first time user notes

[Norman Lovie]

Hi, as a very basic computer person and an even less knowledge on music format i,m going to list my trials and tribulations as I try to load up my H340, with music so far -
1) sometimes it loads the file but there is no sound, why ? don,t know, maybe I didn,t make my player "now safe to disconnect" but one thing I found, you can tell if there is a problem because it takes longer to rip the tracks and you can check by playing back the track via the windows media player I use before disconnecting the H340
2) it keeps telling me the H340 "can not be disconnected at thias time" - well if you maek sure you,ve closed down any open folders that have the player in it eg "My computer" this helps but what i,ve found is you need to re route the destination you rip your music to in the windows media player to anywhere other than the H340, then it becomes safe to disconnect - why ? god knows but it works
3) You can drag and drop mpeg4 files from my daughters Ipod library direct to the player, just like dragging and dropping any file & it works!, ok no big news to all you whizz kids out there but blows my old socks
4) I think i,ve managed to down load rockbox, well its there, it is easier to navigate but its not a major advantage yet. If your new to this game i,d avoid this initially and just use the std system. Keep it simple, get some music on the box, enjoy the music then experiment

[Mike]

1. Is it possible that your music is DRM'ed (that is, protected by digital rights management)? Rockbox will not play that.

2. This sometimes happens with Windows. If I look and see that there is absolutely no activity going on between the computer and player (including any open folders), I find that it is safe to disconnect regardless.

4. The "fun" with Rockbox is the many options it provides (e.g. user-configurable WPS) and enhancements (e.g. fast boot time); play with it some ...

[Dunno]

the primary advantages of Rockbox for me are,
Gapless mp3 playback, as long as the mp3 files have been encoded with LAME mp3 v3.90 or later.
Far better browsing experience than the original firmware
Rockbox Playlist functionality and options is brilliant in comparison to OF (original firmware).
Rockbox can read Replay Gain info, fantastic feature, and the only firmware to offer this.
Crossfading features.

I don't know how you're ripping your music, but the best open source mp3 codec is LAME mp3.