Sansa Media Converter.

Thank you for posting a helpful response bearozoo. I wonder tho, do I still need to run the avi thru the SMC or can I just drag and drop them onto the player? The problem I have is that the SMC software itself is the issue. It just won’t work after install. I have the sanza Fuze 2gb model with the firmware version 1.01.22 installed and SMC version 1.04.256. I have contacted Sandisk about the problem, they insist that if I just re download, and install SMC until it works, then my issue will be resolved. After half a dozen times of doing this, I pretty much knew it was an issue with the SMC, not my computer, the download, or the install.

Tapeworm, I really don’t know what your problem is. I wasn’t attacking you at all. I wasn’t even attacking sansa. I was pointing out the simple truth about their SMC software, it was thought up by someone who hates the world. Why publish and continue to support a software that only works for random users at random times? I have been reading stuff on these boards for the last month, trying out different possible solutions to try and work around the SMC problem. I cannot figure this thing out. I did not engineer nor program this device, why should I do anything except point out the problem and expect the company who created the problem to address the mistake and resolve it? It seems you would rather I not hold someone accountable. How republican. 

As it has been stated, I just want this device to work properly. If the issue is the SMC software, then obviously an alternative needs to be implimented. Not ignored and left to wayside while people like you tear concerned customers apart like a hungry phirana. If they are currently working on a solution, then an update would be nice. If this problem somehow never gets resolved, then I would have no choice but to take my player back and get something else. Why would this seem like a threat? Simple fact is a simple fact. If Sansa feels threatened by this, then they should probably work to resolve the issue ASAP and not when it is convenient. 

If you continue to pick my posts apart to make it seem like I am a troll who just wants to stir the pot, you might as well just stop posting here. I know admins who work for Sansa frequent these boards, and my wish is for them to see this thread and understand just what it is that customers are dealing with. Maybe at that point they might feel more inclined to address the situation and work towards a speedy resolution, not just throw their hands up and tell us to deal with what we have. At the end of the day, when all is said and done, unhappy customers are unhappy customers who won’t feel inclined to recommend this sleek and sexy player to friends, family, and co workers, instead feeling inclined to be truthful about its flaws and Sansa’s attitude about the problem. 

I don’t know how else to put it. 

UPDATE:

I downloaded and installed Winavi version 8.0 from http://www.winavi.com. I converted a movie that I had, and then opened up my media player and drag + dropped it directly to the videos folder. I then tried playing the video and… it worked perfectly. If you have any problems with SMC, just use winavi and drag + drop the files, it works. Don’t forget to change the resolution and FPS in the advanced options in Winavi. 224x176 @ 20 fps should work fine. I converted The Dark Knight to start, and it went from 800mb to 320 mb, retaining the original widescreen format, picture clarity, and audio timing. 

The only downside: For some reason trying to fast forward in the movie causes the player to give the unsupported media type message. You can pause, and even go between the home menu, but if you plan on watching anything, be prepared to sit thru the whole thing. I am going to try to break movies down into separate files according to chapter, then playing them, and see if I can watch them that way, but for now, this works. 

@ Bearozoo: Thank you for pointing me in a better direction, giving me a tip on how to fix my problem. I appreciate it and I hope anyone else who is having problems benefits from this solution as well. My new mission: bumping this thread in hopes people can resolve their issues without having to wait for sansa. 

@ Tapeworm: Please take a vacation. 

Edit: there is a problem when you choose to resume to watch some videos, the video stutters upon resume. Otherwise, no problems so far. 

Message Edited by boburanus on 12-28-2008 09:32 PM

I use “123 DVD To PSP” to put my DVD movies on my harddrive (such as Wanted and Iron Man). When I created MP4 files (which SMC said it supports) SMC just locked up. I then had 123 create a WMV file. When I used SMC to convert it everything came out fine. The volume is a little low so my plan to fix it is to use Windows Movie maker. I will import the WMV into WMM, increase the volume, then render the movie as another WMV.  I will also try to render it as an AVI to see if that worked better.

Does anybody want to know the results?

sure :slight_smile:

Keep in mind that Winavi will allow you to convert your videos into a format that can be dragged and dropped onto your player without needing SMC. Skips that step completely. Also converts vids very fast. 

jeffuze, I’m most definately interested.

