Database Users

How to organise media on the SD card?

Can someone please explain to me how Android uses the various types of media the SD card? From what I can see it just grabs every single picture on the card and displays it in the pictures app. Same for music, it will just grab any mp3 regardless of it's location.
How do I set it up so that pictures only shows the pics from one dir and it's sub-dir's and same for the music app with mp3s?
Edit: The reason I ask is that I have all my MP3s in sub-dir under a music parent dir on the SD card. These sub-dirs have album art pics and stuff in them. When I open up the pictures app it says I have dozens of folders with pics in them because it is saying that all the cover artwork in the music folder are pics. I just want the pics app to show pics from a certain directory and not show every single jpg on the SD card.

I totally agree with you. Showing every damn photo on the SD card makes the Baby Jesus cry.
I have to wait for hundreds of thumbnails to generate because it feels the need to include every image in every directory on the card --- including the caches for several apps... it's totally retarded.

Expect 3rd party apps to handle this (I think there might already be a few). Google stuck with the policy of keeping the base OS simple, yet expandable. Odds are the 3rd party apps won't be free, but that's the price of having a simple OS to start with. Perhaps an update someday may address this but I highly doubt it.

I understand this, and I don't mind paying for a few core apps that IMHO are sorely needed for the G1... better photo management, better media player and a better contact manager. Of those three, the contact manager is definitely the best of the bunch, but it's still missing a few features that I'd like to see, such as photos on the scrool list and better group management --- but the media player and photo browser blow. It's so hard to navigate either of them. For instance, if I want to change pause the song I'm listening to while in another program - I have to go to the home page, wait for page to display, find and open the music app, figure out where I am, find the "playback" menu option (which is in a different place in different areas of the app) and then hit pause. It really shuould just be "open music player, press pause."
I almost like tunewiki, but they really push the lyrics and the streaming menu options..
I recently found ambient player on sourceforge - it's a port of amarok. It's OK, but the buttons are WAY too small for the phone... I cant even tell what I'm pressing. It's only on version 0.3.1 but hopefully it's still progressing.

nolageek said:
I understand this, and I don't mind paying for a few core apps that IMHO are sorely needed for the G1... better photo management, better media player and a better contact manager. Of those three, the contact manager is definitely the best of the bunch, but it's still missing a few features that I'd like to see, such as photos on the scrool list and better group management --- but the media player and photo browser blow. It's so hard to navigate either of them. For instance, if I want to change pause the song I'm listening to while in another program - I have to go to the home page, wait for page to display, find and open the music app, figure out where I am, find the "playback" menu option (which is in a different place in different areas of the app) and then hit pause. It really shuould just be "open music player, press pause."
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For me it's the dialer the worst thing, im used to use de numeric keypad for contact search, and it just doesn't work in the g1.
howewer, about your audio question, i use the standart player and when i'm listening music there's an entry in the notification bar that goes directly to the player, also with the standar speakers you could use the button to stop the music, and to go to the next song with a double clik.

jcuadrado, you're looking for SpellDial, it should do what you want and it's free. Start entering the the contacts name and it searches by each letter you enter. Biggest downside is the lack of wildcard search.
PhotoSlide may be good for image browsing it's $.99 but it's predecessor was nice, android gallery. I haven't tried the paid version but 'folder select' is one of it's options.
aPlayer, another free app. May suit you in the music player department. It allows you to choose which folder on the SD to play music from.
Anyway these are the cheap/free ones. there'll probably be more advanced apps in the weeks to come but hey, it's a start

