Audiophase or Other Generic TGE MP3 player help

Help for Audiophase and Other Generic TGE Digital Media Players

I had purchased a 1GB MP3/Video/FM/Voice player from KMart that was packaged under Audiophase. It has a lot of bells and whistles for only $40. It worked great for about an hour (connecting, loading, playing) then stopped. I had to do a lot of research (about 6 hours on dial-up) before fixing it. I am writing it all down because I found there are many of you out there with the same player and problems.

This information may even work for other generic media players. My player and probably many others were not built by Audiophase, they were manufactured by the Tai Guen Technology (TGE Group) out of Taiwan/China. TGE players are based on a chip by Sigmatel. TGE makes many different ?covers? for their players and allow them to be distributed by other companies.

!!! The problem is not the player, it is the poor documentation and software that was shipped with it !!!

SOME FAQ ANSWERS

1) To charge the battery, you have to turn the player on before connecting it to your computer and leave it on while charging. My battery symbol seems to be backwards. It is shown as empty when the battery is full, then colors in as the charge weakens. I am used to the opposite.

2) You should upgrade Windows Media Player to Version 11. WMP 10 has trouble recognizing the player even when the computer sees it.

3) My device did not show up as a drive (C: D: etc), but as ?MTP Player? under My Computer. Then under MTP Player there was a subdirectory ?Internal Storage?, then several sub-subdirectories FM, Music, Voice, etc. Make sure you store the correct files in the correct sub-subdirectory or they might not be seen by the player.

4) Even though my player is a 1GB, it only shows approx 931MB free. This is because some of the 1GB is being used to store the player?s operating system.

5) You have to set WMP to create a file hierarchy on your player otherwise it won?t see all of your music files or use all of your player?s storage capacity. In WMP go to Tools > Options > Devices, highlight your device and go to Properties. Under Sync, make sure the Create File Hierarchy box is checked.

6) The EQ button on my player is also used as the HOLD key. I have to be careful how I change my equalizer setting or even handle my player because if I press the EQ button too long, it locks my player.

7) My player does not handle Digital Rights Music. I can only play ?free? music.

To turn my player on, slide the switch to on, then press and hold the PLAY button. A little video of an elf and a sleigh plays, then it goes to the first song. To turn my player off, I hold the PLAY button down until another video, this one of a paper airplane, plays. After the screen goes black, then I slide the switch to off.

9) DO NOT FORMAT your player with Windows. Something about the NTFS file format will mess up your player.

10) DO NOT REMOVE your player from the computer if it is in the middle of doing something. This can mess up your player and your computer.

HOW I FIXED MINE

Evidently, so many people have had problems with TGE players that TGE has finally created a website with software that will reformat your player and upgrade its firmware (player?s operating system) fixing most problems. It fixed mine. I hope you have the same luck;

1. I looked at the properties of the manual file on the CD that came with my player. Even though the manual did not show my model number, the title in file?s properties did. In this case, my player is an MZ111sf.

2. I went to the Tai Guen Technology Group?s English MP3 Support website http://www.tgegroup.com/technical_support/download.htm.

3. I downloaded the file for my player (MZ11xSF). These files are in .RAR format which is another compression format like .ZIP. If you don?t have a program that will extract .RAR files, there is a link on the page to download WINRAR.

4. Extract the .RAR file to your computer, use Windows Explorer to open the directory where the files were extracted to, and then follow these steps below which I copied from the TGE page and edited to make more sense;
Upgrading Firmware Instructions:
1. Make sure the player is disconnected from the computer.
2. Use Windows Explorer to open the directory where you extracted the .RAR files to.
3. Find ?Stupdaterapp.exe? and double click it to start ?MTPMSCN Firmware Download? Program.
4. Switch the player on, then Press and Hold the PLAY button while connecting the player to the computer through the USB port.
5. While still holding the PLAY button down, check the box for ?Format Data Areas?, then click START.
6. Now, let go of the PLAY button. The program should now upgrade the firmware and re-format the player correctly.

After the fix, my player seems to work okay. I hope this helps you.