Print

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

[lalittle]

Are there any compressed lossless formats compatible with both Media Center and iPods?  If so, does it prevent the gap between songs that you get with mp3 and aac files?  I know that both MC and the iPod support wav files, but I was looking for a compressed format.

Thanks,

Larry

[JimH]

Not at this time.  I doubt if Apple will do this.

[kiwi]

I've always wondered whether the iPod's output is of high enough quality for one to be able to tell the difference between a high quality AAC or MP3 and a lossless format.

If it is, great.  I'd love to hear that.  Particularly if there was any way to get a digital output.  However, if it isn't.  (Or one is using it in an environment that is not conducive to this. i.e. in a car or working out.)  I wonder, why bother?  You might as well just use lossy formats and get the benefits of longer battery life and more songs.

I haven't had the chance to test the output out, and I don't think that the orig iPod's are capable of lossless playback.

kiwi

[lalittle]

I wonder, why bother?

For me, there are a few reasons.  First, the unamplified line output quality of the iPod is probably not all that bad -- particularly if you use the direct line output of the main connector rather than the headphone output.

The second reason is future use.  I don't want to have to re-rip everything when lossless formats eventually become the standard.  I realize that I could rip as a lossless format that the iPod did not support and convert whey synching, but this adds too much time to synchs.  Once the songs are saved in a lossless format, converting to a NEW lossless format should also be lossless, so as long as conversion is an option at this point, songs never need to be lossy ever again regardless of whether not the format standards change.

The last reason is that mp3's (and aac's) add that incredibly annoying gap in between songs (I am still amazed that this isn't a bigger issue for most people.)  I assume that lossless formats will not do this.

Larry

[kiwi]

I wonder, why bother?

I realize that I could rip as a lossless format that the iPod did not support and convert whey synching, but this adds too much time to synchs.

I completely agree about ripping in a lossless format, if I'm going to take the time to rip CDs, I'm only going to want to do it once.  As for whether or not the future will move to only lossless, I think that there is going to always be a place for lossy formats, as size/cost/battery life will put constraints on devices that will inhibit lossless formats from becoming the only way.

Why not do a batch convertion of your music?   That's what  I do.  MC is really good at it, I just set it up to run at night and have a duplicate copy of my music as MP3s.  Sure it's wasted space, but it does make the process of sync'ing much faster.

The last reason is that mp3's (and aac's) add that incredibly annoying gap in between songs (I am still amazed that this isn't a bigger issue for most people.)  I assume that lossless formats will not do this.

Are you talking about the gap during playback on the iPod?  Have you tried it with lossless songs?  Does it not exist?  Does the gap not exist when you try it with WAV files?  Or is it an issue with the iPod's playback for all music?  Again, I haven't been able to try it with my iPod, so I have no experience... and would actually be interested to see whether the results are.

kiwi

[hit_ny]

The last reason is that mp3's (and aac's) add that incredibly annoying gap in between songs (I am still amazed that this isn't a bigger issue for most people.)  I assume that lossless formats will not do this.

its an issue for me. So i have to rip mix CDs as one big mp3 +cue.

... but the choice is gapless play and no track info or skips and track info (on a portable player). I'm still trying to get JRiver to do cue in MC, maybe in 11.

lossless formats like APE do not have this problem (so i'm told)

[lalittle]

I just tried ripping a CD as uncompressed WAV files to test this, but MC won't encode files to this format for some reason -- when it's done, there are no files on the hard drive.  If I switch to another encoding method everything works fine, but using uncompressed WAV won't work.  Since this is the only uncompressed filetype that both the iPod and MC use, I cannot test to see if the songs will be gapless.

Thanks for any help with this,

Larry

[Alex B]

You can import and listen to Apple lossless in MC, but that is about all you can do with it. You cannot save tags to file or convert it to another format. I don't know if you can send Apple lossless to iPod from MC.

I ripped some files with iTunes to Apple lossless format and imported them to MC. Apple codecs must be installed, e.g. that iTunes software.

I don't have problems with ripping to wave (MC 10.0.149).

[lalittle]

I don't have problems with ripping to wave (MC 10.0.149).

