Clip+ quirks

MP3 players Sansa Clip | Clip+
1

Hi,

I purchased a 4GB Clip+ yesterday and spent the better part of today figuring it out. I will be using it for audio books mostly; some downloaded P2P, the others DRM protected from my library using OverDrive.

I started with copying a few books using MS WINDOWS XP2 into Audiobooks section. The first quirk was that some of my books are subdivided into subfolders, say “Title Part 1” and “Title part 2”. In the Clip+ hierarchy they are not listed as subfolders, but instead as separate audio books. Apparently, it does not support subfolders. Please, confirm if you know.

I also tried copying the same books into Albums instead. The problem is that in Audiobooks, you can start playing a file, then stop it, start another file in another book and stop and so on. Then, when you go to any book you started, it highlights the last played file and has an option of Resuming playing. It’s like having multiple Bookmarks, and it seems to work only in Audiobooks. A very handy feature.

Skipping tracks: in Audiobooks, you have to Pause the file, then try skipping. Just pressing on Reverse or Fast Forward does not do it; you have to press and hold for a couple seconds to get it to skip. But then it starts skipping very fast. Hold the button for a split second longer, and it already skipped several tracks. You have to try hard to get it to skip one track at a time, going back and forth. In Albums it seems to skip normal. Any comments?

Playback order: in my old BlueCube player it was controlled by the file name only. So, I got used to re-name all files (using a wonderful free ReNamer program) with a prefix 01, 02, etc. It worked like a charm. In the Clip+ it does not. After wasting a lot of time and effort, I think I figured that it plays back in Track order, which screwed up some of my books. I installed a free MP3Tag program and now had to re-number tracks to match the desired play order. Is that what the Clip+ does?

The last problem was playing one of the books in Ogg format. It plays on my computer O.K. But on the Clip+ the sound is garbled, like in those spy movies where they use a voice distorting gizmo. I looked at the file info: bitrate 64 Kbps, Sample rate 44100 Hz. It supposed to support Ogg, does it? My old BlueCube does not, so I cannot verify playback on another player and I know nothing about Ogg. What could be a problem?

Thank you for the input.

2

“I started with copying a few books using MS WINDOWS XP2 into Audiobooks section. The first quirk was that some of my books are subdivided into subfolders, say “Title Part 1” and “Title part 2”. In the Clip+ hierarchy they are not listed as subfolders, but instead as separate audio books. Apparently, it does not support subfolders. Please, confirm if you know.”

The album tag determines which files are included together as a “book” or album. In the folder mode, one can browse folders and subfolders.

“Playback order: in my old BlueCube player it was controlled by the file name only. So, I got used to re-name all files (using a wonderful free ReNamer program) with a prefix 01, 02, etc. It worked like a charm. In the Clip+ it does not.”

It will in folder browsing mode. Choose music, folders.

3

Thank you for the tip! You are absolutely right: I just did noth think to try Folders mode. It goes to Folders, then MTP, then shows all Audiobooks with all subfolders and all files as I named them, with my added serialized prefixes. It keeps all bookmarks and asking for Resuming in all books. Sweet! I’ll re-confirm again, but seems like no longer monkeying with changing tracks numbers, just proper files naming order should do the trick.

How about my Ogg garbled sound? I do not have any other Ogg files to test on. Has anybody experienced similar issues?

Regards to all.

4

Dear fellows,

One other quirk I found when in Folders mode: I have several audio books loaded. All of them are named and in MP3Tag program all of them have very similar tags info: title, name, artist name, etc. But three books are displayed different in Folders mode: one is “E020000 New Folder”, the other “New Folder” and the third “5D010000 The Shock Doctrine” (that’s the actual book title with the odd number preceding it). Not a big deal; I can open a folder and see the files names, but it is still odd. What controls the Folder name? You’d think it is how it is named in the computer, right? Yet, some of them are, and the others are not. Makes me wonder…

Best regards to all.

5

The weird folder names with numbers are an artifact of using the MTP mode. I suggest that the MSC mode be used, unless you are dealing with protected files which must be transferred with the MTP mode. Files transferred to the player in MTP are only visible in the player on the pc when connected in MTP, and visa versa, so it makes sense to choose either MSC or MTP and stick with it.

6

For Skipping tracks try setting Audiobook Options  set  CH  (Chapter mode)  ON.

7

Thank you for the Chapter mode tip. In the manual it seems like it would work with Audible books and skip chapters. I tried it and it works like a charm! It skips to the next file (apparently, treated like chapters) in the Folder (or in the Audiobook) very fast, with a short button push.

BTW, I also resolved my Ogg garbling problem. I found and tested another Ogg file and it played back just fine. Apparently, the audiobook I was having problems with is corrupted and I will need to re-download it.

So far, I see absolutely no problems with this little gem. It goes with me from the car (using an FM transmitter) to the gym, to the yard work, to the house cleaning, to the beach–everywhere. It has unlimited bookmarks, easy interface and a very competitive price. A winner!

Regards to all.

8

In Chapter Mode which is only supposed to work in Audible books when you skip ahead does the top number change any?  As in 6/8 etc?  It will re-wind all of a part skipping like that

but if you go too far you are back to the beginning of the part.

This biggest issue as I see it is that Audible book parts do not change from one to the other automatically.  That’s a bummer in traffic not to mention safety.  The listener has to pull

off the road and manually change to Part 2 etc.

What we need is a firmware update for these are problems that were around in the much older Sandisk players.