Album art & playlist issues

New to Fuze and forum! I have looked through the forum quite a bit, for a week prior to purchasing the fuze. I wanted to know what I was getting into and see what the issues weree with the product bfore buying. Read the topics dealing with album art. My issue is a bit daunting - I downloaded bird calls to my fuze - over 700. All 700 are supposed to have the photo of the bird embedded - it is supposed to show when I select the bird. None do and I am an over 40, non-tech person at the moment. Have a feeling that is about to change!! I really don’t want to have to use multiple media managers to get this to do what I want. It strikes me that this really shouldn’t be so hard.

The other issue is that I want to separate my birds into different playlists - like “shorebirds”, “raptors”, etc. Help for the stupid - I set up a playlist called bird songs and that list never showed on the fuze - just the bird songs themselves. What am I missing (I am sure it is obvious in media player and I am just missing it) in media player that will allow me to separate my birds into different playlists?

I know that both of these questions have probably been asked multiple times, but I really want to simply this issue if possible, especially since I don’t even know what the term tagging really means!!!

Help appreciated very much!!

It is possible to do what you want to do with the Fuze, but it will take a little work. The Fuze doesn’t recognize album art in the MP3 file, only a picture file called folder.jpg (that has to be in the same directory as the song). This means you have to have a directory for every bird, and each directory will have the bird picture and the song(s).

So here are a few options:

  1. Return the Fuze and get another player that supports embedded art. If you’re adding birdsongs a lot, this problem is big enough to warrant a better choice.

  2. Wait for the next Fuze firmware update (should be sometime in the next month) and hope it supports embedded art. This really is a major foul-up on Sandisk’s part, and I’d expect it to be a high priority for them.

  3. Format things so it will work on the Fuze. I know mp3tag can be used for this. It may sound daunting, but it only takes a few minutes.

  • Install mp3tag.
  • Copy all your songs to a new directory. That way if you mess this up (or Sansa fixes the problem), you’ll still have the original files.
  • Make sure you have tags (artist, album, etc) on your songs. The Fuze doesn’t really deal with un-tagged songs well, and you’ll absolutely need them for the following actions. Drag all the songs into mp3tag (actually it seems to work best to drag the directory they’re in), and have a look. If they don’t have consistent tags but do have consistent filenames, you can create tags from the filename (Convert->Filename-Tag).
  • Use mp3tag to create a directory for each song. Mark all your songs. Select Convert->Tag-Filename, then put in a format like %artist%-%title%%artist% - %title%. This will create a directory for each of the artist & title tags, with a song title that’s the same name. Use whatever tags will make everything unique. Its OK if the file names are ugly (you won’t see them) as long as they’re unique.
  • Create an mp3tag action to put a folder.jpg for each song in the song’s directory. This requires something called an “Action” in mp3tag. Select Convert->Actions. Click on the little star icon (on the right) to create a new action (call it what you like). In the Actions menu, click on the star icon again. Select the “Export cover to file” action. In “Format string for image filename”, just put in folder (don’t put in the .jpg).
  • Create the folder.jpg files with mp3tag. Run the album art action. Select all your files, Select Convert->Actions, make sure only your new action is selected, then select OK. BAM, you should have a directory for each song with an associated folder.jpg!

You might want to consider using A USB mode of MSC (on the Fuze, Settings->System Settings->USB Mode). This way you can make changes after you’ve put the songs on the player. Otherwise fixing any tag problem involves deleting it off the player, fixing it on the computer, then putting it back on the player.

I can only help you with playlists if you use MSC mode; I have no idea how to do it otherwise.

  • Connect the Fuze, and when it asks you how you want to access it, select Explorer.
  • Using Explorer, drag & drop all those directories with music & picture files to the MUSIC directory on the player.
  • Now, go into the MUSIC directory on the player. Select all those directories, and drag them into mp3tag.
  • Select File->Playlist. When it asks you where to save it, make sure its in the MUSIC directory. It’ll probably try to put it in the first subdirectory, but you don’t want that. Don’t put it in the Playlists directory - that doesn’t work, and I’m not even sure why its there.

Message Edited by bdb on 07-19-2008 08:39 PM

Thanks so much for the quick reply!! The cd that I downloaded the bird songs from has it set up to download to MP3 players already and it says that the bird photos are embedded in the bird song, so I thought that it would not be a problem!! So much for thinking!! I was trying to avoid the cost of an ipod and have the flexibility to use something besides itunes. I will give your suggestions a try. I can use the bird calls as they are on the fuze and I really don’t need the pictures, it is just a matter of wanting to have them there!!!

Thanks again for the advice and quick reply!!