MPIO HD300, confusing

[stevo909]

Hey all, i just bought a MPIO HD300, its a sweet machine, but the manager and such are a pain to get started with. I can download music onto it, andplay music thats all fine. What i want to do is organize it by artist. It has that option on the interface, but i dont know how to put my music into there. I made a folder n all, but then it just froze and i reformatted. Does anyone know how to use the manager, or well get the manager to detect my HD300,.,,.....Please help me please

Steve

[bondjames12]

The HD300 uses *.m3u play lists under a "playlist" folder on the device.

What I did was transfer a bunch of music to the "Music" folder then I ran the "MPIO Utility" and clicked on "Media File Scan" what it does is it goes through all the files in the music folder and creates play lists depending on the artist, genre, album and puts them in the "playlist" folder.

So after the playlists are generated you should be able to use the menus for Artist, Genre, etc.

One other note you should be able to put custom play lists in as well. I haven't tried it yet but I think *.pls and *.m3u playlists are supported.

[techfreak]

I have not heard of the .m3u file extension for playlists, is this proprietary to the MPIO brands or is it widely used? Please excuse my ignorance.

[bondjames12]

It is widely used. Windows Media Player, Winamp, etc should all be about to save a playlist as .m3u Might need to select the file type as Winamp probably defaults to .pls and windows media player defaults to .wpl (windows media playlist).

Take alook at this site

http://www.schworak.com/programming/music/playlist_m3u.asp

MPIO HD300 supports Extended M3U.

One other note after transfering all your files and doing the media scan you should have a bunch of m3u playlists in a structure like this

HD300 Root:
->Playlist
->Album
->Artist
->Genre

One playlist is generated for each album,artist, and genre found and it put into the appropriate directory.

[ruFFas]

You need to install and use the MPIO Utility software.

It peforms a media scan on the HD300 and creates M3Us according to the content.
It's really easy to use, where did you get yours from? The retailer should be able to help.

Ruffas


MP3 Plus are the
UK MPIO Distributor
http://www.mp3-plus.net

[qpwoei]

Hi fellow MPIO HD300 users!
I have just purchased the player and uploaded all 11HB of my music and it plays fine. Then i decided to upgrade it with new firmware (2.20.03). The player finally restarted and i thought everything was fine - with the new firmware in place. However since the firmware was updated, i cannot access the "Plus Functions" menu option- nothing happens!!! so that means the radio does not work nor does the clock, voice recorder and so on. It still plays music but not the other features. Also, theres a menu called "Upgrade"...?? that doesnt do anything eiither! P

PLEASE HELP ME IF YOU KNOW HOW TO FIX THIS,

Thanks

[ParanoidAndroid]

just check the post to do with firmware, you have the wrong version, you need the 1.20 something fm on firmware

[HD300RULEZ]

How do i upgrade the firmware for the Mpio HD300??please help i donno how

[dang]

m3u and pls are the standard playlist formats.

[lordblubb]

Hi,
btw, is it possible to generate live play lists with the HD300, i.e. adding other songs to a play list while playing a song from that list?
Olli

[Roach]

Hi, I must first say that this is the very first forum in which I actually "met" people who own a HD300... untill now I only read the review at DAPreview.net ...
anywayz, since this thread is abit active I thought I'd just ask a few questions...

1) How's the HD300 interface? I mean is it easy to browse in ur media libary or is it a pain in the ass?

2) How bad are the reliability problems? did it get better since the first firmware? (The last (and first) update was 2.5 months ago... that seems like a long time for a player with apprently so many software probs) and do u think it will get better soon?

3) how's the sound quality?

4) and finnaly would you recommand this player for some1 who needs the features of the player )linein, text reading (not avalible yet from what i heard), ogg/mp3, fm, small size?

Thanks alot :-)

oh and another one, is it hard to get? or is it widely available?

[vancouver]

1) yes..easy interface
2)firmware improved it a LOT. (but still jams up once in a while when navigating too fast thru songs....use a paper clip to reset in the reset hole....works great right away after)
3) really excellent
3) yes.

my questions...has anyone gotten a way to use the hd300 with an external mic?

