Stock Sony Music app and ID3... - Sony Xperia X Compact Questions & Answers

So, I been a happy user of Xperia X Compact.
I been using google play music as my main music app for longest time - There is no real reason for it I actually do not use the cloud music storage or anything else, I just liked the UI - but the app itself is in bit of the heavier side. I liked how fast it initially worked - but overall even on this phone it's start up starts to go into the slower side - making me loose hope.
So I decided to try out the Sony's Own app. It looks nice it groups things nice it seems to handle playlists right - but even after going through it's VERY long music ID album art fixing/filling thing and well...
Most of my music is not the most popular kind - even with sony being japanese a lot of my stuff is missing album art now - some ID tags seem to be messed up so I think it is some sort of ID3 version incompatibility.
Anyone know what kind of ID3 does the music app specifically need? Or anyone else have tinkered with it and can tell?

Related

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?

Why doesn't my music transfer organized?

Something that really irritates me is that I have my music on iTunes organized but when I transfer with DoubleTwist and play the music on Meridan Music player, it gets disorganized.
Is there any player that retains the organization from iTunes?
bTunes shamelessly mocks the appearance of the player on the iPhone /iPod Touch. It also handles the library in a similar way (unlike many other players for android, it does NOT slaughter compilations by creating an album entry for each artist)
This app is well in beta stage and is a bit rough around the edges. For me, it FCs on phone boot, but nothing seems to stop working. I cant find a homepage for the app, just search for btunes in the market.
iag48 said:
Something that really irritates me is that I have my music on iTunes organized but when I transfer with DoubleTwist and play the music on Meridan Music player, it gets disorganized.
Is there any player that retains the organization from iTunes?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
One thing I noticed is that Android doesn't have a very good Music management system. It will organize based on what your properties of each song is. It sucks because I had a terrible accident with some garbage media player once and it messed up all of my music's properties. [around 1500 songs]. I took about 2 hours fixing them all because I got tired of not having my Music organized. That's one of my biggest pet peeves.
spaceman_spliff said:
bTunes shamelessly mocks the appearance of the player on the iPhone /iPod Touch. It also handles the library in a similar way (unlike many other players for android, it does NOT slaughter compilations by creating an album entry for each artist)
This app is well in beta stage and is a bit rough around the edges. For me, it FCs on phone boot, but nothing seems to stop working. I cant find a homepage for the app, just search for btunes in the market.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks! bTunes (beta) is great. Works good enough for me on the Nexus Won.
spaceman_spliff said:
For me, it FCs on phone boot, but nothing seems to stop working..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This issue has been resolved in the latest round of updates. The dev seems to update this app quite often.
I'm looking for bTunes in a few minutes. I was actually thinking of trading my N1 for an unlocked 3GS just because it really irritates me. So will my iTunes library transfer as it is on my Mac?
Anyone able to sort their music on the N1, through any music player, BY DATE ADDED or MODIFIED??
I want to listen to the music I added to the music folder most recently.
I have a big library, and i want to listen to the new stuff first....

Easier way to pause/stop music? Side note: Any good media players from the market?

First post.
Mediascape sucks. Just to pause a song, I have to do go through so much stuff just to get to the now playing panel and press pause.
Is there a faster way, or maybe even a better media player? There are a lot and I don't want to look through them all,
Thanks
Check out Meridian Player. Add it's widget to home screen to control it easily.
Try TuneWiki. It comes with Shoutcast - internet radio & lyrics display (if applicable) during playback.
Definitely check out Meridian Player. Though I do like Mediascape, I use Meridian Player to make playlists to use in Mediascape.
Quick tip: When playing music, pull down the status bar and hit the currently playing song the quickly access the now playing page. From there, you can skip pause or select a new song from the list very quickly.
it's so stupid that we can't pause/play with a button, perhaps the camera button would do the trick...it would have been much easier
I use Meridian for movies and TuneWiki for music.
I have MW600 but i can't play/pause and is made by Sony.
I didn't test it yet if it works with Mediascape ...
you could try out MortPlayer which is a very straightforward easy to use music player that just does the job for you
bTunes works great. Has lock screen controls, and you can play/pause from the button on the X10's mic dongle (though it can be a bit finicky).
Thanks for the suggestions guys. I checked out some of the apps, but is it me or are they all not very visually appealing? Compared to the iPhone that is. (I had one but sold it 'cause I got really bored and felt it wasn't for me)
Any out there with a good looking UI?
ofiveo said:
Thanks for the suggestions guys. I checked out some of the apps, but is it me or are they all not very visually appealing? Compared to the iPhone that is. (I had one but sold it 'cause I got really bored and felt it wasn't for me)
Any out there with a good looking UI?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try Rockon or 3 for visuals, although I was getting some odd behavior from them when I would remove the headphones.
ofiveo said:
Thanks for the suggestions guys. I checked out some of the apps, but is it me or are they all not very visually appealing? Compared to the iPhone that is. (I had one but sold it 'cause I got really bored and felt it wasn't for me)
Any out there with a good looking UI?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
btunes imitate the ipod player on iphone
Re: Easier way to pause/stop
I use Meridian for movies and TuneWiki for music.
I have MW600 but i can't play/pause and is made by Sony.
I didn't test it yet if it works with Mediascape ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the mw600 pause, play and so on (mediascape) buttons works realy great. it also conects to more then 1 phone at a tile if you want. realy greate. hearing music from my x10 and awnsering calls from my work phone!
Sent from my X10i using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk
You can go straight to the current song from the App Tray.. (slide the tray down from the top and click on the "currently playing" line... Mediascape is very different to all the other "standard" media players out there and most people will take some time, and sometimes, a lot of time, to get into it... there will be improvements required I think.. things like creating playlists within the app, and lockscreen controls for the music player.. but mostly it's just different form everything else out there.. and we humans a uncomfortable with different.. until the point comes when it just feels normal.. use it.. give it time.. and then see.. (plus I also hear that the new firmware version may include some improvements for Mediascape too)..

