[uosux]

I've been checking out the different angles on this effect, but still looking into it. If any of you have info, please post it. Here is what I have posted previously at nomadness.net:

I'm sure most of you have noticed the lag in scrolling times. By this I mean that while scrolling through a list, when you stop, the selector can run on for a bit before it stops. Quite annoying. Interestingly, I've noticed the scroll lag is different under different menus. For example, when scrolling under the alphabet during in "Find Music" I have virtually no hold-over, and the scrolling stops when I do. Scroll lag is moderate when searching tracks. However, when viewing my album list, the scroll lag is incredibly bad. It can go for several seconds, and end up far away by the time it stops after traveling full speed. Why I mention this is that it appears to be purely programming error. I thought perhaps the scroll lever was poorly designed, but because it only occurs under some menus this is not the case. It would be *very* helpful if Creative was to fix this in a Firmware patch. Have you people experienced similar results? Or am I just mad?
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I am using a Zen Xtra 30GB with the latest firmware (whatever number that is). Dedalus (and possible others) I think you might be misunderstanding me; I have no issue with the accelerated scroll, in fact I find it quite useful in getting through large lists. However, the problem is that the selector should stop scrolling once you release the lever. So ideally after even rapid acceleration, you could wait till you were close, than let go and be there. Unfortunately, I will scroll rapidly to get through the list, but when I am in the right area, release to no avail. The screen keeps scrolling, in some cases for some time. The end result is that I can end up no closer to my original target than when I began.

I was pondering the possibility that it might be a result of the list size, but it doesn't seem to add up, even small lists can suffer from tedious lag while larger ones (in comparison) will be lag free. For example my CD list, "Albums" is only about 340 albums, and suffers the worst lag. However, my "All Tracks" list (containing over 5000 songs) is not noticably worse. This does not exclude its influence though, perhaps the data "within" each album is also being deteched and compensated for. This would logically give it the same results as a "All Tracks" menue. My "Genre" list a dozen or so tabs long, and suffers no lag; contrarily, a similarily long list of Albums will have signifigant lag. As I have previously said, certain menues i.e. alphabet, and genre among others, appear to be entirely exempt from the lag. In testing I have come across another curious phenomena, the scrolling direction "reverses" mysteriously when the scrolling reaches high-speed on certain menues, so far "Playlists" and the "Album" sub-catagory under an artist. Also, I have discovered that in "Playlists" that after the scrolling reverses it stops entirely, at the bottom or top of the list.

I can not yet hypothesize a way in which Creative could fix this problem. The problem might lie within the limited memory being overloaded by extensive data. Perhaps it is limited to only certain Zens? If anyone else could check to see if they have similar problems, that would be helpful. I see now that I have been rambling for quite some time... I hope it has proved informative or at least interesting.

EDIT: New developments. After testing the scroll rates and reactions with both music playing and music stopped, the scroll lag is significantly reduced (to zero in some cases, very little in the others) when music is NOT playing. This evidence strongly backs up the theory that the disability stems from hardware problems- namely RAM limitations. The RAM is likely mostly occupied with music data while playing, and the overload from scrolling on extensive menues causes a slowing or 'laggy' response. However, this can not answer all the errors. The reversed scrolling problem, followed by complete stop in some cases, is still evident; it has not be changed at all. Also, this does not completely explain the issue of having lists of similar size (i.e. genre and an artists albums) have varying lag speeds regardless of whether music is or is not playing.

 

[austonia]

Cconsidering the lag times are reduced when music is not playing, I would guess that it is a result of the main CPU running at near capacity while music is playing. Scrolling through long lists at accelerated speed must put it at 100% utilization, so events like the release of your scroller do not get processed for several cycles. It seems the player needs a faster processor to be able to respond immediately to commands while other processes (music) are active. Creative is aware of this, I'm sure, their programmers and testers probably found the issue long ago. There must not be an easy or economical fix... like if the problem is hardware limitations.

 

[James]

S'up uosox

On a faintly related note, I find the scrolling on my 3rd-gen iPod to be "jerky" on occasion. It appears to be related to pausing the player and letting it fall into standby. Very annoying, too, but at least it seems amenable to an easy fix compared to what Xtra users have to suffer.

At the time I returned my Xtra I figured the scroll-stop problem was going to be fixed in a future firmware update. Doesn't appear to be the case, oh well.

 

[Luke]

Forget the power scroll. The solution is to use the "Find" button. It takes a few times to get used to it, but after that, you can breeze up and down a list of any length with ease. For example, if you want Led Zep, push Find, then scroll down to the L, push it, scroll down to the E, push it, back key, and you're there.