If I send you a dvd, microsd card, and SASE, what would you charge to make a working copy of my movie?

LOL

boburanus-

Excellent find on the winavi application.  Hey, they bottom line here is to share our findings in the hope of having a better experience for everyone, right?

But I feel compelled to mention that in a two party system, it’s rather pointless to blame the Republicans for every problem we have.  Bulldogging the system is a sport played by both parties, with the requisite blame on the other side of the aisle.  Look long enough at the whole picture, and you’ll see that corruption knows no specific party.  There are other differences that I will refrain from delving into, as these touch upon human nature.

As for SanDisk and the Sansa Media Converter, rest assured that they are trying to invent a better mousetrap.  The proof is in the successive iterations of the SMC, one from ArcSoft, and one from InterVideo.  It gets really nasty when you take into account that we are all running different computers, and the installed codecs and operating systems will fight eachother.

The repair involves subvendors, rights, and negotiations from a corporate side.  Heavy stuff.

I have found that installing a codec pack like k-lite or CCCP, the latest Quicktime, among others, gives the SMC the tools it needs for proper conversion.  On my particular system, I have a standalone version plus the 4.236 I/V release.  I prefer the usable photo cropping tool for the e280, plus it is happy with the Fuze.

Bob  :smileyvery-happy:

@boburanus wrote:

Tapeworm, I really don’t know what your problem is. I wasn’t attacking you at all. I wasn’t even attacking sansa. I was pointing out the simple truth about their SMC software, it was thought up by someone who hates the world. Why publish and continue to support a software that only works for random users at random times? I have been reading stuff on these boards for the last month, trying out different possible solutions to try and work around the SMC problem. I cannot figure this thing out. I did not engineer nor program this device, why should I do anything except point out the problem and expect the company who created the problem to address the mistake and resolve it? It seems you would rather I not hold someone accountable. How republican. 

I have absolutely no problem with what you’ve said, in this or your initial posting. It was the tone and attitude projected in your subsequent 2nd post that spurred my response. ‘Bumping’ a thread to keep it at the top of the board is very irritating to everyone except the ‘bumper’. And is considered immaturish and troll-like behavior and not tolerated on most forums.

I’m in full agreement with you that there are problems, and they need to be addressed. You (and everyone) have the right to expect a product to work as advertised. But I don’t believe this forum is the most direct way to convey your unhappiness to the powers that be, is all. And seeing the same thread ‘bumped up’ daily to make you feel like you’re doing what is necessary to make yourself heard is unfair to everyone else. I have no problem with people protesting their unhappiness with a situation, but when that protest infringes on my rights or inconveniences me, then yes I take offense to it.

You have and can continue to calmly state your objections, opinions and suggestions. I will even defend your right to do so. But when you inject a tone in only your 2nd post ever on this forum and announce that you are going to subject everyone here to seeing this thread daily until SanDisk does something about the SMC problems; I just think that’s a little extreme. Had you not purposely stated your intentions and instead just added a new post every day with relevant discussion or suggestions, it would accomplish the same result, but be a lot less irritating and insulting to everyone. Just seeing a post with the word ‘Bump’ in it though, you have to admit gets old real quick.

So I apologize for misinterpreting your intentions and simply reacting to the ‘way’ they were conveyed. First impressions and all. I was not attacking you personally, only the manner in which you words read on my computer screen. But in the future, let’s at least leave politics out of it, can we? :wink:

@ neutron_bob: I understand the differences between codecs, operating systems, media players, ect. The issue I am having is no matter what I do, SMC won’t even launch. If it had been a matter of the wrong codec, the problem would have been solved much sooner. I have the latest k-lite, quick time, xp codec pack, ect, ect. I simply cannot get SMC to do anything but seemingly die of stagefright as soon as I launch it. Thankfully, someone came forward with an alternative program to SMC. Also, I apologize for using political labels, coming off an 8 year republican binge will put just about anyone in a sour mood about it.