[matrixrebloated]

seems like they took of that 2.0 firmware that everybodys talking about, off the mpio website

[vancouver]

Hi,
btw, is it possible to generate live play lists with the HD300, i.e. adding other songs to a play list while playing a song from that list?
Olli

good question..anyone know????

also...once a song directory is completed playing its songs...can the mpio move to the next directory and start playing AUTOMATICALLY...have not figured out how to do that...

[Gred]

I’m having trouble setting up custom M3U playlist on my HD300. I’ve tried writing them from scratch, per the below link, via MS Notepad, both generic and extended, but with no success. I’ve tried placing them in the root directory, music directory, and the playlist directory but can’t get the player to display them let alone play the music. My player has been updated with the most recent firmware and displays the correct version, 1.20.3, upon booting. I even reformatted it, but still nothing has worked.

Has anyone else been able to do this? Can anyone give me some assistance, or point me in the direction of another helpful resource?

Thanks
Gred

http://www.schworak.com/programming/music/playlist_m3u.asp

[Brian]

Gred,

Due to the current utility's and firmware's inability to read ogg comments, I've had to get pretty good at making my own playlists. Here's what I've learned so far:

First, I've been using Mp3tag to create the playlists. It has good extended M3U support. One setting I changed was under Options/Playlist is to change "Write extended info" to just "%title%". This is the format that the MPIO utility uses, but the current firmware doesn't seem to actually read the header information so I don't know if this makes a difference. Also, uncheck "Entries relative from work directory" to make working with the playlists easier down the line.

The playlist "All.m3u" in the "PLAYLIST" folder is the list that is chosen when you select "Titles" from the Navigation menu on the HD300. Since the current firmware doesn't support random play, this could be a good place to put a randomized playlist of all your songs. You can easily create a randomized list in Mp3tag by pressing the blank column heading in the file list (to the left of "Filename".) Each time you press the button it will re-randomize the list.

All additional playlists must go in subfolders. For example, the ALBUM subfolder has a playlist for each album, the filename of each being the album name. Same for ARTIST and GENRE. However, the playlists can be whatever you want.

Personally, I find the genre catagory somewhat useless due to the sheer number of options, and the varying opinions of CDDB users over which ones to use, so I use this folder for my custom lists. If you put them in either ALBUM or ARTIST, your custom lists mightl get lost in the hundreds of other choices, so I just deleted everything in the GENRE folder except my custom lists.

Anyways, if you auto-generated the playlists, you'll need to do some tweaking. The filename path must start with \MUSIC\. If it is just a single playlist, load the file into wordpad and do a search and replace. For example, if the playlist has file paths of F:\MUSIC\Village People\<filename> you'll want to do a search and replace of "F:\MUSIC" with "\MUSIC". If you have multiple files, use a program like "Inforapid Search and Replace".

Things I don't know yet: What will re-running the scan utility mess up? Can I get it to not show the m3u extension in the navigator?

Hopefully this has been some help.

-B

[vancouver]

What will re-running the scan utility mess up? Can I get it to not show the m3u extension in the navigator?

Hopefully this has been some help.

-B

excellent info....and yes...re running the scan will phuck things up...BUT why would you re-scan...I just copy new mp3s into the music fulder...create a new playlist in winamp and copy that playlist into any of the mpio playlist folders (i use genre folder...but i've deleted all the scan utilities playlists totally...this way only my playlists are in the unit).

i found scanning once and then deleting all the mp3 playlists generated by mpio allows (and gives you more room) you to create your own workable playlists in any mp3 sound program like winamp...

[rumos]

hi guys,

i am thinking about buying this mp3 player, but i do have a few concerns

1. directory listing
is it posiible to get a list of directories which are on the player and then choose a certain directory to play the songs which are there?

2. volume
i heard the max. volume is 6mW. is it loud enough?

3. battery life
i wanna use the mpio as a portable harddrive as well so i am wondering how much does transferring 20 GB to/from the player suck a fully loaded battery?

thank u all

[gary_hendricks]

I really love this player. A friend of mine loaned it to mine.

I must say it has taken me a while to feel this way, but my perseverance paid off. The instructions are lacking in every way and the software needs upgrading immediately. BUT take time to get to know the player, and you too will love it. It supports wma files unlike the ipod and for windows users it is easy to rip your music onto windows media player and then drag you files from C drive into the HD300.

