Firmware Suggestions and Bug Fixes

[themixtape]

Ok, so I just got my 4G Zen ("Creative Zen") and put the latest firmware on.... here are just a few problems I've found:

- in shuffle play, occasionally you can't use the directional pad (left and right) to shuffle tracks. Instead, the bottom right play/pause button is how to advance your shuffle play. Um... yeah.

- Microphone- I can access the section. I can click the top right button... and it gives me the option to "Start Recording." As soon as I do, I get a blank screen, and I need to reset, thus the Zen "rebuilding" the database.

These are just a couple.... I'm sure I'll find more. The mic thing REALLY pisses me off because I bought it mainly for that reason (recording song ideas on the fly wherever I am).

[CrowdAds]

[wuhan_clan]

Originally Posted by Hartmeister

In ID3 mode the SD card and internal memory are completely integrated in the D2. What some Cowon users want is the relative magical ability to switch between SD and Internal memory in the directory browse mode (you can switch the ID3 tag system off in the D2 and browse like we did when we didn't use ID3 tagging to navigate in MP3 players, Cowon was the last major player to add ID3 tag systems and it keeps the old system available) without going through the root. The difference of the level of SD integration between the D2 and the Zen is huge.

How well does the D2 integrate internal/SDcard using ID3? Perhaps I am unaware of how advanced ID3 is now.
In order for the integration to work seamlessly, the Zen (or D2) needs to be able to identify where to sort the files on the SDcard. Using ID3v2, we can determine a lot of things but some information is still missing. Specifically, nothing determines whether an audio file is actually music, voice recording, audiobook. The internal memory of the Zen, as of now, has separate menus for Music and Recordings, but no audiobook.
How about for videos? I have separate folders for Movies, TV, podcasts right now. But if I have all three kinds in the same folder on my SDcard, how will these get distinguished. Is there a way to tag a video that I am unaware of?

The whole internal/SDcard integration just isn't as easy and clearcut as one would think.

[ghostzen]

Why the integration does not exist is anyone's speculation.

I think the answer is simple. Integration means it's cheaper to buy a 2gb player with a 8gb SDHC card than buying a 4gb zen. My guess is that for creative the higher capacity players are probably more profitable than the smaller ones. So I would be surprised if they would come up with firmware that fully integrates the card.

[Apex_]

Originally Posted by ghostzen

I think the answer is simple. Integration means it's cheaper to buy a 2gb player with a 8gb SDHC card than buying a 4gb zen. My guess is that for creative the higher capacity players are probably more profitable than the smaller ones. So I would be surprised if they would come up with firmware that fully integrates the card.

I asked Creative support about the issue while considering a Zen purchase. They more or less said it won't be patched in firmware, going on to blame Microsoft's MTP for it. It kind of sucks that the functionality I (and a lot of other users) want is being held back by a standard I'm not even going to use. I guess eventually I'll have to give in to the new wave...I fear the days of plug and play MSD PMPs are numbered.

Originally Posted by Creative Customer Support

Thank you for contacting Creative Labs. You are correct, the SD memory will not integrate into the primary memory on the Zen player. This is due to some limitations set forth by the MTP device standard and will most likely not be remedied in future firmware updates. The majority of our customer's have been using the main memory for music storage and then using the SD slot for video content since you will usually have less video content and thus it requires less organization than your music library. Please let us know if we can help you any further.

[Valdr]

Well, I'm not sure if its all true since D2 integrates into one library both ID3 from internal memory and SD card. Which customer support have you contacted, the one I'm trying to talk to gives me more questions than answers ...

[Satsumomo]

I'm sure this has been suggested before but, I would LOVE to have these 3 options:

- Deleting a track completely from the playlist menu
- Able to search by keyword in a currently playing playlist
- Add to current list & Play option. It's annoying that if I have an open playlist, and decide to listen to one other song, it will jump to that song and make it the current playlist.