Music Player question

I've jsut started to use the music player on my HD2 and have to say there's a few things that I'm disappointed in.
Firstly as already mentioned in another post, I don't like that there is no search function, or at least the alphabet down the side as in the contacts, to search through the albums/tracks much quicker. Instead I have to scroll endlessly through all of my music. Is there a fix for this?
Secondly, it isn't very easy to change the artwork (From hints and tips), and/or track title/artists. I had an iphone previously and it was much easier. You just clicked on what you wanted to change in itunes, change it and it automatically synced with the phone. I have a lot of albums where the artwork isn't automatically downloaded, and a lot of tracks where there are multiple artists and I would like to change it to just one. Is there a way to do this? I don't mind manipulating my files on the PC first, but to be honest I can't figure out how to do this on windows media once the CD has been ripped. I know how to change the track title/artists etc before ripping the CD, but I don't want to dig out all my CD's and re-rip them again. Perhaps someone knows how to change all this using windows media once it's ripped?
Alternatively is there a music player out there for my HD2 (preferably free) that allows you to do what I want, ie change artwork, artists etc? Preferably running the program from my PC so I can manipulate it on there.
Cheers

http://www.mediamonkey.com/

im using winamp on the pc for the artworks, and pocketplayer on my leo, it got searchfunction too, and awsome eq, and other settings, try it

Hi,
I've had the HD2 since before Christmas and generally it's great and for connectivity etc, it beats my lady's iphone, but to the subject in hand...
When i got the phone i put a 16Gb card in and stuck all 8Gb of music i had on my reluctantly let go N95 - i know they were looking dated, but it was sturdy as a brick, had GPS, good memory, battery life...
I immediately then had problems with the HD2, it couldn't play for more than 20 or 30 seconds, it was constantly trying to update the music etc, this is fairly easy to fix though, there is a free program for tag checking/fixing on this forum elsewhere. Once you run it on your files on your HD2s card, you'll find some do have errors, get it to fix tham and the HD2 will now stop endlessly trying to scan your music and play it.
Use MP3tag - free and easy to find on web - to correctly name your tracks and artists, this makes life alot easier in finding what you are after.
If you want the HD2 to display artwork - this took some working out - you can make it do so using the following steps:
1 - get the cover artwork you want, open it in Photoshop or equivalent, resize it to 256x256pixels, then save it out (resolution 72dpi, and save out at 6 in Photoshop, it's more than enough for tiny display covers) to the music album folder it needs to live in naming it hTC_AM_AlbumArt.jpg
Once it's saved, go to the folder, right click on the file, click properites, uncheck 'archived' and check 'hidden'. Bingo, this will make sure the artwork you want will appear. It does work, I spent alot of time sorting out my music over Christmas, as music is what i do and this kind of thing bothers me.
You can use HTC's auto artwork function and it does work ok generally for well known stuff, but if you need to plug artwork gaps, use the above.
Glitches in playing... I've found that if you leave Wi-Fi and Data enabled then it does cause pauses generally in quite a few apps, not just the music player, though it is obviously bloody annoying having a 5 second break mid song. Simply switch off Wi-Fi & Data (i'm not 100% sure which is causing it, but it's when the handset is trying to sync out). You'll find then you don't get any interruptions in your music. And let's face it, going to Wireless Connections only takes 2 seconds to switch them on and off. Though granted, HTC should REALLY sort this out.
Main problems i have with the HTC built in music player is the following:
1 If you wizz the Touch Flow album covers too fast, it bugs out and flips to whichever end it is closest to. Annoying.
2 On contacts you get the A to Z slider to speed up finding who you are after, why in hell not on the music player for artists etc???
3 If you go to an artist, say Janis Joplin, play a track, if you then go 'back' to the artist list, are you at J still, NOPE, you are back at A. Annoying. Scroll, scroll, scroll.
4 Why no function for you to choose artwork from a specific folder, which would save all the above fuss, plus an MP3 tag editor/fixer, hardly rocket science in this day and age.
There are other points that will come back to mind once I hit submit I'm sure.
Not related to the music player, but does anyone know if there's a fix for the really annoying way the cursor jumps from where you are when writing a text and you click on 'add symbol'. It jumps to the start of the text, which if u are only briefly above ground on the tube, is really sodding annoying. The keyboard isn't quite as good as the iPhone as it is - a point i'm loathed only to admit to other HD2 users ;-)
Hope some of this helps.
Cheers

Thanks I will check these out. Is pocket player free?

Also try Nitrogen player .. it's free.

