S9 Has Died - Is The J3 The Best Replacement?

[DSperber]

Originally Posted by rockphantom

As soon as my J3 arrives, this my plan of action...

1. Fully charge the J3.
2. Wipe the internal memory and SD card.
3. Disconnect J3 from my Windows 7 PC to allow J3 software reinstall
3. Reconnect to PC to Install FW 2.29
4. Install all 4 Kizune UCI themes
5. Load up 64GB of FLAC Files!!!
6. Configure my favorite S9 audio EQ settings
8. Configure the UCI Kizune themes
7. Rock out!!

Sounds like a good plan!

I'm still using firmware 2.26, which is stable and provides excellent performance. No anomalies or issues or problems.

The "fixes" from Cowon with 2.28 were [minimally] described as:

Fixed the file system error after transfer files to J3 by Mac OS or Linux.
Fixed the error while playing mp3 files with some abnormal ID3 TAG.
Fixed the display error in certain situation in Video browser.

And the "fixes" from 2.29 were:

Fixed the error of firmware version 2.29 that the last folder wasn't displayed in alphabetical order.

But some users have reported reduced responsiveness with 2.29, and I didn't even want to deal with that possibility. I have no issues with battery life and my periodic re-charging regimen, so getting another possible 1 hour of life is not of any value to me.

I plan to go with Logical Browsing.

I do as well, because my 61GB of music is split across internal and external storage, and I have many "compilations" that contain tracks from multiple artists. I want tracks from any album to appear when I browse by Library -> [Artists] which is the only real way I browse, if it's not Library -> [Genres] -> [FLAC] since all of my FLAC files have "FLAC" stored as their "genre" value.

I don't want to be bothered about what physical folder a music file is in on either internal or external storage. I only want to browse by [Artists] or [Genres], and have it present ALL of that music to me.

I have used the very useful piece of freeware known as MP3 Tag to properly tag all of my FLAC albums for use with my S9.

Certainly. Pretty much all of us (including me) use that fine program.

I am assuming that these tagged FLAC files will be fully compatible with my new J3, with no further alterations required.

Absolutely.

My FLAC albums are housed in individual folders tagged like this:
Van Halen - 1984
Van Halen - A Different Kind Of Truth 2012
Van Halen - Fair Warning 1981
Guns N Roses - Use Your Illusion I MFSL 1991
Guns N Roses - Use Your Illusion II MFSL 1991
Judas Priest - Metal Works 73-93 1993 2CD
The Police - Message In A Box The Complete Recordings 1993 4CD
and so on...

It's not clear what you're describing here, or whether you're talking "physical" or "logical".

In my case, BOTH are identical so there's no problem or ambiguity or confusion. In other words, the physical structure of my collection is \Music\Artist\Album. And similarly, the tags for every music file reflect the exact same "artist" value that is my physical \Artist folder name. The tags for every music file reflect the exact same "album" value that is my physical \Album folder name. I also have a proper "track number" in each music file tag.

I use no hyphens concatenating artist and album, anywhere. I use no track number prefix or suffix in the external file name or internal "song title" tag field, anywhere. Artist is artist. Album is album. Track number is track number. Period.

So when I browse "logically" (say coming down from [Artists]) it's exactly the same as if I were to browse "physically" (say coming down the \Music\Artist folder structure, since every external folder under \Music is an external \Artist folder and contains one or more physical \Album folders holding the music files for that album for that artist).

That's just me, and my collection.

Remember, a "logical album folder" isn't really a "folder" (in the physical sense), although we can think of it that way. It's simply the collection of all music files whose internal "album" tag field values are identical. The J3 will present them together when browsing "logically", but they can be collected from many different physical folders (which may or may not even correspond to an actual album, depending on how your physical collection is organized) and from both internal and external storage. They're simply shown as a "logical album" because they all have the identical "album" tag field value.

Will the J3 be able to distinguish that each folder houses an individual album? I'd hate to have to alter the directories of 300+ albums.

