Actually Sansa Fuze is quite good for watching videos BUT I have questions:

[blacknoizybox]

Sorry for a possible partial repost of different issues but it'll take ages to look for each answer separately.

Well, I've read a lot that the Fuze had very week video support and that it is almost impossible to watch anything except a few short videos. Contrary to that popular notion, I have been able to watch five series of the Air anime with subtitles!! Yeah, the subtitles were ultra-tiny, the characters being not more than 3-4 pixels in height. Anyways, I got all excited about watching stuff on my Fuze so here are my main concerns:

Converting an ordinary 4:3 movie without subtitles and watching it on the Fuze in a breeze. But let's take the most complicated case: watching 16:9 movies with subtitles is pretty tricky. So..

Let's say I have a 1.5 Gb movie with a frame size of 704x384, that makes a 1,83 width-to-height ratio. The Sanse Fuze has a display of 224x176, which makes a 1,27 width-to-height ratio. If I convert the movie straight through the Sansa Media Converter, the output will have nasty black spaces above and below the wide movie frame. So the first thing I need to do crop the movie to the desired 1,27 ratio by cropping it to 704x553. Here I need to crop the image - cut out some of the left and right sides of the image so that the image itself does not look squeezed horizontally.

Since Sansa Fuze apparently does not support any kind of separate subtitle file format, I then need to embed the subtitles into the image physically with the desired font size.

The, when I have a 704x553 movie with embedded subtitles, I need to choose among several audio tracks (i.e. original track, translation). Only then I can use the Sansa Media Converter to place the output file into the Fuze.

So, the resulting output file on the Sansa should be cropped to 224x176 without a single blank black pixel, with readable subtitles and the chosen audio track.

Obviously, Sansa Media Converter is the last thing I need to look into in order to make it happen. Any suggestion?

[CrowdAds]

[oobergeek]

if your Fuze is a version 1 you might want to consider Rockboxing it and using converters like WINFF.

[Marvin the Martian]

Even with Rockbox,and all its capabilities, it's still a 1.9 inch screen....I never watched anything longer than 15 or 20 minutes on my Fuze when I had it. More power to you guys if you watch whole movies on there.

[blacknoizybox]

problem solved with MediaCoder (cropping, resizing, recodings, downsampling audio) and Sansa Media Converter (converting to Fuze-friendly format)

[Albinoni]

Originally Posted by blacknoizybox

Sorry for a possible partial repost of different issues but it'll take ages to look for each answer separately.

Well, I've read a lot that the Fuze had very week video support and that it is almost impossible to watch anything except a few short videos. Contrary to that popular notion, I have been able to watch five series of the Air anime with subtitles!! Yeah, the subtitles were ultra-tiny, the characters being not more than 3-4 pixels in height. Anyways, I got all excited about watching stuff on my Fuze so here are my main concerns:

Converting an ordinary 4:3 movie without subtitles and watching it on the Fuze in a breeze. But let's take the most complicated case: watching 16:9 movies with subtitles is pretty tricky. So..

Let's say I have a 1.5 Gb movie with a frame size of 704x384, that makes a 1,83 width-to-height ratio. The Sanse Fuze has a display of 224x176, which makes a 1,27 width-to-height ratio. If I convert the movie straight through the Sansa Media Converter, the output will have nasty black spaces above and below the wide movie frame. So the first thing I need to do crop the movie to the desired 1,27 ratio by cropping it to 704x553. Here I need to crop the image - cut out some of the left and right sides of the image so that the image itself does not look squeezed horizontally.

Since Sansa Fuze apparently does not support any kind of separate subtitle file format, I then need to embed the subtitles into the image physically with the desired font size.

The, when I have a 704x553 movie with embedded subtitles, I need to choose among several audio tracks (i.e. original track, translation). Only then I can use the Sansa Media Converter to place the output file into the Fuze.

So, the resulting output file on the Sansa should be cropped to 224x176 without a single blank black pixel, with readable subtitles and the chosen audio track.

Obviously, Sansa Media Converter is the last thing I need to look into in order to make it happen. Any suggestion?

Hi disregarding video watching but in general how clearis the screen of the Sansa Fuze, would you say its good enough to see and use generally as a normal music MP3 player ?

[Marvin the Martian]

Originally Posted by Albinoni

Hi disregarding video watching but in general how clearis the screen of the Sansa Fuze, would you say its good enough to see and use generally as a normal music MP3 player ?

If you don't care about video, the screen of the Fuze is just fine. Color, and big enough to easily read your music's info, and show small album art images. I had one for 11 months, and used it just for music. A fine little device.

