GAPLESS Playback now in iPods - New!, Apple just announced today! GAPLESS playback...! Options

[haregoo]

I roughly summarize as follows:
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).
Activate "Gapless Album" only when you'd like to avoid crossfade playback. Gapless playback is always on by default.

Visible gap will expain this briefly.


Current iPod series that support gapless playback are 5G and newest iPod suite(?). Old nano don't. 4G?

Any info to supplement?

This post has been edited by haregoo: Sep 13 2006, 13:25

[ShowsOn]

On a similar note, what about 4G grayscale?

Unfortunately, none of the 4G Pods

It works with my 4th Generation iPod Photo (later versions were called iPod Color)

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.

[Maurits]

The Big Question still is: Does it use Lame gapless info?

It's obvious it doesn't use the Lame header to store the result of iTunes' own analysis because the average user will have more than just Lame encoded MP3's. It could still read the Lame header though and use that info for gapless playback (and copy it to the ID3 field as well, where it stores the result of its own analysis).

If I drag an album encoded with Lame 3.97b2 into iTunes the gapless analysis goes extremely fast. Could iTunes make use of the Lame header instead of analysing the file?

Is there a way to test this? Or perhaps someone knows the answer already?

Edit: haregoo, you actually say it does use the Lame header supplied data?

This post has been edited by Maurits: Sep 13 2006, 13:34

[ffooky]

It works with my 4th Generation iPod Photo (later versions were called iPod Color)

Which firmware & model number ? I have an M9830B running 1.2.1 and it does not work. No one on the relevant Apple Discussions thread has had any luck either.

This post has been edited by ffooky: Sep 13 2006, 13:44

[haregoo]

Edit: haregoo, you actually say it does use the Lame header supplied data?

Absolutely.
Is there a way to know exact same length as original other than using LAME tag or something similar?

[Maurits]

Edit: haregoo, you actually say it does use the Lame header supplied data?

Absolutely.
Is there a way to know exact same length as original other than using LAME tag or something similar?

Not that I know of, but are you sure it's the exact same length or could it be a very good estimate?

[haregoo]

Not that I know of, but are you sure it's the exact same length or could it be a very good estimate?

You know iTunes support encode. Decoding to wav is also supported.

[Maurits]

Not that I know of, but are you sure it's the exact same length or could it be a very good estimate?

You know iTunes support encode. Decoding to wav is also supported.

It took me a while to understand what you meant by this but I see your point now!

Thanks haregoo! Well, it appears Apple did a rather good job on this one. Perhaps they'll introduce reading the Nero encoder info in a later version, that wouldn't hurt.

This post has been edited by Maurits: Sep 13 2006, 14:08

[ShowsOn]

It works with my 4th Generation iPod Photo (later versions were called iPod Color)

Which firmware & model number ? I have an M9830B running 1.2.1 and it does not work. No one on the relevant Apple Discussions thread has had any luck either.

I have the original iPod Photo 60 GB, which is M9586X with firmware 1.2.1

The files that have worked gapless are AAC/M4A files encoded with various versions of iTunes/Quicktime. Some as old as iTunes 4.7 (Quicktime 6.5.2), but most iTunes 6 (Quicktime 7.x).

I've checked it on more albums including studio recordings, and live albums, and it has worked everytime.

[SebastianG]

If I drag an album encoded with Lame 3.97b2 into iTunes the gapless analysis goes extremely fast. Could iTunes make use of the Lame header instead of analysing the file?

Is there a way to test this? Or perhaps someone knows the answer already?

You could create a copy of an MP3 file with altered enc delay/padding settings (via Foobar) and see how it affects iTunes' output.

This post has been edited by SebastianG: Sep 13 2006, 14:16

[ffooky]

I have the original iPod Photo 60 GB, which is M9586X with firmware 1.2.1

The files that have worked gapless are AAC/M4A files encoded with various versions of iTunes/Quicktime. Some as old as iTunes 4.7 (Quicktime 6.5.2), but most iTunes 6 (Quicktime 7.x).

I've checked it on more albums including studio recordings, and live albums, and it has worked everytime.

It's strange that an older model should be upgradeable and the later ones not. I'm sure there'll be plenty of discussion of this here and there but I suppose your case makes the possibility of a suitable upgrade for later 4G's realistic, if unlikely.

[ShowsOn]

I have the original iPod Photo 60 GB, which is M9586X with firmware 1.2.1

The files that have worked gapless are AAC/M4A files encoded with various versions of iTunes/Quicktime. Some as old as iTunes 4.7 (Quicktime 6.5.2), but most iTunes 6 (Quicktime 7.x).

I've checked it on more albums including studio recordings, and live albums, and it has worked everytime.

It's strange that an older model should be upgradeable and the later ones not. I'm sure there'll be plenty of discussion of this here and there but I suppose your case makes the possibility of a suitable upgrade for later 4G's realistic, if unlikely.

I read that thread over at the official support forums, I don't think people are turning gapless on. They are all assuming that the initial scan of your iPod makes it work. But you have to then select all the tracks in gapless albums, right click to bring up the Multiple Item Information screen, then turn on Gapless Album at the bottom right hand corner. By checking the box, and selecting YES.

I read a lot of posts complaining but I can't see any that follow those instructions.

[Maurits]

If I drag an album encoded with Lame 3.97b2 into iTunes the gapless analysis goes extremely fast. Could iTunes make use of the Lame header instead of analysing the file?

Is there a way to test this? Or perhaps someone knows the answer already?

You could create a copy of an MP3 file with altered enc delay/padding settings (via Foobar) and see how it affects iTunes' output.

You're right, that would be a good test. Can't do it though because I haven't got a Windows box around at the moment, hence no Foobar...

The question seems answered by haregoo though, it uses the Lame header info.

[ffooky]

I read that thread over at the official support forums, I don't think people are turning gapless on. They are all assuming that the initial scan of your iPod makes it work. But you have to then select all the tracks in gapless albums, right click to bring up the Multiple Item Information screen, then turn on Gapless Album at the bottom right hand corner. By checking the box, and selecting YES.

I read a lot of posts complaining but I can't see any that follow those instructions.

I followed, I'm complaining and I want my wife's 5G.

[pepoluan]

I followed, I'm complaining and I want my wife's 5G.

Isn't that dangerous

[ffooky]

I followed, I'm complaining and I want my wife's 5G.

Isn't that dangerous

No, she'll have to sleep sometime and I'll take my chance.

[/mnt]

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?).

It is a bloated CPU hog POS

This post has been edited by /mnt: Sep 13 2006, 17:27

[Axon]

So I've heard reports by a lot of people saying that gapless works perfectly on all tracks, but no matter what I do, I always get a mild tick. Has it worked perfectly for anybody yet?

[Canar]

Axon: Have you tried ripping a disc with iTunes?

I'm getting intermittent gapless playback. Dark Side of the Moon (transcoded from Musepack to Nero AAC) has, for me, a click between the first two tracks, and none between the second two. It seems to be doing gap analysis or something rather than parsing gapless data with Nero AAC.

I ripped a CD with iTunes to ALAC and it played back perfectly.

On an album cut from mp3/cue using pcutmp3, I got perfect gapless playback in iTunes, but not on my 5G iPod. Hm.

It's definitely much better than truncating the last couple seconds of a track like previous versions did.

/mnt, iTunes doesn't seem to use that much more CPU than foobar2000 during playback. It is an elegant, easy-to-use interface that simplifies everything yet remains reasonably powerful. It is certainly no "POS". Just because you have a different preference does not invalidate the reasons that other people have for choosing iTunes. Please troll Apple products somewhere else.

TheQat, nice album!

This post has been edited by Canar: Sep 13 2006, 18:28

[marmoset]

Running out of the house this morning, I randomly added a known "gapless" album (Global Communication's 76 14) into my "daily plan" playlist, which I sync every morning while guzzling coffee, brushing my teeth and letting the dogs out for their morning stretch/piddle. I didn't remember anything about how I'd encoded it -- I thought that I'd done it with my "usual defaults" (i.e. iTunes AAC 192kbps w/VBR enabled) but it turns out I'd encoded this particular album with Lame 3.93, preset-standard.

The output of id3info:

*** Tag information for 01 4 02.mp3
=== TIT2 (Title/songname/content description): 4 02
=== TPE1 (Lead performer(s)/Soloist(s)): Global Communication
=== TALB (Album/Movie/Show title): 76 14
=== COMM (Comments): ()[XXX]: Encoded by LAME version 3.93 (http://www.mp3dev.org/)
=== COMM (Comments): ()[eng]: Encoded by LAME version 3.93 (http://www.mp3dev.org/)
=== TCON (Content type): Electronica/Dance
=== TRCK (Track number/Position in set): 1/10
=== COMM (Comments): (iTunNORM)[eng]: 0000030D 00000375 00000A7F 00000A46 0002943B 0001A52B 00006EF2 0000613D 0002BA97 0001D500
=== APIC (Attached picture): ()[, 0]: image/png, 146802 bytes
=== TYER (Year): 1994
=== COMM (Comments): (iTunPGAP)[eng]: 1
*** mp3 info

I can't hear any audible gaps with a 5G iPod w. 1.2 firmware.

[Stanbey]

Okay, I would just like to summarize:

1. Finally Apple has fixed the gaping bug in the iPods that prevented them from playing an album as it was intended. By most accounts this works well for most people but isn't perfect for all.

2. They have released some simple games for the iPod at 5 USD a pop.

Woohoo! No wonder everyone is getting so excited! That is soo cool!


But hang on....

For a while now you have been able to install Rockbox on the thing and get true gapless playback, support for a much larger range of formats (including ogg!), a whole bunch of free games including the ones Apple are now trying to sell like Tetris and Asteroids, as well as ones Apple will never touch like Doom and chess. Add to that Rockbox's support for themes and the ability to use your iPod without having to go near the bloated beast iTunes and I can't see what the hell everyone is getting excited about.

The *only* reason to use the retail OS on an iPod is for playing apple video files; and if you use Rockbox and want to do that then it takes something like 10 seconds to boot back into the retail OS to watch the file.

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.

[/mnt]

/mnt, iTunes doesn't seem to use that much more CPU than foobar2000 during playback. It is an elegant, easy-to-use interface that simplifies everything yet remains reasonably powerful. It is certainly no "POS". Just because you have a different preference does not invalidate the reasons that other people have for choosing iTunes. Please troll Apple products somewhere else.

Now what you made my do I have to install itunes again and make a screenshot with the default settings to prove my point. Using about 6 - 8 and sometimes 13 percent of CPU power just to decode a MP3 while other players like Wimap, foobar2000 and WMP rarely use about 1 or 2 percent of the CPU. I am not trolling but it is abit unaceptable for music player to use that much resource .

A screenshot of iTunes 7 (with default settings) + Task Mannger playing a gapless album:



This post has been edited by /mnt: Sep 13 2006, 19:32

[marmoset]

The *only* reason to use the retail OS on an iPod is for playing apple video files; and if you use Rockbox and want to do that then it takes something like 10 seconds to boot back into the retail OS to watch the file.

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...

[ffooky]

The *only* reason to use the retail OS on an iPod is for playing apple video files

Unless you're one of the 95% of iPod owners for whom the Rockbox Manual might as well be written in the Indus Valley script

[Canar]

Now what you made my do I have to install itunes again and make a screenshot with the default settings to prove my point. Using about 6 - 8 and sometimes 13 percent of CPU power just to decode a MP3 while other players like Wimap, foobar2000 and WMP rarely use about 1 or 2 percent of the CPU. I am not being trolling it is abit unaceptable for itunes to use that much resource

Task Manager's "cpu usage" report is quite unreliable. "Unaceptable(sic)" is quite a subjective quality. iTunes provides much more functionality than just MP3 decoding. Granted, its MP3 decoder uses more CPU than foobar2000 or Winamp's. It still less than 90% and multitasks just fine.

The whole topic is completely off-topic. If you want to bitch about iTunes having a slow MP3 decoder (despite the irrelevance of its slowness, especially on modern multi-core systems), the place to do so would be the iTunes 7 thread.