As I said earlier, there is a totally different concept for "physical" browsing vs. "logical" browsing. One has nothing to do with they other, at all. You can have all of your music in the root of internal and external storage, with no physical folders at all, and the J3 will still present "logical album folders" to you when you browse "logically" based on internal tag field "album" values. If two music files have the identical "album" tag field values, then no matter where they are located on the J3 they will be shown to you as being in the "same logical album folder" if you browse "logically" (e.g. Library -> [Albums], or Library -> [Artists] -> list of logical albums by that artist -> [specific logical album]).

You need to dissociate physical folders corresponding to albums and holding physical tracks from that album, if that's how you've built your folder/file physical structure, vs. logical albums which are built strictly from internal tag fields... through the J3's tags database that gets rebuilt at each power-on.

If you have radically different external folder/file structure than your internal tag field values reflect, then you're going to have to assume full responsibility for understanding what you're seeing when you browse. You just need to understand what "logical browsing" means.. i.e. it is strictly on the basis of internal tag field values, having ZERO to do with the physical folder/file external names for those music files nor whether they're on internal or external storage.

Also, I know the J3 screen is constructed from Gorilla Glass, just like my 3 year old S9 which never got a scratch on it.
Is the J3 screen protector from Rearth worthy of the money?

No idea. I have the official Cowon plastic screen sheet applied over my J3's glass, just to keep my fingerprints off the glass and permit easy cleaning.

And I have the official Cowon leather case, which provides excellent "touch" for me and protection for the J3.

I don't abuse my J3, and it's either on the passenger seat of my car or it's on my tray table on an airplane. It's not going to fall, and it's not going to get scratched or be handled roughly.

Is there any benefit to purchasing a screen protecting film for the J3?

I feel so. As I said, I use the official Cowon plastic sheet.

[rockphantom]

Thanks again, DSperber.

In regard to my albums and how I have them sorted...

All of my albums in FLAC format have appropriate ID3 tags including, artist, album, song, release year, genre, and track number.

I have each album in its own Windows folder that is tagged like this: Artist - Album.

This formula worked well for my S9, so I don't anticipate any problems using the same format with my J3, when it comes to playing albums in their entirety.

I may invest in the J3 screen protector, even though I have a Rearth Case on the way.

Milan

[DSperber]

Originally Posted by rockphantom

All of my albums in FLAC format have appropriate ID3 tags including, artist, album, song, release year, genre, and track number.

I have each album in its own Windows folder that is tagged like this: Artist - Album.

Your use of "folder that is tagged" is confusing to me. The word "tag" to me implies internal tag metadata inside music files, not related to the external name for a folder (as would appear to Windows Explorer).

Are you saying that your external folder names for an album is "Artist - Album"? This will only be relevant if you do "physical browsing", i.e. navigating down from [J3] or [J3 Ext] and seeing external folder names from there downward.

If you do "logical browsing" then the external folder name of "Artist - Album" will not appear at all. What you will see for the "artist" when you browse downward from Library -> [Artists] will be the internal "artist" tag field. And underneath a selected Artist will then be seen the "albums" by that artist, i.e. the internal "album" tag field. Again, the external folder name of "Artist - Album" will not appear at all.

This formula worked well for my S9, so I don't anticipate any problems using the same format with my J3, when it comes to playing albums in their entirety.

Well, you've got me confused. Because only if you do "physical browsing" would you see your external folder names of "Artist - Album".

Or, only if your internal tag field for "album" actually contains "artist - album" would your "logical browsing" present "artist - album".

I know you say it "worked well for your S9", so I'm sure it will work equally well for the J3. But I confess your use of "folders that are tagged" is confusing to me, because real physical folders have external names whereas music files have internal tag metadata fields. The two are entirely unrelated, though of course they can be identical or different depending on how you've built your collection.

[rockphantom]

I have all of my albums in windows folders with the name of the artist followed by a dash, then the album name, and release year.

In each folder I have each track listed as [01] Song Title [02] Song Title [03] Song Title etc...

I also have the album cover of each individual album in its respective folder, listed as cover.jpg.

You are correct, this wouldn't be considered tagging.

I have made sure that each track has the appropriate meta-data by using MP3 Tag to tag each track, so that I can easily select each album via the S9 album art horizontal landscape mode.

