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[jolo]

 
I have two portable audio players.

A IAudio U3 and my amazing new one, a Cowon D2, both made by Cowon.
Both support about all of the audio codecs that I am aware of including
the superior open source and lossless ones like:
Ogg, Flac, Monkey's Ape. Of course MP3 is support as well and unit
has loads of ways to make the audio sound just like you want it to sound and
76 Watts of power as well. Oh yes, I can plug in a SDHC card, so I have 8gb flash
on my SDHC card adn 8gb of flash inside of my little D2.

I was wondering if I can Use MC 12.0.04 to copy my audio files directly to my Cowon D2.
When I connect my D2, I connect it as if it was a USB drive and don't use any software other
than XPs Windows explorer to drag and drop into my Cowon D2.

I had some difficulties when I first tried to drop my files into the Cowon D2 from
MC 12.0.04. I like to keep my files organized in MC, use it as my player when listening
on my PC, manage my TAGS, burn and rip, and like to use the replay gain as
Album Based.

Since I have my Cowon D2, comes up as just another drive in XP, is there something
missing when I try to copy audio files to my D2 directly from MC ? ?

Thanks,

Jon

[Matt]

MC should be able to nicely sync to any device that shows as a drive.

You may need to configure the paths in Options > Handheld.

[jolo]

MC should be able to nicely sync to any device that shows as a drive.

You may need to configure the paths in Options > Handheld.

When you mean configure the paths, do you mean telling the drive as well as
folder ?? Possibly, I only told MC the drive and not the folder to copy it to ??

Now that I think about it, I can give it a try using MC going directly to my SDHC card
that will be in a SDHC USB connector. I am going to start loading more on my
8gb card.

Now with SD cards getting more and more inexpensive, I was thinking of getting some
extra 2 or 4gb SDHC cards, that I can have different types of music, books or videos and
be able to swap the cards.

By the way Matt, I find that the Video playing on MC to be much, much improved, really excellent
output.

I don't know how you load up so much valuable functionality into MC.

I hope that people get to listen to the quality of the audio output of the Cowon D2.
Also have the opportunity to connect it to a receiver or amplified speakers or DVD player.
With the 76 watts (I may be a watt or two off), and the variety of codecs it supports
it is rather amazing.
But .. you wil not see them at a retail "superstore", although they are at Amazon, Newegg and
at their own site and others.
Then AGAIN ....at least where I am in Colorado Springs, CO, more and more of the
"brick and motor" retail stores are closing down. I just found out that my local CompUsa
is closing. I think what is left is a Best Buy and a Circuit City only.
There has to be about 10 electronics/computer/appliance stores that have closed in the past year.
Then there are the Video rental stores as well.

Thanks so much,

Jon

I will post my results.

I also like to use the widen on the stereo, I hope that transferring the files will have that, but
there is the same option on the D2.

[johnnyboy]

Just wanted to say well done on choosing such an AWESOME player

I have one too and love the SDHC slot - I'm gonna be buying a 16Gb card to go in it soon

[Mr ChriZ]

Just wanted to say well done on choosing such an AWESOME player

I have one too and love the SDHC slot - I'm gonna be buying a 16Gb card to go in it soon

I've been looking at these in part.  I like the idea of Monkeys Audio support :-)
I'd love to hear how people are getting on with them.

[johnnyboy]

www.iaudiophile.net - they're awesome players, absolutely love it and the new firmwares are doing some great stuff - head to that forum to discuss it though as this is sidelining this guys thread

[DaremoS]

Jolo...

I also own a Cowon D2 (beside 4 more players) and MC 12 is capable of manage all the audio formats that this player is capable to play, i.e. MP3, FLAC, OGG, APE, WMA and also AAC (which is an easter egg that D2 has).

I tag and manage all my music with MC 12 and all works perfectly, tagging is the key to manage properly D2, and this is something that you have to check in deep as D2 is not totally compatible with the way MC handles some tags.
For MP3 there is no problem but other formats have to be tested.

I would ask just one requirement to MC to be perfect to work with Cowon D2, which is the ability to change the name of cover art which is saved together with files. MC saves as an option cover art as "folder.jpg" and Cowon D2 requires this cover art called "cover.jpg", this is for formats which aren't MP3, because embedded cover art in this format solves the problem, but other formats requires this "cover.jpg" which I usually change manually inside MC.

