Topic: Silence or pink noise in playback (Read 4953 times)

MarSies · « **on:** October 23, 2006, 04:30:07 am »

Hey guys,

Lately my MC has periods of silence in the music. This happens in normal playback. When transferring music to my iPod it's even worse. Loud pink noise are produces in a lot of songs. Als at the end of a song it produces sort of hickups.

When I play the songs back it's reproduced. The original songs in ape format on my PC are okay. This was a very rare situation with older versions of MC. Nowadays it's a common thing. What's wrong?

Marsies .....

Media Center Registered 11.1.201 -- C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center 11\

Microsoft Windows XP 5.1 Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
AMD Unknown 2409 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 2096 MB, Free - 1257 MB

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Ripping / Drive X: PLEXTOR DVDR PX-716A Mode:ModeSecure Type:Auto Speed:Max
Drive Y: PLEXTOR CD-R PREMIUM Mode:ModeSecure Type:Auto Speed:Max
Digital playback: Yes / Use YADB: Yes / Get cover art: Yes / Calc replay gain: Yes / Copy volume: 32767
Eject after ripping: Yes / Play sound after ripping: No

Burning / Drive X: PLEXTOR DVDR PX-716A Addr: 0:0:0 Speed:48 MaxSpeed:48 BurnProof:Yes
Drive Y: PLEXTOR CD-R PREMIUM Addr: 0:1:0 Speed:52 MaxSpeed:52 BurnProof:Yes
Test mode: No / Eject after writing: Yes / Direct decoding: Yes / Write CD-Text: Yes
Use playback settings: No /

JimH · « **Reply #1 on:** October 23, 2006, 07:10:56 am »

What format are the songs? MP3? Recently encoded? With what?

Is it the same every time you play a song that has the problem?

Is it the same on the iPod? Reproducable in a single song?

lOth · « **Reply #2 on:** October 23, 2006, 09:57:52 am »

Out of curiosity: what is "pink noise"?

dlone · « **Reply #3 on:** October 23, 2006, 01:32:50 pm »

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_noise

lOth · « **Reply #4 on:** October 23, 2006, 02:10:45 pm »

thanks. Just listened to the sample, it's not pretty.

dlone · « **Reply #5 on:** October 23, 2006, 02:39:32 pm »

Without more info it could be anything

I had a lan card that failed after a few months and corrupted every 65536's byte and set it to $FF - that took a while to discover as nothing actually failed but a lot of data was corrupted

More testing would be what I advise, try burning a few tracks to a cd and doing any converting etc from a different pc then see if it's ok on other pc's
Maybe try some comparing after you've done stuff like copy the files around - are they the same after?

On the other hand it could be something silly like drivers for the soundcard?

Me, I'd check all that every way you can copy the files are identical
Then try converting on a few different pc's and see if there's any difference between them

If after that the problem shows up on just your pc then your looking at a long list of diagnostics - is your ram ok? has it been tested? one bit in a gig of memory can cause this kind of problem - assuming it's not software every component inbetween the hard drive and the speakers is suspect and they all need to be tested

Software is normally reproduciable - if you do the same thing twice you get the same results (most of the time). Hardware failure is the freaky one

Best of luck

MarSies · « **Reply #6 on:** October 24, 2006, 06:25:26 am »

On My PC I have ape. I only have the iPod photo 60 GB and I use MP3 320. All conversions and extractions are made with Media Center.

I first thought it was the iPod so I updated to the latest version. Also did an extra initialize from Media Center. I only used iTunes to update the iPod to to 1.2.1.

When I listen in my car to the iPod about 35% of the songs have strange things:

pink noise
passages of silence
hickups like a scratched CD (but only on the end of a song)

I downloaded Media Center 12, maybe that will be the solution. It is very irritating as I use the iPod also when I teach my salsa classes. When we dance it just becomes silent for 5 seconds. You should see the astonished faces of my students, haha.

Marsies .....

JimH · « **Reply #7 on:** October 24, 2006, 06:42:08 am »

To help, we need a more precise description. Your dancers don't help.

