Sansafix.....I know you are there

Check  no

OK?

It probably is not being addressed.

I have felt some frustration too, but I’ve just had to realize that it’s only a $100 mp3 player.

Already you get an FM radio, voice recorder, FM radio recorder, photo viewer and on top of all of that you get video capability with a quirky video converter.  Wouldn’t it be great if you could just drag and drop mpeg 4, avi, or whatever directly?  Yes.  But it’s not a $500 device, and it’s not a laptop, and it’s not a real video player.  You CAN get a protable DVD player with a LOT bigger screen that has USB and memory card capability that will play DivX movies as well, for under $100!

So despite all the capability, it is only what it is.  And Sansa is probably not going to spend another $250,000 next year to upgrade the converter and make it perfect. 

I agree that it would be “nice” of them to state the exact status of things, but this world is not perfect.

Whether you’re seeking help from a volunteer or a paid professional, you’ll get further with politeness than hostility.

Okay folks, let’s keep it civil. Taunts and insults have absolutely no place here on the forum.

The primary purpose of this forum is for users to share findings and experiences in the interest of getting the most from your Sansa.  The SanDisk staff visit regularly, but like the rest of us, we have other tasks to do, not just monitoring the forums 24 hours a day.

If you have an urgent concern, feel free to call 1-866-SANDISK during business hours.  An ounce of civility goes further than a mountain of insults.

Bob  :cry:

I started to reply with what I do to convert (flawlessly) full length movies but, meh, decided to delete it.

Whatever…My anger and hostility didn’t start until I was ignored and  insulted. My last post on this, but I stand by everything I’ve said on this subject.

Pitiful.

Imo Sandisk should have left off the video on the Fuze, and added more audio features instead. How about AM radio, a microphone jack, and ability to record in mp3 with a user selectable bitrate? Video on a player with such a small screen is imo silly. The short runtime also makes video on the Fuze impractical. There is the View for those who want video. Imo a feature should only be added to a player if it can be robust and high performance. I wouldn’t describe video on the Fuze as being that way. Voice recording on the Fuze is marginally useful, however I would have like to have it improved instead of having video(many students need to be able to record lectures for the back of a large room). Now that tape recorders are disappearing, there are no practical, small, inexpensive digital recorders with a mic jack that are capable of recording lectures from the rear of a large lecture hall.

I’ve heard several people say that. I respectfully disagree. I have already flown once with my Fuze and was quite happy watching a movie. Of course this old fart needed my reading glasses, but the unit wedged nicely in the seatback and was quite watchable. I have several dozen old public domain movies on many cards that I watch at night when I don’t want to disturb the wifal unit.  I can see the picture just fine. If I put the unit up to my face, the Fuze is a big screen TV LOL.The audio delay issue really chafes my butt, made worse by the lack of progress (never mind) acknowledgement on this issue.  

There were 3 times as many movies that did not convert than did. And it took me three days to figure out how to get that far.

  My bottom line is that I DID indeed buy this unit to wach videos and I really feel gypped. It didn’t say on the box “Primarily an MP3 player, your on your own on the video thing” I would have seen that, I’m sure.

@ jfencl
 Can You think about posting your way to convert video’s again? please?

I will be Thankfull

Rik

jk98

“Video on a player with such a small screen is imo silly”

I thought so too!  but I have been surprised.  If you get good quality video material off You-tube for instance, the results are acutally quite spectacular…and entertaining, on your commute to work or waiting for a ride, etc.

I agree that it would be great to have a mic jack.  But it’s pretty cool that there’s voice recording at all.

Don’t the small Olympus digital recorders that have replaced the older microcasette units have a subminiature mic input jack?

Or Sitting at a biology lesson, with a full harry potter film makes biology nice.

So every day I’m waiting for biology:smileyvery-happy:

The Quality is absolutely exeeding expectations if you ask me, only my father finds it small, but if I’m holding it half an arm whem sitting on the couch it is (relatively) the same size than watching tv.

So people are (look) the same size, but we don’t have a giant flat screen but an old Television, maybe that’s why.

I Enjoy looking to it, fully.

Rik

We are working on a future firmware upgrade which will allow you to use standard freely available video convertors in addition to SMC and Rhapsody.

Thank you.

That would be awesome, Thank you sansafix :slight_smile:

Maybe a stupid question, but is it an idea to make the fuze compatible with more formats?

When I Download a film, I can’t simply drag it, but I have to use SMC.

I would like to simply drag my films to the fuze, (they have mostly WMV and AVI extentions.)

Rik

I Would like Simple dragging to put my films on the fuze, can that be realized by a firmware upgrade?

My Video´s have usually got an AVI extention, and there are a couple of WMV´s.

(or better (in my case) Can I use WMP to synchronize the films to it??)

