The Official Insignia Pilot Feature Request List

[Student Driver]

Also, if possible, can ratings (and maybe play count?) be written to the file from the player? I imagine that writing to the file itself might run into more patent/licensing issues if this were the only time you actually alter the file (so code rather than just decode) but if feasible it would be appreciated.

[CrowdAds]

[mattschuette]

Originally Posted by Student Driver

Also, if possible, can ratings (and maybe play count?) be written to the file from the player?

Man, that sounds great, I would love to get play counts off the Pilot. I don't think there is any official tag for storing play count (or rating), so I'm not sure writing to the file would be perfect, but last.fm, foosic.org, etc. support would be appreciated, even if we have to use the lackluster BB program. Also, with tag writing, ID3 is such a clusterfsck anymore that I don't really want it mucking with the tags.

[jimgb]

Pleeease add-

Record (line-in) direct to SD Card
FLV vid support

Thanks !!!

[ip8g_345]

I use Pilot when I am jogging/walking and while listening to Rhapsody Channels I take a quick look to see the name of song/artist.

Currently, it shows album art on the left and song info on the right in rather small font which is hard to grasp when one is on the move and light conditions are not ideal.


I would like to have an (optional) viewing mode (which might be made default in settings) where album art is not shown at all but track info is shown over both left and right part of the screen in 2 or 3 times bigger font so its easy to grasp in one quick look.
Same with RDS info while playing FM radio.

I don't know the coding details of Insignia firmware but I guess it's very easy to implement

[Skinjob]

I think complete functionality in UMS/MSC mode should be a top priority. Most players that bother to support this mode at all tend to treat it as a second class feature, with a lot of functionality being exclusive to MTP.

The Pilot seems to come the closest to having full UMS/MSC functionality. I think it just needs a few tweaks to be really great:

- Full playlist support (seems a little buggy right now) including playlists that span internal and external memory
- Album art support in UMS/MSC mode (ala folder.jpg, etc.)

[covertrussian]

Would it be possible for the Pilot to auto turn on when it received a signal from the headphone jack?

So I have it plugged up in my car into the AUX input in my Sony Headunit. When I start the car, I would like for the pilot to automatically turn on, and even start playing where it left of . Right now the Pilot does this if you have a car charger and it is plugged into the player when you start the car.

I know this is possible because my Creative Zen Vision: M 60GB used to turn on like that all the time

[Tobey]

This wouldn't be possible as the headphone jack is output only. And if your Sony head unit is functioning correctly, the aux jack should be input only. So there would be no way for the Pilot to receive any kind of signal via the headphone jack.

[covertrussian]

Originally Posted by Tobey

This wouldn't be possible as the headphone jack is output only. And if your Sony head unit is functioning correctly, the aux jack should be input only. So there would be no way for the Pilot to receive any kind of signal via the headphone jack.

What about using the input plug on the Pilot?

I'm just wondering how on earth the Creative did it...

[covertrussian]

It looks like when I have the Pilot plugged into my computer, I have issues with getting external hard drives, or digital camera, or cell phone to connect to the computer.

I know it's not my mother board because I can connect all of those devices at once, but when the Pilot is plugged in, I can barely plug in one other item.

[mattschuette]

Originally Posted by covertrussian

I'm just wondering how on earth the Creative did it...

You guys are thinking too hard. Quite often mini jacks have some sort of normally-open or normally-closed switch that toggles when the plug is physically inserted. Wikipedia has an article including a picture that pretty clearly demonstrates the normally-closed setup.

However, this means it's entirely tied to hardware whether the Pilot can support this. If it's not something they are using now, it's probably not available... you wouldn't add the circuitry if you didn't intend to use it. Digitaldel, any insight into the hardware used?

[CPav]

Remember playlist after sync/charge - YES
Bookmarking with entire playlist - YES

[Theseus]

I'm sure it's been brought up before, but how about a request that can also grant a good part of others' firmware wish list: make the Pilot Rockbox-able. It'd make it nearly infinitely customizable for each owner and once word got out, I'm confident Insignia would see sales of the Pilot and Sport double. Best Buy wouldn't be able to keep the things in stock or able to crank them out fast enough.

