Help - new MP3 and I am clueless

cvmar · Mar 14, 2009

I just got my first MP3 player. It is the Samsung P2 with a nice 3" touch screen but I have no clue how to use it. I went to their website to update the firmware but I can't make it work :wall:

- I will call Samsung tomorrow to try to get some help from them on that but what I really need to know is where do I go to download songs and videos? Isn't itunes just for ipods? We got this for our upcoming trip to Maui and the video feature will be great to keep our son occupied on the flight but I have no clue as to where to download videos or songs. I am not technical at all. Every time I try to learn something technical all the acronyms are a killer. If you don't know them you are lost and it seems as if one acronym leads to another and so on......... Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.

kewanee · Mar 14, 2009

You can download songs from amazon.com (one of many places). I used amazon when I won free downloads during the pepsi points promotion and I really liked it - it saves them as mp3's on your computer. You can probably then plug in your player (via a USB cable) to your computer and 'drag' the mp3's just as if you were copying them to another drive.
Regarding iTunes - in case you ever get an iTunes gift card and want to use it - here is what I do to download to a non-ipod player:
Use the iTunes software (you have to download and install it) and purchase music from their store. Create your playlist in iTunes and burn it to a CD. You can then import the audio CD back to iTunes and it will make a duplicate copy each song as an MP3. I can then copy these MP3's to my player. Before importing, there is a setting under Advanced options where you check 'MP3'. You can also use this procedure to convert any of your own music CDs into MP3's.
ps - this is for audio, I don't have any clue on video's. EXCEPT, I purchased Cucusoft software which converts videos. I tested it out and I converted a Lion King DVD to a format that played on an Ipod. I assume this would work with non-ipods - you would just have to pick the correct video type (hopefully in your manual)

Icarus · Mar 14, 2009

Forget itunes. Use windows media player 11. Your device works with it. I also recommend amazon for purchases. And you can rip all your own CDs using windows media player 11 also. I would not recommend buying audio content from itunes, burning it to CD, and then re-ripping it. You will be transcoding the music twice if you do that, and the result won't be very close to the original music.

Your very nice looking P2 also should have come with a software CD. Install the software, which probably includes the drivers you need. You can then either use Samsung's software or WMP 11 to create playlists, etc. You can even just drag and drop media files onto it from what I read. (they have to be the right format.)

Here's the support page for the P2.

http://www.samsung.com/my/consumer/...del_cd=YP-P2AB/XME&menu=download&menu2=detail

Looks like you're going to have actually learn how to use it and research where you can get/convert video for it. I get most of the video content I put on my ipod from my tivo, using the tivo desktop plus software, which can convert the media files to a format my ipod and your P2 can deal with. Do you have Tivo?

Whatever you decide to do will depend on what your source for video content is.

-David

Icarus · Mar 14, 2009

According to them, you can get video content for the P2 from Starz Play, Cinema Now and Napster.

You can probably get it from other places also, but you may have to convert it.

Their software converts it all to a proprietary format (svi) anyway.

This is the problem with alternate media players. They may in fact be better than an ipod, but they are nowhere as simple to use, especially for getting content on them. Apple was very clever with itunes, which is an app we love to hate.

Anyway, if you are clever about it, you should be able to get content from other sources and convert them for use on your P2.

May I ask why you decided to go with the Samsung P2, rather than the ipod touch? I will tell you that I think it looks like a beautiful device and it's feature list is very nice.

If you can return the P2, you might consider getting the ipod touch. I think it will be much easier for you to use, especially for video content, if you intend to purchase/rent video content. If you decide to keep the P2, maybe you can find a support forum for it somewhere.

-David

Keitht · Mar 14, 2009

For the music don't forget you can also copy your own CDs to the MP3 player. Why pay to download if you already have the songs. With most software it's virtually a case of plug in the MP3 player via a USB port, fire up the software, insert the CD and follow the on screen instructions.

pgnewarkboy · Mar 14, 2009

If you already have a PC, using windows media player and amazon.com music dowloads is very easy. Your amazon dowloads will automatically go to your windows media player (which is a program on your pc) where they ae automatically categorized by Artis, Album, Song. You can make your own favorites list. Then you just hook your Samsung up to the PC via a USB connection and drag and drop the music to the Samsung.

You might be able to dowload video from amazon as well.

cvmar · Mar 14, 2009

Icarus;685190 May I ask why you decided to go with the Samsung P2 said:
I went with the P2 because it was $98.00 new. Being a novice on all things technical I had no idea there would be a steep (for me) learning curve. I can learn anything but finding the time is what's difficult.

I loaded the software CD that came with the P2 and it asked me if I wanted to update the software. I clicked yes however every time it says "errors in file update please try again later". I also downloaded the firmware from their website and it is in the P2 file browser folder and each time I try to open it on the P2 it says not supported format!

Also when I unzipped the firmware file on my laptop a screen came up and on the first file I accidently opened it using Medial Player and the box was checked that said always use this program to open this type of file so each time I try to redownload and unzip this file shows as a Media Player file and I don't know how to change that

I don't know what the ipod touch costs but based on the time it appears I am going to have to spend learning this thing it may have been a better choice. I had no idea there were all kind of different audio and video formats for MP3 players. I thought they were all the same. Why does all this stuff have to be so damn complicated?!

Icarus · Mar 14, 2009

cvmar said:
Also when I unzipped the firmware file on my laptop a screen came up and on the first file I accidently opened it using Medial Player and the box was checked that said always use this program to open this type of file so each time I try to redownload and unzip this file shows as a Media Player file and I don't know how to change that

You want to remove the file association you created accidentally.

You can try this. Next time you download the file, use right click, save link as. Or you can skip that step if you already have the file saved somewhere.

Now open the folder that contains the file, right click on the file, and select choose default program, or open with, and select the program to use to open it. Check the box that says "always use this program ... ".

If you just want to remove the file association you accidentally created, there's a way to do that also, but I don't remember where that is in Windows off the top of my head.

I don't know what the ipod touch costs but based on the time it appears I am going to have to spend learning this thing it may have been a better choice. I had no idea there were all kind of different audio and video formats for MP3 players. I thought they were all the same. Why does all this stuff have to be so damn complicated?!

More than $98. The P2 is 8GB? I think the 8GB ipod touch is $229, 16GB is $299, ... (list prices, you can find them slightly discounted.)

Yeah, you saved money with that. hahaha.

-David

MULTIZ321 · Mar 14, 2009

CVMar,

If you haven't already see this MP3 Player Guide from Consumer Reports - scroll down and read in particular the section on "Music, Movies and More"; and here's the link from that section about
Video in Your Pocket

Richard

Help - new MP3 and I am clueless

TUG Review Crew