Potential owner - Questions about the Fuze

I’m looking at getting an 8gb Fuze but I have a couple of questions.  I have searched both the forums and Google for answers to these things and have come up mostly empty.

  1. During fast forwarding/rewinding, can you hear the audio?  If the answer is no, is there any software that will allow me to do that, or is it a hardware limitation?  I listen to downloaded radio shows and would like to be able to fast forward through certain sections.  I do this currently by ear.  I can hear the audio and know when the particular section is over to resume play.  Since the sections are varying in length, simply looking at the time during fast forwarding really doesn’t help me.
  2. On a related quesiton, is it possible to configure the buttons to skip forward or backward through a track by a given number of seconds? I.e., hitting the >>| button would skip forward 10 seconds instead of moving to the next track and a double tap of >>| would skip to the next track.
  3. I’ve read in some places that there is a limit of ~4000 songs for the Fuze’s library.  Is this true and if so is there any update on a plan to increase that number with future firmware upgrades?  Do ALL files on the Fuze contribute toward that number or only music files that are considered part of the library?  In other words, I would assume that pictures or even audio books would NOT be considered in that number as I wouldn’t think they would be integrated into the library.

Thanks for any help that you guys can provide!

  1. You can’t hear anything during fast forward. I don’t think is has anything to do with hardware. But until now, you don’t have any choice about the software either. I don’t know how this is in rockbox, once its ported to fuze.

  2. Hitting the >>| button skips to the next track. Holding it for longer does the ff, depending on how long you hold it. This is not configurable.

  3. The limit applies only to files that are in the song database. But I have faith in sandisk, that they release a firmware update that fixes this in the future.

I don’t think that sandisk will do anything about 1. or 2. Your only chance in my opinion is rockbox.

@calv wrote:

  1. You can’t hear anything during fast forward. I don’t think is has anything to do with hardware. But until now, you don’t have any choice about the software either. I don’t know how this is in rockbox, once its ported to fuze.

 

  1. Rockbow does the same than sansa fuze frimware : it does not read the track during the fastforward.
  1. Hitting the >>| button skips to the next track. Holding it for longer does the ff, depending on how long you hold it. This is not configurable.

 

 2. As far as I can remember, rockbox does the same, too.

Unfortunately, very few players seem to have the ability to hear music while fast-forwarding.  It happens with all analog playback devices, because it simply speeds up the reading of the file, so you hear it played back at a faster rate.  Digital devices do all the “reading” part of playback at the digital level, which is then converted to an analog signal.  Fast-forwarding in these devices simply skips ahead in the track based on how long you hold the button down (this is why you fast-forward or rewind in small increments, and often end up at the same “spot”, its skipping ahead a certain amount, rather than actually speeding through the playback directly.  So there is nothing to be converted during these times, so you get no sound.  They could, however, possibly implement this feature through software, forcing the player to fast-forward the playback, as analog devices do, and then feed it through the DAC, so you can hear the song as you FF or RW.  This is what most CD players do, remember they are digital as well.  However, this method could be limited by how the SOC itself operates, and may not be possible, or it may be so buried in the source code for the FW that it would not be feasible for them to implement this, so we shall see.

The other features are simple software add-ons, the file limit WILL be fixed, the other feature is something they may do if they see enough demand for it.

That makes sense, but it’s a bummer.  At least it sounds like there’s hope that the file limit will be fixed.

@cruiserdude wrote:

Unfortunately, very few players seem to have the ability to hear music while fast-forwarding. 

Maybe it’s an issue or limitaion (if you will) of the processor chip used in the Fuze. As stated, the sound output is ‘muted’ during fast-forwarding and rewinding as it also is in the e200v2 series machine that uses the same chip.

However, in my v1 unit (that has the different processor), you can indeed hear the speeded-up output during ff & rew. I find it useful to ff through commericals in radio program podcats, as they can be 5 minutes or so in length. This is with the Sansa original firmware.

That’s very interesting.  Too bad those v1’s have other issues or I might look for a refurbed e280.

I know this is a Sandisk forum, but does anyone know of ANY players that allow you to hear the audio while fast forwarding?