That is all

[podcatcher]

I'm not sure if it's only on the newest firmware, but I can delete tracks from a playlist or menu and can search by keyword within a playlist. Maybe those are all new features and so I'm missing the sarcasm. I don't understand the third one you're talking about, so I can't say if you've gone 3/3 and therefore are more likely to be joking..

[SimonL]

Hi,
There's a bug fix that I'd desperately like to see, becuase its affecting me right now. The factory reset does not reset the brightness, nor does upgrading the firmware.
I don't know if it affects everyone, i think mine is an early zen, but its a real pain.
If you forget to put the button lock on, the brightness can get turn up to full, so the screen goes completely white, and you can't see a thing.

Last time this happened I could remeber where on the menus the brightness setting was so I managed to get the right sequence of button presses to get to the brightness option and sort it out.

The thing is I can't remember the menu structure ?
The manual isn't on the zen site for some reason

I don't suppose there's a kind soul out there who can help me out by telling what buttons to press to get from the root menu to the brightness? ..

Go on... be a nice guy .. you'll feel good about yourself for the whole of the rest of the day, I promise ...

[podcatcher]

If I understand what you're looking for, it's System | Display Settings | Brightness. Next time, though, a thread in the main forum.

Firmware Suggestions:

Now with the latest, we have the ability to copy all pictures (not sure if it does other data) from SD to Main Memory, in the Photos | Imported Files section.

-The ability to select an individual photos/files instead of only option for all. (Especially as SDHC cards get larger capacity than the smaller players!)

-The ability to select individual files to push the reverse direction.

-Of course, the ever-present SD full integration, but I'd like to see it as OPTIONAL. I also would prefer if the browse by ID3 tags on the SD card was optional, as I might use the "limitation" to file structure browsing to solve some of my organizational concerns with podcasts. If they don't address some of my other concerns, full SD integration might actually make things worse if it was required.

-"Protected" content hidden from windows/CME unless disabled before docking. Seems silly to have protected folders that can be browsed from PC by default.

I'm sure I'll have more -- I'm still getting to know the player. So far, I love it!

[Buzzkill]

Originally Posted by SimonL

Hi,
There's a bug fix that I'd desperately like to see, becuase its affecting me right now. The factory reset does not reset the brightness, nor does upgrading the firmware.
I don't know if it affects everyone, i think mine is an early zen, but its a real pain.
If you forget to put the button lock on, the brightness can get turn up to full, so the screen goes completely white, and you can't see a thing.

Last time this happened I could remeber where on the menus the brightness setting was so I managed to get the right sequence of button presses to get to the brightness option and sort it out.

The thing is I can't remember the menu structure ?
The manual isn't on the zen site for some reason

I don't suppose there's a kind soul out there who can help me out by telling what buttons to press to get from the root menu to the brightness? ..

Go on... be a nice guy .. you'll feel good about yourself for the whole of the rest of the day, I promise ...

The white screen is a hardware failure. You should return the item.

[Solaris_irc]

Firmware Suggestions:

-To have the option to change the orientation of the UI to Protrait Mode

-To have more funciontions per button like keeping presed the OK button and go to the Now Playing Screen

-To have the SD full integration to the librarie

-make it UMS

-to have the sound options in the options menu in the now playing menu

[Valdr]

Originally Posted by Solaris_irc

Firmware Suggestions:
-To have the option to change the orientation of the UI to Protrait Mode
-To have more funciontions per button like keeping presed the OK button and go to the Now Playing Screen
-To have the SD full integration to the librarie
-make it UMS
-to have the sound options in the options menu in the now playing menu

In my opinion:
- Portrait orientation is not a good idea for TN screen
- You can assign one function to a button and that's ok, if you want player to get back to Now Playing wait a while
- The problem of Zen isn't just the lack of integration, the problem is limited support for SD media, I want more functions, if integration is too hard for them, something like bookmarks for files or zooming for pictures
- I wouldn't mind UMS, but it's impossible, it would need total firmware recoding and not just update
- Sound options in Now Playing menu. That's a good idea it may replace something more useless in that menu.