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.

Quirky Music Player on the Galaxy Note

I think the Note is a great device. I just could not fathom what the designers were thinking when they built the stock Music Player. It plays album tracks in alphabetical order, as opposed to the common track number order. I did not see any option in the UI to make it behave properly.
I am certain my MP3 with ID3 tags are fine. Because they played fine on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the Galaxy S II. My workaround to this quirky behavior of the stock music player... use an alternate Music Player from the Market.
same problem
Yup...mine has the same issue...all songs in all the albums are arranged alphabetically.
And there is no option of changing it. This is my first android and did'nt expect these kinda bugs.
Even my last phone, N8, had songs arranged by track number. Its really frustrating.
Anyone got a fix or do we have to wait for an update from samsung.
Btw another thing i noticed was that while viewing the music list while playing the music in the background, the bar at the bottom displays "song name _ artist". Should'nt it be a '-' instead of a '_'.
I noticed the same issue with the stock music player and also couldn't find a work around. I have therefore now started using Winamp which does thankfully play them in track order.
Sent from my GT-N7000 using xda premium
So there's no other option but to use another music player.
And wait for samsung to fix this.
Slightly off topic, but this is one of the advantages of Android over iOS - if you don't like the stock application, you can simply use another!
I don't think I've used the stock music player for any Android device I own.
Regards,
Dave
Lol..ya dude...another way to look at it...
And which player do you suggest?
I went for "cubed" (or "3") from the market, mainly 'cos it looks really good - but it sounds good too once you tweak the EQ a bit (though I have found that it has a tendancy to lock up the player if you mess with the EQ settings too much on the graphical interface).
EDIT - I also found it to do a good job of sorting out the somewhat patchy album art I had on the 30GB library I'd copied over form my old N900 to my Note (once I discovered that to do this you hold and drag on the album to get to the art selection/download functionality). It doesn't have an auto mode to process all albums but the per-album manual method was quick & painless for those albums that required it.
Well the real problem that i saw after using the note is that in Artists view...the songs are arranged by track number...while in album view..they are arranged alphabetically....
The thing i wanna know is does 2.3.6 fix this or not...
Screen shots attached
Thanks
abirsharda said:
Well the real problem that i saw after using the note is that in Artists view...the songs are arranged by track number...while in album view..they are arranged alphabetically....
The thing i wanna know is does 2.3.6 fix this or not...
Screen shots attached
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
nope, not fixed.
i just use poweramp. much more customisable.
Souai said:
nope, not fixed.
i just use poweramp. much more customisable.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Power amp was using to much the CPU 35-50% so installed and did go back to stock player and his 5-12% CPU usage.
Sent from my GT-N7000 using XDA App
The stock player sorts the track according the track numbers in the artist view.
Bobanovicz said:
The stock player sorts the track according the track numbers in the artist view.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ya i know it does that in artist view...it would not be a problem if some albums had different artists...then we have to open album view and listen alphabetically which sucks...and as Braxos pointed out power amp is using too much cpu for playing music...i just did'nt expect these kinda bugs when we're buying expensive smartphones...
Winamp sorts the music properly.
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note.
MixZing is what I'm using, GREAT audio player which boasts a 10 band equalizer ranging from 30hz to 16khz, an amplifier to boost the volume, and yeah the songs/artists are alphabetically in order too!
I strongly recommend this application.
Efficient Music Player For The Note?
Coming from an iPhone which can boast music for 20 hours in a real life scenario... is there any decent music player that is power efficient? Poweramp looks like a battery hog that i'm not using for sure. Thanks
If anybody has run a music playback time test please report.

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