@bbexperience wrote:

That’s very interesting.  Too bad those v1’s have other issues or I might look for a refurbed e280.

 

I know this is a Sandisk forum, but does anyone know of ANY players that allow you to hear the audio while fast forwarding?

What other v1 issues are you referring to? Other than the sound quality supposedly being better in the v2, and it only taking up to a 2GB card w/o Rockbox, I don’t recall any ‘bad press’ unique to the v1.

To check out players other than SanDisk’s all in one place, you may want to check out the anythingbutipod forums. You may have to wait longer for a response to any questions you post there, as that site doesn’t seem to get the volume of traffic that this one does, but they have sub-forums on just about every make & model of mp3 player. :smiley:

@bbexperience wrote:

That’s very interesting.  Too bad those v1’s have other issues or I might look for a refurbed e280.

 

I know this is a Sandisk forum, but does anyone know of ANY players that allow you to hear the audio while fast forwarding?

What other v1 issues are you referring to? Other than the sound quality supposedly being better in the v2, and it only taking up to a 2GB card w/o Rockbox, I don’t recall any ‘bad press’ unique to the v1.

To check out players other than SanDisk’s all in one place, you may want to ‘mosey on over’ to the anythingbutipod forums. You may have to wait longer for a response to any questions you post there, as that site doesn’t seem to get the volume of traffic that this one does, but they have sub-forums on just about every make & model of mp3 player. :smiley:

I guess I wasn’t considering Rockbox in the equation as I’ve never had occasion to use it.  How complicated is it to install and how much does it complicate (or ease) the usability of the device?  I’ll have to look at the features it adds to the v1’s.  The main things the v1 lacks for me out of the box are microSDHC support and Audible support.  Also, it seems like I read somewhere that the e series has the same library size limitation that the Fuze currently does, and I doubt that would get updated since they seem to be retired.  Of course that would only become an issue with microSDHC support.

I’m really wanting the Fuze, but I’m thinking that not hearing the audio during fast forward is sort of a deal breaker for my use.

Message Edited by bbexperience on 11-24-2008 03:57 PM

I agree hearing the output while skipping through the commercials in a radio program is nice to have. It’s funny, I hadn’t even noticed it wasn’t there until you mentioned it. I have a v1 that I picked up on E-Bay pretty cheap with the intention of putting Rockbox on it, but I haven’t dedicated the time to do it yet. In the meantime however, I use this player just for radio podcasts.

Being that my other players (v2 & Fuze) are the ones with all my music on them and since I rarely have occasion to ff through a song, I didn’t notice that these players didn’t have this ‘feature’.

And I don’t (as yet anyway) have to time to listen to Audio books, so I wasn’t thinking about the lack of Audible support on the v1’s.

You could always just pick up an in-expensive v1 unit just for your radio programs like I did. I hear Newegg.com is selling re-furbed e250s (2GB) for $25 and the e280s (8GB) for $48 plus free shipping. 2 gigs, I’m sure would be more than enough room for your radio shows. Then you could get a nice shiny new Fuze for your serious music listening enjoyment. :wink:


EDIT: Newegg must have sold out of these. I checked after I posted this and they are no longer listed. I’m not surprised  that they weren’t around for long at that price.

Message Edited by Tapeworm on 11-25-2008 02:09 PM

On the v1 device, you must convert your Audible books to mp3 with an application like Nero first, as it doesn’t support the .aa format directly from Audible.

This is why I searched the planet for a v2.  Originally, I used the Sansa Clip for books.  As teeny as the device is, it’s great for books.  The current firmware for the Fuze has issues with the µSD card and Audible, to be repaired in a future firmware release.  Also, only the 32KB/s Format 4 works properly with 01.01.15.  (01.01.11 is the workaround currently)

I prefer Format 3 for more file space.

You’ll find that the Fuze is still a wonderful device, with excellent sound.

Edit: Updated!  The new Audible format, Enhanced , is 64 kb/s, and is compatible with the latest firmware for both revision 1 and 2 Fuzes.  The new format is the aax format.

Bob  :wink:

Message Edited by neutron_bob on 05-14-2009 11:36 PM