[dragnandy]

Originally Posted by Solaris_irc

Firmware Suggestions:

-To have the option to change the orientation of the UI to Protrait Mode

that would be interesting! although i wouldn't use it, this would give ALOT of customization for the zen without modding it at all. but my main reasons for a firmware update is only the SD integration and (if possible) native video sizes (like playing videos larger than 320x240).

[jxoco]

Originally Posted by SimonL

I don't suppose there's a kind soul out there who can help me out by telling what buttons to press to get from the root menu to the brightness? ..

Go on... be a nice guy .. you'll feel good about yourself for the whole of the rest of the day, I promise ...

Turn it on.
with a straightened paperclip, click the reset button
wait a few seconds then turn it on again.
wait a bit as it rebuilds itself. maybe 45 seconds. ( the first time I did this it took closer to 1 minute, subsiquent rebuilds took 12 seconds ).
It will be at the music menu.
click 'down' 5 times.
click 'center'
click 'down' 3 times
click 'center'
click 'down' 2 times
click 'center'
now any clicking 'up' and 'down' is adjusting the brightness and a 'center' click will save that setting.

Enjoy! (if it's not really broken. I can't set the brightness of mine to 'washout' brightness so best of luck dude...)

[jxoco]

I'd like the screen to turn off after x seconds or minutes when listening to audio.
I don't think that it is acceptable to only have this happen when it is in the lock position. I should be able to change the volume level and skip forwards/back and have the screen dim to zero within a few seconds.

Every other music player I have does this.

[bigtreepu]

Originally Posted by Giancarlo

If you were to read my signature you would know I have the Vision:M. I have tried it and I think the quality isn't good at all.

In my experience, the quality is more than acceptable. Granted I've been viewing on Televisions 32 inches or smaller. by no means do I think this would look good on a 55 inch. But when I travel (very frequently), it is great. 1.5gb movies are pretty damn good quality.
~Matt

[MTLance]

I bought my Zen because I though it can be a file transporter and MP3/Movies/etc.

Main problem here, and I want everyone to know it, so far I got no problem with my Zen, no crashing, lockups, etc. But I wouldn't suggest you shutting down while listening to radio because you have to reset your Zen afterwards.
Lets get to the point.
OK, I managed to transfer files successfully onto Zen as a Transporter but I'm not happy that it doesn't support a single file that is 4GB + yeah especially my big rar files.

Anyway I'll post the problem in Creative forum as well I hope some of you will take my message and pass it to Creative.

Thank you.

[BobbyRS]

Originally Posted by MTLance

OK, I managed to transfer files successfully onto Zen as a Transporter but I'm not happy that it doesn't support a single file that is 4GB + yeah especially my big rar files.

The Zen uses the Nucleus RTOS (Real Time Operating System) from ATI (Accelerated Technology Inc.) which supports FAT file systems up to FAT32 which has a max file size limit of 4GB. I believe the Nucleus RTOS doesn't support a file system that supports larger then 4GB files.

[MTLance]

Thanks BobbyRS. 4GB limit damn.

[Solaris_irc]

1.-When an mp3 without album, artist, title, etc, is synct to the ZEN it won't show up if it has no ID info, for an example if I sync a file with title and artist but no album, it will show up un the all songs menu and artist, but no in album menu. why???? can't you guys put a function for this, if there is no info on that particular slot in the IDtag can't the ZEN put that this info like unknow by default???



example:



the file will have this info in the IDtag



Artist: Nine Days

Album:

Title: Absolutely



The ZEN will Displayed like this



Artist: Nine Days

Album: Unknown

Title: Absolutely



2.-Fix the issue when the file names get changed or cutted cause this cause to have multiple files of the same song, video, etc, and is relly anoying.



3.-bookmarks on video, would be really nice.



4.-audiobook section on music menu.



5.-audiobook exclude from all music list.



6.-audio config option on now playing screen menu