DRM, Napster-to-Go, and the iRiver H3xx

From iriver Wiki, your source for everything iriver - a part of MisticRiver.

or "All you ever wanted to know about using Napster-to-Go and DRM on your iRiver H3xx but were afraid to ask"

I've never been able to find a good How-To web page for how to deal with Napster-to-Go and Windows Media Player (WMP) and the iRiver H3xx player. So, I thought I'd write my own.

Disclaimer: This is a work in progress (for instance, some WMP patches have been made regarding fixing the looong access time for some DRM songs. See this post by Ted Yo for more information]) and if your experience or knowledge differs from mine, please add it to the file. Most of what I'm posting here I've figured out as best I could by trial and error.

If you're an expert on DRM and the iRiver, please give us the benefit of your knowledge!

This post was originally written in response to Jaysee's Super H300 Manual on the misticriver boards.

Introduction: How does Napster-to-Go and WMA-DRM fit into the iRiver H3xx universe?

You asked about DRM on the US H3xx players. Those of you who are considering getting a US firmware player, or already have one, the ability to play WMA-DRM files can add significant enjoyment to your listening experience. This is because, with Napster-To-Go, you have the ability to download songs onto *your* iRiver from a huge library (something like 1,000,000 songs and growing) of music for a flat monthly fee of $15. Compare this to iTunes which makes you pay $1 for every song you download onto your computer. (Rhapsody has also introduced a Rhapsody-to-go membership, also for $15 a month. It works with the H10. Not sure about the H3xx. It probably would work with the H3xx using the methods I've listed below. Virgin Digital and Yahoo Music also offer this type of service, Virgin Digital being the cheapest currently at $7.99 a month and does work with the H320.)

At the same time, poor initial (and probably continuing) implementation by Napster and poor cooperation between the Napster Program and Windows Media Player 10 have led to a *lot* of frustration among owners of US iRivers in getting the DRM Sync function to work... as well as issues with tagging and file naming.

I've had my iRiver H340 for about a year, and been a Napster-to-Go member for about 8 months. Only this past week -- after many Windows XP reinstallations, iRiver formatting (from the iRiver menu ... NEVER NEVER NEVER format your iRiver from Windows), and a resetting of the 3-download napster limit -- have I implemented the DRM feature to meet my needs. Now, in the last 2 days, I've loaded 150 Napster WMA-DRM onto my H340. As I'm typing, I'm listening to a 37-song playlist of 80's rock songs that I put together from the Napster catalog and sync'd to my iRiver. Most are at 192 bps, though some at 128.

So my pain is your gain! I never found solutions to my problems *anywhere* on the web, so to help the next guy I'm going to list the problems I've encountered and what I've learned and the work-arounds I've developed to get maximum enjoyment out of the DRM function. Here goes...

First thing about successfully using DRM for your iRiver...

**** NEVER RUN THE NAPSTER APPLICATION AND WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER AT THE SAME TIME ****

Now, the planned implementation by Napster was to have the two programs work in a complementary fashion. The fact is that they fuck each other up. So let's take each one by itself.

Using the Napster Program...

Okay, you've downloaded the Napster program and you've set it up. And you've opened your Napster-to-Go account. (I think they've got a 15 day free trial atm.) And you've found a bunch of songs that you don't own in your own CD/mp3 collection that you'd like to listen to. There's 2 ways: streaming at 128 bps or listening from a local downloaded WMA-DRM file (takes 5-10 seconds to DL each song).

*** Don't use "My Music" as your Napster song download folder ***

Your goal is to keep maximum control *and* isolation of the original Napster song downloads from other programs. So make your very own special Napster song folder AND USE IT FOR NOTHING ELSE.

