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[MusicHawk]

I always have MC Player set to with "Shuffle On". I play smartlists controlled by selection rules, but no intentional sorting or other modifications, because I like random play.

I use MC playlists in three ways: on iPods, through a Netgear MP101, and directly from MC. I'm using MC 12.0.279. When I play directly from MC its OK; the songs play randomly shuffled. When I play on an iPod, its own shuffle mode seems to kick in, though it seems somewhat less than random.

Problem: When playing via MP101, some playlists play shuffled (as I desire) with every song in random order. But some playlists behave similar to "shuffle automatic"; I hear all the songs on an artist's album, then it jumps randomly to another artist and plays that entire album. I never want this playback behavior, but I don't know where it arises. The MP101 is set to Shuffle, though switching it between Shuffle and Normal doesn't make any difference. Apparently the song order is determined by MC. Or is it?

By examining some of the smartlists that work, I see they have a modification, Sort by [random]. But I never put this in, don't know how it got there. Is the correct solution to add this to all my smartlists?

I searched prior postings and MC help but didn't find a clear statement of the circumstances and ways that MC controls song playback order, such as how Player and smartlist settings interact, and what happens when fed via the UPnP server. Do I have the best solution, or is there something I'm overlooking?

[jfoo]

Hi MusicHawk - I don't remember how the MP101's shuffle mode works, but I'd suggest building playlists and smartlists with MC, and that way you set the random attribute or not, and playback as you wish...

j

[MP101User]

I've noticed the same thing and have adopted the strategy mentioned above: for play/smart lists that I want to play randomly, I set MC to randomise the list.

The problem seems to be on smartlists that have some kind of dynamic setup. If I browse to, say, a particular album, then using the shuffle of the MP101 or the shuffle on MC gets the same effect (the former is more convenient since you can flick it on and off without going to the computer). If I browse to a smartlist that shows, say, all tracks from 1985 that are Jazz, shuffle on the MP101 mixes one or two albums: shuffle on MC works correctly.

It's almost as if just one or two albums get served to the MP101 if it is in shuffle mode, then another couple after it has used those up.

For me, it's pretty easy to live with...

M.