Windows Media Player (WMP) is a great application and works great for syncing to the Android platform.
The Music and Pictures application on the Android work with the file structure and playlists from WMP. It is an easy solution for managing content on your computer and having it sync automatically.
Benifits of using WMP to sync content
Sync Auto Playlists and User Created Playlists
Sync Pictures with options to resize to save space. (keeps folder hierchy for easy browsing)
You can reserve space so WMP does not eat all of the usable storage
You can prioritize your synced content giving you control over fresh content, or managing your favorites.
Sync 4 and 5 star Rated pictures and music from your computer
Examples of use:
Sync Pictures added to your computer in the last 30 Days
Sync You favorite songs first, then by playlist, and then fill the remaining space with the rest of you library and you can still leave room for other reasons like pictures taken from the G1
Researching the following:
WMP can convert and resize certain video formats and TV recorded from Media Center to a mobile sized WMV. I am researching to see if WMP can be tweaked to use another format and resolution
WMV playback on Android/G1
I have read alot of questions from users about media management. I wanted to start this thread as an awareness for using WMP to manage content. I see alot of G1 users feel like the link between the computer and android is not there. I think it is designed for an open platform, so you don't have to use one app for everything (i.e. Active Sync, itunes, ect.)
Moderators: please feel free to delete or redirect if this thread is out of place.
Jcostanza4
Reserved for How To Guides
In progress of building. 11-5-08.
Please be patient while I work on the detailed information. Please feel free to suggest or add missing information by sending me a PM.
How to Setup Windows Media Player (WMP) to sync to the G1
This guide is designed for Android version R29 or later and the use of a Micro SD or SDHC card already installed in the device.Earlier Android releases have different steps in mounting the device to the comptuer and are not in this guide.
1. Connect the Device to the Computer via USB Cable
A Notification will appear in top bar. Slide down the curtain and select the notification labeled "USB connected". Select the "Mount" option.
2. Open Windows Media Player on the Computer
Make sure you are on the "Library" tab of WMP, if not select it. If your device is properly installed and connected, your memory card should be listed on the left pane and would be titled based on how you formated the card or set by the manufacturer. [See Figure (1) Attached Below]
3. Right Click on the memory card from the left pane and select "Setup Sync..."
[See Figure (2) Attached Below]
4. Name your device and click finish
Choose a name that will be easily recognizable for your convienence. If you are using multiple cards, you can setup different media to be synced to each card.[See Figure (4) Attached Below]
5. Right Click on the memory card from the left pane and select "Setup Sync" and choose "Sync this device automatically"
In the list on the right remove playlists that you do not want to sync to your device. You can add more playlists by selecting the "Available Playlist" drop down box and select "Sync Playlists". This section will allow you to sync your picture library and possibly video and tv in the future (not availble yet). [See Figure (8) Attached Below]
Set your Priorities: Change the priority list that sync to your preference. If you have "All Music" at the top fo the list, all of your music will sync first until the card is full. If the card is not full it will move to the next sync list and so on. I recomend syning your favorites of each categories and then use sync All Music or All pictures last. See reserving space note to leave room on your card.
Click Finish when done and device starts to sync.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
How To Set Conversion and Space limits
Right Click on the memory card from the left pane and select "Advanced Options" to set quality preferences
A - On the sync tab: if you leave the "Create folder Hierarchy on the device" select it will sync over pictures and music in the same folder layout as it is on your computer. If you uncheck this box all files will be placed into one folder. Pictures are harder to browse on the device if you choose this option because they are all grouped into the main picture folder.
To Reserve space: you may want to reserve space so that your synced content does not take all of the space available on your memory card. Move the slider to the right to reserve space in 5% increments. If you are unable to move the slider you must stop any current syncing. [See Figure (10) Attached Below]
Note: To Stop a sync in process, close or cancel the open window and right click on the memory card in the left pane of WMP and select "Stop Sync" [See Figure (9) Attached Below] B - On the Quality Tab: if you leave the "Convert music, pictures, videos and TV shows as required by this device" selected, the computer will resize images down to save space. Uncheck this box if you want the full resolution version of the image which will take up more space. You can also set the quality of the music by checking "Select maxium quality level" and setting the max bitrate for songs to be synced.