[Albinoni]

Ok the reason why I asked is that I bought my Mum one recently (she hasnt got it yet) and guess what, its Pink so hope she will like it. Its only a 4GB one which will hold close to 1000 songs for her which is more than ample. I will admit thought their quite a smart looking MP3 player.

BTW do you know what DAC they use ?

Also do they take a Micro SD card and when say adding another 4GB card to it does this add onto the built in 4Gb or is it a seperate memory ?

[Marvin the Martian]

Originally Posted by Albinoni

Ok the reason why I asked is that I bought my Mum one recently (she hasnt got it yet) and guess what, its Pink so hope she will like it. Its only a 4GB one which will hold close to 1000 songs for her which is more than ample. I will admit thought their quite a smart looking MP3 player.

BTW do you know what DAC they use ?

Also do they take a Micro SD card and when say adding another 4GB card to it does this add onto the built in 4Gb or is it a seperate memory ?

It does take a microsdhc card. When you are connected to a computer, it will appear as a seperate memory, but once you disconnect, the Fuze integrates the memory. Of course, with the newest firmware there is folder navigation available, which lets you look at the internal and external memories seperately if you wish...but you don't have to.

I would advise getting her an AC wall charger for it too. I never connected mine to the computer unless I was adding or removing content, and I think that might be why I hardly ever had a problem with mine. (No chance of accidentally deleting something, etc. ) Also a screen protector is important, especially if it ever ends up in her purse.

As to the DAC, that I couldn't tell you.

[Albinoni]

Ok re the AC adapter, to charge this, is it a mini USB type plug? If so than shouldnt be any problems because I do have a mini usb AC adapter with me and I use it to charge up my Cowon iAudio 6.

Actually to be honest it was from my Motorola h750 bluetooth headset but I also use it for my Cowon iAudio 6 and havent had any probs what so ever.

[Marvin the Martian]

Originally Posted by Albinoni

Ok re the AC adapter, to charge this, is it a mini USB type plug? If so than shouldnt be any problems because I do have a mini usb AC adapter with me and I use it to charge up my Cowon iAudio 6.

Actually to be honest it was from my Motorola h750 bluetooth headset but I also use it for my Cowon iAudio 6 and havent had any probs what so ever.

No, it is not a mini-USB, unfortunately. It's a SanDisk-only connector. I got one very cheap on Amazon.com last fall, you should be able to find one for a cheap price.

[Albinoni]

Ok this is the link:

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/SanDisk-Sansa...d=p3286.c0.m14

Its supplied with both headphones and usb cable but doesnt look like ther's a power adapter.

Now re th AC adapter, how would I know what sort to get ?

[Marvin the Martian]

Originally Posted by Albinoni

Ok this is the link:

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/SanDisk-Sansa...d=p3286.c0.m14

Its supplied with both headphones and usb cable but doesnt look like ther's a power adapter.

Now re th AC adapter, how would I know what sort to get ?

This one would work. link
If you can't get that one for some reason, just type "sansa fuze charger" into different sites' search boxes. That's how I found mine on Amazon originally.

[Albinoni]

Ok thanks for that, only thing is the 240V we use here, as the US uses 120V. I am sure I can get something similar like that here at a electrical or electronics outlet.

Will have to investigate.

[Marvin the Martian]

Originally Posted by Albinoni

Ok thanks for that, only thing is the 240V we use here, as the US uses 120V. I am sure I can get something similar like that here at a electrical or electronics outlet.

Will have to investigate.

Just make sure the output specs are 5V and 500mA-1000mA(1A). Good luck!

[Albinoni]

I was looking at the link you sent me above and the plug looks quite similar to that I use on my Ipaq 3970 PDA.

Similar to this:

http://www.compucanjes.com/prod_images/0000014358_1.jpg

[Marvin the Martian]

Originally Posted by Albinoni

I was looking at the link you sent me above and the plug looks quite similar to that I use on my Ipaq 3970 PDA.

Similar to this:

http://www.compucanjes.com/prod_images/0000014358_1.jpg

I wouldn't risk it though...the iPods are similar too, but wired differently inside. People have fried their Fuzes trying to use iPod accessories from this.

[Albinoni]

Ok good advice, thanks for that. Will look into it.

[FreeZ5]

The wall charger that I use takes a standard USB plug. So I just use the same cable that I would plug into my computer. After all, you are using the AC charger to replace the computer. I bought my charger for use with an ipod. It has also worked with Samsung YP-Z5, Zen Stone, Sansa Clip, Sansa Fuze, a GPS unit, and probably some other stuff.

Steve