New Fuze Uzer - dumb questions

SanDisk MP3 players Sansa® Fuze™
1

Got a Fuze, my first.  Can anyone help me understand two things not covered in the user manual?

1)  There is no button or menu option (as far as I can see) that is the same as the STOP button on a CD, DVD, or similar player.  Once I start a track playing, it seems to continue no matter what I do (the scrolling bar at the bottom of the screen says Now Playing…).  I use mine for language learning, and frequently need to stop a track in the middle,  How do I do that?

2)  Can someone actually explain what is really happening when I “sync” my PC (Windows Media Player) with the Fuze?  I made some mistakes transferring my first files, and had to delete some tracks and rename some play-lists, and the sync program skipped everything I tried to change.  I’d really prefer to copy what I want to the player, and delete it from the PC – don’t care if they are synchronized.  (For example, if I am not working on a language, I would take out the card it is on, and put in a different one for another language or for music.  I don’t want Sync to delete or change what is on the new card because it deosn’t match what is still on the PC.)  It’s obvious that the Sync command is making all sorts of decisions for me, and none of them are explained anywhere.

Thanks in advance to anyone willing to help

2

“1) There is no button or menu option (as far as I can see) that is the same as the STOP button on a CD, DVD, or similar player. Once I start a track playing, it seems to continue no matter what I do (the scrolling bar at the bottom of the screen says Now Playing…). I use mine for language learning, and frequently need to stop a track in the middle, How do I do that?” On the Fuze, pause is the same as stop.

" I’d really prefer to copy what I want to the player, and delete it from the PC – don’t care if they are synchronized. "

That is why I don’t sync. I have the USB mode on my Fuze set to MSC, and use Windows Explorer to copy and paste folders of songs or podcasts to the player. Syncing often produces undesired results if you are not very careful. Files you want on the player might suddenly disapper, or many files you don’t want on the player might be put on it.

I suggest that you keep copies of your songs on your pc in case there is a problem with your player and need to delete all the files on it. If you don’t have room on your pc, then you could burn the files to DVDs then delete them from your pc. Many think that since they have the original CDs they don’t need to back up the mp3 files, but making MP3s again from hundreds of CDs can be very time consuming. I have the original CDs, the mp3 files on my pc, and backups of the mp3 files on DVD.

3

Thanks JK

I think I will change to just copying my files.  Do I have to redo the ones I put on with WMP?  Is there an equivalent to playlists that can be done in Explorer? (They’re handy to keep all the tracks in a language lesson in one place, but I don’t suppose they’re essential.)

About pause: what do I do if I want to quit playing one track, and go back to a previsou one?  Pause doesn’t kill the current one, as far as I can figure out.  I don’t understand how pause can be the same as stop, since when you un-pause, it starts where you left it, rather than at the main menu.

Again, mnay thanks for the response – it explains sync and its disadvantages in a very helpful way

cheers

4

"I think I will change to just copying my files. Do I have to redo the ones I put on with WMP? "

i suggest you start from scratch, especially if the USB mode on your player was set to MTP or autoconnect when you transferred them. Assuming you still have copies of everything on your pc, the easiest way to start again is to format the player using using the player’s menu(settings, system settings, format) . It will also delete the sample items that came on the player, so if you want those, then copy them to your pc before formatting.

"About pause: what do I do if I want to quit playing one track, and go back to a previsou one? 

Just go to the previous track.

" Pause doesn’t kill the current one, as far as I can figure out. "

The current track remains the now playing track when paused and will stay the now playing track until it is replaced by a different one.

“I don’t understand how pause can be the same as stop, since when you un-pause, it starts where you left it, rather than at the main menu.”

If you want to get to the main menu, just press the home button. When the player start up, it resumes at the same function it was when it was turned off.

On the Fuze, audio files are considered songs, audiobooks, or podcasts. If the player considers a file a song, then it is placed in the song database, and you can put it in a playlist. If it considers it an audiobook or podcast, it won’t be in the song database, and can’t be put in a playlist. It also won’t play when you shuffle all your music. Only Audiobook and podcast files have the autoresume feature and the ability to choose a slower or faster play speed.

The player considers a file an audiobook if the genre is audiobook, or you put it in the audiobook folder on the player(regardless of what the genre tag is). The player considers a file a podcast if the genre is podcast, or you put it in the podcast folder on the player(regardless of what the genre tag is).

For language lessons, I suggest that you put them in the audiobook or podcast folder. If they have the same album tag, they will be treated as a unit and play continuously based on the order of the track numbers(make sure to number tracks under 10 with a leading zero, so all track numbers are 2 digits. If there are over 100 of them, use 3 digit track numbers. Imo with 3 digit track numbers it is easiest to start numbering them at 101.

5

Again, thanks JK98 – you’ve given me a huge headstart on the learning curve.

6

BTW, it is bizarre, philosophically speaking, that the player cannot be stopped once it is playing – only more playing can replace the current playing.  The possibility of Nothing playing – while I look at photos, or something – doesn’t seem to have been part of the software engineer’s universe of options.  That says something about us all, but I’m not sure I wnat to know exactly what!  Similarly, the complete lack of information about the option of plain copying assumes that all users want The Latest & Greatest, that the data stored on the device is always in flux, and that it will be duplicated on a computer somewhere at all times.  Those, too, have some interesting implications for mass psychoanalysis  :wink:

7

“BTW, it is bizarre, philosophically speaking, that the player cannot be stopped once it is playing – only more playing can replace the current playing.”

Philosophically speaking it makes perfect sense to me. The act of stopping implies that something is physically moving, and you want to stop the motion. Think of a tape player while playing for example. When the Fuze plays, nothing on the player is physically moving. The only things on the player that physically move are the buttons when you press them, and the scroll wheel when you turn it. Imo a stop button was intentionally left off the player to emphasize this.

"The possibility of Nothing playing – while I look at photos, or something – doesn’t seem to have been part of the software engineer’s universe of options. "

Just think of pause as another word for stop. On the player pause means pause as well as stop.

The “data” on my players is in two parts, songs and podcasts. I rarely change the songs on my players, however

the podcasts on my players are  changed much more often… I usually keep the podcasts on a card in the player to minimize wear on the built in memory(flash memory will wear out after a certain numer of writes, perhaps 2,000-5,000?). You should keep copies of you mp3 files on your pc and imo also on backup DVD disks, even if you have the original CDs for all your songs. Sometimes the player might malfunction and need to have its storage erased and songs copied to it again. Making mp3 files again from hundreds of CDs can be extremely time consuming. A 20 cent DVD-R or DVD+R disk will hold around 4.4 GB or around 40-80 hours(128-256 kbps) of music for most people. A good way to back up your music collection.

8

The free program mp3Tag makes it very easy to edit tags on large numbers of files at a time. http://www.mp3tag.de/en/