Listen to them in the MUSIC file and they are perfectly catalogued for your listening pleasure. No need to even install mpio utility. In fact no need to install any of the discs provided. Just upgrade the firmware which can be downloaded from the Mpio website. Besides being a great player the HD300 comes with an excellent FM Tuner built in, as well as an FM recording feature, a voice recorder, alarm and sleep features.

You can also record directly into the HD300 from other sources such as vinyl and tape using the direct encoding.

I play mine through my stereo set as well as a smaller set of powered speakers (JBL Creatures) and the sound quality is AWESOME! If you are in the market for an MP3 player look no further. This one wins hand down.

[Roach]

gary hendricks, first of all thanks for your info about your experiance with the hd300...
I wanted to ask how long do you have the hd300? and how many hours of music can you get out of it without recharging?

I have saved some money and in the next month or two I'm going to buy a new player...
the HD300 is one of my favourite but I'd like to see a firmware update to improve it's stability more... another thought i have is "should i wait for the next generation" but i doubt if i should... i have no need for color screens and there's always the next generation... only thing might make it worth waiting for is smaller size...

So thanks alot :-)

[gary_hendricks]

I have not heard of the .m3u file extension for playlists, is this proprietary to the MPIO brands or is it widely used? Please excuse my ignorance.

The m3u playlist is a standard MP3 song playlist format.

[rumos]

after doing some research on the internet i decided NOT to buy this player. the last kick was this review:
http://www.dapreview.net/content.php?review.125
read the problems at the bottom

[gary_hendricks]

Hi Roach,

I've had the HD300 for about 2 months. The battery lasts for like 10 hours on one charge.

[Brian]

after doing some research on the internet i decided NOT to buy this player. the last kick was this review:
http://www.dapreview.net/content.php?review.125
read the problems at the bottom

Several of the negative comments in that review do not apply to the current firmware version. I've never had a problem with shuffle modes, recording voice is simple, most people seem to be getting around 10 hours of battery life, albums DO play in numerical order, and it doesn't lock up nearly as much as this person claims.

[rumos]

well i bought a 2nd hand iaudio m3 and i am very much satisfied.
i did like the mpio hd300 but i got the iaudio cheaper

[gary_hendricks]

The iAudio M3 is pretty good as well.

If you are a person that is not technically inclined and is incapable of reading a manual I might recommend the iPod. However, taking the minutely more confusing path pays off exponentially. The features offered by the m3 are far more powerful and useful than those of the iPod.

A friend of mine uses the iRiver. The most significant difference I can find between them is the fact that the iAudio has no primary screen on the unit and looks much nicer.

[rumos]

gary, i can feel some sarcasm in ur post :)
ok as i said i got the iaudio m3 coz i got it real cheap, 2nd hand.
i never thought of getting an ipod for the single reason that it gives no user control in copying files to/from the player.

[MrUltrasound]

Several of the negative comments in that review do not apply to the current firmware version. I've never had a problem with shuffle modes, recording voice is simple, most people seem to be getting around 10 hours of battery life, albums DO play in numerical order, and it doesn't lock up nearly as much as this person claims.

Speaking of the current firmware, was anything done to improve the FF/RW seek performance? I noticed in some reviews it mentions it just skips +/- 4 sec increments rather than a smooth FF/RW as a CD player or many other mp3 players do.

[rumos]

yeah, te slow FF/REW seek was the last straw which made me choose another player. i mean c'mon, seeking thru 4 minute song takes one minute??? in my iaudio m3 the seek speed can be adjusted to even 8x, 16x, 32x, etc.

[Brian]

was anything done to improve the FF/RW seek performance?

It still skips in 4 second intervals. Some quick testing shows that FF through a 4 minute interval took 50 seconds, so it's actually about 4.8x. There does not seem to be a way to change this.

Personally, this doesn't bother me much. I almost never FF or RW through songs. My car cd player doesn't even have a FF/RW option.

-B

[betaboy]

I am a new owner of HD300, even I had copied over
800 songs into the "Music" folder, it can only play 256 songs, can someone pls help me to solve this problem?