[SwellGuy]

DaremoS,

If you post your system info (from the Help menu) with the Cowon attached we should be able to help you out early next week.

Rick

[JONCAT]

D2 supports Monkeys at "Normal" compression only at this time. Great unit, never had an issue syncing to it with MC12.

DC

[jolo]

D2 supports Monkeys at "Normal" compression only at this time. Great unit, never had an issue syncing to it with MC12.

DC

I don't know what you  mean by the D2 supporting normal compression at this time. Do you mean when using Monkey's Ape to end a .APE files ??

When using Monkey's Audio, I only use "Extra High", never anything else and my .APE files play on my D2. Could be a firmware difference, I am using 2.53.

Thanks for letting me know about using MC12.

I really like that I DON'T have to use ANY middleware software to send files back and forth. I don't use Linux (but I'm considering it), but that is one of the reasons that the Cowon/IAudios work well with Linux.

"Doctor", I will do another test with .APE, but I want to make sure I understand your post.
I know that .APE is a new addition. The Cowon/IAudio units have been supporting FLAC for some time.

At any rate. when I encode a music file that was never compressed before to Ogg Q6, the quality of the audio seems to be of the lossless variety.

If I haven't noted it before, I like to look at rarewares.org to get my audio codecs and front ends if needed. That is a great site to know about.

http://www.rarewares.org/index.php

[JONCAT]

Thanks for the link. I just applied the new firmware but haven't played around with it much. All the documentation I have ever seen always states "normal compression", but if it works that's good. In fact, I am suprised the D2 can handle it.....Extra High used to strain my old Athlon back in the day. I have used high ever since, but when I finally continue ripping I will probably use normal; I don't think you gain much space at insane compression and the performance hit, possibly draining battery life on the D2? Lately I have been using lossless for archiving, and lossy for portable.

Great little player though, FM radio and a great screen for video to boot. Eventually we'll all have 32gb SD cards in them right?

DC

[jolo]

Jolo...

I also own a Cowon D2 (beside 4 more players) and MC 12 is capable of manage all the audio formats that this player is capable to play, i.e. MP3, FLAC, OGG, APE, WMA and also AAC (which is an easter egg that D2 has).

I tag and manage all my music with MC 12 and all works perfectly, tagging is the key to manage properly D2, and this is something that you have to check in deep as D2 is not totally compatible with the way MC handles some tags.
For MP3 there is no problem but other formats have to be tested.

I would ask just one requirement to MC to be perfect to work with Cowon D2, which is the ability to change the name of cover art which is saved together with files. MC saves as an option cover art as "folder.jpg" and Cowon D2 requires this cover art called "cover.jpg", this is for formats which aren't MP3, because embedded cover art in this format solves the problem, but other formats requires this "cover.jpg" which I usually change manually inside MC.

While I have used Tagging on MC12 with some Ogg and Flac files, I haven't had problems with my D2 picking up the Tags.
You are right about the album art.
I like to listen to downloads of some BBC documentaries, which will be in MP3. I notice that when I play them on my D2, I see the "Album Art"  showing me that I am listing to a BBC file.
If any of you are into listening to radio driven news and documentaries, the BBC has some great stuff. Love their Music documentaries and their Global News, "Special" documentaries.
Living in the U.S., I forgot how wonderful Radio used to be after listing to some of the BBC shows. In the U .S., you really have to get a movie mostly to see a Documentary, with the media being all owned by a handful of Corporate entities.  But listening to something from their Radio documentaries, which are produced to be listened to and not seen, is such a cool thing. On the news Documentaries, they are always on location and you get to hear the street sounds and it creates great images and the pace will be fast, as it has to be for Radio. The music documentaries are fabulous. I especially like the ones about the Black innovators of Blues, Rock and electric instruments (like Howlin Wolf). The had a recent one on the traveling Wilburys that was fantastic.  Their Hendrix ones were great as well. I had no idea that he really learned his craft doing playing backup to so many of the great, original Black Artists Rock n Roll and R&B artists.

Jon

[DaremoS]

DaremoS,

If you post your system info (from the Help menu) with the Cowon attached we should be able to help you out early next week.

