Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Introduction

Recently a cool piece of electronics went on blitz clearance. The Naked Brothers Band Npower Fusion Digital Media Player was available on clearance for $19.99 at Target. Normally when something is on clearance it's because it is sub-standard but this particular piece of technology's only sin was being associated with a sub-standard Nick show that no one has ever heard about. And being pink. But those superficial follies aside under the hood this is a pretty impressive piece of technology, a steal for the (clearance) price.

What the unit has is MP3 audio support, WMV (video) support, Java Game support, and 1 gig, yes you heard me, 1 gig of internal memory and an SD slot for expanded capacity up to 2 more gig at a time. It uses a similar Java interface that many modern cellphones have, sans the www accessibility. And it's light. When I picked the thing up I thought I was going to break it.

Seeing as the unit was on clearance there's very little "official" support for the thing, save a few SD cards loaded with Nick cartoons which also were on clearance a while back. Being a little proprietary there's very little and unpopular there's very little unofficial support either. And a Google search turned up more questions than answers so I've been left, largely, to discover my own solutions. Being tech savvy this hasn't been a problem, in fact I've had quite a bit of success. I wanted to share that success with others who have found themselves in possession of one of these excellent pieces of technology, and to get suggestions from the same.

So I made this blog.

I'll update in spurts when I can, and when I've pretty much dumped as much information as I have I'll leave this blog here for reference purposes. Chances are there's no huge NPower Fusion Media Player user base, but I've spent quite a bit of time making this work, so it seems silly to me not to share it for others.

But if you swing by and find this stuff useful leave a comment.

These suggestions will probably work other Media Players, especially the ones by Memorex. These suggestions may also work with the Disney Max-Max Media Players too, but I need someone to confirm that (or offer to buy me one).

12 comments:

Andrew said...

Mate! You rock...I have been looking for ages for some assistance for my kids Nick players (I have 2 of them). A HUGE thanks!

Anonymous said...

HUGELY appreciated! I bought one of these a few months ago, it has been sitting with a bunch of beatles and queen MP3s, as my kids love them (5 @ 8 yrs old)...yes, I must be doing something right. ANYWAY, used pocket DVD wizard, loaded a couple dvds with the trial, the size was wrong and the sound was off. Downloaded the games yesterday, kids love them, will work on the video. I dont know if you know the background on this player, but there was about a 50/50 chance you got one DOA when you bought it. I think that is why they went on clearance so soon. I bought 2 for $20/apiece realizing that they are TERRIFIC deals, one was DOA, called memorex, they said return it in about 2 seconds. Same thing happended to my brother. Target was good about it. Still love what we have, works great and kicks the heck out of anything even today for the price. Any more bits of wisdom are greatly appreciated.

Anonymous said...

I haven't figured out how to get playlists to work on mine - do you know?

Anonymous said...

I bought one and like you said looking past the crappy packaging and art it seemed like a steal so I went back and bought another before they were gone and before I got a chance to really play with it. My second one is in the box awaiting my 4 year old to turn 5. The first one has been collecting dust because I found little info or downloads for the sucker and I am not THAT savvy to figure it all out myself. I so far just have pictures and music on it. I'd love to get movies to play on it though. And some fun easy games.

So yeah I am so stoked to fall onto this blog.. Thank you!

Unknown said...

I'd like to say thanks for the time and effort you put into this as well. Very cool of you to share! I bought one for my son and then about 5 minutes later ordered another for me. We got the Spongebob ones Buy.com had for $14.99. My decision was based on a few google searches where I found little tidbits of info that indicated how powerful this unit was despite it's super low price. Right now I'm working on getting movies onto them using your info. Thanks again for sharing!

Unknown said...

What are the best sites for downloading TV episodes for kids - think Spongebob, iCarly, etc.?

Diane said...

Awesome! We have 3 of these to get ready for the kids and this blog will definately help!

Raivyn said...

FYI this was a Kidswoot deal, so I think alot more folks are looking for info on these players.

Thanks for the awesome resource!

I've been trying to find info on the max size sd card it will hold. I read that it does not support sdhc - is that true?

Is the max card size 2gb or 4gb?

I bought 3 of these and am getting them geared up for my nieces and nephews, and I'd like to have the max card in them so the parents won't have to worry about it.

3dpprofessor said...

Well I hope everyone who finds this through kidswoot will be of more help than me. I got only so far on this thing and got tired of the amount of work it was demanding to get anything to happen. In particular converting movies.

But I can confirm that it can't take more than a 2 gig SD card. However, it's easy to swap them out, so that's good.

Raivyn said...

Thanks for your quick response, Joe!

Some folks have reported using a larger card on these, but nothing definitive/reliable.

Anonymous said...

awesome!!! A whole bunch of people will be googling this site for reference since just recently kidswoot had these things on sale for 10 bucks each. I got two for my kids and then they sold out. thank you so much now I can keep them busy while I drive.

Unknown said...

I really enjoyed reading your post.

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