One additional thing: although I like the Pilot, I may end up returning it due to the just okay sound quality. I loaded some classical music and soundtracks along with my usual hard rock files. The player handles Pop and Rock superbly; instrumental and Classical, not so much. I heard frequent pops and crackles, as if I were listening to a vinyl record. Now this is material ripped in WAV, which sounds awesome on my Zen Vision M, but unfortunately not on the Insignia Pilot.

Digitaldel (did I get your handle right?), is there something in a firmware upgrade to improve the audio quality? Other than that, the Pilot is a pretty cool on-the-go player.

For a future version, I also wouldn't mind paying a little more if it meant the player housing was constructed with some better materials.

[mattschuette]

Originally Posted by Theseus

I'm sure it's been brought up before, but how about a request that can also grant a good part of others' firmware wish list: make the Pilot Rockbox-able. It'd make it nearly infinitely customizable for each owner and once word got out, I'm confident Insignia would see sales of the Pilot and Sport double. Best Buy wouldn't be able to keep the things in stock or able to crank them out fast enough.

That would, of course, be a support nightmare for Insignia. If their only sales channel were slashdot, it might make sense. Instead, their only sales channel is Best Buy, where their average customer (speaking generally, nothing against anyone here) is only slightly more technical than their sales staff (not on commission, btw, in case you didn't catch that the first 50 bajillion times) and none of them really know what an MP3 is. Does it make sense to sell a player to moms and teens for which you might have to compile the latest version of the firmware?

If possible, Insignia could facilitate the development of a Rockbox port, but we really should be requesting features here that we want to see in the default firmware. Also, realize that there may be NDAs preventing the developers from assisting, that's the way DRM-encumbered hardware and software works.

Originally Posted by Theseus

One additional thing: although I like the Pilot, I may end up returning it due to the just okay sound quality. [snip /] Now this is material ripped in WAV, which sounds awesome on my Zen Vision M, but unfortunately not on the Insignia Pilot.

Have you actually been able to ABX the difference between decent MP3 and WAV? How about 320kbps CBR MP3? Not that I know much about the hardware, but the cost of buffering the WAV file could be the root of the problem, whereas MP3 has a dedicated chip for decoding and significantly less disk access overhead. Try a decent MP3 or Vorbis transcode of your WAV and see if you truly perceive a difference when you don't have a bias toward one sample or the other (ABX) and then see if it sounds any better on the Pilot.

Of course, if WAV playback were hindered by such problems, that would be unfortunate and should be fixed to the extent possible in firmware.

[digitaldel]

It should play wavs without crackle, is it repeatable? If so send me a file (send me a Private Message) and we will fix it as there is no issue in why .wavs shouldn't playback just fine.

Thanks

[Theseus]

Thanks to digitaldel for the response. I'm glad to see Insignia so on-the-ball about customer satisfaction.

I am sorry to say though that I've returned the 4gb Pilot to my local Best Buy. The overall sound quality, not just with WAV files but also in high bit rate MP3's and even some test files in WMA Lossless, did not satisfy me.
And this wasn't just a comparison to my Zen Vision M; I compared the Pilot to the sound coming from my beat up five year old 256MB (w/2GB sd card) Rio Forge. The sound coming out of the Forge playing all kinds of music--Rock, Pop, Classical/Instrumental, R&B--is stellar. When it came to certain genres, the sound quality from the Pilot left much to be desired, even using the equalizer.

Now, I thought the player has such potential, particularly the SDHC capability and multiple codec support, that I may re-buy it at some point. So, sorry digitaldel, I can't send you a sample file. Wish I could.

