INTERACT FORUM

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  
Pages: [1]   Go Down

Author Topic: random/shuffle audio tracks is not so random  (Read 5413 times)

theoctavist

  • World Citizen
  • ***
  • Posts: 228
  • a bad liver and a broken heart.
random/shuffle audio tracks is not so random
« on: March 30, 2014, 09:01:26 am »

in spite of having my entire library selected( 45,000 tracks or so) and shuffled multiple times, MC seems to be sampling tracks from a very small group of artists, and playing those over and over.

if there a way to make this more random, truly random? forgive me if this has been talked about!

Logged

AndrewFG

  • MC Beta Team
  • Citizen of the Universe
  • *****
  • Posts: 3392
Re: random/shuffle audio tracks is not so random
« Reply #1 on: March 30, 2014, 10:11:12 am »


The definition of random is that unexpected things may happen...
Logged
Author of Whitebear Digital Media Renderer Analyser - http://www.whitebear.ch/dmra.htm
Author of Whitebear - http://www.whitebear.ch/mediaserver.htm

Fred1

  • Regular Member
  • Galactic Citizen
  • ****
  • Posts: 491
  • Change this by choosing profile
Re: random/shuffle audio tracks is not so random
« Reply #2 on: March 30, 2014, 12:56:35 pm »

The definition of random is that unexpected things may happen...

Over and over again?
Always the same?
Logged

JimH

  • Administrator
  • Citizen of the Universe
  • *****
  • Posts: 72377
  • Where did I put my teeth?
Re: random/shuffle audio tracks is not so random
« Reply #3 on: March 30, 2014, 01:17:55 pm »

Have you ever driven to work and hit nothing but green lights?  Or nothing but red lights?
Logged

fitbrit

  • MC Beta Team
  • Citizen of the Universe
  • *****
  • Posts: 4887
Re: random/shuffle audio tracks is not so random
« Reply #4 on: March 30, 2014, 02:54:05 pm »

Are your tracks rated? I believe there is a setting to bias for more highly rated songs when playing random. Maybe you could check in options and see whether you have that activated.
Logged

theoctavist

  • World Citizen
  • ***
  • Posts: 228
  • a bad liver and a broken heart.
Re: random/shuffle audio tracks is not so random
« Reply #5 on: March 30, 2014, 08:40:19 pm »

tracks are unrated, which is what makes it hard to figure out!!

squeezebox touch had the same issue(although jriver is better)

http://forums.slimdevices.com/archive/index.php/t-55513.html
Logged

6233638

  • Regular Member
  • Citizen of the Universe
  • *****
  • Posts: 5353
Re: random/shuffle audio tracks is not so random
« Reply #6 on: March 30, 2014, 09:02:59 pm »

You could always use smartlists with rules that exclude tracks where the last played time is less than a certain value. (e.g. 1 hour)
Logged

MrC

  • Citizen of the Universe
  • *****
  • Posts: 10462
  • Your life is short. Give me your money.
Re: random/shuffle audio tracks is not so random
« Reply #7 on: March 31, 2014, 06:23:20 pm »

I also find that MC is not very random, and repeats sequences or selections.

Anyway, pscriptor 1.10 just posted now includes the scriptlet MakeRandomPlaylist which will create a playlist of size N, and autostart playback to some specified zone.
Logged
The opinions I express represent my own folly.

theoctavist

  • World Citizen
  • ***
  • Posts: 228
  • a bad liver and a broken heart.
Re: random/shuffle audio tracks is not so random
« Reply #8 on: April 03, 2014, 05:04:52 am »

I also find that MC is not very random, and repeats sequences or selections.

Anyway, pscriptor 1.10 just posted now includes the scriptlet MakeRandomPlaylist which will create a playlist of size N, and autostart playback to some specified zone.


thank you! this was a problem that plagued squeezebox touch users from the get go. never found a way out of it! *hence my ending up at jriver(huge upgrade btw)

Logged

JimCo06

  • Recent member
  • *
  • Posts: 37
Re: random/shuffle audio tracks is not so random
« Reply #9 on: April 03, 2014, 01:49:53 pm »

It may seem strange but, computers really can't generate a truly random series of numbers.  Remember, computers can only due what the software tells them to do.  The Random function built into most OS's is just a complex mathematical equation that acts on a "seed" number.  If you run the function using the same seed number every time it will produce exactly the same sequence of "random" numbers every time.  The more variety there is in the seed numbers used, the more the generated sequences of numbers will appear to be random.  To get the largest possible variety in the seed numbers programmers use to preform some sort of math on elements of the system date and time.  Don't know if they still do that or not, but it appears they still aren't able to generate really good random sequences.
Logged

MrC

  • Citizen of the Universe
  • *****
  • Posts: 10462
  • Your life is short. Give me your money.
Re: random/shuffle audio tracks is not so random
« Reply #10 on: April 03, 2014, 02:12:13 pm »

While the gist of what you say is essentially true, there are many techniques and libraries that make cryptographically secure or for all practical purposes "true" random sequences.  These do not base their algorithms on fixed or predictable seeds (such as date and time, and have much more entropy).

But the focus of this tread is not on perfect randomness - just something that is better that the results obtained thus far.
Logged
The opinions I express represent my own folly.
Pages: [1]   Go Up