Sansa Clip 01.01.20 Latest Firmware Download

Sasafrass452 wrote:
So, I understand that the new firmware is supposed to make the battery meter more accurate, using percentages or something like that… am I supposed to see a percentage number on the battery meter? If so, I don’t see a number. How can I tell the difference from the old/original firmware?

no percentage numbers were added to the battery indicator. it will just be more acurate. 

Sasafrass452 wrote:
So, I understand that the new firmware is supposed to make the battery meter more accurate, using percentages or something like that… am I supposed to see a percentage number on the battery meter? If so, I don’t see a number. How can I tell the difference from the old/original firmware?

no percentage numbers were added to the battery indicator. it will just be more accurate. 

Ok, thanx. So how can I tell the difference from the old firmware, besides watching the clock & battery meter at the same time?

Sasafrass452 wrote:
Ok, thanx. So how can I tell the difference from the old firmware, besides watching the clock & battery meter at the same time?

guess you could do that, or since sandisk says it has been improved you could just take their word for it.

Well, I guess that introduces another feature request… In the options where it says how much space is available, it should also give a percentage of available battery power.

Testing mine, it shows battery percentage from Windows Explorer in 1% increments. I haven’t watched the meter on the Clip enough yet to be sure, but it looks like it has 1-pixel wide steps, more than the 4 or so steps it had before. In both cases, it should give a more precise measure of available battery power.

Having an entry for battery power in system info wouldn’t hurt, if it isn’t too much trouble.

One thing I didn’t see on the list is a fix for the volume change/EQ change. When shut down, sometimes, especially when changing songs, it would drop volume. Also, it sometimes did so while playing shuffle for extended periods with the display off.

I also get this wierd block thing instead of a song list under my playlists. but only if I sync multiple playlists at one time. if I delete the playlists one at a time and re add them one at a time the songs show up in the playlists.

on another note;

I would llike to see the headphones work when doing a recording, that way I could crank the volume way up and listen to far away conversations like a super spy. Or just my lectures in classes, not having to take my headphones out.

Message Edited by speekergeek on 01-25-2008 05:46 PM

I have been reading all the connection problems with the clip and I yet have to find where I can change it in the setting to change it from USB. there is no setting for that… also, I cannot seem to download the driver sdmx1-1024. I have made sure I have WMP 11 and I have the service pack2… What do I do now??

I have been reading all the connection problems with the clip and I yet have to find where I can change it in the setting to change it from USB. there is no setting for that… also, I cannot seem to download the driver sdmx1-1024. I have made sure I have WMP 11 and I have the service pack2… What do I do now??

what do you mean put into the root of the Sansa clip???

what is the differnet between MSC AND MTP? any advantage?

Clugo, it sounds like you need the new firmware. Download the zip file posted in this thread, extract the .bin file to your computer, connect your Sansa Clip, copy the .bin file to your Sansa Clip via windows explorer(don’t put it in any of the folders), disconnect it, & the firmware upgrade will start. Once that’s done, you’ll have an option in the settings to choose either MSC or MTP mode.

Excelgl, MSC mode is used to copy & paste your music to the Sansa Clip. MTP mode uses windows media player to transfer the music to the Sansa Clip. The main difference is that songs you transfer in MSC mode will not be visible when you connect the Clip to the computer in MTP mode. And vice versa…

Message Edited by Sasafrass452 on 01-26-2008 08:19 AM

A principle difference between MSC and MTP modes is that only MTP mode can transfer protected (DRM’ed) music, such as Rhapsody. On the flip side, MSC mode does not require the software requirements that MTP does, and so will work on non-Windows machines and may work otherwise when there is a problem–it is more “universal.”  Unfortunately, as noted above, the player connected to the computer in one of the modes doesn’t see files transferred over in the other mode (although it will play all the music/files) unless re-set to that mode, and so it may be easiest to use one or the other mode consistently. 

Two other items I can think of:

  1. In MSC mode, your Clip will go through a “refresh database” after it’s been restarted that will take longer than if the Clip is restarted in MTP mode. 

  2. In MSC mode, your Clip will show up in Windows Explorer as a “removable disk”, and have a drive letter assigned to it.  In MTP mode, your Clip will show up as a “Portable Media Player” (or something like that).  Although you can drag-and-drop music to your Clip in either mode using Windows Explorer, you might prefer MSC mode if you need to address your Clip using a drive letter.

Am I the only one to experience this bug:
When I disconnect my Clip (MSC fw. 01.01.20F) it refreshes the database and the main menu appears, but there is no button backlight! When I turn it off and on again, everything’s fine, but it’s a bit annoying, having to reset it every time I disconnect it.

clugo wrote:

what do you mean put into the root of the Sansa clip???

With your Clip in MSC mode,  you will see some sort of icon in “My Computer”(or just “Computer” if you have Vista) that represents your Clip. Just drag the .bin file to that icon and drop it in, and, voila! When you disconnect the Clip, it will say “Firmware updating”- and when that is finished, you just restart the Clip and it will be installed.

Kilar_Ezan: “When I disconnect my Clip (MSC fw. 01.01.20F) it refreshes the database and the main menu appears, but there is no button backlight! When I turn it off and on again, everything’s fine”

I had noticed right away that the light was OFF during the database refresh, but it doesn’t remain OFF for the duration of that “power session”, only until the display backlight goes to sleep. Once this happens, and you press the button pad again - HEY! The ring light is ON again.

Neat little bug, seems like someone has been doing a little “submarine bit-twiddling” while working on '20 - begs the question - wonder what’s coming in the next release? Hopefully some kind of preferences menu…

I’ll upgrade to the new firmware when I get home and take it for a spin.  My Clip replaces an old e140 that died on me a while back.  I stick with Sansdisk since I can count on them to work on my Linux and FreeBSD machines.  In a future upgrade can we get a display of time left on a file?  I mainly play podcasts on my commute.  It’s hard to estimate how much time is left on a file on the current display.  A toggle between time played and time remaining would be nice.

Thanks for the .20 firmware update. :stuck_out_tongue:

Particularly appreciate the battery meter, and the low-volume.  Anyone who tried to listen to music late at night would turn the volume down, and then it would mute long before reaching an acceptable low volume.

Issues:
a.)  Does volume need to mute at the lowest setting?  ( Although with lower range, that may not  matter.)

b.)  Change initially-selected menu-item to second item on all Music menus.

    eg.  <Home> (select)  Music  >>  Artists  >>  (first artist) >> (first album) >> (first song)

    Instead of: …  Music >> PlayAll <down> Artists >> PlayAll <down> (first artist) >> (first song)

    Any one who wants to “PlayAll” would just press <up>, and it would save the rest of us from extra clicks.

c.)  Support for  MP4 / AAC (without DRM) music files. :robotwink:

   ( And no, I would never voluntarily choose to use only MTP-mode and WMA files.)