Best file format to use?

SanDisk MP3 players All other MP3 players
1

My Clip Zip is constantly freezing when I try to load a lot of files onto it. I am using the latest Sansa Clip Zip firmware without Rockbox, and I’ve tried cleaning up the file tages with Mp3tag, but no improvement.

I’m wondering if anyone knows if there are are any file formats that are less “crash prone,” so I can eat least set up the device to convert files when syncing (something Windows Media Player tries to do anyway, but I’m using Mediamonkey). Any ideas?

2

Mp3 is usually the best to work with but have you tried WAV files yet? 

3

MP3 can work well.  WAV is an unnecessary space-eater, and has been reported by some to have issues.

4

@kitscht wrote:

Mp3 is usually the best to work with but have you tried WAV files yet? 

WAV is the absolute WORST format to use. If you desire lossless music, use FLAC instead.

5

@runandwrite wrote:

My Clip Zip is constantly freezing when I try to load a lot of files onto it. I am using the latest Sansa Clip Zip firmware without Rockbox, and I’ve tried cleaning up the file tages with Mp3tag, but no improvement.

 

I’m wondering if anyone knows if there are are any file formats that are less “crash prone,” so I can eat least set up the device to convert files when syncing (something Windows Media Player tries to do anyway, but I’m using Mediamonkey). Any ideas?

It might help if you tell us what format you are using. But there is no single format (other than maybe OGG) that is problematic and causes the player the crash without something else going on.

6

It seems like a silly question in hindsight, but  if I had noticed that when I tried syncing with Windows Media Player, it was converting everything to WMAs, so I thought maybe the knew something I didn’t. And the WMAs were mostly readable by the Clip Zip, although the conversion process took forever, and WMP couldn’t seem remember what files it had synced previously, so on future syncs it would create a conversion of each file all over again before realizing the file was already on the device. (Just one of several inefficiencies of WMP.)

But, since my Zip was able to at least process all the WMAs without freezing, I thought maybe the Zip was just having trouble with certain formats, even though the Zip is supposed to be compatible with those formats. I figured if I was going to have my computer spend the hours needed to do all that converting, I should try to make sure I used the best format on the first try.

I ended up having Media Monkey convert all the M4As to MP3s, and the Zip was finally able to process it all. The only non-MP3 files now are some Rhapsody WMAs that use DRM.