MandrakeMan said:
Hi,
I've had the HD2 since before Christmas and generally it's great and for connectivity etc, it beats my lady's iphone, but to the subject in hand...
When i got the phone i put a 16Gb card in and stuck all 8Gb of music i had on my reluctantly let go N95 - i know they were looking dated, but it was sturdy as a brick, had GPS, good memory, battery life...
I immediately then had problems with the HD2, it couldn't play for more than 20 or 30 seconds, it was constantly trying to update the music etc, this is fairly easy to fix though, there is a free program for tag checking/fixing on this forum elsewhere. Once you run it on your files on your HD2s card, you'll find some do have errors, get it to fix tham and the HD2 will now stop endlessly trying to scan your music and play it.
Use MP3tag - free and easy to find on web - to correctly name your tracks and artists, this makes life alot easier in finding what you are after.
If you want the HD2 to display artwork - this took some working out - you can make it do so using the following steps:
1 - get the cover artwork you want, open it in Photoshop or equivalent, resize it to 256x256pixels, then save it out (resolution 72dpi, and save out at 6 in Photoshop, it's more than enough for tiny display covers) to the music album folder it needs to live in naming it hTC_AM_AlbumArt.jpg
Once it's saved, go to the folder, right click on the file, click properites, uncheck 'archived' and check 'hidden'. Bingo, this will make sure the artwork you want will appear. It does work, I spent alot of time sorting out my music over Christmas, as music is what i do and this kind of thing bothers me.
You can use HTC's auto artwork function and it does work ok generally for well known stuff, but if you need to plug artwork gaps, use the above.
Glitches in playing... I've found that if you leave Wi-Fi and Data enabled then it does cause pauses generally in quite a few apps, not just the music player, though it is obviously bloody annoying having a 5 second break mid song. Simply switch off Wi-Fi & Data (i'm not 100% sure which is causing it, but it's when the handset is trying to sync out). You'll find then you don't get any interruptions in your music. And let's face it, going to Wireless Connections only takes 2 seconds to switch them on and off. Though granted, HTC should REALLY sort this out.
Main problems i have with the HTC built in music player is the following:
1 If you wizz the Touch Flow album covers too fast, it bugs out and flips to whichever end it is closest to. Annoying.
2 On contacts you get the A to Z slider to speed up finding who you are after, why in hell not on the music player for artists etc???
3 If you go to an artist, say Janis Joplin, play a track, if you then go 'back' to the artist list, are you at J still, NOPE, you are back at A. Annoying. Scroll, scroll, scroll.
4 Why no function for you to choose artwork from a specific folder, which would save all the above fuss, plus an MP3 tag editor/fixer, hardly rocket science in this day and age.
There are other points that will come back to mind once I hit submit I'm sure.
Not related to the music player, but does anyone know if there's a fix for the really annoying way the cursor jumps from where you are when writing a text and you click on 'add symbol'. It jumps to the start of the text, which if u are only briefly above ground on the tube, is really sodding annoying. The keyboard isn't quite as good as the iPhone as it is - a point i'm loathed only to admit to other HD2 users ;-)
Hope some of this helps.
Cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for taking the time to post this lengthy response. I did see the way you suggested to add artwork on the Hints and tips thread, but what a ball ache. I do't really want to be spending hours resizing pictures just so they can go on the phone, they really should be a way to do this much easier. It would be nice if they had a dedicated program like itunes to do all this kind of stuff. I'm hoping the programs mentioned above will solve my woes.
I can't believe with a phone so powerful that it pauses and has glitches in music playback, that is sooo poor, and inexcusable to me. Does that happen with all music players, or just the HTC sense one?
I've tried windows player that was preinstalled on the phone, but it won't locate any of my music. If I update the library it just fills it with all audio files from my phone (such as sat nav audio) but not my music, why is this and how do I get it to JUST update my music?
I have contacted HTC about the text issue and they tell me they are working on a fix.

