SanDisk® Clip Sport

[Olderguy]

I was running out of the 8GB of memory in my Sandisk Clip Sport and added the SDHC chip thinking it would expand the available space. Now I am reading that the SDHC chip has to be pre-recorded with music.  Before I find a way to do that I have a few questions I hope someone can answer.  Will the artists, albums and songs be available seamlessly between the internal memory and the SDHC chip?  Will album art work for tunes stored on the SDHC chip and if so where should they be stored?  Can playlists be made to play tunes arbitrarily stored in both main memory (8GB) and the chip (32GB)?  Would it be better to put all the music on the SDHC chip and none in main memory?   I apologize if this topic has been covered before by the forum.  I was unable to find it discussed. Thanks for any insight!

Olderguy

[Tapeworm · Accepted solution]

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@Olderguy wrote:

I was running out of the 8GB of memory in my Sandisk Clip Sport and added the SDHC chip thinking it would expand the available space. Now I am reading that the SDHC chip has to be pre-recorded with music. 

You have to transfer music files to the card just as you do to the internal memory.

Before I find a way to do that I have a few questions I hope someone can answer.  Will the artists, albums and songs be available seamlessly between the internal memory and the SDHC chip? 

No, not on this model.

Will album art work for tunes stored on the SDHC chip and if so where should they be stored?

Yes. You can either embed the album art .jpg image into the ID3 tag of each song, or just place 1 image in the folder (album) that the songs reside in.

Can playlists be made to play tunes arbitrarily stored in both main memory (8GB) and the chip (32GB)?

You can create a playlist  for tunes either in the main memory or the card, but not tunes/files from both locations in the same playlist. You used to be able to do this on the older models, but with the new (less powerful) processor in these newer models it is not possible.

Would it be better to put all the music on the SDHC chip and none in main memory?

Depends. Seems silly to not use the internal memory. You just have to realize & work with the fact that these newer players see the 2 memory sources as separate entities.

I apologize if this topic has been covered before by the forum.  I was unable to find it discussed. Thanks for any insight!

Olderguy

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[Olderguy]

Tapeworm,

Thank you so much for yet again helping me.  I am now noticing that my Clip Sport shows up on my PC as Clip Sport (F and the SDHC card shows up separately as Removable Disk (K.  I didn't notice that before and as you say I can directly transfer music to the SDHC card through the Clip Sport.  Are there any pixel size limitations on the album art when provided as separate jpeg files or for embedding in the ID3 tag? What program would I use to embed the art?  Many of my tunes come from very early CDs which don't have embedded art.  I wonder if their format included an ID3 field.   Since my music collection currently only uses 14GB of memory I think I will try putting it all on the SDHC card so that I have total flexibility in composing playlists.  Thank you again for helping me.

Olderguy

[DFELD2005]

Another consideration is the 2000 audio file limit of the internal Music database and a separate 2000 audio file limit of the external music database.  You may start to experience this OS limitation at 12 - 13 gb on the micro SD card. 

    You can play around with m3u playlists to overcome this limitation.  You should design playlists using audio files already stored on the internal or micro SD card.  Playlists can reside in their correspinding subdirectories under Music.

If you decide to try using a 32 gb micro SD card, you could decide to read more about Playlists and Folder Mode within the dozens of messages about these topics in the SanDisk Forum.

[DFELD2005]

I like to use the software "mp3tag" to embed clipart into my mp3 files.  Typically for me, my iTunes "m4a" files do not display their album art and many times these m4a files do not play nicely with my Clip Sport.

     I like to use jpg files that are 250 x 250 pixlel size and 72 dpi.   Most times I can find the corresponding clipart files on the Discogs web site, or else usig Google Images.

[Olderguy]

DFELD2005,

Thank you so much for your help.  I do have slightly over 2000 music files I want to put on my Clip Sport.  Hopefully the album art files don't count.  I guess if I experience problems I'll put music of one genre type back in the main memory and hope that solves the problem.  I will follow your advise about playlists and definitely read about them in the Forum archives first.  My last plea for help here was when I was having trouble with playlists compatible with my Ford Fusion ).

What a music ride it has been through the years: vinyl, 8-tracks, cassettes, reel-to-reel, miniDiscs, CDs and now digital files.  How incredible to have your entire music collection on an untethered device the size of a matchbook, listening with high quality headphones! Cheers!

Olderguy 

[Olderguy]

DFELD2005,

Thanks also for the advise on including album art.  I'll probably stick with separate art files if they don't count in the 2000 file limit.  I'll definitely look into the Discogs site.  I laboriously scanned the CD case liners as I recently redigitizing CD cuts at 320 bps MP3 to improve sound quality from the 128/160 bps files I made many years ago ).

Olderguy

[DFELD2005]

Hey Olderguy,  I think maybe we are in the same age group.  My music listening and collecting hobby spans all the audio formats you listed in your earlier message. I started recording music off the radio using a reel-to-reel recorder in the early 60's. (Wollensak?)

Album art (embedded or saved as folder.jpg) will not count towards the 2000 file limit. Your idea about using the player internal memory for genre collections is excellent. 

If you will be using 320 kbps compression in most of your mp3 files, then you may be less likely to reach the 2000 file limit in a 16 gb micro SD card.

AND, you do not have to worry about curating & fine tuning all your ID3 tag data if you figure out how to prepare m3u playlists for your needs. Playlist data does not rely on ID3 tag data. 

     AND, I seem to enjoy using Shuffle Mode most of the time anyways. (You can shuffle within a Playlist.)

[Olderguy]

Hey DFELD2005,

I found that my R-to-R Teac was an early way to play a lengthy sets of background music without changing media.  Yep, I was wrong about having more than 2000 music files to store.  I relied on the number of files reported by Explorer Properties. It turns out that I am well under the 2000 limit with room to grow so all is well.  I must have a lot of album art files I need to thin down.  I do use the shuffle mode frequently but also like to build extended playlists of tunes with common moods or nostalgic content.  Being retired it is a good time to get my music organized.  And a lot more fun than working on the 6 yards of mulch sitting on my driveway ).  Some really great people on your forum!  Restores my hopes for the country a little. I worry about the country my grandchildren will inherit.

Olderguy

[Tapeworm]

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@Olderguy wrote:

What a music ride it has been through the years: vinyl, 8-tracks, cassettes, reel-to-reel, miniDiscs, CDs and now digital files.  How incredible to have your entire music collection on an untethered device the size of a matchbook, listening with high quality headphones!

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But do you guys remember the old 78's (rpm) that were about 1/8" thick or the wind-up "Victrolas" record players that played them? High-Fidelity they definitely were not!