There's a few reasons why:

1. When you try to play a downloaded song on the Napster Application, it looks for the song by FILENAME, which is created in the annoying "Album Artist - Song Title.wma" format. We iRiver users hate that format, because our iRiver H3xx plays songs ALPHABETICALLY... and we like to be able to open up a album folder and listen to the songs in TRACK ORDER.
2. If any other program (for example WMP) accesses a song file in your Napster Music Folder, there's a good chance that program will arbitrarily rename it. RENAMING INSIDE THE NAPSTER MUSIC FOLDER IS BAD! Next time the Napster Application tries to play that song, it'll say "Hey, that song's missing!" Now, you can download it again, but then you'll not only start clogging up your Napster Music Folder with duplicate songs, but you'll also be wasting a 2nd of your 3 downloads!
3. Also, Napster doesn't use subfolders to help you sort the music on your hard drive. But that's ok, because the Napster Application has all sorts of in-program ways of sorting and classifing and everything. Very user friendly. Lots of Drag and Drop. So, again, always use the Napster Application to play songs from the Napster Music Folder.

DRM can be your friend, if you treat it right.

Okay, now that you've gotten basic Napster Music Folder etiquette, let's talk a little bit about how DRM works on your PC. I'm gonna keep this very simple, because I don't know the innards ... but I do know what DRM ends up doing and how it can work for your benefit if you treat it good (and also how you can screw yourself if you treat DRM bad).

First the bad: I found out -- by bricking my Windows Media Player program and forcing 3 windows reinstallations -- that there's a HIDDEN SECRET FOLDER. I'll tell you where it is so you'll know to NEVER EVER SCREW WITH IT. C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\DRM. It's got a bunch of hidden system files in there that turn your encrypted WMA-DRM files into nice music. The key one is drmstore.hds. As far as I can tell, it's the master list of all your WMA-DRM songs. The more DRM songs you download, the bigger that file gets. For my 150 DRM songs it's about 3 megs atm -- that size gets important later on when we're playing songs on our iRiver later but it's not important for now.

If you ever do ANYTHING to drmstore.hds (or probably any of those other files in there ... there's like 10 of them), you're screwed. And I mean anything. Move it to another folder and move it back = you're screwed. Change the attributes to make it unhidden = you're screwed. Rename it to drmstore.old to see if windows creates a new one and then rename it back = you're screwed. Delete and restore it = you're screwed. Windows keeps a really sharp eye on that file, and if you change it in ANY WAY, you've bricked all your DRM files and probably bricked the entire DRM system on your computer ... forcing a complete reinstall if you want to use Napster-to-go.

I know that's a lot of gloom and doom, but it's just so you won't make my mistakes. As long as you're not meddling where you don't belong, DRM will be a very good friend and work just fine.

Now the good news: You can make as many copies of the original WMA-DRM file to any OTHER disk or folder on your computer, and it'll still play right. You can also rename the file any way you want and it'll still play. This is because it's not the song's file name that's in the master sekrit DRM list, but rather something in that song's unique WMA-DRM header tag... and the header tag is the same on all the copies of a particular song. Now, WMA-DRM tags are different from regular WMA tags (which is why TDT 3.0.6 and below can't read them... grrr), and you can't edit WMA-DRM tags from Windows like you can with other files. I don't mean you shouldn't, I mean it's not possible. Which is good because you don't want to screw with whatever that DRM header is.

So you can copy and then rename your DRM songs in any way you want... and THIS is what let's you use WMP to sync those WMA-DRM files onto your iRiver in a easy and useful way. Here's how...

You create a separate folder -- call it "DRM Sync Folder" or something -- and you *copy* into it (not move) only the napster files you want to sync to your iRiver. Now, make sure the Napster Application is closed and open up WMP...

Making WMP useful for syncing with your iRiver. Setting the options...

Player Tab: UNcheck: "add music files to library when played" UNcheck: "connect to the internet (overrides other commands)"

Rip Music Tab: "Rip music to this location" = your DRM Sync Folder "File Name" = how you want your files named on your iRiver. I chose "[Track Number] [Song Title]" ... but whatever floats your boat. UNcheck all the boxes in "Rip Settings"

Devices Tab: Ignore Performance Tab: Ignore

Library Tab: "Monitor Folders" = I leave this blank. you don't want WMP doing things for you, 'cause it'll screw up. UNcheck: "delete files from computer when deleted from library" same idea, don't let WMP delete files. CHECK: "Retrieve additional info from internet" -- set it to "add only missing information" so it won't overwrite any manual tag changes you make yourself. CHECK: "Rename music files in rip fodler" CHECK: "Rearrange music in rip music folder, using rip settings" -- this creates the (album artist)/album sub folder system that we like! UNcheck: "Maintain my star ratings"

