@h14268
I believe there are now ways to put ID tag info into WAV files, but…
There’s no sense in keeping WAV files on a digital audio player. Those are “lossless” files, meaning the original CD can be recreated; FLAC files have those some features, are half the size, and are readily taggged internally with ID info. The FUZE needs those tags to find the files and show you their titles, artists, genre, etc. so you can play them.
Ogg Vorbis -encoded files at quality q7~8 have been shown in numerous tests to be indistinguishable from lossless, even though they are “lossy” – the original CD files cannot be recreated.
To the main topic of Sandisk providing FLAC/Ogg support:
I’ve had my Fuze for only four days and I bought it largely because of Ogg support. I believe the decoder software for *.ogg’s is exceptionally good, because I have a wide range of files at high and low bit-rates with sampling rates down to 22khz and very old codecs (pre-release, even) for Xiph; everything plays well – Rockbox is no better.
It has to be difficult for a company to concede control of how their product is used to independent, Open Source hackers. After all, keeping DAPs closed and used merely as a conduit to the company music store is the business model for the most successful music players. Unsurprising, then, that competitors like Sandisk hoped to collect continuing revenue similarly. Certainly, they’re not getting that revenue for Ogg and FLAC files on FUZE players.
I say that Sandisk and their coders should be given credit (and thanks!) for doing something that’s simply nice for their customers, even though economic benefits to them are uncertain.