[becky9527]

I also bought a new HD300 and had the same problem as betaboy....can only play 256 songs even I copied about 1000 songs. What should we do??? Anyone can help???

[Smooove]

I just got my HD300 yesterday, and after almost throwing it out the window a bunch of times, I got it going. I think I might be starting to <gasp> like it.

First off: Thanks to B (Brian?) for the detailed post on playlists. Totally helped.

#2: 256 Song limitation: This was annoying, and it caused the playlists to not work. The way to get around this is to create a file structure in F:\Music where each folder has no more than 256 files- I have my folders arranged by Artist then by Album within the Artist folder.

Once you change your file structure, make sure to go through and delete out all the M3U files in F:\playlists F:\Playlists\Artist, F:\Playlists\Album, and F:\Playlists\Genre and re-run the MPIO Utility. **Make sure not to delete the actual folders, just the files**

#3: I also noticed my player was locking up (or not showing) a particular album I was looking for in the Directory, but it was showing in the playlists. I did some investigating, and realized that the bitrate was up in the 400's (k) for this particular album, where all my other files were around 320k and below. I used Easy CD-DA Extractor to convert the files, and I was able to see them and hear them. Hooray!

#4: Everyone probably knows this already, but I thought it was a cool tip- when listening to music, if you hold in the "menu" button, it will automatically switch to FM. Same works when listening to FM.

Questions:

#1: Voice Recording- I tried it once, and it did not want to let me stop recording- I had to turn it off, and even then the file that was saved was inaudible. Any tips?

#2: Is anyone using the MPIO Manager, and if so, how did you get it working?

#3: Is anyone using Itunes or Windows Media Player to manager their HD300? If so, can you talk about goods and bads?

[Vinceremo]

The battery life is said to be 16 hours, but I've read that's far from the truth.

I guess you in here know the exact amount of time before the battery is emptied.

It would be very nice to know, 'cause if it's good I'll buy one next week..

Thanks for the help.

[alex_lorenzo]

Hi all,
the new 1.30.04 firmware for the HD300 player is out.
I have installed it in two minutes, and works ok.
Some translation corrections (spanish!)
Same display, slight menu changes. Nothing new so far.
I haven't tried the radio or the 256 song limit.

Alex

[ALbassist]

I just got an MPIO HD300 2 days ago, its a pain th the ass right now but im pretty sure once i learn how to use it, it will get better. Anyways, whoever asked how to stop the voice recording, your answer is press and hold the record button, the volume of the recording is still too low to hear though, i dont know how to get this working, does anybody know how to?

[ALbassist]

im not really smart with computers, but, just an idea, could you plug it mp3 player back into your computer and take off the upgrade thing then try re-installing it.
also, on another note, when i try to make voice recordings the volume is so low i cannot hear anything that i have recorded, does anybody know how to fix this? and is there a way to hook an external mic up 2 th HD300?
thanks

[ALbassist]

and the 3rd post..... sry
i tried 2 quote some guy from a few pages back question on that last post of myne.

[fatboy_1999]

I also just got my HD300 a couple of days ago.
Still learning my way around. Especially playlists.

Out of the box, this is a piece o rubbish.
Once the latest (just released) firmware was put on and I downloaded the latest MPIO Utility program, things got A LOT better.

Also annoyed by the 256 song limit. I think I saw a different solution to the one mentioned earlier in this thread, so I'll see if I can find it again.

Having a slight issue with not being able to play 'Albums' even though the playlist seems to be created correctly. Will look into that over the next few weeks.

As for all the poor souls trying to record Voice... it does work and very NEARLY how the manual tells you.

When in MUSIC mode, press Stop/Pause
REMOVE THE HEADPHONES
Press and hold the REC button to get the microphone icon up with Vnnn.mp3 above it.
Talk.
When done, press and hold REC to save the file to the VOICE folder.

If you have anything plugged in to headphone jack, it thinks you are doing LINE IN and saves the file as Lnnn.mp3 and puts it into LINE directory (but the file is silent).

Hope that helps someone.