Is it only in the MP3 files?

Only on CD's? Only on the iPod?

If you play the same files in MC, what happens?

Problems always in the same place?

etc., etc. You need to pinpoint where the problem is by experimenting.

I'm guessing you mean that it occurs only on the MP3 files. Are they recently converted? With what? gogo or LAME plug-in for MC? What settings?

If you're burning CD's, I assume you burn directly from APE.

MarSies · « **Reply #8 on:** October 24, 2006, 07:10:38 am »

Answers to your questions.

It's only on MP3 - Not when I burn CD's - Mostly on the iPod, in normal playback on my PC it happens occasionally - The song in MC which is strange on the iPod is perfectly okay - If I replay the song on the iPod the same thing happens at the same place.

I only use LAME for conversion with a 320 CBR quality. I burn CD's straight from ape.

I did the last conversion with my PC actively only doing the ape to MP3 conversion. Makes no difference if I actively use the PC or not. I primarily use the iPod on a Kenwood system which can not be the problem because the faults are reproduced at the same place with the same song.

Only strange thing that has happened is that after running iTunes BEFORE I did the initialize with MC there were errors in the conversion list. After dragging songs to the iPod you can see the details off the conversion proces. There was about a 60% error rate. After the iPod initialization this was reduced to zero.

What else would you like to know?

Marsies .....

JimH · « **Reply #9 on:** October 24, 2006, 08:14:12 am »

Thanks. The facts, as I understand them. Please confirm.

1. You're using default settings in MC for converting to MP3 at 320. (How about the encoder?)

2. The problem is (at least primarily) with the playback of these MP3 files on the iPod.

3. There was also some problem with the iPod when used with iTunes. Might be related.

4. The sound problem occurs at the same place each time it is played on the iPod.

Is that more or less correct?

Can you test playing the MP3's more on the PC to be sure the problem isn't there as well?

It sounds like the problem could be with conversion to MP3, or more likely, with something only iPod related. Putting some MP3 files from another source on the iPod and listening might help narrow it down.

It could be a hard disk going on the iPod.

I would try Apple's suggestions for problems. I think it's in the first iPod thread on the iPod board here. Or their support site.

MarSies · « **Reply #10 on:** October 24, 2006, 11:44:33 am »

JimH

1, 2 and 3 are a yes. Number 4 is yes/no. I only used iTunes to update the iPod to the latest version. The problem was already there. Haven't made any conversions with iTunes. In fact I never used iTunes, why shoud I?

I will pick a song which is 'corrupted' and play it on my PC. To doublecheck if the file/song is really corrupted.

If it's my iPod harddisk, do you know any disktools that can be used to check. I mean tools like Maxtor has.

I'll check the Apple site again. I already did the reset which didn't help.

Last thing is that I don't use any plugins, it's a clean MC install.

Marsies .....

JimH · « **Reply #11 on:** October 24, 2006, 11:52:09 am »

Problems?
If you have trouble with your iPod, Apple recommends the following:

[ from http://www.apple.com/support/ ]

"These five steps (known as the five Rs) will conquer most iPod issues.
1. Reset your iPod.
2. Retry with a different USB port.
3. Restart your computer.
4. Reinstall iPod and iTunes software.
[ JRiver recommends runing the iPod Updater, but not installing iTunes ]
5. Restore your iPod. "

MarSies · « **Reply #12 on:** October 24, 2006, 04:01:05 pm »

Apple support

1. already done this, before my post
2. haven't done this yet, but I will
3. every day
4. I have installed iTunes to run the updater. The updater is not a seperate program anymore.
5. Have done this 2 times already, before my post

Can't find tools (yet) to do a disk test. On the other hand why should a disk problem cause hickups and silent passages?

Just listened to a song on my PC which is in ape (high) format and the MP3 320 CBR from my ipod. Only the MP3 version is corrupted. So my guess is that in the conversion proces something went wrong.

Just bought a new 80 GB iPod. I will fill it with the same format of music. See what happens.

