newbie to Rockbox with problems

[e4e5]

Just got my Toshiba F40.  Installed Rockbox and I can bring up system.  Copied some music folders across using windows explorer.  Having several problems:

1. My screen will fade out if within a couple of seconds of inactivity.  Comes back once I touch the controls.  Any settings to prevent this from happening?

2.  I use the files option to try and play music.  I can traverse the folders and get to the song.  However, the screen will indicate "Unknown Artist", "Unknown Album", "No file!'.  Anyone know what I am doing wrong?  All songs copied over as wma via windows explorer.

3.  I try the database option.  Indicates database not ready and if I want to initalize it.  When I select yes, it will start building database and stopped at a number like 700.  However, every time I go back in, it repeats the whole sequence.  

Will appreciate any help.

[safetydan]

Problem two and three are probably related. Rockbox does not support WMA in any form. You'll need to rerip and rencode your music.

Problem one can be solved by reading the manual. See here for example

http://download.rockbox.org/manual/rockbox-gigabeatf/rockbox-buildch7.html#x10-1020007.5

[e4e5]

Thanks - that was fast.

Problem 3 solved with a chnage in setting.

Problem 1 & 2, what formats does Rockbox support?  What software can I use to convert the WMA over to an acceptable format?  Do I use the Gigabeat software that came with the player to convert?

[safetydan]

Rockbox supports basically everything but WMA. You could use MP3, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, MPC, ALAC, and a number of other formats with no problems. See

http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/SoundCodecs#Current_status

for a reasonably up to date list.

It isn't a good idea converting from one lossy format to another (e.g. from WMA to MP3). Most likely your songs will end up sound worse. You could try converting to a lossless format like FLAC, but that's going to eat up disk space fast.

I'm not familiar with the Gigabeat software, but I believe it makes encrypted audio files that can only be played by the Gigabeat firmware. You don't want to use that with Rockbox.

[e4e5]

Thanks again.  Will need to do more reading to find the right converter.  I do not have the original music disks so it will have to be conversion from the wma.  But I am usually sitting in airport with the player so the best sound may not really matter.  Will find out when I do the first conversion.

Many Thanks!

[e4e5]

Well - I infally converted some files to MP3 and everything worked with the file browse.  Will try database next.

Found out all my files was WMA lossless.  So conversion from WMA to MP3 was not too bad.  Music sounds okay on the player.

Oh, I forgot to mention someone should include in the doc that one needs to turn off the battery switch on the Toshiba player in order for Rockbox to startup properly.  Just turning off the player after loading Rockbox does not do it.