The Muse has a very bright, detailed screen and a terrific sound. However, there are two areas of annoyance of which you should be aware prior to purchase.
Firmware issue:
Although the Muse will organize audio clips/tracks for a CD by track number if the file is an .MP3 file, it will default to listing tracks alphabetically by track title if the files are in .WMA format. And that is the track title in the IP3 header, not the file's name. What is stored in the audio file's ID3 header won't affect how the track titles are presented to you in a .WMA album - they'll always be sorted alphabetically. The simplest way around this it to create a playlist for the album with the tracks in the correct order and use the playlist instead of the album play process.
Video/audio Conversion Software (ArcSoft) Issue:
The bundled audio/video download and conversion software has locked default settings into a profile file for the Muse which cannot be edited or overridden. (If this bothers you enough you'll have to purchase the retail version, find a different converter or go without.) In many cases you can just load the video files directly into the Muse using Windows explorer, avoiding the conversion process -- as long as they're recorded at 30 frames per second and the file is in a format that the Muse plays naturally.
The default conversion settings that irked me are:
Screen size. The Muse's screen is 400x240 pixels, very nice for HD and widescreen video material. However, if the video is in a smaller aspect ratio, such as old television and film clips, the conversion software will stretch the video to fill the Muse's screen as much as possible. This distorts the original video and looks bad. There is an option in the conversion software that says "Stretch" and is check-marked. But it cannot be un-check-marked.
File size. When converting video the software tries to convert the source material into the best audio and video quality possible -- even if the source video clip is of poor quality. The result for me, in several cases, was that the resulting video file to be played on the Muse is 2 to 3 times larger than the original file. When you're dealing with mega-megabyte files, this impacts how much video you can store on the player.
File Extension. After ArcSoft conversion, the video file will have a different extension -- i.e.: StarshipGroove.PVI -- which means it is only playable on the Muse and not your computer. However, it turns out that it is still an AVI file, so you just need to rename it -- i.e.: StarshipGroove.AVI -- to play the converted file on your computer. This is just an annoyance and not a problem, per se.
All in all I'm happy with the Muse. I just wish that Philips would update the firmware to handle the WMA problem, and get ArcSoft to, at least, let the user choose when to have the video stretched and when not.Get more detail about Philips GoGear Muse 16 GB MP3 Video Player with Month of Rhapsody Music and Free Audible Audiobook (Black).
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