Can't think of other things besides trying MC12.

Marsies .....

JimH · « **Reply #13 on:** October 24, 2006, 04:06:20 pm »

I doubt that MC12 is the issue.

Did you also uninstall iTunes when done updating? It runs some programs in the background.

Did you test an MP3 file that hadn't been transferred to the iPod yet?

JimH · « **Reply #14 on:** October 24, 2006, 04:29:22 pm »

There are two possible encoders for MP3? Which are you using? Is it ours?

MarSies · « **Reply #15 on:** October 24, 2006, 04:32:14 pm »

I haven't removed iTunes yet. I have seen that it runs and needs some services in XP before it runs properly. At this moment I'm filling the new iPod with music. I will see what happens.

I don't use MP3 on my PC, only ape. If you could support the Apple lossless format I would use that on my iPods. If my new iPod also has corrupted files I will try MC12 and see what happens then.

One more thing that was strange. Before the last initialization of my iPod in MC there was a big lag between the upload of the song and the conversion. It went up to at least 30 songs. After the last initialization there is nog lag, maximum of one song.

And yes I use your LAME. It's a clean MC install.

Marsies .....

Alex B · « **Reply #16 on:** October 24, 2006, 06:02:39 pm »

It is important that you try the MP3 files on PC. You must be able to verify if the files decode correctly on PC.

It is possible that the files are correct (as LAME encodes them) and despite that your iPod has decoding problems. This has happened before with high bitrate LAME VBR files and some iPod models and/or firmware versions.

For example, LAME 3.97 CBR 320 kbps is known to be more or less incompatible with some old MP3 players. LAME 3.97 uses so called "bit reservoir" also at CBR 320 kbps, which provides better audio quality, but is a bit unusual and may be problematic for some decoders and possibly only with certain types of audio signal.

I don't know if this "bit reservoir" is related to your problem anyhow, but something like that is possible.

JimH · « **Reply #17 on:** October 24, 2006, 06:13:39 pm »

Thanks, Alex.

KingSparta · « **Reply #18 on:** October 24, 2006, 06:16:27 pm »

Quote from: lOth on October 23, 2006, 09:57:52 am

Out of curiosity: what is "pink noise"?

I Was Wondering Also.

1. White Noise
2. Pink Noise
3. Any More?

Edit:

Colors of noise
White noise
Pink noise
Brown/Red noise
Grey noise
Black noise

JimH · « **Reply #19 on:** October 24, 2006, 06:18:05 pm »

Red. There's a wikipedia link above. It's way over my head.

MarSies · « **Reply #20 on:** October 25, 2006, 05:52:34 am »

Quote

It is important that you try the MP3 files on PC. You must be able to verify if the files decode correctly on PC.

I picked a corrupted song from the iPod, hooked the iPod to my PC and played it from my iPod and it proved to be wrong. Maybe I have to copy it to my PC first. If the iPod interface is analog then this test proves nothing yet.

This morning I hooked up my new iPod in my car and I had the same silent passages. From this I conclude that it's not my iPod harddisk or the iPod itself. Tonight I'll copy a corrupted song to my PC and play it from there.

Alex, you remind me of another thing which is different. Lately I configure LAME CBR 320 from the menu instead of using the command line with the "insane" expression. Maybe there is a difference?

Marsies .....

JimH · « **Reply #21 on:** October 25, 2006, 06:10:41 am »

Try one of the default MP3 encoding options.

Try a lower bitrate.

It would still help to find out whether the songs are bad before transfer to the iPod. Converting a number of APE files to MP3 without the iPod involved would tell you that.

MarSies · « **Reply #22 on:** October 25, 2006, 05:54:57 pm »

Copied one of the corrupted songs to my PC. Played it with MC12 and it plays the same way as from my iPod. That means with the silent passage and this song consist of 70% pink noise.

I'm now importing my ape files in MC and I'll use the same command to sync MP3's to the new iPod.

If that also fails I'll use the command line again which i formerly use (with the insane command).

Third option is encoding with VBR which used to work in the past.

