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 have been trying to figure out how to make a custom music playlist in Mediascape on the Xperia X10. I have searched all over the web and came up with only the Media Go option to create playlist from the PC. Anyone know a way to create one from the phone itself?
I think that the playlists do not work in mediascape. I´ve created a playlist in the Media GO aplication and import into the phone but I can´t see them in mediascape...
But if I open for example Meridian player - playlist´s are there and works fine.
See my post >> http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=659893&page=2#13 << about the other media player in the phone, Its quite easy to do and playlists can be created and edited very easily and show in mediascape automaticaly.
Your not alone mate, I posted on this about a week ago.
It's seems that as good as MediaScape is, it doesn't offer the basic ability to create playlists.
Now there are workarounds for creating playlists on the x10 itself which MediaScape will recognise.
1. Install Astro file Manager from the market (free)
- Navigate to your Music folder on SD card
- Locate a track and long press, you should get a "Music Options" button.
- Within Music options you can either set as "ringtone" or "Add to a Playlist". (Please note this only seems to work with certain files i.e MP3)
2. Install Astro file Manager from the market (free)
- Navigate to /System/app
- Locate the sndroid Music player called "Music"
- Long press and select open as
- Select Audio
This will bring you into androids bult-in media player that SE have carefully hidden.
It loads your media library and allows you to create playlists easily, which will be instantly picked up by MediaScape.
You can always create shortcuts to the music app.
Long winded i know, and i'm suprised and disappointed that SE didn't include this facility in the Scape.
Thanks a lot for all the helpful info. So sad that mediascape is handicapped by lacking this feature. Would be nice to just be able to do all this in mediascape.
Any way of creating a link for this on the home screen??... and slightly off topic.. is there a standard android photo viewer hidden away too?
Mediascape detects the .m3u playlists in my music folder though.. Now I just have to find out how to make those playlists.
Hi all - I've sussed this out... download an app called "AnyCut" from the market... in here you can add all sorts of different things.. one of which is under the "activity" option.. called "Music" this is the stock android music app (mentioned by baggyb above).. this way you'll have a link to the music app on your home page which you can then use to create your playlists...
Does anyone know how to sync a playlist file that the stock Vibrant Music play can actually read? I've tried everything I can think of such as:
1. Doubletwist
2. Samsung Kies
3. Sailing
4. Tunes Agent
5. Media Monkey
6. Windows Media Player
The default music player is not reading any playlist file formats created by those options. I've spoken with Samsung and TMobile and they couldn't offer an advice. This is terrible frustrating to me as the stock player is rather good.
I believe that the stock music player is only reading playlist files from a partition that we can't access as none that I've created are visible.
Thanks for the help.
Robert
MediaMonkey (tree view)
Edit > New Playlist > drag songs to playlist
Right click playlist > Send to > select SD card drive
Open doubleTwist > Playlists > select playlist
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
I'm pretty sure that the OP means creating a playlist that will then show up *as a playlist* in the Music Player app on the phone when it is synced with the music. Or for that matter just copied to the drive.
If someone has an answer, I'd be very interested, as I have a ton of different playlists I've created out of my collection that I'd prefer not to have to recreate on the phone from scratch.
I'm planning on using Banshee (in Fedora) to sync my music to the phone, I don't know if it will get any playlists across or not, but it doesn't sound like it.
bradycl_84043 said:
... creating a playlist that will then show up *as a playlist*...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I, too, am very interested in this. Creating playlists on my Vibrant is a pain. I want to be able to create them on my computer and then move/copy/something them into my Vibrant.
Playlists with iTunes
I not an apple fan but I do like iTunes as my music manager so this what I am currently doing. I have tried iSyncr and it works except it cost $2.99 and doesn't grab all the tags the way doubleTwist does. This method seems do do the same job as iSyncr except more manual work and time is required including not grabbing all the tag information so I guess I need to find a way to fix that someday :-( Nothing is ever easy.
Apps Needed:
iTunes Export http://www.ericdaugherty.com/dev/itunesexport/#Download
iTunes
Steps (Note you have to repeat the steps for each playlist):
Remove all media listed under the built-in playlist Recently Added in Samsung Music Player
Mount the phone to my computer
Run iTunes Export and select ( the ctrl or command key depending on OS to multiselect iTunes Playlists but with my method I do one at a time you will see why as you read on). I set the output to the mount that is the internal storage of my phone in a folder named MusicLib (name it to whatever you want). I also select Copy iTunes Structure under the Copy Files pull-down menu and all files under the File Types pull-down menu. Playlist is just m3u but I delete that file from the phone.
While it is running you may think the app crashed, but it hasn't just be patient. It will show a screen saying Playlist Exported when it is done.
Now eject the media from your computer and wait for the media scanner to finish
Open the Samsung Music Player and go the the Playlist Recently added, press menu -> "add to playlist" then "select all" -> "add"
Now you are at window that wants to create new playlist do it and finally select the playlist you just made and all the music you selected above will go into the playlist
This sucks I know but it is free and it works.
I discovered a way to get MediaMonkey to sync playlists with the Vibrant:
http://www.yellowfocus.com/blog/35-...-the-galaxy-s-for-the-stock-music-player.html
how to delete music from music app i delete all my music from my pc but when ever i open the music app
it stream my music back wth i want to delete everything start from scratch
mrej201 said:
how to delete music from music app i delete all my music from my pc but when ever i open the music app
it stream my music back wth i want to delete everything start from scratch
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Go into the app, to whatever you want to delete (it has to be an album or a song, not an artist). Swipe to the left or right on the item(s) to select it, and when the menu pops up, hit delete (it may be in the more options button)
Hit thanks if I helped!:good: