[Impression] FiiO X3 – High Fi, Low Price.

[miceblue]

Will cover art for formats other than MP3 be supported in the future? Or at least be able to recognise a file with "folder" or "cover" in the filename.

 

[ClieOS]

Quote:

Will cover art for formats other than MP3 be supported in the future? Or at least be able to recognise a file with "folder" or "cover" in the filename.

 
It can probably be done over firmware but I doubt it will happen any time soon, if at all.

 

[doublea71]

Quote:

 
It can probably be done over firmware but I doubt it will happen any time soon, if at all.

That's kind of odd considering it supports so many other formats. Of course I have no idea about how this stuff is implemented and the inherent difficulties involved, so please don't take this as a complaint. The J3 seems to deal with this reasonably well; I guess that's why I'm puzzled by this.

 

[ninewalker]

Quote:

 
Yes, each new feature may adds some bugs and spend time to test, so we now try to fix all the bugs and make the current firmware more stable, 
 
some new features will be added in the future.
 
1, AIFF support.
 
2, Album cover of FLAC, WAV, APE, ALAC and other format.

 
Here's James' reply to my question about album art. Pertinent information in bold.

 

[databass]

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Cross-fade and cross-feed are two very different things.
 
Personally, I think cross-fade and gapless kind of contradict each other in some way, especially in gapless music.

I realize that a lot of people wouldn't want it to cross-fade, and I certainly don't always want to. But couldn't hurt to have as an option. I turn cross-fade on (or used to, before I got the DX100) when I have a playlist or shuffle randomly through a genre.

 

[databass]

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Be care that we have not ship any X3 to outside China now, and Singapore is not the country which we will release X3 in June.

Thanks James. Do you have an ETA for the USA release? And do you know if I will I be able to buy online at one of your resellers like J&R Music or Adorama, or will you be shipping directly to the USA?

 

[ClieOS]

Quote:

That's kind of odd considering it supports so many other formats. Of course I have no idea about how this stuff is implemented and the inherent difficulties involved, so please don't take this as a complaint. The J3 seems to deal with this reasonably well; I guess that's why I'm puzzled by this.

 
The issue is that, unlike ID3 tag to mp3 files, there is no standardized tagging for most of these formats, especially when it comes to album art. That throws a lot of chaos into the mix when the player is trying to interpret which files and tagging to use.

 

[miceblue]

Quote:

Quote:

That's kind of odd considering it supports so many other formats. Of course I have no idea about how this stuff is implemented and the inherent difficulties involved, so please don't take this as a complaint. The J3 seems to deal with this reasonably well; I guess that's why I'm puzzled by this.

 
The issue is that, unlike ID3 tag to mp3 files, there is no standardized tagging for most of these formats, especially when it comes to album art. That throws a lot of chaos into the mix when the player is trying to interpret which files and tagging to use.

That's why I suggested maybe reading/recognising a "folder.jpg" or "cover.jpg" file since those are usually standard names for album art files, regardless of what format the actual music files are.
But since this method only recognises certain files in a folder, this would probably only work in file browsing mode (the mode I am going to use anyway). >.>

 

[ClieOS]

That will work only if everyone agree to stick to the 'folder.jpg' way of doing album art. At this point, I don't know if anyone will agree on which way is the best way. A easy way out for some will means retagging hundreds (and probably thousands) of files / folders for others. Then FiiO will need to implement way to differentiate and prioritize between folder picture and embedded pictures... It is do-able, just a lot of work I guess.

 

[jj69]

Quote:

That will work only if everyone agree to stick to the 'folder.jpg' way of doing album art. At this point, I don't know if anyone will agree on which way is the best way. A easy way out for some will means retagging hundreds (and probably thousands) of files / folders for others. Then FiiO will need to implement way to differentiate and prioritize between folder picture and embedded pictures... It is do-able, just a lot of work I guess.

 
Not necessarily.  The easiest way to implement it would be to adjust the firmware to search each folder for the first graphics file in each folder (jpg, png, etc.), and use that image as the default art for any audio file inside also residing in that folder.  Seems fairly simple to me, and it would work for most people who organize their collections with each album in a separate folder.  

 

[ClieOS]

Quote:

 
... it would work for most people who organize their collections with each album in a separate folder.  

 
..and that's the problem: not everyone organize their collection the same way and thus no single one way works for everyone.

 

[miceblue]

Well there is no one solution for everyone. Heck, most of my MP3's don't even have the album art embedded, but I have the "cover.jpg" file in the album directory; so in this sense with the current MP3-only album arts, I won't have any.

 

[hoichi]

Quote:

That will work only if everyone agree to stick to the 'folder.jpg' way of doing album art. At this point, I don't know if anyone will agree on which way is the best way. A easy way out for some will means retagging hundreds (and probably thousands) of files / folders for others. Then FiiO will need to implement way to differentiate and prioritize between folder picture and embedded pictures... It is do-able, just a lot of work I guess.

 
Here's an example. Those are the default values that Foobar2000 use when searching for album art:

front.jpg
cover.jpg
%filename%.jpg
%album%.jpg
folder.jpg

Not sure these variants cover all the bases but I think that's pretty much enough. For instance, both CD Baby and Bandcamp digital downloads include cover.jpg. Naming on the trackers (AFAIR 

), depends on the uploaders' whim, but most of them use one of the above. And when you scan the covers yourself (or search and download them) it's not that hard to rename a file. For those who care about album art, that is.
Prioritizing between external and embedded pictures shouldn't be too hard either. I guess there's three sensible options:

• Always prefer external (probably the most safe one, since a lot of things could go wrong with embedded stuff, but files are pretty simple);
• Always prefer embedded (sometimes external files can be huge hi-res scans. Not sure one should upload them to a DAC in the first place, but I guess some people find it convenient to keep the music and the scans together);
• Make an option in the menu to always prefer either.

And if a user want's to change stuff on a per-album/per-folder basis, he can always edit some tags or manipulate some files. I really don't think a DAP should be as powerful as a PC.
 
 
Not sure your review is a good place for those suggestions though. Maybe when the X3 becomes available we should make a thread to discuss the FW?

 

[ClieOS]

Quote:

 
Here's an example. Those are the default values that Foobar2000 use when searching for album art:
...

 
It is easy on FooBar because you are running it on a PC with plenty of system resource. X3 is hardly comparable to the processing power of a PC, and the OS it has is hardly comparable to that of Windows. Every new line of code and features added to X3 firmware is one extra burden to a very limited system, and that's something to consider before planning on all the dream features. If FiiO has the software engineering department as good as Apple / Sony / Sandisk, then maybe it will be easier for them.

 

[runswithaliens]

OK, Its June by my clock.  Standing by ready to click on the Purchase Now button...