The Zidoo players are both video and music players, and are marketed and sold as such. For me, the music playing ability is just as important as the playing of video files. Displaying data about what is being played is a key part of the functionality of a Music Player. Artist name, track name, album name, cover art etc needs to be displayed correctly, especially if all of that info is provided in the ID3 tags of the files. The Music Player has some serious bugs in this area, that need to be fixed to provide a proper playing experience. For clarity, this initial post in this thread is a summary of the bugs I have encountered until now, please feel free to add additional issues that you are experiencing. I have on some separate occasions reported these issues before but despite many months passed and 2-3 fw versions released none of these issues have been addressed. Thus the summary, for increased ease for Zidoo to look into and fix. Happy to provide any additional input needed to be able to troubleshoot. My playing environment: Player: Z2000 Pro. Current fw version: 1.0.86 (but these issues have been there since I bought the player, 1.0.52 was the first fw version I used). Playing done though the MediaCenter/File Manager. This launches a Play view where Artist Name is displayed with smaller font size under the Track Name, to the upper right, and other data is displayed under the sleeve picture, i.e. to the lower left. File format used: flac (2 ch) The files all have proper ID3 tags containing all of the meta data needed, as well as cover art. In the Music Player "Scan" settings, I have "Matching settings" set to "Only use local data" (as my files all have all the needed data in the ID3 tags, nor do I trust whatever sources Zidoo are using for "external" scraping to be able to provide correct data). I have checked "Automatic updating..." to not have to trigger scraping manually as I update the music library pretty much every day. These are the bugs: Bug 1: Character handling issues, with these (European) characters: å, ä, ö and ß. These characters in Track Names work fine but if Artist Name or Album Name contain any of these characters the respective attribute is not displayed correctly. If there are such characters in the Artist Name, it is not displayed at all. If there are such characters in the Album Name, the entire folder name (as stored on the internal HD) is displayed instead of the Album Name. A reflection is that on both this Bug and #2 below, none of the other media players I've had throughout the past 15 years (or so) have had any problems properly handling characters from across the globe when playing music. So this is a very surprising and disappointing issue (this is also the most expensive media player I've bought). But anyway, let's just get these issues fixed shall we, please Zidoo? Bug 2: Track Names starting with digits are displayed without the digits. A few examples: "20th Century Promised Land" is displayed as "th Century Promised Land" "39 By Design" is displayed as "By Design" "20s" is displayed as "s" Bug 3: Scraping of "technical" attributes when files have been updated. A fairly common scenario for me is to upgrade from 16-bit to 24-bit files, and that change is not reflected in the data displayed after scraping once files have been updated. These files are still displayed as being 16-bit. The folder and file names used are the same but file size and time stamp are (of course) different so should be no issue to pick it up in the scraping. If I delete the 16-bit files, scraping is done, add the 24-bit files and scraping is done again, data is displayed correctly. The same if I use a new folder name. But those workarounds should not be needed! Bug 4: the Music Player does not read the ID3 tags and "technical" attributes "on the fly". Instead scraping is needed for the Player to pick up and display the data (and as discussed, with the current bugs the data is anyhow not displayed correctly even then). Please give the user a choice to have the Music Player read the actual ID3 tags and "technical" attributes of the files when playing them, and just display that data in the Player interface. For clarity, I do not use (and do not want to use!) the "Music Wall" (for lack of a better term) so personally I do not need scraping to generate that. Granted, this last Bug can perhaps be seen as a change request rather than an obvious bug but the overall implementation is for sure flawed. But if Bugs 1-3 are fixed "Bug" 4 does indeed become less relevant. Here's to hoping that Bug 1-3 will finally be fixed in either the next fw or the one after (depending on how far into development the next fw currently is)!
Most serious issue thou ,is the still broken MCH handling even thou several firmware update notes state its fixed It works perfectly ( if not in true dsd format) for the previous gen Z9X models
I only have a 2CH audio setup (also used for video) so at present I'm not exposed to any issues with MultiCH. I assume you have reported the issues you're experiencing in greater detail earlier, to enable troubleshooting and fixing?
yep ,we have a seperate thread just for mch issues ,plus test files have been passed on ..just added since it was left off the list
Yeah the MCH issues are really the only thing major thing I want fixed ASAP. The poster wall and tagging issues while annoying do not actually affect my listening experience like lack of MCH support so I hope they fix that first but all should be addressed. This device is so close to being perfect for my usage.
For me it does soil the listening experience when Artist Names are not displayed and Album and Track Names are displayed incorrectly (despite the correct data being present in the ID3 tags). I also have a fair amount of material with those characters involved in the not-working scenarios. I usually sit down and listen to music attentively, while also looking at the data displayed, so it is very noticeable to me. However, with those issues fixed, the device would be perfect for my (current) usage Sure, I sometimes need to reboot to get a video to play (usually DV), but I can live with that. But I do agree and acknowledge that files that should be supported as per the specs but do not play at all, or play with content (channels) missing, is a more severe issue.
No I get it. I get annoyed at the same thing but I will often use the direct function on my AVR and turn off my screen completely when listening so I don't notice it as much. Not having the info correct is surely frustrating and it should be fixed.
On Bug 1 above, that issue also relates to various other characters that are not among the 26 characters in the English alphabet, not only those characters reported. Typically characters used in different European languages. So it would be better with a proper character handling fix once and for all rather than some fix that only takes care of those specific characters already reported (although for me personally it would still be valuable as that would anyway reduce the amount of occurrences of these issues given the content of my music library). But again, I've never had a media player that has had these issues. And this (Z2000 Pro) is the most expensive player I've ever bought. But how can one go about finally getting some attention to these issues? @Markswift2003? You seem to be the one who acts as Product Owner and does the actual product management in the retail phase of the lifecycle for these players. Zidoo seem to have no such function in their organization as they are completely invisible in these forums and do not respond to e-mails. It's just mind-boggling that not even Bug 2 above has been fixed yet, as that is universal across all languages. Again, this is a music player just as much as a video player (for me the usage is 50/50 between music and video). These issues have soon been ignored for a year.
Further on Bug #3 above, Genre isn't updated either, so it is apparently not only "technical" attributes that are not updated when files are updated and re-scraped as per the scenario description above. The Music Player really wasn't implemented/tested properly as far as these (important for a proper music player) aspects go. But again, please fix it Zidoo, a year after these products were released. Does anyone know if all these bugs persist in the Music Player in the new product line that has been released recently? I'm not going to buy one of those anyhow, as the products we're discussing here are just a year old and should be supported and fixed to serve well for several years. But good to know if it's fixed there, then Zidoo can perhaps use that version in these players.