@ Tapeworm: I understand how things work, but you have to understand that I did contact sansa. I took the ‘correct’ steps to try and solve the problem. I got no where. What do you do when you have written your congressman for the 15th time to no avail? You call 10,000 of your closest friends and picket in the streets. Good think I chose to just ‘annoy’ people on a message board instead. 

Oh, and BTW, BUMP. 

 

I think that we have to give credit and show respect to Tapeworm who have posted more than two thousand messages in this forum to help people out if he does not get paid from Sandisk.

 

After experiencing sluggish performance of Sansa Media Converter, i have been resorting to other programs to do video conversion, including WinAvi, Rhapsody, Prime Video Converter, any-video-converter, etc. All of them work well for some video types but not all video types. If i have to pick one as the best, maybe it is WinAvi; well, you have to pay nice bucks for it.

 

Just make sure to install the most updated version of K-Lite Codec Mega Pack, which is free.

 

Although i am not very happy about SMC, i am still a happy Sansa Fuze costomer, why should i look for more given the extremely reasonable price of Sansa Fuze compared with other similar products.

 

 

@boburanus wrote:

@ neutron_bob: I understand the differences between codecs, operating systems, media players, ect. The issue I am having is no matter what I do, SMC won’t even launch. If it had been a matter of the wrong codec, the problem would have been solved much sooner. I have the latest k-lite, quick time, xp codec pack, ect, ect. I simply cannot get SMC to do anything but seemingly die of stagefright as soon as I launch it. Thankfully, someone came forward with an alternative program to SMC. Also, I apologize for using political labels, coming off an 8 year republican binge will put just about anyone in a sour mood about it.

 

 

@ Tapeworm: I understand how things work, but you have to understand that I did contact sansa. I took the ‘correct’ steps to try and solve the problem. I got no where. What do you do when you have written your congressman for the 15th time to no avail? You call 10,000 of your closest friends and picket in the streets. Good think I chose to just ‘annoy’ people on a message board instead. 

 

Oh, and BTW, BUMP. 

Message Edited by kevin02454 on 12-29-2008 09:04 PM

Message Edited by kevin02454 on 12-29-2008 09:12 PM

Gosh! You are my hero! Converting with WinAVI works fine for me. Now I play a little bit with the settings to increase the quality a bit.

But as for now I’m quite confident

Thanks!!

so are you converting a DVD straight to some flavor of AVI and then D & D into the Fuze? Or is it already some AVI that goes into WinAVI which then produces another flavored AVI that is D&D?

thanks. 

Since WinAVI is a commercial software, I do not think that anything is solved here. Initially SMC should do the job for the most common video formats. Sansa sells a not ready for market product which needs additional investment. This is not acceptable in any way.

" Sansa sells a not ready for market product which needs additional investment. This is not acceptable in any way. "

Well, I did it…I purchased an Archos 605 wifi 4gb flash with my $100 ebay gift card. Had to buy a refurbed dvd video dock from the Archos site. Got a good price.

Based on the lack of response by Sansa to the MANY complaints about SMC,I just don’t think Sansa is going to do anything soon.

I hope the Archos suits my Video needs better.

This is one consumer who voted with his pocketbook.

And I still chafe at the thought of starting over because of Sansa misrepresenting the Fuze as far as video capability.(edit-as far as SMC’s reliability.)

Message Edited by ickster on 12-30-2008 08:01 AM

@kevin02454 wrote:

After experiencing sluggish performance of Sansa Media Converter, i have been resorting to other programs to do video conversion, including WinAvi, Rhapsody, Prime Video Converter, any-video-converter, etc. All of them work well for some video types but not all video types. If i have to pick one as the best, maybe it is WinAvi; well, you have to pay nice bucks for it.


I believe you hit the nail on the head here, Kevin! With so many different videos formats out there, it’s very hard (maybe impossible) for 1 program to ‘do it all’. And SMC is just another one of those conversion programs. As you say, they ALL work with some formats, but NOT all formats.

While it’s obvious that many people have problems converting videos to display on their Sansas and while SanDisk should be able to provide (for free) a conversion program that works 100% if the time, maybe we are all looking for and expecting something that does not exist yet. A lot depends on the source format that you are attempting to convert.