How about these test?

Marsies .....

Alex B · « **Reply #23 on:** October 26, 2006, 03:40:43 am »

Quote from: MarSies on October 25, 2006, 05:54:57 pm

Copied one of the corrupted songs to my PC. Played it with MC12 and it plays the same way as from my iPod. That means with the silent passage and this song consist of 70% pink noise.

Looks like the file itself is corrupted.

Quote from: MarSies on October 25, 2006, 05:52:34 am

Alex, you remind me of another thing which is different. Lately I configure LAME CBR 320 from the menu instead of using the command line with the "insane" expression. Maybe there is a difference?

MC uses "--preset CBR 320" for 320 kbps CBR. This command line is directly mapped with the "--preset insane", older "--alt-preset insane" and plain "-b 320" settings in the recent LAME versions. The result of "--preset insine" is bit to bit identical with "--preset CBR 320" when everything works normally.

Quote

I'm now importing my ape files in MC and I'll use the same command to sync MP3's to the new iPod.

If that also fails I'll use the command line again which i formerly use (with the insane command).

Third option is encoding with VBR which used to work in the past.

How about these test?

It is difficult to tell what corrupted the files. You just have to try to reproduce the problem.

First you should directly convert APE files to MP3 without an iPod and try playback on PC. If the files are fine then you can try synching with these MP3 files. If the separately converted files play fine on iPod the last step is to synch some APE files with automatic conversion.

MarSies · « **Reply #24 on:** October 27, 2006, 02:15:17 pm »

No luck yet to solve the problem.

Working with the command line makes no difference. Today I set the BIOS back to the optimized defaults. My machine was slightly overclocked, nothing special. Haven't listened to the music on my iPod yet, busy filling it now. I'll reprt the results 2moro.

Another strange thing is that when I play ape songs on my PC it keeps saying "Buffering..."! And now and then the songs are played for a few seconds like a scratched CD. All latest test have been done with MC12.

Don't have a clue anymore what to do. I can convert to MP3 on my PC and then upload to the iPod?

Marsies .....

Alex B · « **Reply #25 on:** October 27, 2006, 03:21:17 pm »

Quote from: MarSies on October 27, 2006, 02:15:17 pm

Another strange thing is that when I play ape songs on my PC it keeps saying "Buffering..."! And now and then the songs are played for a few seconds like a scratched CD. All latest test have been done with MC12.

If this happens at 1x real time playback speed it is quite possible that the situation is much worse when the files are decoded at maximum speed during the conversion. (Unless the "scratched CD" problem is caused by something else after MC12 has correctly decoded and outputted the audio stream. However, that would not explain the "Buffering..." text.)

You really should solve this problem before trying anything else.

MarSies · « **Reply #26 on:** October 31, 2006, 09:17:57 am »

After putting the BIOS settings back to default the problems partly vanished.

- My iPods haven't produced silence's or pink noise anymore.
- My PC in normal playback has made some scratched CD sounds and silences but very little.

A few other problems have been introduced. I think because of using MC12. For me it's not a good sign if MC can't operate when the PC is 'slightly' overclocked. No other program on my PC has complained and that's why I forgot to mention it in the beginning.

I'm still not satisfied cause I'm not sure what the real problem was/is.

Marsies .....

MarSies · « **Reply #27 on:** November 04, 2006, 02:15:45 am »

The system is stil not working 100% but better, but a strange thing just happened.

I am transferring 'LAME MP3 VBR extreme' to my 'iPod video 80GB' and playing ape music on my PC. While busy doing other thing on my PC the song playing made pink noise.

The small EQ graphics on the MC screen went all the way up and stayed there. After listening for 10 seconds I slided the 'position' bar back to before the pink noise started. The EQ meters went down and the song replayed the pink noise part perfectly. Also the EQ meters were okay.

Must be something in MC otherwise the EQ meters wouldn't indicate full power on all frequencies (pink noise).

Marsies .....

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Author Topic: Silence or pink noise in playback (Read 4953 times)