As an aside, not to talk up other products, but I just took a listen to a co-worker's new Sansa Clip. I have to say the reviews were spot on. The sound coming from that tiny, budget, $50 player is amazing. It's within shot of audiophile territory. If Insignia can see what makes that thing tick and adopt for their line, along with the nice Clip scroll wheel, I'd be first in line to buy two Pilots.

[Tobey]

*List updated*

I once again apologize for the delay. I had two hard drives fail this month, so I've been busy trying to get all of that sorted out. On the plus side, I am now the proud owner of an Insignia Pilot (that's right, I think I'm the last person here to get one), so I am now able to better understand what everyone here is talking about, rather than doing this list blindly. So, things should be a lot easier now...

[DigitalAxis]

Hi. I've been a lurker here for a while, and just picked up an 8 GB Pilot two days ago. I can reproduce one of the ways it locked up every time. I did a quick search of the forum and couldn't find any mention of this bug.

Bug: Video and music in the playlist + backlight dimming causes player to hang
Steps to reproduce:
1.) Put a song and a video (tested with an AVI video) in the 'now playing' playlist.
2.) Play the song, and allow it to come to the end.

Expected behavior: either the player won't allow video and audio in the same playlist, or the screen should turn on and begin playing the video. Moving backwards should return to the music playing screen as it usually does.

Observed behavior: The video begins playing, but only the backlight comes on (actually, I just did it again and the backlight didn't come on) leaving the screen blank and only audio. Pressing the backward and forward keys will navigate the playlist, but the screen will not turn on. The only recourse is to turn off the player. (I just managed to wake it up by plugging it into the USB Sync cable)

This works for every video and randomly chosen song I've tried. On one occasion I managed to get the screen to turn on by pressing the vote switch, but on most occasions after a few switches backwards and forwards the player refuses to do anything at all.

While I'm at it, I'd like to throw in my votes for:
#1: Remember playlist
#3: Better Unicode Support (for instance, I have music by Chris Hülsbeck, whose name gets variously mangled depending on whether I tagged the .ogg in Windows XP (UTF16) or Linux (UTF8); to say nothing of various Celtic music files)
#13: Playlist support
#8: Search database (retracted below)
#22: Backlight obeys timeout settings when connected to computer
#34: In folder view, remain in the folder when deleting a file. (Very irritating, since it also pauses the player and resets 'now playing' to 'all files in alphabetical order', regardless of whether the file I was deleting was even on the custom playlist, much less being played)

[AKBear]

I want to vote yes for
2 Ability to display album art from folder.jpg / albumart.jpg images.

I want to be able to see album art when I use the vorbis format.

Thanks

[Gaurhoth]

Feature Request for the Pilot:

It appears that you can't drop WMAs into the Audible folder and have it recognized like an MP3. I'd like to take advantage of the auto-bookmarking for audiobooks in WMA format (unprotected). The WMA files don't even show up in the Audible library.

If your coders are feeling very frisky, support the remaining audio formats in the same way as well, while you are at it. Although, admittedly, some of them may already work. I've only tested WMA.

Gaurhoth

[Phlotsam]

I hate to keep flogging the same topic, but I've got to throw my two cents in for consistent album art support. It works most of the time when using the irritating MTP transfer mode, but depending on the tool used to add the art, I've had problems. (Clearly, ID3 tagging is not an well defined standard).

However, I've managed to make a whole directory of files with embedded art that will show up when transferred via MPT, but the same files transferred via MSC... no art.

I know it can work, because the Car Talk podcasts which I copy in via MSC have artwork embedded, and it shows up. However, no amount of tag manipulation on my part will make it show up if I just copy the files over to the player.

This brings me to my second request. Other than the reasons for using MSC that other people have mentioned (I really do HATE that MTP hides the files from me...) I really don't want to have my MP3 files re-encoded when I copy them over. This may be a feature request for the "Best Buy/Rhapsody Music Store" folks, but wouldn't it make sense to have an option on the copy that says "leave the bitrate alone"? I have many many albums that I encoded years ago as high bitrate VBR MP3 files, and I don't see the need to have them re-encoded just to copy them onto the player.