Hi,
I agree, it's a ballache that we shouldn't need to do. It's more for those annoying odd one or two album covers here and there that don't get picked up or end up with the wrong covers when you request the handset to update artwork from the Gracenote database.
All these issues with the music player are pretty poor for a handset costing near £500. I should really forward my last post to HTC...
Cheers

Ok, so I've tried other media players and to be quite honest I don't like the interfaces, I like HTC's much better (except for the fact that you can't search). I have added artwork to my media on my PC now using monkeymedia, and jukebox, but when I transfer the music files to my HD2 there's no album artwork, why is this and how do I get it to transfer without going through the long winded process mentioned above?
I DJ and do a lot of my own CD's, and want to add artwork Can anyone help? Or is it just the HTC music player that won't pick up the artwork, and so I'm forced to use another player? If so is there a player out there that has a nice interface like HTC?
I've seen S2P, but which version should I download? Theres vga or wvga?

Cubed "3" Music Player

I received my HTC Desire on Monday, and coming from an iPhone i felt that the built in music player was a bit lacking.
Then i discovered Cubed (Not allowed to post a link being a new member, but google "Cubed Android". Check it out!! It is such a nice application to use, and i thought other people may be interested in it, it runs beautifully on the Desire, and is definately an improvement over the stock music app!

appears in the market as 3 (supposed to be the little 3 that means cubed in maths....)
search the market for 3 by Filipe Arabantes.
And yes, it's pretty good. just a shame you don't get the music controls on the lock screen like with the built in player.

I've installed this on my Desire but I cannot see a widget. Should there be one?

youandwhosearmy said:
I've installed this on my Desire but I cannot see a widget. Should there be one?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah right at the top if your widgets list.

It doesnt show up in my widgets list, only programs list.

Shetlander said:
It doesnt show up in my widgets list, only programs list.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Had an update today and now have 3 widgets in my list. Sorted. Great app.

I still prefer Wiki I have to say. It's a bit faster and intuitive. Plus I listen to a lot of screamy rock and it's helpful to know what they're on about.

Installed it a few days ago and very impressed so far. Love the interface, the only thing I'd really like to see is a lockscreen interface for playback control.

For those who didn't find it with the above searches:
Search for "Cubed music" on the market. You'll see the app appears as number "3".
Nice app, thanks for sharing.

I love this player.. only problem is some songs are missing that show in other apps?

Thank you for the recommendation
Brilliant app

Guitarfreak26 said:
I love this player.. only problem is some songs are missing that show in other apps?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They will not be missing, they are found under 'miscellaneous'

I love this app. It looks great, and allows you to download album art pretty quickly, which is a dream.
My problem is that when I do a full scan, the art seems to be assigned to the wrong songs. Any way to fix it, or unassign the pictures and do a reassign?

There's an update available for this app via the Marketplace, downloaded it today.

My Fav player at the moment .. but I am still hunting for a good player like this with an EQ ... Seen a couple but nothing with a good UI.
Any recommendations?

Unfortunately no...The only player i have with EQ is called Audio Player with EQ (very original...),found it in the Market,but it doesn`t fullfills my dreams...only thing thats good about it is the EQ.

rhedgehog said:
appears in the market as 3 (supposed to be the little 3 that means cubed in maths....)
search the market for 3 by Filipe Arabantes.
And yes, it's pretty good. just a shame you don't get the music controls on the lock screen like with the built in player.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The updated version will display the music controls on the lock screen.. very nice..

This app doesn't display any album art for me, everything is just black. =\

adjei7 said:
I love this app. It looks great, and allows you to download album art pretty quickly, which is a dream.
My problem is that when I do a full scan, the art seems to be assigned to the wrong songs. Any way to fix it, or unassign the pictures and do a reassign?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you press and hold on the art for a song, hold until the screen changes to a wall of images, and tap on the correct artwork
I only realised this myself by accident!