I originally had the problems with 150, then I updated to 153 and I still have the exact same issue.  Could someone else with 150 or 153 confirm whether or not this is unique to my system?

Thanks,

Larry

[Alex B]

its an issue for me. So i have to rip mix CDs as one big mp3 +cue.
... but the choice is gapless play and no track info or skips and track info (on a portable player). I'm still trying to get JRiver to do cue in MC, maybe in 11.

lossless formats like APE do not have this problem (so i'm told)

Here is one possible workflow for gapless (in MC):

Rip your separate tracks albums to APE with MC.

Rip your mix/DJ/Live/etc albums to single-track APEs and CUEs using EAC and Monkey's Audio. Use MakeAPL tool (included with Monkey's Audio) to make APL link files. You can use APL files in MC as ordinary separate audio files.

You can convert your separate tracks (including APLs) to compressed format. You can also convert your single-track APE album files to compressed format for mobile use (print a track list if needed).

I too hope that JRiver adds support for single track albums and cue sheets. APL works only for APE. I made a proposition for a possible solution here:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=22715

[lalittle]

I'm sorry to report that wave files still have a small gap between them when played on the iPod.  If anyone can confirm any format that gives truly gapless playback on the iPod, please let me know.

Thanks,

Larry

[hit_ny]

I'm sorry to report that wave files still have a small gap between them when played on the iPod.  If anyone can confirm any format that gives truly gapless playback on the iPod, please let me know.

I find this curious. Can you verify that using MC with those same WAV files also produces a perceptible gap. Try with winamp too (if possible). Wav files are usually gapless if ripped correctly as that is the format they are present on a CD and the gap isn't perceptible.

I too hope that JRiver adds support for single track albums and cue sheets. APL works only for APE. I made a proposition for a possible solution here:

Ripping to APE is not an option as i have ripped to cue with VBR sometime back now and mp3 offers the most flexibility (no conversion hassles) with portable media players, is a third to a quarter the size of APE and sounds good enough to my ears at 192+kbs.

I noted the mcl idea. It will work for formats that are seek-friendly.  The problem with mp3 is that it does not allow seeks to be made given a seek position. And a cue file is just that, a list of tracks with seek positions.

Now other players (winamp+mp3 cue) and FB2K get around this by actually parsing the file from the beginning as its not possible with mp3 to directly jump to the point stated in the cue. FB2K is sample accurate, wimamp cheats/guesses so it appears faster at seeking but in reality it does not get it exactly right.

I would prefer that MC (if they decide to implement CUE) be sample exact. This brings a slight hit in seek performance (can be a fraction of a second to a whole second) but it would allow accurate Audio analysis and can take advantage of the ever powerful library.

I use FB2K for albums with cues currently, it works pretty well and has a light Album list function and makes direct edits the cue files. But i would prefer to do this in MC as FB2K is not as easy to mass tag (especially tracks in a cue)

Another idea i have heard to get around the mp3 seek problem is to wrap an mp3 in a mp4. mp4 supposedly has seek tables that will allow sample exact seeking. I tried this out in FB2k but found the performance only slightly better to the actual mp3 itself. So am not sure whether its worth doing.

[lalittle]

I find this curious. Can you verify that using MC with those same WAV files also produces a perceptible gap.

I can verify that MC does NOT produce a gap with wave files -- it's just the iPod that has a problem in this regard.

Larry

[lalittle]

I'm guessing that the gap is due to the specific way the iPod handles files.  I'm wondering if ANY format is actually gapless on the iPod.  If anybody knows of a format that is truly gapless on the iPod, please let me know.

Thanks,

Larry

[lalittle]

I find this curious. Can you verify that using MC with those same WAV files also produces a perceptible gap.

I can verify that MC does NOT produce a gap with wave files -- it's just the iPod that has a problem in this regard.

Larry

I should add that this is only when played locally -- when playing over media server I get a REALLY bad gap with wave files.  I assume that this has to do with the fact that it doesn't get the new file until it's time to play it.  Is there any way to get MC to cache the next file before it gets to it so this won't happen?  In other words, is there is a way to get waves to play gapless over media server?  I tried using a larger playback buffer but it made no difference.  Is there anything else to try?

Thanks,

Larry