They actually tried to have a “Resume where you left off” for all audiobooks but blew it.
I don’t think this “Resume” feature is present for “songs” or files of any “genre” other than “Audiobook”. Don’t know about podcasts, recordings made on the player, etc because I haven’t played with them. Also have never tried the genre “Spoken Word” so have no idea what the Fuze does with files having that in the “tag”. Remember that it completely ignores the directory structure so sticking files in the Audiobook directory is just to make them easier for you to find.
Here’s how the Fuze actually works with Audiobook in the file tag:
If you select a track of an audiobook that you have previously listened to, the player offers you the choice to resume that track where you left off or start at the beginning of the track. The default is to “resume”. So far, so good.
If you have EVER listened to any of the tracks in the audiobook, it remembers the last position FOR EACH TRACK. Again, not the screw up because you might want to go back to any or all of those points if the files in the displayed track list are different topics, and if you go to them individually with the aim of resuming each track where you left off.
Hey! It sounds like “bookmarking” is there AND it’s automatic AND it’s the default so you return to the exact spot in each selected track. Wow! What else do you need?
Now let’s say that instead of a list of independent “audiobook” reference files or chapters in a reference book, you are listening to a novel. More the sort of thing that a lot of us do to pass the time while driving, exercising, etc.
When you select your book title - the equivalent of an “album” with the book’s title in the ID3 tag field for “Album Name” - you see a list of the chapters or tracks. If you select any track in the list, you get the option to resume THAT TRACK if you have ever listened to that track and stopped listening before the end of the track.
Still sounds OK! Just like I’d want it. Yeah, I do have to remember which chapter/track I was listening to if I want to go back to the chapter/track where I left off, but it remembers the exact spot in every interrupted track!!! So a pencil and sticky-note fixes this little oversight.
Once you have started playing the chapters/tracks in the list, one would logically, rationally expect that at the end of the selected track the player would go to the BEGINNING of the next track, play the ENTIRE track, and then to the BEGINNING of the next track, and so on until it reaches the end of the list. Right???
Remember that the default when MANUALLY selecting any previously interrupted track is to “RESUME”? Well guess what the Fuze does as it comes to each and every previously interrupted track as it steps through the list?
Here is where they blew it with absolutely illogical, irrational, indefensible behaviour!
Instead of the logical and rational choice of playing each successive track from the BEGINNING, it takes the default choice to RESUME the previously interrupted chapter/track where playback last left off FOR EACH AND EVERY PREVIOUSLY INTERRUPTED CHAPTER/TRACK!!! It does this quietly, without offering you a choice - which would be **bleep** annoying as you are driving or jogging or even just quietly relaxing, so don’t even think about popping up the Resume/Restart choice at this point as a “fix”!!! Can you say “Oops!”???
Say you had just copied the audiobook files onto the player and wanted to spot check tracks to see if they sounded OK, complete, or whatever and scrolled toward the middle or end of a few tracks and listened a bit. Or did this on a lot of the tracks… Or on all of the tracks… Now you get settled for a long drive with 20 hours of a novel cued up to the beginning, plug into the thoughtfully provided jack on the car stereo, and head down the road. The novel doesn’t make any sense at all and playback is done in much less than the advertised 20 hours!!! Maybe 20 minutes! Maybe 20 seconds or less, depending on where you left each “interrupted playback” pointer.
Irrational, illogical, indefensible behaviour! All because the software writers probably have never listened to an audiobook! And software management haven’t either or they just weren’t paying attention during the design review - assuming they did a design review. Don’t blame it on Marketing because the software designers are supposed to be smarter and find the holes in the marketing spec. Software test never found the problem because they were just as clueless or never actually tried things a user would do!!! That’s assuming that they actually run the software through INDEPENDENT internal testing before turning it loose on customers!!! #!%&*%$#*&%#!
Never mind my “check the tracks” scenario. Anyone who reads will often pick up the book at the next opportunity, turn back a page or two, and reread a little just to refresh your memory about what was going on in the story. Same goes even more for audiobooks where you are driving, exercising, doing yard work, or whatever. You get interrupted or just distracted. You can’t reach the pause button so the player continues. You return to listening and scan backwards until you find a spot that sounds familiar. Now you would expect the player to play all of the subsequent chapters/tracks IN THEIR ENTIRETY!!! Right!!!
The really bad thing about all of this is that you may never be aware that you’ve missed sections, maybe even whole chapters. With dramatic pauses by the readers and writers who “jump cut” from scene to scene, you may never notice the skipped sections. You may just end up thinking that the author is an ■■■■■ that can’t develop characters or tie a plot together by the end of the book.
I guess they’ve never heard the rule that “One aw**bleep** cancels 10,000 attaboys.”
Suggestions above for the “fix” are a start but don’t cover the issues adequately.
Comments anyone?
SanDisk, is anyone listening?
Message Edited by fbtjr1947 on 11-13-2008 11:52 AM
Message Edited by fbtjr1947 on 11-13-2008 11:53 AM
Message Edited by fbtjr1947 on 11-13-2008 11:58 AM