Note: Video and TV are not supported at this time and is not an option that you can select.
Click Apply and then OK when finished.About Playlists on the Device
You can create as many playlists as you wish. Note that the “Recently added” playlist is a system playlist and cannot be deleted or renamed. Also, if you make any voice recordings as part of a MMS message, they will be stored automatically in a playlist called “My recordings”. Supported Playlists: Playlist formats supported are M3U, WPL, and PLS. WPL is the Windows Media Playlist format and is the default format that WMP saves to. This playlist file will sync to your device if saved in the Playlist folder on the computer.
Please ask some questions in the mean time so I can see the problems and questions that most users will have.
WMA files: regardless of how you get them onto your device, tags aren't fully recognized, nor is cover art. MP3 files work fine though...
benjimen said:
WMA files: regardless of how you get them onto your device, tags aren't fully recognized, nor is cover art. MP3 files work fine though...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
WMA Metadata:
Which tags/data is not bieng recognized? 99% of my music is in MP3 format, so I have not run into this problem yet.
About Cover Art for MP3s:
Cover art is recognized for 80% of my music. I believe it because the android sees cover art that is embeded in the metadata and not reliant on the folder.jpg placed in each album folder.
Note:
After you initially sync, open up the Andoid's Music player and choose Albums. Let the Andoid update/find/process cover art for a couple of minutes and make sure you keep the device awake. Don't switch to another application or it will stop processing the cover art.
Jcostanza4
Thanks for the great detail.
I have started to use media player as my primary music app since installing media center. Syncing with media player and my G1 is something I forgot about.
Imp
jcostanza4 said:
Note:
After you initially sync, open up the Andoid's Music player and choose Albums. Let the Andoid update/find/process cover art for a couple of minutes and make sure you keep the device awake. Don't switch to another application or it will stop processing the cover art.
Jcostanza4
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When I open the music player in the phone and select albums, I get a list of albums without the cover art being displayed ( I have the phone set on never timeout). How long does it take for the cover art to be displayed? I let it sit for several minutes and it hasn't done anything. Do I have to initiate the update process or is it supposed to be automatic?
Not sure if this will help/work, but I've had a bit of experience working with getting mp3s with cover art in WMP.
I find the easiest way is to update the albums in WMP using the 'Find Album Info' option. This should pull art/track info from the web and alter the embedded art and id3 tags. It can be a bit hit and miss sometimes (occasionally the art/tags won't update properly).
You should also be able to drag/drop the art (folder.jpg etc) into WMP when sorted by album.
Syncing it after this should then push out any changes.
(my G1 is arriving tomorrow, so won't be able to confirm if this works 'til then)
xavier6303 said:
When I open the music player in the phone and select albums, I get a list of albums without the cover art being displayed ( I have the phone set on never timeout). How long does it take for the cover art to be displayed? I let it sit for several minutes and it hasn't done anything. Do I have to initiate the update process or is it supposed to be automatic?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You should see the artwork start to appear one by one, if you don't see this happening it might be the way the cover art is setup in your library.
(EDIT: when I says start to appear, I mean about every second as soon as you open in Album view. If you leave it in this mode and let the device fall asleep it will still update the cover art, just don't open another application on top of that or it will stop. Scroll around and see if it is updating, it should be very apparent if its working)
We are all new to this so alot of my reasoning is just speculation at this point. The artwork that shows on my G1 is cover art imbeded into the mp3 file and not a jpg in the album folder.
Let me know if this helps.
Jcostanza4
jcostanza4 said:
You should see the artwork start to appear one by one, if you don't see this happening it might be the way the cover art is setup in your library.
We are all new to this so alot of my reasoning is just speculation at this point. The artwork that shows on my G1 is cover art imbeded into the mp3 file and not a jpg in the album folder.
Let me know if this helps.
Jcostanza4
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, Ill try it again.
Thanks
wassup everyone working on album art for my g1 as well anybody discovered anything new? A lot of my art won't show up after sync still even after updating all the album info.
i need of real help
i have read threw your post and its help full but what has happened is that my phone use to sync even my play list from media player, but now its only syncing the songs and not the playlist can you help?