[son_goku_yeba]

I have a new HD300 and I have the firmware 1.20.03. now there is a new update in the mpio site but when I which I downloaded. When I was using the utility that came with the product to upgrade the firmware the utility was asking for a file with a dwu extension but the downloaded firmware from the site is in zip format. I tried to unzip it but the there is no .dwu file inside. Please advise on how I could do the firmware update. Thanks a lot :D

[fatboy_1999]

I found that it was easier to just follow the instructions on the MPIO website for the firmware upgrade.

I don't think the utility is set up to use the files provided on the site.

I cannot find the article on the website now (FAQ keyword search does not seem to be working).

From memory, you unzip the firmware zip file, there are 4 files in there, you replace the files in root with these BUT I wouild strongly recommend searching their site and/or sending MPIO an e-mail asking for the step-by-step.

I know for certain when I did mine, it DID NOT involve using the MPIO utility and DID involve copying files, stopping unit, starting unit, stopping unit, starting unit and then upgrade was complete.

[vviskari]

One correction to fatboy_1999's post:
You put all files from the FW zip file under the player's SYSTEM folder. Then disconnect the unit from computer (with "Safely remove hardware") and turn the unit off.
Start it up and FIRMWARE UPGRADE or something similar appears on the screen. When finished turn off the unit. Repeat this start-stop sequence one or two times and new firmware is installed.

[plemen]

Also, when upgrading the firmware, make sure you have the power cable plugged in otherwise the upgrade doesn't happen!

[Dr Zaius]

Hi

This is a copy of a reply I gave on another thread.

I bought the HD300 recently for my daughter thinking it would do custom playlists (not just the artist/album thing). After getting to grips with the nightmare navigation of the unit I trawled the internet looking for some way of adding custom playlist and I think I have found a great solution.

I found the following stand alone utility:
Playlist Creator 3.0.3 (Freeware)

http://www.oddgravity.de/ available elsewhere also)

It can produce M3U and PLS files.

This is how I did it.
1) Connect HD300 to PC

2) Open Playlist Editor and go to settings

3) Select Playlist Details

4)Under 'saving playlist entries' select 'Absolute, without drive ...' click OK

5) Click on Add Files icon and access HD300 music files (that you have already on MPIO).

6)Keep adding files until you have your playlist (use arrow icons to order the files).

7) Under select save location browse to, or type:
F:\PLAYLIST\Genre

8)Give playlist a name (I always put 000 at the beginning of the name to ensure it is at the top of the list).

9) Select M3U and click 'Create Playlist'

You should now find the playlist in the Genres lists. It may briefly scan.
I have only tried this with WMA files and have not used PLS. So far it seems to work. Lets hope this may be an answer for now.

[CHRICKA]

Hi is there anyone that knows how to turn of, or reset/restart the hd300? I got mine today, and it have feezed on a song, and I cant turn it of:(


HELP!

[Dr Zaius]

Hi
Try pushing the reset button. It is inside the tiny hole on the bottom right of the fascia (next to the play/stop icon). I use a paperclip to push it but you can use a pin/needle etc. You can feel when the button is pushed. I hold it down for a few seconds.

Hope this helps.

[CHRICKA]

Hi
Try pushing the reset button. It is inside the tiny hole on the bottom right of the fascia (next to the play/stop icon). I use a paperclip to push it but you can use a pin/needle etc. You can feel when the button is pushed. I hold it down for a few seconds.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for answer! My player had shut down when I where back from work, but I
ll probuably need to reset it later :doh

[jennifer]

Good stuff. Thanks all! ;)

[ykram511]

Hi Guys.

I just saw that a new Firmware has been released -- 1.30.06. Considering that this question was also asked recently, can somebody outline once again the proper steps of updating the firmware (and utility). I really don't wanna follow the manual, since I know it's pretty inutile.

Also, has someone been able to use the Thinkfreeoffice advertised with the product? Again, there's no clear instructions from the OEM, so I was hoping somebody can shed some light for us less-experienced mortals.

Thanks in advanced for your generosity!

[Dr Zaius]

Hi

You can find the details here. If the firmware has only 3 files rather than the 4 in the instructions then just transfer those.

My HD300 has totally locked up, even a reset wont work, and it is now on its way back for repair or refund.