Only one think I miss in this app, is to set only one folder to scan for music (sdcard/mp3), because it shows sound files from other folders, which i don't want to listen to e.g. sound from satnav etc.
-------------------------------------
Sent via the XDA Tapatalk App

HTC Sense Music Player

Hey Everybody
So is it just me or does anyone else notice some very basic flaws in HTC's sense music player? Surely there must be a solution or two for these nuisances:
1) Is there a way to get it to ignore certain folders containing music that I dont want added to my library?
2) Is there some kind of tweak that allows faster accessing of songs in your library? maybe at least an alphabetic scroll? (currently to navigate to a song, you have to kinetically scroll all the way to your song and this is a huge annoyance if you have a larger music library and, for example, are looking for a song/artist/album starting with Z)
3) Why does the music player always stop whenever the camera is activated? is there some kind of reg edit so that this doesnt happen??
I realize that there are other music players out there but i'd really like to get this one working properly especially considering what a nice piece of eye candy it is on sense

hc03 said:
Hey Everybody
So is it just me or does anyone else notice some very basic flaws in HTC's sense music player? Surely there must be a solution or two for these nuisances:
1) Is there a way to get it to ignore certain folders containing music that I dont want added to my library?
2) Is there some kind of tweak that allows faster accessing of songs in your library? maybe at least an alphabetic scroll? (currently to navigate to a song, you have to kinetically scroll all the way to your song and this is a huge annoyance if you have a larger music library and, for example, are looking for a song/artist/album starting with Z)
3) Why does the music player always stop whenever the camera is activated? is there some kind of reg edit so that this doesnt happen??
I realize that there are other music players out there but i'd really like to get this one working properly especially considering what a nice piece of eye candy it is on sense
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
let me say first I really like the "promised" capabilities of this phone bt the actual pratice is getting to me.
the Sense music player is actually going on to the internet BEFORE it loads your songs. This is why you have a long delay (especially if you have over 5gigs of music like me). It is looking for data (album art, names, song titles etc.). You will ususally get an Audiomanager .eng.exe error. I found this out yesterday. i did not believe it at first, but was told to go to settings and turn the option to "flight mode" or just cut the data connections in general.
2 minutes later a prompt came up saying that there was no data connectivity for the audio player. Try it yourself if you like. I am asking around now for a fix or tweak to stop this from happening. If I find one I will get back to you. Believe me I know your pain

hc03 said:
1) Is there a way to get it to ignore certain folders containing music that I dont want added to my library?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Anyone knows how to do this?

Here is what I have done to get the music player to load faster. Go to the windows folder...look for audiomanager.exe copy the file and paste it in the startup folder. I have over 5GB of music...easily over 1,000 songs and it maybe lags 20 second and then i am ready to rock...literally. Try this it should help!

DeadVirus said:
Anyone knows how to do this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Use Total Commander to navigate to the folder in question (you'll probably want to start with "/Storage Card/program files"), and then long-press on the folder to bring up the options...click the box for "hidden". Each folder you do that for will then be skipped when the music player indexes, but you can still see/access the folders like normal.
EDIT: Toreone's tip IS a great way to speed up indexing on larger music libraries...the cab below does the exact same thing he was describing

sirphunkee said:
Use Total Commander to navigate to the folder in question (you'll probably want to start with "/Storage Card/program files"), and then long-press on the folder to bring up the options...click the box for "hidden". Each folder you do that for will then be skipped when the music player indexes, but you can still see/access the folders like normal.
EDIT: Toreone's tip IS a great way to speed up indexing on larger music libraries...the cab below does the exact same thing he was describing
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks but I've already set the folders (and the files) to be hidden and the files are still appearing...

DeadVirus said:
Thanks but I've already set the folders (and the files) to be hidden and the files are still appearing...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm...that worked like a charm for me when I did it. You can try this cab:

Oooops, my bad, wrong forum

Best way to copy music to phone

Does anyone have any suggested techniques for copying MP3 or WMA files to the phone (SD or Internal memory)?
What I've discovered is that synching with Media Player will transfer over these hidden files (album art, desktop.ini, and folder.jpg). These hidden files seem to mess with the way the Sense music player is picking up the music and what ends up happening is that in the music players details view, it does indeed break up the artists and the albums etc. HOWEVER, in the default view (the one that shows the album covers) it doesn't know what to do and only shows you the album cover of the particular album you are listening too. There's no way to get to the other album without going into the details menu and selecting it from there.
Whew - SO, all that being said; what I found is that if I delete the album art, desktop.ini and folder.jpg files BEFORE manually dragging and dropping the music over to the phone it seems to resolve the problem.
So is there a more streamlined approach to doing this?

