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

[greynol]

Or you're not talking about gapless in the sense of "tracks which are meant to transition seamlessly"

...or transition more quickly than the original mastering.

So you're saying that Lame MP3s will always have additional gaps? That means Lame MP3 is never truly gapless then, regardless of tags/metadata information.

No, he's not saying that, and yes it is possible for Lame MP3 to be truly gapless.

[pika2000]

No, he's not saying that, and yes it is possible for Lame MP3 to be truly gapless.

From the wiki:

Some compression methods such as the popular MP3 can be problematic because the MP3 standard defines no way to record the amount of padding for later removal. Even if two tracks are decompressed and merged into a single track, a gap will remain between them.

That means Lame MP3 cannot be truly gapless because of MP3 format itself. Lame MP3 can be gapless (using metadata/tags, shown with iTunes7 and new iPods), but I guess techincally it is not true gapless since the format is not gapless.

[greynol]

That means Lame MP3 cannot be truly gapless because of MP3 format itself. Lame MP3 can be gapless (using metadata/tags, shown with iTunes7 and new iPods), but I guess techincally it is not true gapless since the format is not gapless.

With software that is able to use the information stored in the lame header, decoding (and hence playback) can be 100% gapless.

[probedb]

That means Lame MP3 cannot be truly gapless because of MP3 format itself. Lame MP3 can be gapless (using metadata/tags, shown with iTunes7 and new iPods), but I guess techincally it is not true gapless since the format is not gapless.

Just because the format isn't technically gapless then, as previously said, does not mean it cannot be played back gaplessly through the use of meta-data.

[Cosmo]

From the wiki:

Some compression methods such as the popular MP3 can be problematic because the MP3 standard defines no way to record the amount of padding for later removal. Even if two tracks are decompressed and merged into a single track, a gap will remain between them.

That means Lame MP3 cannot be truly gapless because of MP3 format itself. Lame MP3 can be gapless (using metadata/tags, shown with iTunes7 and new iPods), but I guess techincally it is not true gapless since the format is not gapless.

The MP3 format is not inherently gapless, that is correct. Without a decoder which accounts for encoder delay/padding, songs are not exactly the same length as the original tracks. AFAIK, this is the case with most (or all?) lossy codecs.

Even if two tracks are decompressed and merged into a single track, a gap will remain between them.

This assumes that the file is not a LAME MP3 and that the decoder does not support ''gapless decoding''. No?

Something else seems unclear in that wiki article. AFAIK, Ogg Vorbis (and AAC?) works the same way. It's just that, unlike the case of MP3, there are provisions in the original specifications for gapless metadata to be added during encoding (which is not to say that the files are encoded without padding / gaps). Or am I mistaken?

[Gabriel]

Something else seems unclear in that wiki article. AFAIK, Ogg Vorbis (and AAC?) works the same way. It's just that, unlike the case of MP3, there are provisions in the original specifications for gapless metadata to be added during encoding (which is not to say that the files are encoded without padding / gaps). Or am I mistaken?

Right. Most modern music codecs are not gapless by themselves (mp1,mp2,mp3,aac, Vorbis, mpc, wma,...). However, some of them are USUALLY found in CONTAINERS allowing to store the gapless info.
So once again, Vorbis or AAC are not more gapless than MP3.

[0 x infinity]

Well I found it strange tht you have gapless using Lame (VBR) and EAC.

i have tried EAC with Lame 3.97 using VBR (-v 0 --vbr-new) and in Itune I still have a little gap between my tracks of Madonna - Confession on a dance floor

I notice at the end of the track when I check the remaining time left at the end it jump from 0 to -2 and then jump to the next song an I can hear a little gap. I have also tried using CBR 256 with lame & EAC and the same gap problem.

So far the only way i get gapless is by ripping the CD directly from Itunes using (AAC-256-VBR, MP3 VBR256). Ripping the CD from Itunes just work great ! Real Gapless !

So for my gapless CD I will use Itunes with AAC (256 VBR) and for all my other CD I will still use EAC with lame v3.97 (256 VBR).

If you still want to use EAC, you can extract to individual wavs and then encode them in itunes to aac or mp3. I've been doing this and have had perfect gapless on 12 different discs.

[Bonzi]

I tested gapless on my 4G 20Gb Ipod and it does not seem to work . Although gapless is turned on in iTunes and playback is gapless in iTunes, when these files are uploaded to the iPod they are no longer played back gaplessly.

Apple doesn't support gapless on anything but the latest iPod releases... 5G iPod and 2G nano. I think they made that fairly clear.

Yeah, I know they said that but I thought I would try anyway. Kinda annoying that they did this since there seems to be little reason why they couldn't other than forcing people like myself to buy new iPod sooner. Also, it seems that the gapless tag is not added when the file is uploaded by iTunes onto my 4G. It could be that they don't add this information into the database for iPods older than 5G. Perhaps someone will figure out how the gapless tag works and it will be possible to give your files this tag with foo_dop. The software on my 4G iPod may be able to playback gaplessly but without the proper information it obviously can't.

This post has been edited by Bonzi: Sep 19 2006, 01:05

[Cosmo]

Why would Apple update the player firmware but not allow you to update the file metadata?

there seems to be little reason why they couldn't other than forcing people like myself to buy new iPod sooner.

If Apple is just being greedy, would they really expect that this (alleged) info will not surface? If anyone can prove it, it certainly would give Apple a lot of bad press. It doesn't seem very likely, but I guess it's not beyond belief.

[Gabriel]

Kinda annoying that they did this since there seems to be little reason why they couldn't other than forcing people like myself to buy new iPod sooner. Also, it seems that the gapless tag is not added when the file is uploaded by iTunes onto my 4G. It could be that they don't add this information into the database for iPods older than 5G. Perhaps someone will figure out how the gapless tag works and it will be possible to give your files this tag with foo_dop. The software on my 4G iPod may be able to playback gaplessly but without the proper information it obviously can't.

Directly using the portalPlayer chip, it might be possible that it is NOT possible to do gapless playback. Gapless playback needs you to access the audio data after decoding but before it is sent to the DAC. There are several integrated decoding/dac chips where this is just not possible.

[greynol]

Directly using the portalPlayer chip, it might be possible that it is NOT possible to do gapless playback. Gapless playback needs you to access the audio data after decoding but before it is sent to the DAC. There are several integrated decoding/dac chips where this is just not possible.

But this begs the question (or reveals my ignorance?)...

If older iPods are gapless with rockbox, wouldn't that suggest that the hardware IS capable?

What do you think kincaid?

This post has been edited by greynol: Sep 19 2006, 07:03

[Gabriel]

If older iPods are gapless with rockbox, wouldn't that suggest that the hardware IS capable?

No. RockBox is doing a full software decoding, thus reducing battery life. In (previous) iPods there is a chip dedicated to decoding, and this chip is not used by RockBox.

Now, in the 5G it might be possible that everything is handled on the ARM, including decoding. (but this is pure speculation from me)

[adlai]

heh, it looks like this is the death of foobar for me

oh well, thanks for the memories foobar

[AtaqueEG]

I wouldn't quit foobar just yet. Somehow I think foo_dop will find a way to upload tracks to the iPod without messing with the gapless info.

And foobar does so much more things (for example, transcoding my FLACs to MP3 and making them all the same volume!)

[goodnews]

I don't know if anyone else posted this in this thread yet, but I just got a reply on WinAmp's Discussion forum @ winamp.com that WinAmp will be supporting iTunes/iPod encoded Gapless playback (for both MP3 and AAC/M4A files) in the soon to be released version 5.25 of WinAmp. They already have the iTunes compatible Gapless supporting code added to WinAmp the devs said.

See the thread for more at: http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?s=...992#post2030992

This post has been edited by goodnews: Sep 20 2006, 17:04

[greynol]

I don't know if anyone else posted this in this thread yet, but I just got a reply on WinAmp's Discussion forum @ winamp.com that WinAmp will be supporting iTunes/iPod encoded Gapless playback (for both MP3 and AAC/M4A files) in the soon to be released version 5.25 of WinAmp.

Does anyone find this somewhat ironic?

[goodnews]

Does anyone find this somewhat ironic?

Not quite sure what you meant by this... perhaps you meant I should re-read the whole thread again. I seem to remember someone's post saying WinAmp will probably add iTunes compatible Gapless playback, but now I know for sure that WinAmp devs have definately added Gapless support for iTunes encoded files. This thread I started has sure grown into a massive one -- that's for sure -- with 216 posts and 19301 views. It's hard to read this one from scratch (let alone remember what everyone said in the posts that I previously read days ago).

This post has been edited by goodnews: Sep 20 2006, 17:24

[Maurits]

I don't know if anyone else posted this in this thread yet, but I just got a reply on WinAmp's Discussion forum @ winamp.com that WinAmp will be supporting iTunes/iPod encoded Gapless playback (for both MP3 and AAC/M4A files) in the soon to be released version 5.25 of WinAmp.

Does anyone find this somewhat ironic?

I'd say pragmatic. And there's nothing wrong with that.

Because of this, Winamp will not only play LAME MP3's gapless (which it already did) but non-LAME MP3's as well. Or practically gapless in the latter case.

[greynol]

Don't take it personally goodnews, the comment wasn't directed at you.

I see no reason why Winamp (or foobar2000 for that matter) couldn't easily and quickly support the new tag data and correctly write this information to the library on the iPod.

What I find ironic is that Winamp will still not be able to support gapless playback natively. I also doubt that Winamp will be doing any scanning for gaps in tracks like iTunes does.

Though I hope I'm wrong!

EDIT: Italics added, "gaps in" added for clarity

This post has been edited by greynol: Sep 20 2006, 17:33

[benski]

What I find ironic is that Winamp will still not be able to support gapless playback natively. I also doubt that Winamp will be doing any scanning for gaps in tracks like iTunes does.

Winamp has supported gapless playback natively since 5.2

[Maurits]

What I find ironic is that Winamp will still not be able to support gapless playback natively.

Winamp has had native gapless support for quite a while now. It is based on the same MP3info header all serious gapless implementations (i.e. not the crossfade crap) use. It does of course only work on LAME MP3's.

I also doubt that Winamp will be doing any scanning for gaps in tracks like iTunes does.

Check this thread. I'm not quite sure what to make of it but it appears they do some sort of scan...

Edit: Ah, I'm sure benski can enlighten us...

This post has been edited by Maurits: Sep 20 2006, 17:42

[benski]

Check this thread. I'm not quite sure what to make of it but it appears they do some sort of scan...

That scan is for songs already on your iPod before the upgrade. There is no iTunes-style "guessing" scan. We hope that Winamp users are sane enough to have been using LAME to encode their MP3s.

[Maurits]

Check this thread. I'm not quite sure what to make of it but it appears they do some sort of scan...

That scan is for songs already on your iPod before the upgrade. There is no iTunes-style "guessing" scan. We hope that Winamp users are sane enough to have been using LAME to encode their MP3s.

Thanks. It makes sense, especially since since the method of the 'iTunes scan' is still a huge black box as far as I know.

[greynol]

I'm glad to be wrong!

Thanks guys.

[P-Bass Papa]

I think I may have good news for those of you who haven't been able to get the promised gapless audio playback on your iPod after installing iTunes 7 and letting it go through your songs to determine gapless playback. After iTunes kept kicking my iPod off I was at a loss about what to do next. I am happy to say I got it to work today. It's a bit of a dirty way to do it, but it works! I found this post on ipodwizard.net by Kaneda:

1. iTunes seems to say that your iPod is up to date, if there isn't an update file on your computer. I.e., it won't actually check on the internet. However, it also seems it will check for iPod updates when it checks for iTunes updates, so try to click Help/Check for Updates in the menu. Then iTunes should tell you there's an update for you iPod - download and continue...

2. Seems that iTunes somehow fails to connect to the iPod in some cases, when doing an update - like it "forgets" it's actually there. The iPod will go the menu screen (or Charging display), iTunes will keep saying "updating iPod", and after a while it will give an error 1417 or 1418, depending on whether you chose Update or Restore. What worked for me: Click Update, then when the "indeterminate progress bar" starts in iTunes, pull out the iPod from the dock and put it back in. After that forceful re-recognition of the iPod, the update started (took only 5 seconds or so to complete). Everything works. But do this at your own risk - if the iPod has actually started updating when you pull out, there's a chance you'll be in big trouble

It took my iPod a bit longer to update, but once I did, I selected "The Who Sell Out" for gapless playback and it works seamlessly. The only problem I've had is that even though iTunes spent a good hour scanning all 10K+ of my songs, it didn't turn on the feature for any of my albums. However, if I manually select an album on my iPod, it will update it and it will play gapless. This is a major PITA given the amount of songs I have, but at least many of my albums will play right!

I hope everyone has as good of luck with this I did!