MP3onChannel Review - The first test run
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That was the idea, at the start. Unfortunately, I soon encountered a delay. Most of the audio that I keep on an old 12GB hard disk has been encoded into .wma or variable bit rate MP3 from source, of which only the MP3s played nicely with the MP3onChannel. It seems to be only interested in the format it's named after, so if your archive is encoded differently, start putting your CPU to work if you want to use this device.
After moving some music over to a Sandisk MiniCruzer, I was off to try it out on a drive to Tim Horton's for coffee and donuts. Everything plugs in pretty simply: MP3onChannel into the cigarette lighter, USB key into device. With everything lit up the way it was supposed to, I set the radio to match the frequency and pressed "play." Then all hell broke loose.
The light on the MiniCruzer started flashing at a rate to cause epilepsy, and the audio skipped in and out, going very slowly. After swearing like a sailor, I skipped to the next song. Same thing, and again, and again. Then it played like it was supposed to, and I figured all was well. On my way to get my caffeine fix, the audio went whacky again. This time I just yanked it and threw the whole works into the back seat, and went back to tried and true CDs for the rest of my trip.
When I got back home safely to my driveway, I decided to make a list of what tracks did and didn't work. Looking at my list, the results made no sense. There were tracks from the same album, all encoded at the same time, with the same settings, where some would work, and some wouldn't. Or in some cases, it would function at the start of the song, then not after the halfway point. Talk about frustrating.
Using deductive reasoning, it obviously wasn't my encoding that was the problem, otherwise it would affect a whole album, or realistically, the whole batch of albums I had just pulled from source, AC/DC to ZZTop, since again, they all had the same settings. I wondered if the thing just didn't like folders. That wouldn't really explain why some songs worked and others didn't, but what the hell. Leaving a bunch of tunes just at the top storage level, with no other folders to confuse the player didn't help an iota. Then I tried to blame it on naming conventions... but after renaming certain songs 1, or 2, etc, it didn't suddenly make them play correctly.
So I went out and put some cash down on a different USB key, just so I could say I gave this thing a fair shake. Lo and behold, the Verbatim storage device worked just fine, with all of the different tracks that had given the MP3onChannel fits before. I found my problem: it was a compatibility error with Sandisk USB devices. Not exactly a good sign, as this isn't stated ANYWHERE in the rather pathetic documentation that came with it. But at least now I knew what the hell the problem was, and could actually test it out properly.
Next: The second test run >>
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