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[gingellr]

Hi,

I tend to mainly use a smartlist to play all songs in a random order usng shuffle in a smartlist.

It just seems to me i hear alot of the same tracks rather than it being totally random so jus curious how shuffle actually works?


Thanks

Richard

[gappie]

maybe you could post the smartlist here. from the smartlist edit screen, click import/export, and copy/paste what you see there.

sometimes something can slip in that makes it less random.

 
gab

[Matt]

The shuffle in Media Center is mathematically random.  It does add a filter after the shuffle to maximize the distribution of artists.  This is less random in the mathematical sense, but more random as percieved by a user.  You can think of it like Yatzee! -- it's possible to roll a Yatzee! in real life, which would be like lots of the same artist in a row.  However, most people don't want the same artist over and over in a shuffled mix, even though a true random mix does this often.

Gappie's advice is good.  There could be some issue with the smartlist, so it'd be good to post it.

[jack wallstreet]

Question on shuffle (help/advise please)

Is it possible to have a situation where although Shuffle is random, it uses the same random sequence over and over, e.g., a computer going to sleep under vista or something.  My son is using shuffle at college and complains that he seems to be hearing the same songs too much.  Since I am not there, it is hard to tell what is happening.  He does not uses smartlists.  I believe he moves his entire library into the playlist and does an auto-shuffle

[gingellr]

Hi,

Thanks for the replys.

The smartlist is just a very basic one.

[Media Type]=[audio] ~sort=Random

I have about 10,500 songs in the playlist and i do tend to hear alot of the same tracks repeated.

[gappie]

Hi,

Thanks for the replys.

The smartlist is just a very basic one.

[Media Type]=[audio] ~sort=Random

I have about 10,500 songs in the playlist and i do tend to hear alot of the same tracks repeated.

nothing wrong with the playlist.. 

there is always something difficult with random. as matt also said.
as far as i know, real random does not exist in bitcountry. but they can come very close. after using 'pure' random lists in mc or some other programs before, i always noticed how some tracks were prefered over other tracks. now when you take three dice and throw them around a bit, and write down what happens you see that some numbers were more (even sometimes much more) there than others. its part of the randomness. when that happens with songs, where human perception is much more involved the numbers that were more present get more weight.
i'm not saying that what you see is wrong, and that some tracks are more favoured than others, just that it is a bit of a slippery subject.

i myself, wanting to be sure that everything got played equally, random  added some extra items to the smartlists. one thing you could do is adding last played not in the last 4 weeks, for instance. making it more fancy, you could add not skipped in the last 4 weeks. you could even make a list to get those songs that 'random' is always leaving out. not played in the last year, something like that. and even, with my 'fancy' random smartlists, i notice that somedays he, random, is in a bluesy mood, or in a sad mood, things like that.

i never trust random to get out on its own. 

 
gab

[JimH]

Very funny description, gab.  And exactly right.  Thanks.

[gingellr]

Thanks gab, very funny 

I have tried in the past the not played/skipped in the last x weeks etc which did improve things.

Maybe as you say it is just my perception and I just tend to remember certain tracks but when my girlfreind is over she does say things like  "oh no not lisa loeb again she is always on!" although i have been checking it tonight and it does seem more random than normal.

I hear what you say about the mood mc is in, sometimes it just plays all my favourite tracks, or it has an evening  when it is in the mood for slow songs. Maybe they have programmed mc to read your mood and play the music that is right for the occasion....how clever are they, and what a good marketing point that would be! 

Richard

[marko]

Also, I'm willing to bet a fair ammount of valuable commodities that with 10,000+ tracks in your library, there will be a fair ammount of duplication in there. You know, same track, different album stuff...

This adds to the problem because, while you perceive that you're hearing the same track twice, to MC, they're not the same at all.

How you approach this problem is up to you entirely. A few years ago, I went through over 3000 duplicate tracks manually and and added all the tracks I would not want "random" to pick to a playlist. any time I use random, I add that playlist exclusion to the rule and it works well. Every two or three months I load up the view scheme that manages the playlists involved and tidy up any new duplicates. Setup takes a while, but maintenance is very low and the results well worth it for me. These are a bit old now, but you can still apply the steps today, if you're interested in more details, find them here.
There are plenty of other ways to go about it too...

You could use some -[last played] exclusions as gappie has suggested already, you could also add a ~nodup=[artist],[name] rule to your rule and MC will decide which track gets played. It'll decide at random, but you won't have any duplicates in your list messing with the random karma

-marko