Rick

Rick... Here is my System Info:

Media Center Registered 12.0.410 -- C:\Archivos de programa\J River\Media Center 12\

Microsoft Windows XP  Workstation 5.1 Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
Intel Pentium 4 1694 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 785 MB, Free - 204 MB

Internet Explorer: 7.0.5730.11 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.82.2900 / Shlwapi.dll: 6.0.2900 / Shell32.dll: 6.0.2900 / wnaspi32.dll: 4.71 (0001) , ASPI for Win32 (95/NT) DLL, Copyright ﾩ 1989-2002 Adaptec, Inc. / Aspi32.sys: 4.71 (0001)

Ripping /   Drive E:   Mode:Normal  Type:Auto  Speed:Max
  Drive G: HL-DT-STDVDRAM GSA-4163B  Mode:Normal  Type:Auto  Speed:Max
  Digital playback: Yes /  Use YADB: Yes /  Get cover art: No /  Calc replay gain: Yes /  Copy volume: 32767
  Eject after ripping: Yes /  Play sound after ripping: No 

Burning /  Drive G: HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-4163B   Addr: 1:1:0  Speed:40  MaxSpeed:40  BurnProof:Yes
  Test mode: No /  Eject after writing: Yes /  Direct decoding: Yes /  Write CD-Text: Yes
  Use playback settings: No /

Portable Device Info
  Removed devices:

Device info dump for 'CowonD2FL (H:)':

WMDMName: CowonD2FL (H:)
DeviceUID: $$?$storage#removablemedia#8&7772e92&0&rm#{53f5630d-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}$0
CanonicalName: \\?\storage#removablemedia#8&7772e92&0&rm#{53f5630d-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}$0
VendorName: ; VendorID: 3617
ProductID: 2048; FirmwareVersion: 0100
WMDMSerialNumber: 3032373343303030353045363232303036303730353136323432303335384536
WMDMWriteOurOwnPlaylists:
DeviceType: 0; DeviceID: 0273C00050E6220060705162420358E6; DeviceName: COWON D2; UnsupportedDevice: 0
IsDrive: 1; DriveLetter: H:; DrivePath: ; MainDriveLetter: H:
IsJanusCapable: 0; IsIpod: ;iTunesDBVersion:
SupportsAlbumArt: ; AlbumArtEnabled: 1; CoverArtTagRule: 0; SaveCoverArtToFolderJPG: 1
GetPlayStatsFromDevice: 0; SupportsFolders: -1; PlaylistFormat: 0; EjectMode: ; AlwaysPumpCOMMessages: 0
SupportedFileTypes: *;aac;m4a;ogg;flac
ContextMenus:
MemoryTypes:
InstallURL:
ApplicationName: Media Center
ImageName: Storage Card
RootBasePath:
AudioBasePath: MUSIC\[Artist]\[Date (year)] [Album]\
ImageBasePath: PICTURES\
VideoBasePath: VIDEO\
DataBasePath: Data\
PlaylistBasePath: ROOT\
DatabaseBasePath:
AudibleBasePath: AUDIBLE\
MatchKeyExpression: If(IsEqual([Media Type], Image), [Name]
[File Size, 0]
, [Name]
Clean([Artist], 1)
[Album]
[Genre]
FormatNumber([track #, 0])
[Media Type]
)
ChangeKeyExpression: [Rating]


Device info dump for 'CowonD2SD (I:)':

WMDMName: CowonD2SDHC (I:)
DeviceUID: $$?$storage#removablemedia#8&1a30df37&0&rm#{53f5630d-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}$0
CanonicalName: \\?\storage#removablemedia#8&1a30df37&0&rm#{53f5630d-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}$0
VendorName: ; VendorID: 3617
ProductID: 2048; FirmwareVersion: 0100
WMDMSerialNumber: 3032373343303030353045363232303036303730353136323432303335384536
WMDMWriteOurOwnPlaylists:
DeviceType: 0; DeviceID: 0273C00050E6220060705162420358E6; DeviceName: COWON D2; UnsupportedDevice: 0
IsDrive: 1; DriveLetter: I:; DrivePath: ; MainDriveLetter: H:
IsJanusCapable: 0; IsIpod: ;iTunesDBVersion:
SupportsAlbumArt: ; AlbumArtEnabled: 1; CoverArtTagRule: 0; SaveCoverArtToFolderJPG: 1
GetPlayStatsFromDevice: 0; SupportsFolders: -1; PlaylistFormat: 0; EjectMode: ; AlwaysPumpCOMMessages: 0
SupportedFileTypes: *;flac;ape;aac;wma
ContextMenus:
MemoryTypes:
InstallURL:
ApplicationName: Media Center
ImageName: Storage Card
RootBasePath:
AudioBasePath: MUSIC\[Artist]\[Date (year)] [Album]\
ImageBasePath: PICTURES\
VideoBasePath: VIDEO\
DataBasePath: Data\
PlaylistBasePath: ROOT\
DatabaseBasePath:
AudibleBasePath: AUDIBLE\
MatchKeyExpression: If(IsEqual([Media Type], Image), [Name]
[File Size, 0]
, [Name]
Clean([Artist], 1)
[Album]
[Genre]
FormatNumber([track #, 0])
[Media Type]
)
ChangeKeyExpression: [Rating]



Interface Plugins:
  last.fm (Active)
  Library Server (Active)
  TiVo Server (Active)
  UPnP Server (Active)

[SwellGuy]

Starting with MC 12.0.421 cover art will be saved as Cover.jpg on the Cowon D2.

[DaremoS]

Starting with MC 12.0.421 cover art will be saved as Cover.jpg on the Cowon D2.

In version 12.0.421 is not saving as Cover.jpg... or have have to change something in MC?
is still folder.jpg

[Mr ChriZ]

It's ordered 
With DAB radio, at some extortinate price for me being in the UK.

[DaremoS]

It's ordered 
With DAB radio, at some extortinate price for me being in the UK.

But deserve the investment... I love the excellent sound... and a new feature which is flash UI skins that let you change the way it looks music screen... that's a never ending entertainment... your player looks like new all the time.

[JONCAT]

How are you all integrating MC playlists into the D2 and maintaining sequence? Temporarily renaming files to get track numbers and placing all files in one folder per playlist? Or are you just copying well tagged albums & tracks over?

Dc

[DaremoS]

I don't use playlist nor in MC nor in Cowon D2...

I just transfer well tagged files to the PMP.

[Mr ChriZ]

Yeh I only keep/buy Albums, which effectively come ready playlisted :-)

[JONCAT]

I do the same, but I make custom mixes (like the old days e.g. cassette hot mix #1).

anyway to retain stats like "times played" using the D2 to be imported back to MC?

dc

[mabes]

I do the same, but I make custom mixes (like the old days e.g. cassette hot mix #1).

anyway to retain stats like "times played" using the D2 to be imported back to MC?

dc

I was just going to ask that, as I may be in the market for a new player. MC importing play stats back is an absolute requirement for anything I get.

[DaremoS]

I do the same, but I make custom mixes (like the old days e.g. cassette hot mix #1).

anyway to retain stats like "times played" using the D2 to be imported back to MC?

dc

I known that Cowon D2 works fine with playlist of WMP when it's used in MTP mode... I've never used playlist... but in http://iaudiophile.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=53 there are some people which are satisfied with the way it works.

[mabes]

This doesn't sound promising, from that forum:

One thing about playlists: when you create playlists, you will see them saved in the PLAYLIST folder on the D2 as .pla files when you view it from your computer. However, on the D2, if you go browsing for music and go into the PLAYLIST folder it'll appear empty. You have to keep backing up until you get to the list of sorting options like "TRACK", "ARTIST", "ALBUM", etc... and choose "PLAYLIST" from there.

Forget that.

[JONCAT]

This doesn't sound promising, from that forum:
Forget that.

Yep, forgotten. The D2 still doesn't support M3U?

It really makes transferring playlists from MC into this device.

I uploaded the newest firmware which still only supports Normal encoded .ape files (which is fine but I had to convert many High ones), and I have to check for M3U support.

DC

[JONCAT]

Maybe I will try this M3U converter:

http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum/showthread.php?t=537

Although it's pretty lame how they are implemented on the D2.

dc

[mabes]

Maybe I will try this M3U converter:

http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum/showthread.php?t=537

Although it's pretty lame how they are implemented on the D2.

dc

It is extremely lame. How can anyone these days not support m3u?  And Cowon gets such great reviews otherwise.

[mabes]

Bumping this thread as I still may be getting a Cowon. I was reading somewhere yesterday, don't have the link now, but people were saying they didn't have any problem at all getting playlists on the Cowon. THere was a screen shot, you click on Playlists and there they were?

Can anyone who has a Cowon confirm? Also I have a question about using the SD card, how is that handled? Are files copied to the main memory on the Cowon and everything that doesn't fit go to the card, or do you have to specify what goes where?

[jolo]

Just wanted to say well done on choosing such an AWESOME player

I have one too and love the SDHC slot - I'm gonna be buying a 16Gb card to go in it soon

I have both a 8gb and a 16gb working on my Cowon D2.

A quick warning about SDHC cards in general. The first thing is that I strongly recommend formatting them using the official "SD" formatter tghat can be found on the SD foundation web site or on the Panasonic web site found here http://panasonic.jp/support/global/cs/sd/download/sd_formatter.html . Format at FAT32.

Sometimes the SDHC access slows down, this is not the fault of any unit, it is just like any type of drive that is holding a lot of data that is very dynamic, meaning deleted and added to.
To improve the performance of the SDHC card, once in a while, dump off what is on your SDHC card, to a hard drive, then do a fullre-format using that Panasonic SD formatter. Then you can copy back the files. You will notice an increase in the performance. In a way, this is no difference when defragging a hard drive.

Don't delete files from the Cowon unit. Connect it to your PC, then do all file management from there.  Much safer. Make sure you update to the latest firmware. Some people have been creating some cool flash stuff. What I especially like is the user created better fonts that have been created that make it easier to see.
I also play Divx videos with no problems (as long as I make then no larger than 320 x 240).

I listen to audio books, BBC documentaries and use the recording feature a lot, to record myself making a fool out of myself when playing my Bass Guitar or Harmonica !! I also have an converter cable from Cowon that allows me to load an external mic to it. I sometimes use this at "teacher-parent meetings", although I have done it without it and it sounded fine. The external mic does solve a problem for my son who makes videos of himself playing guitar. So I connect a nice little mike to his collar, then merge the audio to his video and it sounds a lot better than getting the audio from a video player.

People who have Ipods have absolutely no idea how poor their unit sounds until they get a Cowon.
It has the power to drive some heavy duty speakers, my car stereo, and my Sennheiser CX-500 buds and my (semi-legendary) PX 100 Sennheiser head phones.
Headphones is subjective and I have a prejudice, on using Sennheiser, because I like crisp, totally clear, non-distorted sound.  Some people might like others, especially if they like distorted bass output, which to them sound "more lively". I am not criticizing this at all, I just personally like clean, clear sound.
There are about 6 ways to alter the output from a D2 which should satisfy anyone.

One last and VERY important item about the Cowon line (I have a little U3 and a D2), is that they natively support the superior open
source codecs like FLAC (losless), APE (losless) and Ogg (a "lossy superior replacement for MP3, but on Q6, I don't hear anything that is lossy

Sorry, last item, I was able to use MC 13 to export Ogg files directly to my Cowon D2 !! Worked fine.
However, I normally just like to use conventional Windows Explorer drag and drop and have organized my file folders to make it real easy.

Remember, when it comes down to it, what is important are two things, the quality of the audio and the flexibility to use the audio codec of YOUR CHOICE. No iTunes, Apple or Microsoft limiting, market controlling stuff for me.

If you are in love with DRM, what can I say.

[lalittle]

I have a couple Cowon D2 questions:

I have a lot of audible (aa) files.  Many of these are poorly tagged from audible, so I retag them in MC.  The new tags are saved in the MC library, but NOT in the files themselves since aa files do not allow this.  If I sync these files to a D2, will the D2 display the new, edited tags from the MC "library," or will it just show me the original tags embedded in the actual aa files?  When I sync an iPod with MC, the iPod displays the NEW tags from the MC library, so I'm curious if the D2 can do this as well.

Also, does the D2 support MC's "Use bookmarking" tag and allow bookmarking of regular mp3 files?  I need this for mp3 audiobooks that are not from audible.

Thanks,

Larry