Rockbox

Note: this is a bug report for the Sansa Fuze v2 but this player type does not appear in the Player Type menu. This bug does also appear on the Sansa Fuze+

The characters ‘ (traditional left single quote), ’ (traditional right single quote or apostrophe), “ (traditional left double quote) and ” (traditional right double quote) from the metadata (song title, artist, album title) of any MP3 are each displayed as a box outlined in dots instead of the correct symbol on the WPS screen display. This occurs with all of the fonts and when any theme or codepage is being used. The original Sansa® Fuze™ firmware does not have this problem.

Hardware device: Sansa® Fuze™ v2
Original manufacturer’s firmware version: 02.03.33
Rockbox version: 3.11 (the current release)
Attachments to this report: 2 complete song files (MP3 & WMA, each under 2 megabytes in size)

Proof of complaint:
First, I avoided using ripping and tagging software downloaded from the internet because this can introduce further problems (such as a computer virus). Besides, I believe that Rockbox should be easy to use and that means using what the Windows 7 operating system already provides. In order to eliminate my computer as the source of the problem, the two files attached to this message, one an MP3 and the other a WMA, were produced on a friend’s Windows 7 machine using Windows Media Player 12 (WMP 12) to rip the tracks from a CD (WMP 12 was used twice, once to produce an MP3 file and the second time to produce a WMA file). In both cases, the metadata was downloaded by WMP 12 which inserted it into each file. I then opened Microsoft Word 2007 and using my favorite font Times New Roman I created the string: [‘’“”]. This string contains the traditional left and right single and double quote characters encased in square brackets. The appropriate song file was then located in the Windows 7 Music directory and the property dialogue box brought up by right clicking on the file and selecting the Properties menu option. Next the summary tab (Advanced option) was selected. The string was pasted into the appropriate location in a data field (song title, artist or album title) according to this scheme:
MP3: The string was pasted onto the end of the song title and artist name. A character called the Greek Tonos (a symbol that can be inserted into a Word 2007 document while using the Times New Roman font) was added to the end of the artist name field.
WMA: The string was pasted onto the end of the song title and artist name.

When these files appear in a WPS screen display (using any font or any theme or codepage) I get these results:
MP3: The traditional single and double quote characters in the song title are not displayed properly when the Rockbox firmware is utilized. Instead a box outlined in dots appears in each case. The traditional single and double quote characters in the artist name are displayed properly (along with the Greek Tonos character appended onto the end). All of the characters in the song title are properly displayed when using the original SanDisk Sansa firmware.
WMA: The traditional single and double quote characters in the song title and artist name are displayed properly when using the Rockbox firmware.

Further experiments showed that the bit rate selected did not matter. The results are exactly the same as I get after using my computer to produce the MP3 and WMA files. Also try deleting the Greek Tonos character in the MP3 metadata artist name field and see what happens. Admittedly, this was a somewhat elaborate experiment, but in my view the results show that there is indeed a problem with the way in which the Rockbox firmware displays the traditional left and right single and double quote characters from metadata on an MP3. It is also clearly obvious that the Rockbox firmware has access to the proper symbols to display.

A visual display of the problem I am encountering can be found at: www.terrythegreat.wordpress.com

Please display the attached files on your Sansa Fuze v2 before pronouncing whether or not there is a problem as described above.

Disclaimer: Any music file I provide to the Rockbox crew is for testing and evaluation purposes, not for public broadcast, as per the copyright laws.