kepo-ing Zz85

Last year I bought my MuVo at the CreativeX fair (you might remember seeing the video of me there). Since then, there were a few memoriable incidents with it. It has failed more than once (I had it replaced at Creative Support), lost its casing, and even installation of Feather Linux with it.

Of course, 256MB could be nothing in today’s standards. But here’s how I make use of it by packing more music into it.

The secret? Is to encode my files to low bit rate using WMA v8 and above at the settings of CBR 32kbps @ 32kHz. Few years ago, when wma v8 was still in beta, i did my own testing and came to a conclusion if we don’t listen “so hard”, 32kbits@32kHz will be of a reasonable quality (like radio). By some calculations, if for an average mp3 of 128kpbs is ~1MB/1min, 256MB would provide ~4 hours. since 32kbps is 1/4 the size of 128kbps, you can store ~4*4= 16hours. Another way, 32kbps/8=4KBps, 4K*60s*60min = 14400K/hour (/1024) = 14.1MB/hour, 256 / 14.1 ~= 18hours.

Now, with WMA v9, and QcdPlayer, its a real convenience to encode file easily. I have created a flash walkthrough (badly using Wink) but its 10MB, Contact me for me to send it to you. Here I will be describing in words how to do so.

1. Download QcdPlayerer
2. Get the Windows Media 9 Encoder Plugin 2.0 here and install it.
3. Restart QcdPlayer
4. Click on the Red Encoder Button on the left of the player to bring out the Encoder window or
5. Click Settings on the Encoder window
6. Under Select Encoding Format, “Windows Media Format”
7. Under Format: Chose Windows MEdia Audio 9.1
8. 32 kbps, 32 kHz, stero CBR
9. Click on “Output Files” in the left pane.
10. Select your root folder. Chose your output template. I use Artist-Album\Artist-Album-01-Title. Bear in mind MuVo only supports 1 level of folders.
11. Drag your files into the encoder and Start the encoding clicking the red, round Start Encoding button in the right window
12. You can check the encoding speed while its encoding. I can encode at a speed of 10x for CDs.
13. Click to the encoded files to check the quality.You can lower the bitrate for voice recordings
14. Copy the encoded folders into the muvo. (Using copy and paste)

That’s all