re: Gapless Playback

I bought the Zune 120GB because it was suppose to have gapless playback.  I had been waiting on this for years.

This seems to be a hit or miss...sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.  I can even play the same gap over and it work the second time after not working.

All my files are WMA...I had read that this would only work with WMA.

It seems like it doesn't work if the song is extremely long before the gap.  For instance if listening to DAVID GILMOUR/Live at Gandsk it doesn't work most of the time.

Again it might work in some places one time and different places the next time I listen to it.

Will this improve in the future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gapless attempts to work for all formats, not just WMA.  But yes, there are some bugs... sometimes even cutting off a few samples at transition (which most probably don't notice), which is more than gapless but not something I appreciate. .  

Please post full repro details... What tool you used to rip, what OS version, what the exact format is (WMA, WMA Lossless, WMA Pro?  VBR or CBR?... and bit-rate.)  Are you letting the track play 'straight-through', or are you skipping part of the track before it transitions to the next track? (I know in some of my previous tests, fast forwarding at all would break gapless for the next transition... with some formats.)

This may help the Zune folks.

Actually from my testing, if I FASTFORWARD to within a minute of the end of the song and let it play the rest of the way the gapless works.  Only seems to not work about three out of four songs.  Like I said one gap might work one time and the the same gap might not work the next time.

I am assuming there might be a buffer involved.  If so the buffer gets behind.  That would be the best way I could explain what I am seeing.

Derrell Gore

 

 

 

 gr0mmet wrote:

[snipped] Are you letting the track play 'staight-through', or are you skipping part of the track before it transitions to the next track? (I know in some of my previous tests, fast forwarding at all would break gapless for the next transition... with some formats.)

This may help the Zune folks.

HDD Zunes read a big chunk of data off the disk into RAM or Flash, and actually 'play' from the RAM or Flash.   This saves a ton of energy otherwise needed to keep the disk spinning (and it's why you get much better battery life when you avoid skipping from song to song...aka 'spinning up the disk.')  So, if you skip part of a track near the end, I wonder if you are flushing (all or part of?) this buffer and screwing up gapless... Doesn't solve the original posters issue, but might help explain one of yours...

 derrellgore wrote:

Actually from my testing, if I FASTFORWARD to within a minute of the end of the song and let it play the rest of the way the gapless works.  Only seems to not work about three out of four songs.  Like I said one gap might work one time and the the same gap might not work the next time.

I am assuming there might be a buffer involved.  If so the buffer gets behind.  That would be the best way I could explain what I am seeing.

Derrell Gore

We're close to being on the same page...I saw this after I posted.  I do think a buffer is involved, but I think fast forwarding too close to the track ending would flush the buffer...and so could break gapless.

Also after having a gap not work I can REWIND to before the gap and replay it and it works.

Just from my minimal testing It seems to NOT work most often on a song that is 5+ minutes long.(PINK FLOYD, DAVID GILMOUR,etc), therefore I think the buffer gets filled and anthen the song gets ahead of what the buffer can handle...does that make sense.

Like I said for me if I just play a minute or so before the break it works for me.

 

 

I have been seeing more posts about gapless playback. Although on all 3 of my 30GB I cannot replicate a "non" gapless situation with any of my Floyd, Gilmour, Rush live...etc.

The only thing that comes to mind is originally the post said WMA files. It could be if the file is WMA lossless and it is a 20-40mb file it could hamper the gapless feature. But again, I tried this with some long WMA lossless Earth, Wind & Fire songs I have and the gapless works fine.....maybe 30GB process better...my black 30Gb is first gen device.

dunno??

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Zune is AWESOME!!...since Nov 2006 Black30GB and Pink30GB (my wifes'!!!)

 derrellgore wrote:

Also after having a gap not work I can REWIND to before the gap and replay it and it works.

Just from my minimal testing It seems to NOT work most often on a song that is 5+ minutes long.(PINK FLOYD, DAVID GILMOUR,etc), therefore I think the buffer gets filled and and then the song gets ahead of what the buffer can handle...does that make sense.

Like I said for me if I just play a minute or so before the break it works for me.

Your theory could be right...If I were writing the code for the buffer, I'd figure out how long my buffer would last (how many seconds...) and fill it with whatever is queued up to play next (the rest of 'this' song, plus some of the next song, and so on...)  Then, I'd set a timer to remind me to refill the buffer when it's getting close to empty.  From your description, it sounds like you found a case they forgot (very long songs...)  It's easy to remember to set an interrupt to update the buffer though, when someone pushes fast-forward. 

My WMA's are 192KB primarily off of MarketPlace and Ripped cd's.

Well, if it's a specific Marketplace album you experience the gapless problem with consistently...tell us which one.  (Purchased or Pass?)  That would be much easier to reproduce by Microsoft, since they won't need a specific CD rip/encode to test.  Tell use which Zune model you are using... and post the complete steps you do which triggers the problem, hopefully relatively consistently.  (i.e., "Start playing album on track 2... when album hits track 3 and track 5, there is a slight drop in audio when it transitions.")

I'd recommend a reboot of the Zune device first, so everything is fresh. 

David Gilmour Live at Gdansk is a good example.  Can't specifically say where it will happen because it will be different everytime.  I am using PASS

And which Zune device?