I hope this makes sense.

Thanks again for your help, DSperber.

Milan

[DSperber]

Originally Posted by rockphantom

I have all of my albums in windows folders with the name of the artist followed by a dash, then the album name, and release year.

Ok. Now it's clear. You are talking about the EXTERNAL FOLDER NAMES. This has nothing at all to do with the internal tag field values of "artist", "album", or "year".

But the only way you will ever see these names is if you are doing "physical browsing" so that these external folder names are displayed by the J3.

In each folder I have each track listed as [01] Song Title [02] Song Title [03] Song Title etc...

Once again, purely physical external file names. And once again this has nothing at all to do with the internal tag field values of "track number" or "song title".

Again, the only way you will ever see these names is with "physical browsing", where external file names are presented by the J3.

I also have the album cover of each individual album in its respective folder, listed as cover.jpg.

Yes, this works perfectly... because the J3 will display "cover.jpg" as the album art for a physical music file being played from within a physical folder, whenever it plays a physical music file which doesn't have its own internal imbedded album art (in the tag of that music file) from within that physical folder. This is a purely physical folder/file function.

If the music file being played does have its own imbedded album art JPG in its tag, then that imbedded JPG will be displayed rather than the "cover.jpg" which really is the "physical folder default album art" used for music files that do NOT contain their own imbedded album art.

I have made sure that each track has the appropriate meta-data by using MP3 Tag to tag each track, so that I can easily select each album via the S9 album art horizontal landscape mode.

The horizontal "Matrix Browser" 2x5 album art presentation is actually for the 9 alphabetically surrounding "logical album" titles (based on internal tag field "album" value, not the external physical folder name which could also have been a physical album folder if that's your collection's structure, e.g. \Music\Artist\Album, but doesn't necessarily have to be a single album folder).

Now, remember that the S9 doesn't have an external storage card. So everything is on internal storage only. With the J3, you're going to experience some new differences because the way you've named your external folders/files does not match the way you've internally tagged things inside of your music files.

Again... not to be intentionally redundant, but this is an issue relating to "physical browsing" vs. "logical browsing".

In other words, the only way you can possibly see your external "Artist - Album" folder names (which are physical album folders, in your collection) is if you are "physically browsing". And that means you need to be navigating down through the folder structure contained on either internal [J3] or external storage [J3 Ext] when you start from Library -> [Folders].

And then, once you're into a specific physical "Artist - Album" folder you will now see your externally named "nn - song title" physical music files.

And now you start playing the physical music files in that physical "Artist - Album" folder, which you've physically navigated into on either internal or external storage.

Well, now if you rotate the J3 horizontally, you will see the 2x5 Matrix Browser album cover display... which is LOGICAL by internal "album" tag field value, having nothing to do with the physical "Artist - Album" folder or the single "cover.jpg" contained in that physical folder.

In other words, the currently playing track's internal "album" tag field value is looked up in the tags database using the "album" alphabetical sorted column in the database. And the 9 alphabetically surrounding "logical album" titles (around the "album" tag field value currently being played) are selected, and the corresponding album art displayed for each of those surrounding "logical album" titles.

And how is the "corresponding album art" determined for a logical "album" tag field value for a given music file? Whichever physical "cover.jpg" was in the physical folder in which that physical music file is located, that is considered to be the "corresponding album art" for that music file's logical "album" value which is used as the "center tile" in the 2x5 Matrix Browser array.

Now in your case, although you've added the artist to the physical album folder name (i.e. "Artist - Album") in fact every one of your physical folders is really still just one physical album. That's also why one "cover.jpg" in these album-related folders works for you. In my case my organization is \Artist\Album where there can be multiple \Album folders under one \Artist "parent folder", but I too have one "cover.jpg" in each of those \Album folders. Each physical \Album folder is one album, and has its own "cover.jpg" in it.


Anyway, if you start browsing "physically" and therefore choose internal or external storage and then navigate down either branch, looking for your desired physical "Artist - Album" folder, and then start playing a physical music file within that folder, you're in "physical browsing" mode. Normally the music files in that folder would be displayed alphabetically by the J3, but you've "fooled it" by putting the track number as a prefix on the external file names. So your "alphabetical" list is really track number sequence... because you've forced it in your external names.