Plug ins Tab: Ignore

Privacy Tab: UNcheck: "Display media info from internet" CHECK: "Update music files by retrieving media info from internet" CHECK: "Acquire Licences automatically for protected content" CHECK: "Set clock on devices automatically" -- Napster DRM licences expire at the end of your membership period -- if you stop paying -- DRM is keyed to your iRiver clock. You want WMP setting that clock, so it's accurate. I once tried "dialing back" my iRiver clock to see if i could get around the DRM expiration time, and it froze my player when I tried to play DRM songs (I had to use the tiny "reset" hole to unfreeze it). So, somehow, DRM knows if you're screwing with the clock. UNcheck: the last 3 boxes ... unless you like sending identification info to Microsoft.

Security Tab: Set it to whatever you're comfortable with. It doesn't affect DRM.

File Types Tab: up to you. I don't use WMP to play my mp3's (I use Foobar) and I don't like WMP stealing default status from my other media players.

DVD Tab, Network Tab: up to you, doesn't affect DRM.

Importing Napster-To-Go DRM files to Windows Media Player

Okay, so on Napster you dig Sugarcult's "Start Static" album and you want to take the album with you on your iRiver. You've used the Napster application to download the album into your Napster Music Folder. EXIT NAPSTER after downloads are complete. Opening up the Napster Music Folder, you will see the 12 tracks listed by (artist name) - (track name).wma : Sugarcult - You're The One.wma Sugarcult - Stuck in America.wma Sugarcult - Hate Every Beautiful Day.wma Sugarcult - Bouncing Off The Walls.wma Sugarcult - Saying Goodbye.wma Sugarcult - Daddy's Little Defect.wma Sugarcult - Lost in You.wma Sugarcult - Pretty Girl (The Way).wma Sugarcult - Crashing Down.wma Sugarcult - How Does it Feel.wma Sugarcult - I Changed My Name.wma Sugarcult - Bonus Track 1.wma

They may not be in that order, depending on what windows explorer is sorting by, but it doesn't matter.

And now you've COPIED (not moved) those files to your DRM Sync Folder.

Now, OPEN up Windows Media Player. Now from the WMP menu, choose File / Add to Library / Add Folder... and browse to your DRM Sync Folder. Add those files, it'll show a little status pop-up % completed window as it adds them.

Then, look in your WMP Library and on the left you should see an expandable folder tree entry like : All Music / Album Artist / Sugarcult / Start Static...

And on the right you'll see the songs in that album.

Now, you want to see if WMP has changed the file names to useful iRiver named files (track #) (song title).wma is how I like it because that's how I name my mp3s when transferring with TDT using USB2, but choose whatever naming convention you like.

In the WMP menu go to View / Choose Columns... and add the "File Name" column and any other information you want.

To manually force a rename, ctrl-A select all the songs in the album on the right window, open up a right-click menu on your selection and "Find Album Info"... It'll open up a bottom-right pane that shows what WMP thinks this album is. If it's the right album, click the "FINISH" button at the bottom of that new pane. This usually forces a rename of the files. Plus it's helpful because Napster is kind of irregular with tagging, even within the same album. And WMP will separate songs within an album if the album name has different spellings for different tracks.

But you can fix that... in WMP. Remember how you *can't* alter tags of DRM files in windows? Well, you can alter them in WMP. And you can do mass-retagging by selecting multiple tracks. Select the files whose tags you want to edit, right click, select "Advanced Tag Edit" and you'll have the option to mass re-tag files.

So, I make sure I've made uniform the Album Title, Artist Name, Year, and Genre of the Albums. And then you can also individually right-click edit or F2 edit individual Track Titles to your preference. Napster sometimes adds extra comments like (album version) in the Title Tag, and it bugs me, so I get rid of those.

Now, sometimes you've changed your Track Title but the track filename hasn't changed to reflect it. At this point, you can do another "Find Album Info" for all the tracks (which won't overwrite your changes if you've selected "Add only Missing Information" in the Library Options Tab), or sometimes you may find it easier to delete the tracks from your library and reimport them. JUST DELETE THE TRACKS FROM YOUR LIBRARY, NOT YOUR COMPUTER. Reimporting should rename/refolderize them.

