fuze. Duh.
I am very frustrated. I have tried to update with Updater. I have tried with dragging the file to the root directory. Updater gets to 82% updating and fails. Windows can’t read the .BIN file and fails.
I have reset and restart it only gets to “Sandisk” opening page. If I put it on the charger it will open after 10 minutes, I can then unplug the charger and listen to music. If I turn it off, the “Goodbye” stays on. If I reset, I can’t turn it on again by itself (without the charger) If I plug it in to the computer it takes about 10 min. to even register that it is there. I have tried MSC but it “does not recognize” the USB device.
I am very frustrated. I have tried to update with Updater. I have tried with dragging the file to the root directory. Updater gets to 82% updating and fails. Windows can’t read the .BIN file and fails.
I have reset and restart it only gets to “Sandisk” opening page. If I put it on the charger it will open after 10 minutes, I can then unplug the charger and listen to music. If I turn it off, the “Goodbye” stays on. If I reset, I can’t turn it on again by itself (without the charger) If I plug it in to the computer it takes about 10 min. to even register that it is there. I have tried MSC but it “does not recognize” the USB device.
The firmware .zip file might have got corrupted during download I suppose. Did you try downloading a fresh copy? The link and manual installation instructions can be found here.
