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Topic: GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New! (Read 294463 times) previous topic - next topic
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GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #100
So Apple have finally fixed a major outstanding bug in their OS (in a rather convoluted fashion, by the sound of it), and added the ability to *buy* games for it. They still have a long way to go before they can claim to provide the best iPod operating system.

On the contrary. For me, the only reason to use rockbox, which i do, is so i can drag-drop music to my iPod. But i'm probably going back to apples firmware any time.

GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #101
so, does apple use the same way of storing gapless info in aac/mp4 as nero?
I know, that I know nothing (Socrates)

GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #102
Someone in this thread mentioned the tracktime VBR problem not being fixed yet - is this the problem where iTunes incorrectly reports the length of tracks, and reaches what it thinks is the end but continues to count up until the song is actually over?  I've noticed this since iTunes 5 - it annoyed me, but wasn't a big deal.  But starting with 6.02, iTunes reaches what it thinks is the end of a track and then just STOPS - it doesn't finish the song, it just stops and skips to the next song, sometimes cutting off as much as 2 seconds of a song. 

I assume this is no longer an issue with 7, what with gapless playback and all - has iTunes just returned to counting past what it reports is the track length?

GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #103
Doesn't running RockBox on a 5g cut your battery life in half (or worse)?  Seems like there's at least one more reason to run the retail firmware...


My experience was about 19h on stock firmware, 11h on rockbox.

GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #104
iTunes7 support true gapless playback for MP3 encoded by LAME or AAC by iTunes7, and quasi-gapless playback for lossy encoded by the other encoders (including neroAacEnc).


Encoded through iTunes or encoded by any application using the QuickTime 7.1.3 AAC encoder?

GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #105
When was the last comparison between Nero's AAC and iTunes'?

Are there any plans to have Nero's AAC files compatible with the way iTunes determines gapless? I'm pretty sure that the gapless information is stored within the iTunes Library database, because my iPod did NOT update my entire library when I set them all to gapless (meaning the files themselves were not modified).

GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #106

So Apple have finally fixed a major outstanding bug in their OS (in a rather convoluted fashion, by the sound of it), and added the ability to *buy* games for it. They still have a long way to go before they can claim to provide the best iPod operating system.

On the contrary. For me, the only reason to use rockbox, which i do, is so i can drag-drop music to my iPod. But i'm probably going back to apples firmware any time.


Same here.  I'm a Rockbox user from *way* back (as in Archos days) -- I used Rockbox specifically for gapless playback.  I've been having no problems so far with gapless under the new firmware/iTunes 7 combo and I seriously doubt I'll be going back to Rockbox.  It would be nice if Apple introduced true bookmarking for audiobooks, rather than just .m4b files, though.

GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #107
Rockbox also boesn't support connector control, so i can't use it with my car stereo..is a great shame, and appears my nano didn't have a firmware update  so im stuck with gaps in m car boohooo

GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #108
I assume this is no longer an issue with 7, what with gapless playback and all - has iTunes just returned to counting past what it reports is the track length?

Yep, that is what I notice occasionally on iTunes 7 (OS X), just a few seconds and sound is not cut off but it looks a bit odd when you keep looking at the timer until the end of the song.
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 #109
can i upgrade my nano, without un-rockbox-ing it?

GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #110
can i upgrade my nano, without un-rockbox-ing it?

Note that gapless playback does NOT work on 1st gen nano with current firmware (1.2). Also, there is a compatibility issue between 1.2 nano and rockbox. You can still install rockbox, but whenever you switch back to Apple's firmware, the nano cannot see any tracks, even though the tracks are visible in iTunes.
twitter.com/pika2000

GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #111
Someone in this thread mentioned the tracktime VBR problem not being fixed yet - is this the problem where iTunes incorrectly reports the length of tracks, and reaches what it thinks is the end but continues to count up until the song is actually over?  I've noticed this since iTunes 5 - it annoyed me, but wasn't a big deal.  But starting with 6.02, iTunes reaches what it thinks is the end of a track and then just STOPS - it doesn't finish the song, it just stops and skips to the next song, sometimes cutting off as much as 2 seconds of a song. 

I assume this is no longer an issue with 7, what with gapless playback and all - has iTunes just returned to counting past what it reports is the track length?


This behavior was never fully explained, AFAIK.  I mentioned several times in previous threads that I had no such problems with LAME-encoded VBR files in iTunes 6.

GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #112
They still have a long way to go before they can claim to provide the best iPod operating system.


They probably think about that when they take breaks from counting money.

GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #113
I just installed iTunes 7

Damn, it IS gapless!

What a great day!

Now I can give my Karma to my girlfriend and keep my 30GB iPod Video!
I'm the one in the picture, sitting on a giant cabbage in Mexico, circa 1978.
Reseñas de Rock en Español: www.estadogeneral.com

GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #114
pika2000, Apple made it fairly clear... the gapless features are for the current iPods: iPod nano (2nd Generation), and iPod video (5th Generation).  (The new nano is 100% different internally.)

As the 5G iPod video is still "current" (just slightly updated as of Tuesday), the new firmware adds gapless to bring it into parity with updated shipping 5G.

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for gapless on the old nano...

GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #115
pika2000, Apple made it fairly clear... the gapless features are for the current iPods: iPod nano (2nd Generation), and iPod video (5th Generation).  (The new nano is 100% different internally.)

As the 5G iPod video is still "current" (just slightly updated as of Tuesday), the new firmware adds gapless to bring it into parity with updated shipping 5G.

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for gapless on the old nano...

I thought the 1st gen nano and 5G iPods use the same CPU, as noted at the rockbox website: http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/IpodHardwareInfo
If they share the same CPU, it shouldn't be hard to provide gapless playback to 1st gen nano, unless Apple doesn't want to do it to boost sales of the new nano.
twitter.com/pika2000

GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #116
I just reripped an album in iTunes AAC, importing direct from CD in the process, and it came out gapless. Bleh! I'm not going to rerip every CD I have to get this right.

GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #117
OK, to answer my own question on how to consistently get already-ripped music to play gaplessly on a 5G:
  • You don't need to rerip, existing lossless files ought to be fine.
  • Don't use Nero AAC, use iTunes AAC. I haven't tried MP3 encoders but I'd assume that iTunes MP3 would also be preferred over LAME. iTunesEncode appears to work, to get transcoding right from foobar (for us lossless people).
  • Upload the M4As using only iTunes. Don't use foo_dop or anything else that might muck with the tags or the db.

Preliminarily, once I followed these guidelines, I finally have true-gapless playback on my iPod. woot.

GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #118
I have no problems in iTunes 7 with gapless using VBR mp3 lame and apple lossles. I was having the bug with lame files at the end of track, but it seems solved in iTunes 7 . When I switched from windows+foobar I was not very happy with iTunes. Right now I I'm enjoying the experience fully . The only gripe is the limited number of formats that can be used. My library was constructed around flac and ape formats, though now with XLD the conversion is easier. The new coverflow mode is great, neat advance in browsing through big libraries.

GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #119
I am enjoying iTunes 7 a lot. Seems to be finally the media player I always wanted
iTunes 10 - Mac OS X 10.6
256kbps AAC VBR
iPhone 4 32GB

GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #120
I haven't tried MP3 encoders but I'd assume that iTunes MP3 would also be preferred over LAME. iTunesEncode appears to work, to get transcoding right from foobar (for us lossless people).

No, it reads the LAME headers to use its native gapless ability so any MP3 made with a modern LAME encoder would be perfect for gapless playback. Furthermore, iTunes MP3 encoder is not really considered to be of equal quality to LAME.

LAME gives perfect gapless playback and is still the encoder of choice.
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 #122
Having read through this thread, there still seems to be some confusion over what version iPods might support gapless.

Specifically, my wife has a 20GB 4G grayscale iPod. Upgrading to iTunes 7 is OK - buying new hardware is not. Apple's website isn't much help - there doesn't seem to be any area which lists iPod firmwares and their features.

So, has anyone here tried a grayscale 4G, and does gapless work on it?

GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #123

iTunes7 support true gapless playback for MP3 encoded by LAME or AAC by iTunes7, and quasi-gapless playback for lossy encoded by the other encoders (including neroAacEnc).


Encoded through iTunes or encoded by any application using the QuickTime 7.1.3 AAC encoder?


They should have the same result.  iTunes uses Quicktime to encode its tracks, too.

Having read through this thread, there still seems to be some confusion over what version iPods might support gapless.

Specifically, my wife has a 20GB 4G grayscale iPod. Upgrading to iTunes 7 is OK - buying new hardware is not. Apple's website isn't much help - there doesn't seem to be any area which lists iPod firmwares and their features.

So, has anyone here tried a grayscale 4G, and does gapless work on it?


I read on the Apple Forum that the 4G greyscale iPod does not get the firmware update, but the iPod Photo (aka the iPod Color) does get the firmware update.

GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!

Reply #124
No, it reads the LAME headers to use its native gapless ability so any MP3 made with a modern LAME encoder would be perfect for gapless playback. Furthermore, iTunes MP3 encoder is not really considered to be of equal quality to LAME.

LAME gives perfect gapless playback and is still the encoder of choice.

Do you have further proof of this? My tests are showing otherwise.