If instead, you had started your browse "logically" (i.e. using internal tag field values), say by Library -> [Artists], and then scrolled to the logical artist you were looking for, and then tapped into that logical artist to show the list of logical albums by that artist, and then tapped into a selected logical album, the J3 will actually display the logical music files in that logical album BY TRACK NUMBER (tag field) value. You don't need to force track number sequence through any artificial trick if you are in this logical album display mode, because that is exactly how the J3 is programmed to work when viewing a logical album: music files in that logical album are displayed in track number sequence.

My point is that once you switch to horizontal mode you're now "logical", and when you tap on an album cover from the 2x5 array you have just gone to a logical album, i.e. all music files whose internal "album" tag field value is identical, no matter whether the music files are on internal or external storage and no matter what physical "Artist - Album" folder they might actually be located in.


Any reason you've got 1-level \"Artist - Album" for your external folders, rather than using a 2-level \Artist\Album approach?

[Adoby]

..

[rockphantom]

Thanks again for the in depth detail, DSperber!

I always use the horizontal matrix browser to select albums to listen to.
I prefer to listen to complete albums.

I have each album in it's own directory because I like to see each and every album on one screen while browsing in Windows.

My J3 should be here in 24 hours, as long as UPS cooperates.

I can't wait to play with it!

Milan

[DSperber]

Originally Posted by rockphantom

I have each album in it's own directory because I like to see each and every album on one screen while browsing in Windows.

Well sure, so do I. And that also allows the "cover.jpg" technique to work perfectly.

But I don't know why you have a "1-level" folder structure, where each folder name repeats the name of the artist followed by an album by that artist. Why not have a "2-level" folder structure where the "parent" folder is for the artist, and then the "child" folder level is the one or more album titles by that artist?



You still have only one folder per album, containing only the music files from that album. And you still have one "cover.jpg" in that album folder.

But you have a high-level folder structure that is \Artist, and underneath each artist you can see the individual albums by that artist, i.e. \Artist\Album.

You don't think that makes for easier and more organized browsing with Explorer, to be able to easily scroll to your target artist and then expand that \Artist folder to see the albums by that artist?

[rockphantom]

I'm loving my new J3.

Here's a quick question.

How I do activate the ability to view all of the album covers in a collage when the J3 is titled horizontally? I'd like to browse all of my albums via cover art and then be able to select which album to play by pressing on the album cover, just like on the S9.

I've installed Leaf and all of the UCIs that DSperber recommended I installed.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Scrolling through folder and folders of albums on the J3 is frustrating.

I just want to click the cover and begin listening.

Thank You!

Milan

[DSperber]

Originally Posted by rockphantom

How I do activate the ability to view all of the album covers in a collage when the J3 is titled horizontally? I'd like to browse all of my albums via cover art and then be able to select which album to play by pressing on the album cover, just like on the S9.

I've installed Leaf and all of the UCIs that DSperber recommended I installed.

Since you are using the Sense UCI, unfortunately you've lost the Cowon "Matrix Browser" landscape-mode presentation which shows the 2x5 array of album covers (alphabetically arranged by album title surrounding the album title of the music track you're currently playing).

That Matrix Browser functionality is not implemented in Sense. Remember it only shows the 9 alphabetically surrounding album covers around the album of the song you're currently playing (I don't think there is any ability to scroll left or right, 10 covers at a time, but I can't swear to that since I use Sense and have no interest in Matrix Browser).

And of course, you must have the J3 set so that horizontal vs. vertical mode is "enabled", rather than one or the other modes "locked".




If you want Matrix Browser you're going to have to give up Sense. Unfortunately it's one or the other.

If you only have internal storage and no external card, I believe there is a "Cover Flow" UCI from El Maco which supports what you're asking for (and which you may already have on your S9).

Scrolling through folder and folders of albums on the J3 is frustrating.

