ID3 tag help to fix play order

Hello,

I’ve read about the problems the Clip has in getting the correct play order, for example here, but I can’t seem to get it to work. The audiobook mp3s are tagged with ID3v1.1 and ID3v2.3. I’ve tried using Mp3tag to set the ID3v2.3 to ISO-8859-1. All files have the same Album name, the track # field is set to XXX/YYY (ex: 001/145) for ID3v2.3 and 1, 2, 3…145 for ID3v1.1. The Title tags are set to “Track 001”, “Track 002”…

I can’t figure out why the files do not play in order…    Anyone has any ideas?  (except for using playlist, because I do NOT want to be forced into using that)

Does anyone have any clue about when that new firmware version (that is supposed to fix these problems) is coming?  Someone wrote, a few weeks ago, that it would probably be out in a few weeks…

Sincerely,

Carl

P.S. If Sandisk does not want to spend money enough to keep the amount of programmers needed to produce firmware in a fast and efficient manner, perhaps Sandisk should consider helping the folks at Rockbox out so that users with higher demands can use their software instead. I understand that Sandisk can not a) hand out detailed info on everything about their players and b) vouch for the security/stability of Rockbox. But this does not have to be a problem. Sandisk could just give out small fractions of information (what is needed for the Rockbox crew to clear some hurdles) and Sandisk could also say that “we can not guarantee that any other firmware than our own will work on our players and if you use another firmware, for example Rockbox, the Sandisk warranty is void.” It’s all good - as long as those of us who have higher demands on the firmware get a solution that caters to that!  I’m thinking of things like the id3 support to get play order to work and the ability to adjust various settings, for example the scroll speed of song titles that are too wide for the display.

Hello again,

After countless hours of searching and testing, I’ve now figured out in which order the Clip plays the tracks when using firmware 02.01.16 (I really hope a new firmware that fixes these issues is released soon, as promised).

As was layed out in the thread I linked to earlier:

When no id3v2 tag is present, the tracks are sorted by the rightmost sequence of numbers in the filename.

However, I was using id3v2.3 ISO tag, as is the recommended version that the firmware currently supports somewhat OK. The problem I had, though, was that I was using track numbers such as “001/145” and not just “001”. Now, according to id3.org, using a “/” character followed by a numeric string to indicate the size of the entire set of tracks is valid id3v2.3 standard - but obviously the Clip does not honor this. Hopefully this is also fixed with the next version of the firmware.

Regards,

Carl

P.S. Why should I have to do so much searching/testing to figure something as basic as this out? Where is the comprehensive guide, released by Sandisk, that covers these things? Then again, issues such as these id3-related problems should have been fixed early on (making the chapter in the guide about sorting tracks relatively short). 

P.P.S. I was serious about the Rockbox suggestion: think outside the box! Providing help to the Rockbox crew, without revealing lots of sensitive information (trade secrets) and without having to officially support Rockbox should be possible - and that would actually be a selling point to lots of users who want to buy an mp3 player that allows more freedom of choice. Dare to be different!

[edit: I’ll set this thread as “Solved”, even though the underlying problem (the Clip’s id3 tag support) is far from solved.]

Message Edited by Calle on 01-17-2009 07:43 PM

By the way, did anyone have any inside information about the new firmware release?  Is it looking like it could be released this week, or is next month more likely?

By the way, did anyone have any inside information about the new firmware release?  Is it looking like it could be released this week, or is next month more likely?

@calle wrote:

Is it looking like it could be released this week, or is next month more likely?

Most likely a month or two.

Ah, I see. OK, thank you. Always nice to have a rough idea about when to expect something (even though I know it’s just an estimate or “best guess” at present).

Thanks.

/Carl

P.S. It’ll be interesting to see which “team” will have an updated, working fimware first - Sandisk or Rockbox.  :slight_smile: