Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Veazer]

...not on Media Center, yet.  

First and most importantly, I am still using version 9.0.180 of MC. I don't like any version after that so that is where i am forever stuck. If the gapless .mp3 problem has been solved in a later version then I apologize for this post.

I am using the .1 second transition on my mp3 tracks as is the closest thing to gapless I can find. However, I recently stumbled across this winamp plugin:

http://babel.altavista.com/babelfish/trurl_pagecontent?lp=ja_en&trurl=http%3a%2f%2fwww3.cypress.ne.jp%2fotachan%2fin_mpg123.html

(enjoy the babelfish translation!)

I have occasionally used the winamp mp3 decoder in MC because I liked the fact that I could buffer an entire song to memory. IMHO, as long as there is memory available I think it makes more sense to do this than reading from the HD every few seconds. The problem I had with this is that I couldn't import files into MC, the winamp plugin wouldn't pass the ID3 tags to MC properly.

Anyway, I gave this new plugin mentioned above a try in winamp and found that it does produce terrific gapless playback of mp3s.  Unfortunately, unlike the default winamp decoder, it wont work in MC. But remember I am still using 9.0.180, perhaps it WILL work for newer versions. Even if it did work for playback, I doubt it would pass the tags into the DB correctly.

Regardless, I see this as a major landmark in mp3 playback. I have tried it with many of my LAME aps encoded mp3 files of live/continuous CDs and much to my enjoyment they now play just like the original.  

Now that is has been shown to be possible, is there any chance of an MC plugin that can do this?

Cheers!

[Matt]

Use 'gapless' if you want gapless. (not .1)  Also enable silence suppression.

Remember that some gap is inherent in the MP3 format.  MC masks it quite well when configured properly.

[Veazer]

Matt-

1) If I use gapless with MC I get an obvious brief pause between songs
2) If I use a .1 second crossfade it sounds much better but it is still audible
3) If I use the mpg123 plugin with WA5 it sounds perfect

Pleeeeeeeeeeeese, try it!

Important note: You must change the properties of the default winamp mpeg decoder and remove .mp3 from the filetypes. If you don't, winamp will still use the default decoder and not the  mpg123 decoder.

[Matt]

Please try with the latest MC 11.

We are no longer making enhancements to older versions.

[Veazer]

Ooops, I was missing the silence suppression setting. You're absolutely right, gapless is definitely better than .1 crossfade IF silence suppression is enabled. Still, for me, it isn't nearly as good as the plugin I mentioned. I can hear a fluctuation in the beat of continuous dance mix CDs with MC.

I'm not trying to get you to improve or enhance my version, I am just trying to be helpful and find ways to improve MC in general. Like I said in the very first paragraph of my post, if gapless playback performance has improved since my version then disregard what I have to say. OTOH, if the gapless playback routines are basically unchanged then you should at least look at what I am trying to demonstrate.

If anything after version 9.0.180 was usable for me I would use it. I still find the performance penalties of your new GUI to be far too great on slower systems.

[Mastiff]

You're right, Matt. Silence suppresion makes it a lot better. I had missed that one too. But it isn't perfect, there's still an audible "hiccup" in the transition of most tracks. This on the latest 11 alpha/beta.

[Veazer]

I agree with Mastiff.  Regardless of the version used, the MC gapless function is *close* but not quite what I hoped for.

Matt- Long ago you asked for an example of something that can do a better job of gapless playback than MC (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=9997;start=msg59508#msg59508 ) That's all I tried to do. None of your responses indicate that you have actually taken a look at my findings.

I am a bit surprised that many people complain about mp3 when it comes to gapless playback but it seems so no one has tried my suggestion to fix this long standing problem, or at least they haven't commented...

?

On the downside, unlike APE and other great lossless formats, I have found that the quality of the gapless transition depends on the encoder. The songs I recorded from station ripper still have a minor hiccup like Mastiff noted, even with the new plugin, but my live mix LAME mp3 cds sound great now. For me, this is fantastic.