Explorer
yatman60 said:
Does anyone have any suggested techniques for copying MP3 or WMA files to the phone (SD or Internal memory)?
What I've discovered is that synching with Media Player will transfer over these hidden files (album art, desktop.ini, and folder.jpg). These hidden files seem to mess with the way the Sense music player is picking up the music and what ends up happening is that in the music players details view, it does indeed break up the artists and the albums etc. HOWEVER, in the default view (the one that shows the album covers) it doesn't know what to do and only shows you the album cover of the particular album you are listening too. There's no way to get to the other album without going into the details menu and selecting it from there.
Whew - SO, all that being said; what I found is that if I delete the album art, desktop.ini and folder.jpg files BEFORE manually dragging and dropping the music over to the phone it seems to resolve the problem.
So is there a more streamlined approach to doing this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Put your INC in DISK DRIVE mode and copy your files to the SD card using Windows Explorer. You can also take out the SD card, put it in a reader, plug that into your PC's card reader, and put the files there via Windows Explorer.
Of course, all this presupposes that your MP3 files are correct (e.g., their ID3 tags are correct; and the album art was already integrated).

I use Tunesync, there're also isyncr, doubletwist, websharing....
The thing I like about these sync software is that they put your music in a playlist, which all the players can see.
First thing I would do is ditch the default android player though and stay away from Music PlayerPro too (just a skinned default player-same options same problems).
I am using bTunes, I think it's already abandon by the developer, but since it works and I already paid for it so might as well.
I recommend Mort Player if you don't look at it too much, Man!..that UI is just plain Ugly.

DoubleTwist is great. It also syncs your videos as well. Best part is it only syncs what you want. You create playlists and it syncs based on their contents
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App

Thanks...
Thanks for the info everyone. I guess the bottom line is that music software on Android is still in infancy stages with a lot of options but nothing that really just stands out. I hate to admit it but looks like Apple has a (+) in this department for now. My Incredible is a filler phone to hold me over until with WINMO7 stuff starts to hit Verizon so just looking for the best combinations of software on this thing.
I'm totally new to Android but I would have thought that the folks over at Google would have taken the media experience a little more seriously and spent some time on those aspects out of the box.

yatman60 said:
Thanks for the info everyone. I guess the bottom line is that music software on Android is still in infancy stages with a lot of options but nothing that really just stands out. I hate to admit it but looks like Apple has a (+) in this department for now. My Incredible is a filler phone to hold me over until with WINMO7 stuff starts to hit Verizon so just looking for the best combinations of software on this thing.
I'm totally new to Android but I would have thought that the folks over at Google would have taken the media experience a little more seriously and spent some time on those aspects out of the box.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Google was doing fine, 2.1 was solid. It uses up battery like there's no tomorrow, but solid.
2.2 seem like it's coded by 5 year olds... in Mongolia...using Vtech's Vsmile system....during recess. Maybe that's why the battery last longer, nothing works. Could be a way to make us pay for third-party apps (free enterprise at work).

Bus, now that's just plan 'ol funny. Educational (for me) at the same time.

I use the free version of Media Monkey on my Win XP desktop and Meridian on my Dinc. Then I sync playlists (like I used to on my iPhone 3G). Works like a champ.

The iPhone is far superior in the music catagory (dsp, organization, genius) but u have to keep inmind it stemed from an ipod. That said the closest ive come to it is boomboxoid but its terribly slow and often unresponsive. Which is why i primarily use pandora now...an ipod like music player is the app i want most!
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App

gimini said:
The iPhone is far superior in the music catagory (dsp, organization, genius) but u have to keep inmind it stemed from an ipod. That said the closest ive come to it is boomboxoid but its terribly slow and often unresponsive. Which is why i primarily use pandora now...an ipod like music player is the app i want most!
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've mentioned bTunes above. It's the exact replica of the iPhone/iPod player.