If you haven't discovered it already, you have a "instant first-letter jump" capability with Leaf (i.e. the Browser component in that UCI group you're using). It's initiated by tapping on the the "ABC" icon at the bottom of the screen when you get into Leaf.

When you tap on ABC a 4x7=28 cell matrix appears on the screen, with the letters of the alphabet and two other items in each cell. You can then tap on one of those letters and whatever is the currently presented "list" (i.e. whatever it is at the level you've navigated down to or up to in the browser), the first item with a first-letter matching the cell you just tapped will be instantly navigated to.

In other words, you can use Leaf and its first-letter jump feature to instantly jump to the alphabetic subsets of whatever list you're looking at, without having to use your finger to scroll through the entire list until you get there. Yes, you'll probably then have to scroll around a bit to get what you want, but if you're looking at a large list then at least this first-letter jump is a tremendous convenience.

Imagine a list of FLAC songs, 1100 long, and your currently playing song starts with the letter B. It's hugely convenient to be able to first-letter jump to the S section instantly, with two taps (ABC, and then S).

And of course, if you're in Sense playing a music file, if you tap on the "hidden browser button" in the upper-left corner of the displayed album art, that will take you immediately to Leaf showing the currently playing track in the currently playing list. And that menu bar at the bottom will show you the ABC. Go from there.

If your list is small (e.g. the tracks of a single album) then ABC doesn't really buy you anything. But if your list is huge (as with my 1100 track FLAC "genre-playlist", which is how I use my J3), then ABC really is a lifesaver.

Again, ABC navigates first-letter jump at ANY level. So if you're looking at [Genres] then it's first-letter in your complete set of genres. If it's [Albums] then it's first letter of the album titles. If it's [Songs] then it's first letter of song titles. If it's [Artists] then it's first letter of artist names. If you're within one artist, then it's first letter of the album titles under that artist. If it's [All Tracks] for an artist then its first letter of all of the tracks by that artist.

No matter what folder level you are placed at when you first enter Leaf, if you then navigate up or down from that level the ABC function applies to wherever you are when you tap it.

[rockphantom]

Thank you again DSperber.
I've been playing with my J3 over the last 48 hours, and have learned how to easily navigate from album to album using Kizune's UCI package. The features available in Sense are very useful and allow me to easily get from Album to Album without much effort. I don't really miss the matrix view at this point. I hope to get several years of enjoyment out of my J3.
Thanks for helping me make the right choice.

Milan

[paulr]

I think the J3 was the right choice if you wanted a direct S9 replacement. My guess is there will be no "J3 successor" since the "successor" is the D3/Z2 and it will be like that from here on out. The Android players have their own attractions, but they don't exactly replace the J3, which still has things going for it.

The 64gb Sandisk micro sdxc card was $59.95 on adorama.com as of last night .

[rockphantom]

Thanks for the info, Paul!

I am very happy with my J3.
I hope to get at least 3 years of enjoyment out of it.

Does anyone have advice on how to successfully apply the Realook J3 screen protector?

I'm kind of clumsy, and am fearful that I will make a mistake (my sense of balance is off).

My friend was going to help me apply the screen protector.
However, he can't make it.

I am eager to get the screen protector onto my prized J3, ASAP!
Any advice would be appreciated.

http://www.amazon.com/REALOOK-Cowon-...p_ob_e_title_1

Thank You,

Milan

[mutescream]

I have the realook screen protector... The best advice I can offer is to make sure you clean your hands VERY good first, and wipe down the screen with alcohol and let it dry before putting the screen protector on.

I *think* I have seen a video floating around on how to put it on...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoBYLkVbnbs

Ignore that the written stuff in the vid is in Korean... The mechanics for putting the screen protector on are the same, though. Make sure you read the instructions that come with it thoroughly... The instructions seemed to be translated, and the wording is a little "Stiff".

[rockphantom]

Thanks for the advice, Mutescream.

I don't have the guts to apply to the Realook J3 screen protector on my own.
Going to wait until my friend visits and have him help me.

At the moment, I've been using a microfiber cloth to wipe all of the finger prints and grime from my J3's screen. Can't wait to get the screen protector on there!

Milan