There are dozens of video formats, but far fewer audio formats. MP3 obviously is the most popular and just about any portable player will handle this format very well. But some people prefer FLAC or OGG. SanDisk just recently was able to add this support to it’s Fuze & Clip firmware. Many other players don’t yet support these formats and some never will. So I think to suggest that SanDisk is sitting behind the 8-ball, or ignoring it’s customers and what they want is unfair.

As you say, the  best you’ve found that works on the most different formats is WinAvi, and it’s not a FREE program. Additionally, if you look at their website, you’ll discover even they do not have a ‘one-size-fits-all’ program. There are different programs for different formats.

So maybe we can’t lay 100% of the blame and fault at SanDisk’s doorstep. Although it would be nice to know up front exactly what videos formats SMC will convert, and which ones it won’t. This is not spelled out in the release notes and really should be. For obvious liablility reasons, they (SanDisk) can’t, or won’t recommend any other converison program. But at least if we are told what formats will not convert properly with SMC, we can seek out & find the programs that will on our own.

By the way, thank you for your kind words. I do try to help when I can and enjoy doing so. But we all have our ‘snarky’ days once in a while. :wink:

I noticed SMC creates 2 files for each video - the main video file (avi) and a much smaller file.  What is that for?

The small file is a kind of Info and Index file. Normal structured programming method, though too distributed for my liking. It basically directs the program how to use the file and it likely gets added to a main index file in the root directory of the Sansa, also building the directory tree (done by a background program). This is just an educated guess, but likely true, I’d have to dump the file and figure it out to know for sure. :wink:

Well, just one format working for transfer using SMC would be fantastic. But it is just not possible (I tried a lot, even the VLC conversion -> missing codec error message). Conclusion: There is a big f*#k up considering the current SMC version and I got no helpful reply until yet.

BTW: I am not expecting an convertor that can do miracles. :wink:

@noki wrote:

so are you converting a DVD straight to some flavor of AVI and then D & D into the Fuze? Or is it already some AVI that goes into WinAVI which then produces another flavored AVI that is D&D?

 

thanks. 

@Basically, I am taking videos that have been ripped from dvd into Xvid format and then running them through Winavi under the settings 224x176 @ 20 fps and then the files themselves work by simply drag + drop onto the player. No need for SMC. I know that Winavi isn’t free, but for $9 I would much rather be able to watch videos than have to deal with a $70 player that won’t play videos using the companies own software, which came free. 

Unfortunately, I can’t garuntee that everyone will have the same success as myself. If you are not sure as to what type of codec is needed to play a video file, use a program called GSpot. It can be downloaded here for free:

www.headbands.com/ gspot /

This is a very lightweight utility that will give you all the relevant info on the file type associated with a particular video. If your videos turn out to be in xvid format, they will able to go directly into the Winavi program with no additional codecs/conversion and then D&D directly onto your player. This is essentially the quickest program I have seen in a long time. Took me 11 mins to convert The Dark Knight which was 800mb, into a 320 mb file that took 3 mins to copy over to the player. In less than 15 mins I was watching the Dark Knight on my player. Yes I own the DVD, I do not condone any illegal downloading of any sort. It is out there, but it is up to you if you want to get caught. 

If you are in a situation where you are dealing with an H264 format of avi or some version of Divx, or even a different format altogether such as wmv or mov, then you can use a program called  Magic Video Converter to convert that file into Xvid which will then work with Winavi. I haven’t yet found a file that MVC won’t convert. 

The software can be downloaded here:

http://www.magic-video-software.com/download.html

Lastly, if you have a DVD and you want to rip video from it using Magic Video Converter, you can then use the output from that and convert it with Winavi. The output AVI format will automatically work on a Fuze player by D&D. 

Good stuff!  g-Spot is great for a quick snapshot of “what 'ya got” in a video file.

The teeny file generated is a still frame for the GUI of the Fuze.

Bob  :smileyvery-happy:

Message Edited by neutron_bob on 12-30-2008 06:42 PM

Thanks boburanus for your response. will give it a go when time permits. BTW how did you get WinAVI 8.0 for $9? it’s $30 on their site.

Happy new year to all here!!

Noki