Although I am completely against Microsoft and feel it is wrong to sync the almighty Android with microcough, it actually does work really well. I stole a bunch of music from a friends computer and was surprised how easy it was to sync with, a lot easier than ipod/itunes. Too bad I run Fedora on my laptop (well not really "too bad" but you get the point).
walliekid said:
i have read threw your post and its help full but what has happened is that my phone use to sync even my play list from media player, but now its only syncing the songs and not the playlist can you help?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the same problem. All my playlists, both normal and smart playlists, are in my Playlists folder. But unlike what the instructions say, the playlists themselves will not sync to the G1. I can add a playlist to my automatic sync list and songs on that playlist will be synced, but the playlist file and the playlist itself will not sync. Any ideas about how to get playlists to sync between WMP and Android?
i have had issues with the cover art as well. i ripped a lot of my CD with wmp and it found the album art just fine, but when i loaded them to the sd card on the phone they never came with it. i also had a lot of music that was downloaded years ago that i put on and it is terrible for listing them in any sort of order even after redoing a lot of the tags. its not that great in my opinion and would be better if it would browse by folder like i have it on the card
Chirality said:
I have the same problem. All my playlists, both normal and smart playlists, are in my Playlists folder. But unlike what the instructions say, the playlists themselves will not sync to the G1. I can add a playlist to my automatic sync list and songs on that playlist will be synced, but the playlist file and the playlist itself will not sync. Any ideas about how to get playlists to sync between WMP and Android?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the same problem. Syncing playlists with windows media player only add the songs onto the phone, not the playlists themself. I solved this problem by copying my playlist folder on my computer onto the memory card. Everytime you sync playlist with WMP, make sure you copy the actually playlists from your music folder onto your memory card too.
This is really stupid. Syncing playlists and it only puts the songs onto your memory card and not the actually playlists. I mean, WTF dude?
GuardianFlash said:
I have the same problem. Syncing playlists with windows media player only add the songs onto the phone, not the playlists themself. I solved this problem by copying my playlist folder on my computer onto the memory card. Everytime you sync playlist with WMP, make sure you copy the actually playlists from your music folder onto your memory card too.
This is really stupid. Syncing playlists and it only puts the songs onto your memory card and not the actually playlists. I mean, WTF dude?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll try this, but on my phone, it actually synced the playlists as well... the only problem is that when I tried to play the playlist on the device, it can't find any of the files! I have to manually play them.
jcostanza4 said:
Benifits of using WMP to sync content
Sync Auto Playlists and User Created Playlists
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To the best of my knowledge, WMP uses .asx or .xml and Android can only read .m3u. Am I missing something, 'cause I'd LOVE it if syncing lists with WMP was as simple as all that.
Just picked up the Samsung Capitivate a couple of weeks ago. I'm a heavy playlist user as this is how I manage my various Podcasts daily to keep them playing in the order received. First thing i did was sync up my Android device with WMP as that's what i've been accustomed to for years now. I'm a recent WM convert.
Syncing is just as straight forward as any other media device as far as i can see. Playlist, album art, mp3 and unprotected wma are syncing. However my playlist are synced in reversed order for some reason. anyone else seen this?
HTC, Motorola, and Samsung all have options to sync with WMP that will also allow the syncing of playlists... but if you mount just as a "Mass Storage" device, then the playlists will not sync properly.
A work-around is apparently to copy your playlists folder to the Music folder on your SDCard... testing it shortly and will let you know.
If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know!
Copying over the playlist folder didn't work...
I put some music on my phone, but I only selected certain tracks. For example, I picked 4 songs from an album and it shows ALL the songs that I have from that artist in my phone and they're all playable. I plug in my nexus 4 and check the music folder and it only has the 4 songs that I put in there. I don't use any sort of clouds either.
nvus said:
I put some music on my phone, but I only selected certain tracks. For example, I picked 4 songs from an album and it shows ALL the songs that I have from that artist in my phone and they're all playable. I plug in my nexus 4 and check the music folder and it only has the 4 songs that I put in there. I don't use any sort of clouds either.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you using Google play music?
halluci293 said:
Are you using Google play music?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes.
nvus said:
Yes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In that case, Google play music will show you all of the music that you've uploaded to your account, regardless of whether or not it's physically on your phone. So if you have the full album uploaded to play music, then you'll see the full album on your phone. If you want to play songs that aren't physically on your phone, it will stream them over the internet from play music.
