Petition for Gapless playback on Sony players!

[tds101]

If anyone is wanting gapless playback for the most common audio formats (mp3, AAC, etc) then please post in this thread. Hopefully someone will listen and give us 1 of the most basic of features (by today's standards) on the Sony players. My Zune has is, the iPod's all have it, even the Cowon S9 now has it.

Please, bring gapless playback to the Sony line of Walkman players - I'll wait till then to purchase 1. No gapless - no more me being a Sony customer!!!!

[Ascariss]

I am not expecting much from the new A series, if and when it debuts, probably just capacity bump, bigger screen and probably not much else.

[tds101]

It's a start, but we deserve gapless - especially since it's the only real issue keeping Sony from becoming the great company they used to be (in regards to the Walkman lineup).

[bob123]

I'm surprised at the lack of interest. My recollection is that when sony ditched atrac and gapless playback with it, there were a lot of people on the atraclife forum that expressed their dissatisfaction. Perhaps ascariss is right - there are not that many members of this forum. Were their more on the atraclife one? It sure felt like it?

[ShanieAIBO]

To be honest, your best bet is to go to one of these petition websites and then send the link to everyone you know, and post it on other Audio PMP/Walkman websites to get more attention. If still no interest, maybe this is why Sony hasn't bothered putting gapless in the newer Walkman's?

Personally, I want to see gapless in Sony's Walkman's, hence I voted that it is important, not only because I would most likely use it but the fact all the other players, but the fact even the dreaded iPod has it. That's not right, Sony! Your not going to let iPod have a audio feature you don't are you? (What an insult to the Walkman!)

There's no point in really deleting this topic, as others will come eventually and post they're views.

[tds101]

Well, hopefully we'll get a few more votes. Sony actually checks the forums in the here in the USA from time to time, so this thread is more valuable than an actual online petition. That's why I created it, to get the message (hopefully) across w/the help of the Sony community to the Sony Corporation.

[Guest Stuge]

Well ,just saw the thread and voted in favor of gapless audio .Well gapless audio is what I need specially for trance and I hate when there is a gap between songs ,when it comes to trance .

Right now I don't have players from Sony of this era(I'm mean after ATRAC ) .I'm waiting for Sony to launch X series here in India .

[Ascariss]

well my vote is def yes, gapless can be done with mp3 and other players have it, so i am sure sony can do it if the others can. Why does sony cripple their players year after year.

[Rocklegend]

I

[tds101]

Hey, how about some votes people!!!!

[Strungup]

Vote = Yes

Pink Floyd - The Wall ........ Broken up and not Gapless ?????

Alan Parsons - Turn of a Friendly Card - Not Gapless ?????

Live Concerts - Not Gapless ?????

Sony -hey dudes , Imagine your Blu Ray DVD players stopping between every song in a Concert video ........ Glitch - Glitch - Glitch

Wouldnt that just ruin it for you ? Well it is the same for Listening . That is one reason I am still on Minidisc and not any other DAP

I agree Gapless is a Forethought , not an after thought >>>>>>>

[Trondis]

Gapless is the most important feature for me - more important than sound quality. That is why I bought a Sony NWHD1 and NWHD3. And unless Sony implements gapless again, I won't buy another Sony.

[tds101]

I'm hoping a new player is on the horizon, and that gapless is fully implemented, and not just for .WAV. Really, since Sonic Stage is no longer required, does that mean we should be spanked as a consequence?

[Avrin]

A nice way is to use LAME.EXE with the "--nogap" option to encode music. In this case you need to specify all files in a single line. E.g.:

LAME --preset insane -q 2 --nogap "Track 01.wav" "Track 02.wav" "Track 03.wav" "Track 04.wav" "Track 05.wav" "Track 06.wav" "Track 07.wav"[/CODE]


This will not give you perfectly gapless playback on SONY devices, but gaps will be almost unnoticeable. On my NWZ-B143F they are about 0.01 secs long when tested using stereo white noise (the hardest possible material to encode/decode).

[tds101]

Well, I sometimes rip cd's as a single file, as this gets the gap completely out of the way. The downside is finding a particular song, as well as the added battery drain listening to a long file.

[juli]

Yes, gapless is VERY important. There's nothing worse than hearing that annoying stutter in between tracks. I don't care how short the gap is, it shouldn't be there in the first place. Live concerts are really spoiled with gaps. Mind you, if the new 64GB Walkman was released outside of Japan (which it's not going to be, sob...) - then I'd have more room for WAV files so I could still have gapless and room to spare. Then I'd start complaining about the lack of playlist functionality!!!!!!!

[Avrin]

The more I look at the problem, the more I see a very simple solution, which could possibly be implemented by SONY at almost no additional cost. The "tagging" approach used by Apple is outright stupid, and requires additional processing algorithms (determine borderline frames, decode the first file to the end, while simultaneously decoding the second file from the beginning, then stitch these two files at their borderline frame in some buffer - and all this could possibly lead to clicks and glitches, since the compression algorighm is lossy).

The correct approach is really simple, and is similar to that used by SONY in ATRAC devices - encode music as one continuous stream split by files, and do not restart the decoder at the beginning of each file. This way everything will be perfectly gapless without any additional processing.

Continuous files can already be produced by LAME, or SONY can create a simple "Gapless Ripper" program, using whatever encoder they like, provided that it can encode continuously.

And the "no restart" mode will also work with non-continuous files. While not making them gapless, it will not lead to any clicks or glitches, since such files always have silence at the beginning and at the end. Anyway, the function can be made user-switchable (ON/OFF), like gapless playback in ATRAC CD players.

Edited November 6, 2009 by Avrin

[tds101]

I see we have a few more votes,............ KOOL!!!!