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Topic: GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New! (Read 294549 times) previous topic - next topic
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GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #50
I just tried reencoding an album I had originally encoded in Nero AAC. I tried iTunes AAC, 128kbps, VBR enabled. The gap sounds more or less just like with Nero - it's rather light, and doesn't affect the tempo of the music, but it is definitely always there.

Based on these off the cuff tests, I'm willing to conclude this for good, without going to objective testing - iTunes does not provide a true gapless implementation. Or, if it does, it's broken.

GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #51
Nevermind
Every night with my star friends / We eat caviar and drink champagne
Sniffing in the VIP area / We talk about Frank Sinatra
Do you know Frank Sinatra? / He's dead

GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #52
Based on these off the cuff tests, I'm willing to conclude this for good, without going to objective testing - iTunes does not provide a true gapless implementation. Or, if it does, it's broken.


Oh well it's at least better than it was :/

Have you tried with ALAC which damn well ought to be able to be played back gapless, if it can't then they should remove the L from the acronym.

GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #53
Have you tried with ALAC which damn well ought to be able to be played back gapless, if it can't then they should remove the L from the acronym.

AAC?
we was young an' full of beans

GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #54
AAC?

He's referring to Apple Lossless.

I've got all my music encoded as Apple Lossless and I'll be darned if I can hear any pauses now.

Between gapless playback, the new cover flip view, and the set-top box that will be coming out in Q1 '07, I'm a happy camper with no plans to miss my Monkey's Audio or FLAC days.

Jay
Watching for pigs on the wing...

GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #55
Great info.  Great news.  Thanks for the info on 4th G. 

I just tried out gapless using my 4th Generation iPod Photo, it worked perfectly on the album Blood Sugar Sex Magik by Red Hot Chili Peppers. It is an album were ALL the songs transition into each other gaplessly, and it worked great.

iTunes 7 scanned both my library on my hard disc, and my iPod the first time I connected it. However I then had to go into the iPod, select all the tracks in Blood Sugar Sex Magik, then select "Gapless Album" YES in the bottom right hand corner of the Multiple Item Information screen. As soon as I did that it rescanned the files, and made it work.

GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #56
FYI: The first time I ran iTunes 7... it walked the entire library and "determined gapless playback information."  Yes, it included LAME generated MP3 files.  It was fairly slow.  I would love to know what the logic is for "determining gapless playback" for various types of files... Did they really use the LAME padding/delay info when available?

GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #57
FYI: The first time I ran iTunes 7... it walked the entire library and "determined gapless playback information."  Yes, it included LAME generated MP3 files.  It was fairly slow.  I would love to know what the logic is for "determining gapless playback" for various types of files... Did they really use the LAME padding/delay info when available?


If you read part of page 2, you'll see that it appears that iTunes is appending some proprietary info to each file to help iTunes specifically play without gaps.

GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #58

FYI: The first time I ran iTunes 7... it walked the entire library and "determined gapless playback information."  Yes, it included LAME generated MP3 files.  It was fairly slow.  I would love to know what the logic is for "determining gapless playback" for various types of files... Did they really use the LAME padding/delay info when available?


If you read part of page 2, you'll see that it appears that iTunes is appending some proprietary info to each file to help iTunes specifically play without gaps.


This is not always true. I have added a bunch of LAME 3.90.3 APS files to the library, and it does not modify the files at all (provided you turn SoundCheck off). It certainly seems like it is using the LAME padding/delay info. I don't believe it is just some sort of silence detector - I played a file with more than a minute of silence at the end, and it plays the full silent part.

GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #59
If you read part of page 2, you'll see that it appears that iTunes is appending some proprietary info to each file to help iTunes specifically play without gaps.
That doesn't explain what it does to generate the additional gapless info.  This is pre-existing content, not ripped using iTunes.  I can also confirm it does not modify the MP3 files... they are all untouched.  So, the extra info gets stored in the iTunes database.




GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #63
I don't believe it is just some sort of silence detector - I played a file with more than a minute of silence at the end, and it plays the full silent part.

The gap in (lossy) audio files is a consequence of padded datas which were added by the encoder in order to fill the last frame (and also the first one I suppose). As a consequence, any clever gapless system based on silence detection shouldn't look for null audio for more than a few miliseconds and therefore will keep some long silent parts of music located at the beginning and the end of each file.

GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #64
I installed iTunes7, upgraded my 5G iPod to firmware 1.2, ripped a gapless CD with EAC to Lame MP3 -V2 --vbr-new, imported the tracks to iTunes, checked the checkbox for "part of gapless album," and synced to my 5G. Tracks are played gaplessly perfectly!
twitter.com/pika2000

GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #65
I set the Gapless option on my entire library of Nero AAC encoded tunes and updated my iPod to the v1.2 firmware--NO GAPLESS (shorter delay between tracks now).

So I figured I'd find an album with a lot of merging tracks and encode it with iTunes' encoder. It plays back in iTunes gaplessly. Hmm... curious. So I synced it with my iPod and, lo and behold, juicy gapless-goodness.

...Apple's trying to make me use their codec... and I've been so loyal to Nero.

I think a new listening test's in order.

GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #66
But do you need iTunes for the actual iPod to playback gaplessly with the new firmware?

I use Winamp which will write to my iPod, all my MP3s are LAME encoded and gapless so can I just drag these onto my iPod without going through iTunes stupid crap?

GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #67
so can I just drag these onto my iPod without going through iTunes stupid crap?

What's wrong with iTunes? I've heard it is very convenient (or do you prefer, mmm... Complicated? Sophisticated?).

GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #68
so can I just drag these onto my iPod without going through iTunes stupid crap?

What's wrong with iTunes? I've heard it is very convenient (or do you prefer, mmm... Complicated? Sophisticated?).


I've just always used Winamp, I'd be willing to give iTunes a second chance I guess  I just don't want to be forced to use iTunes.

GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #69
Hello everyone,
I've recently had my 60GB photo stolen, so I was considering buying a new thing. This gapless news is great!
Can anybody confirm whether an old ipod video would be gapless-enabled after  firmware/itunes update?
And BTW, what about 3rd party ipod managers such as yamipod (having it on your ipod is such a delight....)
In general - does buying a new (6G? 5G+?) ipod makes sense, considering i'm not that much interested in video as such? I insist that if i get a thing that is not (fully) gapless, while the RIGHT STUFF is available, will make me sink into depression for years (well, actually just until the new one gets lost/stolen ;-).
Thanks,
Ivan H


GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #71
Okay okay... great Apple... but one very interesting question:
Battery life = stuttering problem?



GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #74
THIS is why I use rockbox.
err... i'm not using windows any more ;)