You can hide music that's not on your phone if you go into the play music app, tapp the arrow next to 'All Music' at the top left, and select 'On Device Only'
halluci293 said:
In that case, Google play music will show you all of the music that you've uploaded to your account, regardless of whether or not it's physically on your phone. So if you have the full album uploaded to play music, then you'll see the full album on your phone. If you want to play songs that aren't physically on your phone, it will stream them over the internet from play music.
You can hide music that's not on your phone if you go into the play music app, tapp the arrow next to 'All Music' at the top left, and select 'On Device Only'
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't remember uploading any music to google play music. How can I delete them?
nvus said:
I don't remember uploading any music to google play music. How can I delete them?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Go to http://play.google.com/music on a pc. You can see what you've got there and delete them if you want.
By the way, you Google gives you some free music when you buy a Nexus 4, so that might be what you see uploaded there. I think I had about a dozen songs that Google added to my play music account for free.
Once you delete any music file from your Google play account, it makes it permanent. So make sure that you don't delete anything you paid for, because if you do, then you will have to buy it again. It doesn't work like apps where you buy it and if you delete it you can always re-download it again. If you delete paid music from your Google play account, then its permanent delete. I found that the hard way!
Hi all I notice this problem while using AOKP. I cant do offline phone search for any info that has anything to do with third party apps. But results for default Apps like contacts will not show up. For example, doing a search for Firefox bookmarks will show up with nothing. This is a problem since now when I search for music And want the music to show up under a third party app like playerpro it's won't show up. But if I search for the same song using the default music app, it'll show up. I hate and don't use the default google music apps and uninstalled it on AOKP so I want the search to work for playerpro. here are pictures to demonstrate this.
1) a offline search for a song will show up for the default google music app.
http://imgur.com/rf5B8zu
2) now making player pro searches available in the options stopped searches in google default music app
http://imgur.com/714Bfkj
3) i search for the name of a song and it won't automatically show up in player pro as result but for first party apps like google contact, you see that a number showed up under home.
http://imgur.com/fd0YmGA
4) now in order to get the results to show up, i have to search for something, then tap "Search phone" then search the item again. so hear i click "Search phone" then type home again and now the results show up. this is a bug, cause in stock android, the player pro results would show up on the first search without me making too many steps
http://imgur.com/2h3XJSv
As you can see, I've set up so it'll search using player pro but it's not working. But if I search for something else that would show up on default apps then click "search phone" then it'll work. Thats too many steps. On stock 4.2 , the offline search works perfectly for player pro. If i search for a song it'll show up first thing. I have tried clearing the media storage and deleting .nomedia files just to see of that would work even though I know that none of those are causing this problem. Anyone else having this problem? I think this is a bug on AOKP
Hi,
First, not sure this is the right place to post this, if not sorry !
I just got my LG G Watch R (and I love it !), but something is bothering me, I've seen some apps to control the music player, but nothing really great.
For example the stock app, when screen is "off" (not actually off, you know what I mean), you have to wake the screen, slide to the left and then you have the buttons to change the volume. Same thing to skip a song.
I'd like something more customizable, because I took a face for the watch where the time is displayed on the top of the scree so I have space not used, I could have a next song button, etc.
One other thing is the lack of possibility to browse through artists or albums, why ? I mean I get there's not much space, but with some thinking we could have a way to scroll through everything. In the end I have to use my phone everytime I want to listen to another artist.
So If anyone knows an android wear apps that at least browse through artist that would be nice,
and if they're none, I guess I'll just develop it myself !
Thanks.
Edit : After some digging on stack, it seems like this music card can't be removed, so I guess what I wanted to do is impossible.
If you're willing to use a totally separate app, stelio music player has the option to not trigger the default notification and it's own notification can be hidden like any other. You can also select music from the library with it, though when you select an artist it shows all songs by artist instead of artist > album > song. I've made the suggestion to add that and the dev has said he's working on it so hopefully that gets added soon. For some reason the app is not currently on the play store but the website is stellio.ru if you want to check it out.
Oh and I almost forgot but there is a plugin for poweramp that allows for browsing the library on the watch called Poweramp Remote that will allow you to browse but it does not get rid of the stock card. I know you're looking for a watch face but those two at least allow you to browse the library.