The End Result is you should have your files now be: C:\DRM Sync Folder\Sugarcult\Start Static\01 You're The One.wma C:\DRM Sync Folder\Sugarcult\Start Static\02 Stuck in America.wma C:\DRM Sync Folder\Sugarcult\Start Static\03 Hate Every Beautiful Day.wma C:\DRM Sync Folder\Sugarcult\Start Static\04 Bouncing Off The Walls.wma C:\DRM Sync Folder\Sugarcult\Start Static\05 Saying Goodbye.wma C:\DRM Sync Folder\Sugarcult\Start Static\06 Daddy's Little Defect.wma C:\DRM Sync Folder\Sugarcult\Start Static\07 Lost in You.wma C:\DRM Sync Folder\Sugarcult\Start Static\08 Pretty Girl (The Way).wma C:\DRM Sync Folder\Sugarcult\Start Static\09 Crashing Down.wma C:\DRM Sync Folder\Sugarcult\Start Static\10 How Does it Feel.wma C:\DRM Sync Folder\Sugarcult\Start Static\11 I Changed My Name.wma C:\DRM Sync Folder\Sugarcult\Start Static\12 Bonus Track 1.wma

Transferring Napster-To-Go DRM files to your Iriver

Okay, one of the horrible horrible bugs with using the Napster+WMP interface to sync to an iRiver H3xx is that the transfer would FREEZE UP. A LOT. Like, every 10 songs. And it sucked.

What Napster was doing was adding all those DRM files (from within the Napster Music Folder <shiver>) to a playlist called "Napster Downloads". and then WMP would automatically sync that with your iRiver. One problem was that you had no control over what you had or didn't have on your iRiver. Another problem was that the playlist got loooooooong. Like, maybe 200-300 tracks. I think it was *that* which caused the iRiver to crash.

But having a 200 track sync folder is stupid, because you WMP will let you choose as many playlists as you want to sync to your device. Which puts the control in YOUR hands. So you can add and remove albums by your choice, and you're never syncing more than 10-15 tracks at a time!

The solution is to MAKE A PLAYLIST FOR EACH ALBUM. So go to your Library tab in WMP, and in the right pane, select those 12 songs. Now right click and Add To/Additional Playlists... and create a New Playlist called "Sugarcult - Start Static" and save it.

Now, go to the sync tab. Connect your iRiver in the USB1 port, the Media Port. You may have to press the play button to get the "connected media" screen. (BTW, there is NO USB1 charging. But you can charge/power it with your AC adapter while doing USB1.) You'll hear the little "be-doop" sound that windows makes when new hardware is plugged in.

(Note: if you've used your iRiver with another WMP program on a different machine, WMP may give you a warning to continue or not, because continuing will wipe out any synced DRM files (though now your regular transfers using USB2) from the other machine. What I did to make a pure fresh start was to copy off all my non-DRM files onto my computer, do an iRiver Format (NEVER DO A WINDOWS REFORMAT!) and that gives me a clean drive to start with. But it's up to you.)

Wait a few seconds and on the right you will see that it show "iRiver H300 Series" and below it will have a folder tree of everything on your player. NEVER SCREW AROUND WITH ANYTHING IN THE RIGHT PANE. In the Left pane you'll see the "Items to Synchronize" window and above that the "start sync" and "sync settings" buttons (NEVER USE THE "EDIT PLAYLIST" BUTTON. Only edit or create playlist from your library tab... with your iRiver disconnected.). Open up the "sync settings" window and you'll see a big list of automatic playlists. MAKE SURE THEY ARE ALL UNCHECKED. I don't think you can delete them, just live with them. Now, scroll down inside that window until you see the playlist you made "Sugarcult - Start Static" at the bottom of that list. Check the box by that playlist.

Now you're ready to do the automatic syncing!! Check the "Synchronize Device Automatically" box, "OK" the window, and your iRiver will start syncing! It will show you what's being synced, the progress of each track, how many files have already been transferred. If you're adding multiple albums, I recommend adding ONE PLAYLIST AT A TIME to the synchronize list. Also, I recommend after each sync where you add songs to press the "sync now" button one more time so the only thing you'll see is the closed "already on the device" tree listing.