Rik

Today, most treat things such as video to be magic.  If the thing doesn’t work as a “plug and play” option, tempers flare.  Video, and conversion to display on the Sansa, is far more complex than it seems.

Digital video, broadcast captures posted on sites like YouTube, and worldwide transfers from different video standards (NTSC / PAL / SECAM), all written to a video file via different algorithms, make this a big challenge.

Now we have MPEG (in its iterations), AVI, DivX, MOV, VOB, et cetera thrown into the digital side, and upcoming ATSC.

I’ve been reading up on changes in video in Keith Jack’s book.  As we convert from one format to another, things get hairy as frame rates interlace, and errors occur in the rounding of these calculations.  Because of the source video, there aren’t synchronization keys we could magically re-sync the audio and video with.

If I remember right, the frame rate isn’t exactly 30FPS in broadcast NTSC, it’s slightly lower, in the order of 29.97, changed to help in chroma issues and interference.  This difference in rates gets larger as we go to digital, and have to recalculate with each frame.

I grew up correcting for aging vacuum tubes, tweaking varactor tuners, replacing dried capacitors, and working with the vectorscope plus oscilloscope to get a cool picture.  Today, we just bang at the keyboard and toss the mouse from the desk in frustration when the magic doesn’t happen.

Hey, it’s a zen experience realigning the yoke coil on a 1960s TV set, knowing that the glass used in that huge tube required safety glass in front of the actual tube, in case of implosion.  For those so inclined, take 1 bar atmospheric pressure, multiplied over the surface area of a 19-inch scope, in vacuum.

Discharging the 30kV flyback prior to service is a hair-raiser, quite literally.

SanDisk has indeed been working on the problem, and it’s a complex one.  There have been two vendors for the Media Converter, and several revisions.  The e200 and Fuze (currently three platforms, allowing for screen differences) are one facet, and the View with its unique chipset are all in the mix.

Please remember that it’s the audio and functionality issues of these devices that have the most pressing need, with new OGG and FLAC issues, plus integration with services like Rhapsody and Audible to consider. 

Lastly, there’s the upcoming µSDHC expansion into the “8GB and beyond” regions, and integrating file storage format limitations with the other, often-overlooked (here on the forum) much larger market for these devices: phones and cameras.  It’s that huge market for them that makes them so affordable for our Sansa toys!

For those willing to try it, importing video with the Rhapsody 4 client (no subscription required to do so) is slower, but it does work.  With a little patience, I’m sure that the InterVideo software will be updated too.

Bob  :smileyvery-happy:

@sansafix wrote:
We are working on a future firmware upgrade which will allow you to use standard freely available video convertors in addition to SMC and Rhapsody.

That’s really good news.  Even if there’s never a one-click, no brainer solution, at least with ability to use any available tools the community is sure to come up with a good process.

Thanks to everyone on the input! This is all I asked for, confirmation that the powers that be are indeed aware of these issues and are trying to fix them.

Neutron Bob sz.

"SanDisk has indeed been working on the problem, and it’s a complex one.  There have been two vendors for the Media Converter, and several revisions.  The e200 and Fuze (currently three platforms, allowing for screen differences) are one facet, and the View with its unique chipset are all in the mix.

Please remember that it’s the audio and functionality issues of these devices that have the most pressing need, with new OGG and FLAC issues, plus integration with services like Rhapsody and Audible to consider"

and boy that is exactly what I asked for. Thanks.

I’m not naive, I’ve been frustrated with windows for years.  All things good come with the bad…yin/yang…Everything has to have it’s flaws…nothing is perfect…I get it.  I have gotten some things to work and like I’m sure I did say, I really do like my Fuze.

Fix the audio lag, and I’ll be a lot happier.

But again thanks for finally answering these questions directly.

Imo Sandisk should have left off the video on the Fuze

Absolutely NOT. I thought the same thing at first, but I changed my mind when I actually tried the video feature. It really works great. The quality is OK and the display is just fine for watching anything. of course it is small and not really suitable for feature films, but it is OK anyway. I’ve always thought movie playback in such a small device is a waste of space and battery life, but I was wrong.

I agree, the video feature on the Fuze is wonderful.

If I play a clip from a DVD on the Fuze, it has a great “Wow!” factor when showing the device to the curious.  The Fuze, compared against its sister e200v2, has excellent off-axis viewing with its new TFT display.  The image is a wee bit softer, with slightly less color saturation, but the tradeoff in viewability is worth the changes.

It’s quite difficult to have the video conversion work perfectly on all PC installations, since there are so many variables in the video files available, plus the variables involved in requisite codecs on the host computer.

Remember that the avi format needed can indeed be ported to the Fuze, though it’s a bit slower, by using the Rhapsody 4 client.  This capability was a cool move by SanDisk in achieving better universal compatibility, building the correct video in the correct “container” for the Sansa.

Bob  :stuck_out_tongue: