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[Jonas]

I just tried to sync 1.7 GB of files onto my girlfriend's Z710.  It has a 2.0 GB memory card with 1.8 GB free, so this should not be a problem -- especially since I've configured an external encoder (Nero Digital) to convert the music to a considerably lower bit rate, so the final size should be around 1.0 GB, leaving a lot of space free.

However, MC told me that I'm 9.9 GB over the limit (I think, possibly it was 9.7 GB or something).  In other words, my 1.7 GB, which will shrink to around 1.0 GB, requires all of the 1.8 GB plus another 9.9 GB...

Needless to say, something is wrong here.  I accepted the suggestion to sync what would fit and remove the rest, which resulted in an unknown amount of music being converted to 91 MB and copied to the phone.  Now that I'm about to sync again, MC tells me I'm only 8.3 GB over capacity.  Most likely I'll be able to transfer everything, but it will take a number of rounds and I'm not too keen on going back to the computer every 15 minutes (which it takes to convert one batch) just to click "sync" again.

In any case, the reason for this may be that since I'm converting the songs and I'm using an external encoder, MC does not know the final bit rate (it obviously can't parse the command line to the converter I use) and consequently it assumes CD size at 176400 bytes per second.  This at least seems to fit the numbers very well.

I'm not sure what the correct solution would be since you obviously can't know what size songs will be after conversion, especially if some form of quality-based setting is used rather than a bitrate setting.  Perhaps just keep transferring songs until the memory card is full and *then* start complaining to the user?

[Matt]

External conversion doesn't provide Media Center with a proper bitrate estimate, and it's over-estimating.

If you use an internal converter (like MP3, APE, WMA, etc.), this won't happen.

We may allow a user selectable bitrate estimate for external encoders for this purpose.

[MP101User]

Hi,

I'm just starting to play with this feature. I'm converting from WMA lossless to low bitrate WMA and also getting this message.
Does this mean I'm using an external convertor as well?

Regards,

M.

[Jonas]

We may allow a user selectable bitrate estimate for external encoders for this purpose.

That would be great -- or the synchronization could be changed in another way.  The way it works now, you check how many files you think might fit, and if the user chooses to continue despite the fact that you guess the files will be too large, you immediately decide which files will be synchronized and which files won't.  Instead of this, the dialog could say that the selection MAY be over the limit and ask whether the user wants to continue or cancel.  If the user chooses to continue, you could leave all files in the list and check for sufficient space before actually transfering each individual file. If there's not enough space, well, you did warn the user that this might be the case; just stop and tell the user how many files did fit and how many didn't.

After all you have to do that anyway, precisely because file sizes may not be correctly calculated -- files may become larger than you expect when they are encoded, or someone could copy other file types to the player / memory card during synchronization, causing less space to be available than you originally thought.

In any case the current system is quite painful when you are recoding files to a small fraction of their original size.  It takes quite a few synchronization runs before they're all on the device...

[Jonas]

Any news on this?  Or any workarounds I may have missed or forgotten about?

Having to sync 10-20 times to get all the files transferred is not my favorite way of spending an afternoon.

Perhaps I should sync to a fake device on a hard disk and manually copy modified files to the handheld device.

[druid]

I think this is incredibly important.  There are some of us (like me ) with their music collection in .flac format, but have a mobile or mp3 player that only has 1gb or 2gb space.  I convert all flac files to m4a format, which is not on the default list, and honestly, I trust setting that up myself anyway.  I don't need a method to predict; I need a way to force Jukebox/Center (hey, it's a good program, and I might just buy it in the future!) to upload regardless, and then tell me if there is literally not enough space to copy the final file, after conversion.

I would beg you to implement this; the current method does seem a little out of whack with most of the program, which is very user-friendly, clean, and functional.  Even I, who have been using Foobar up until recently, have finally figured out how to get most of what I wanted in Foobar out of Jukebox, and now I have a lot more functionality, too.  So I was very surprised when I ran into this severe limitation.

Good work on the program, and it's wonderful that it's free.  I hope you can continue to produce functional and sensible upgrades to this software and gain more faithful fans.