When you're done, disconnect your iRiver, power it up, and listen to your Napster DRM tracks wherever you go!!

Some additional facts about DRM, Napster, WMP, and licences

...in no particular order...

1) On your iriver, in a secret partition of the harddrive is a DRM Key File, similar to the master one on your computer, but only containing the songs you've synced. That's why if you ever Windows Format or flash a non-US firmware (basically any firmware, because there's only one release of US firmware out there afaik) you've bricked your DRM functionality. The secret partition is destroyed and there's no way realistically to get it back.

2) It takes EXTRA TIME to access the DRM Key file for each DRM song you have on your iRiver. Since iRiver's don't play gapless to begin with, the pause can get kind of long if you have LOTS of napster songs on your iriver. As far as I can tell, the delay is about 4 seconds for the first songs DRM songs you sync, and gets about a second longer per 75 songs. So the 75th song will have a 5 second gap before it, the 150th a 6 second gap and so forth.

3) TDT 3.0.6 can't read WMA-DRM tags! Remember, they're different from regular WMA tags because they contain some DRM key info in the tag header. TDT 3.0.7 is supposed to, but no one can find a copy of it. If you try to download 3.0.7 it gives you 3.0.6. Perhaps microsoft and apple agents have abducted the developer. We may have to put his picture on milk cartons.

4) Re-naming or Moving DRM files within your iRiver using the windows explorer MAY or may not affect access time. I haven't really tested it, but I remember that my first time using (and screwing up) napster-to-go, I was getting like 10-16 second gap times before songs.

5) When in doubt, LEAVE DRM FILES ALONE ONCE THEY'RE SYNCED. You rename or Move them (either on your computer or on the iriver) at your own risk.

6) Each song's DRM license will expire at a certain point. in WMP right-click a song in the Library Tab and select "Properties" and under the License Tab you'll see something like: This File can be played until 11/13/05 Collaborative play of this file is not allowed (dunno what that means) This file cannot be burned This file can be synced X more times until 11/13/05 **** The license for this file cannot be backed up.

*** For Napster-to-go X=2 if you've never synced the song, X=1 if you've synced the song to your iRiver, X=0 if you've synced the song to your iRiver and a 2nd digital audio player *or* you've synced it twice to your iRiver. ***

Now, the "played until" date will be the date your Napster-to-go Account Expires. Every time you renew your account by paying another $15, the licences of all your Napster DRM files are updated to next month. If you do not plug your iRiver into the USB1 port and run WMP -- even if you're not adding new DRM songs -- your iriver DRM files will stop playing. This is because your licenses on the iRiver are only updated during sync.

7) Here's something that sucks. You *can* take a song off your iRiver. By either editing the playlist from the Library Tab or by unselecting the entire playlist from the "sync settings" tab. BUT YOU DON'T GET YOUR SYNC # BACK. So, X stays at 1 even if you remove it from your iRiver. This is different from, say, the way Sony had it's "check in/check out" proprietary licensing system with it's network MD players. The only way to get more Sync #'s is to contact Napster, redownload the file (so the license is fresh), and then go through the whole add-it-to-wmp thing again. So, basically, only unsync DRM files off your iriver if you're pretty sure you don't need them anymore.

8) Manually Deleting DRM songs from your iRiver using windows and USB2 is a BAD IDEA. Plus, it doesn't change the size of your secret DRM Key lookup file on the iRiver secret partition. I'm not sure that even unsyncing songs will change the size of that lookup file.

9) DRM songs use a lot of juice from your battery. I've found that i get about 4-5 hours of playing 128 or 192 bps WMA DRM songs, max on my battery for my H340. Granted, it's a year old now.

10) DRM Sync takes about 30-60 seconds PER SONG. This is because it's done via USB1, which is about 1/10th the speed of USB2.

I can be contacted at: davidfox2003(@)hotmail.com (remove parenthesis)

New Discoveries

So, learned another thing. The WMP syncing is very sensitive to changes in either the tag or the filename of a song. Both on the computer and on the iRiver. So, one thing you may want to do is use Windows administrative tools to control which programs and accounts can change tags and filenames. If you're an expert on these kinds of things, please add some info.

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