iRiver H320 corrupt recording... And a couple of questions re vs. iHP-120

[ben]

My iHP-120 died so I decided to try an H320.  Yesterday, I loaded up 1.30 EU firmware patched with the newest boot loader and installed the rockbox build from yesterday...

I had two problems.

First I couldn't find a way to set the recording directory like on the 120..  it was recording into root.  But that was ok...

I set up for MP3 encoding with 320K bitrate, 44K sampling.  Using the ALC in DJ mode.

I recorded for a little over an hour, everything seemed fine.

But when I played the file back, it only played for one second.. then it just froze up.  The player didn't hang, but it was definitely not playing the file either...  I tried playing on my laptop, the file is definitely screwed up.

Anyway what I am asking is, does recording work yet on the H320, is this a known problem, is there anything I can do?  Is there a not-yet-checked in version that I should be using for the H320?  

The H320 code seems still rough around the edges.  The iHP-120/140 code is really tight now!  Is the H320 just not ready for real recording yet??  Or is there something I can do??

Thanks
-Ben

[petur]

Anyway what I am asking is, does recording work yet on the H320, is this a known problem, is there anything I can do?  Is there a not-yet-checked in version that I should be using for the H320?  

The H320 code seems still rough around the edges.  The iHP-120/140 code is really tight now!  Is the H320 just not ready for real recording yet??  Or is there something I can do??

what makes you think that? What H320 code is rough around the edges compared to h120? The reason I ask is because h1x0 and h3x0 use the same code for recording (or anything audio-related to be correct).

I myself never do mp3 recording (only WAV) but I assume it should work.

Is there maybe a problem with that h320? Disk corrupted?

[ben]

When I said rough around the edges I didn't mean specifically the recording code, but in general playing around with rockbox, there was some flakiness, hesitation etc.  And the appearance just not as polished out of the box (out of the build??) as the 120 build was.  I am not complaining at all, not in the least.. I was just speculating as to the source of my problems...

Sure it's possible that the hardware has a problem.. it is a used player and I only have had it two days so far.  But so far it has been good.  Since I never had an H320 I gave it a little workout with the original (USA 1.04) firmware, then I flashed the 1.30 firmware, unpatched, loaded up some music, made some recordings and explored that a while...   That seemed ok, as far as the iRiver firmware goes...

Finally I flashed the bootloader and installed rockbox.. and that seemed basically ok.. so I put some themes and fonts on...

Then I went out and did the recording with rockbox...

So though my experience with this unit is limited so far, the hardware seems ok.

But that's why I asked.  If you tell me that the software should be ok then I will continue messing with it and see if a hardware problem becomes clear.  Obviously I was hoping for an answer more like "oh yea, you need this patch".. because I can patch things, but hardware issues, not as easy to fix...

[Llorean]

Well why not try to describe specific examples of what seems "wrong" to you. "Flakiness" is hardly a technical term, and doesn't help narrow down what you're experience. "Hesitation" could mean "entering folders" "changing menu items in a list" or even "going to the next track" among a variety of other things.

This makes it extremely difficult for us to know what problems you're experiencing and suggest that maybe you've just not quite got the settings right, or perhaps are experiencing real problems, or have a faulty player, or something else even.

[pixelma]

First I couldn't find a way to set the recording directory like on the 120..  it was recording into root.

This is is not an issue of recording on H120 versus H320 but an issue of a slightly older build versus a current build. About 1 or 2 weeks ago there was a commit that changed the handling of recording directories. Now you can set every directory as recording directory: call the file context menu on the directory you want to record in (with a long press of Navi, I believe) and chose the option "Set as recording directory".

That's a fairly new feature and unfortunately not very well documented yet - but on an H120 it would be the same. You can also manage a list of these settings through the recording options, if you read the last 2 threads below yours in the recording subforum you'll find a bit more information.

[petur]

When I said rough around the edges I didn't mean specifically the recording code, but in general playing around with rockbox, there was some flakiness, hesitation etc.  And the appearance just not as polished out of the box (out of the build??) as the 120 build was.  I am not complaining at all, not in the least.. I was just speculating as to the source of my problems...

Well rockbox is rockbox on most devices it supports, just drivers and capabilities differ a bit. So your h320 should look and feel just like the h120 (minus the color screen)
If it doesn't feel as responsive as the h120, your player may be faulty...

and regarding your other question:
To set a recording dir, just highlight one in the browser, long-click navi for the context menu and select the bottom item.

[ben]

Hi guys, thanks very much for the responses, and sorry for the long delay in my revisiting this thread...

I decided finally that there was a hard disk problem with the player.  

I had successfully copied a lot of files to the player (including rockbox, themes, fonts, voice prompts, as well as a lot of music files) without error.. so I had considered it unlikely that there was a problem with the hard disk.  BUT.. when I went to copy files from the player back to a PC, I got some CRC errors in the recordings which had cause me trouble before.

I was able to get a new MK2006GAL drive for the player and I put it in today, and so far there have been no errors.. and the operation is smoother.  So I think it that was it.  But I will find out in the next week how it works out with real use.

After looking at it more, I think the main difference between the appearance on the 1xx and 3xx is that on the low resolution monochrome of the 1xx the basic fonts and icons fit better and look polished, but not on the 3xx.  I tried playing with themes and fonts but its not easy to get it to look good on every screen (lots of work done on the playing screen, not so much on the others)...  I'm an experienced (22 years) C programmer.. maybe I can do some work to extend the templating across to the other screens, eg radio, recording, settings and make it look nice "out of the box" on different models...  I need to play with it more on the 320...

[AlexP]

Any work is very welcome, but before you start you probably ought to drop into IRC and chat with the other devs about the general direction.  There are quite a few things that are often mentioned that will not get into rockbox.

That said, please do join in, I don't think anyone will object to rockbox looking better if done the 'right' way.

P.S. You do know you can use custom icons and backdrops, and change text colour by file type don't you?

[petur]

After looking at it more, I think the main difference between the appearance on the 1xx and 3xx is that on the low resolution monochrome of the 1xx the basic fonts and icons fit better and look polished, but not on the 3xx.  I tried playing with themes and fonts but its not easy to get it to look good on every screen (lots of work done on the playing screen, not so much on the others)...  I'm an experienced (22 years) C programmer.. maybe I can do some work to extend the templating across to the other screens, eg radio, recording, settings and make it look nice "out of the box" on different models...  I need to play with it more on the 320...

Some screens like radio and recording still use a fixed font and layout. They haven't been redesigned because we are waiting for a new GUI interface that we call 'viewports'. There is some stuff about it in the wiki. As it will change the way screens are made, no effort has been made on radio and recording to get them better.

What is wrong with recording _settings_ ? Settings code is common for all settings and should be fairly pollished (beware, that code has lots of macros in it)