Flawed gapless playback with Rockbox

[Kodeen]

Hello, I just recently got my Clip+ and almost immediately Rockboxed it. I'm having a weird issue, however, with the gapless playback. When the music is transitioning from track to track, there is the slightest hiccup, just a fraction of a second. This occurs with both crossfade off and with it on at 0 seconds. My files are 256kbps MP3's ripped with Rhythmbox (LAME).

One thing I thought might be the cause is that I manage my library with iTunes (since I also have a couple iPods), and that my songs are all checked as gapless in the file options, and that that might be creating a compatibility issue. So I unchecked that box for one of my albums, but the hiccup remains (again with crossfade on and off).

This is odd because the OF was able to play gaplessly perfectly, much better than what I've read. Am I missing something to enable true gapless with Rockbox?

[dfkt]

LAME should be perfectly gapless on Rockbox. Maybe it's indeed some tag issue. Try checking/rewriting the tags with MP3Tag, possibly removing ID3v1 and APE tags, only leaving ID3v2 tags. Rewriting the files with Foobar might be another option to try.

EDIT: D'oh, Rhythmbox - you're on Linux. Sorry, don't know any apps with similar functionality as the ones I mentioned above.

[Kodeen]

I have a Linux and a Windows computer, so I'll fiddle with the ID3 tags when I get home.

[SneakySneaky]

I'm afraid I'm not knowledgeable enough, but I've also got gapless playback issues. I tried listening to the same album using the OF and the "click" sound was actually shorter than the one in RB. Any ideas?

[skip252]

What file format and encoder are you using? LAME encoded .mp3, Vorbis, FLAC, .m4a and Musepack all play with no clicks or gaps for me. I haven't tested any others.

I do get a slight click in the OF with the formats it supports. None in Rockbox.

[SneakySneaky]

I 'm not sure what encoding windows media player uses, I just rip my cd's to mp3. When I play them on my computer they sound fine though.

[Marvin the Martian]

Originally Posted by SneakySneaky

I 'm not sure what encoding windows media player uses, I just rip my cd's to mp3. When I play them on my computer they sound fine though.

WMP does not use the LAME MP3 encoder...that's probably the cause of the problem.

[SneakySneaky]

But then how is it gapless when played on my computer? It's the same mp3 files. Or are they affected after I convert them to a lower bit rate when synching?

[skip252]

WMP uses the FHG encoder which is definitely not true gapless. There's information in the LAME encoded mp3 file that tells a decoder to where start playing. The FHG encoder doesn't provide that information. Some desktop software and some players can take a guess where the music starts and give a type of gapless playback that works most of the time.

If you want true gapless playback you need to use files that were encoded with that information .That's why I named the LAME encoder.

You've got a little work to do if you want gapless playback. If you want to take full advantage of Rockbox has to offer retire WMP. There's nothing that it does that other free software and freeware won't do infinitely better for a Rockboxed player. If you just want to re-rip your discs to a format that will play gaplessly with minimum effort I'd get of copy of fre:ac (it used to be called Bonkenc) Be sure to get the Snapshot version.. It's a free software but donations are happily accepted. Like Rockbox

The setup is very simple and intuitive. No installation is needed. Just unzip it to a folder of your choice and you're done. Go through the configuration menu and pick the format of your choice. It's all ready has the latest encoders in the download. If you're going to use .mp3 choose VBR Custom=> VBR. Pick a quality setting and go. That's it. You're set for gapless playback. There's a lot more settings you can play with but that there is enough to get you started.

Drop in a disc and re-rip some of your discs and load them up in Rockbox. You should hear true gapless play back. If you're are tempted to just transcode the files you have now I wouldn't. They will play gaplessly but there's an unavoidable loss in quality. You could always test some files to see if the loss in quality is acceptable to you.

[Adub]

Not all mp3 files are alike, different encoders produce a different quality of file. LAME encoded mp3 produce the highest quality mp3 files when transcoding.

As a rule you never want to transcode lossy to lossy ever.

Rockbox produces gapless on LAME encoded mp3s, if you lack LAME encoded mp3s you will not get perfect gapless. Though rockbox has perfect gapless with other formats, for mp3 you need to encode with LAME.