HTC Incredible: Audio Playback Glitches?

[richteratmosphere]

I've had my HTC Incredible for a little while, but only recently started to load some of my music onto it. While listening to an album that was around 45 minutes long, I heard about three playback glitches. These glitches were not present in the audio files themselves. The music was 128 VBR OGG. I was playing via the Meridian app. The music was stored on the 2 GB microsdhc card that came with the phone. Is this due to some type of multitasking or memory problem? I've played this same album via a class 2 microsdhc card in my Sansa Clip+ without any playback glitches. I'm thinking that the HTC Incredible has a much more powerful processor and more memory than my Sansa Clip+, so I am frustrated that I'm getting playback glitches on my HTC Incredible. It looked like there was plenty of memory available when the glitches were occurring. Anyone have any input on this or experiencing this too?

[CrowdAds]

[EnzoTen]

My guess would be a multitasking issue. I have had this issue with my Incredible too and have solved this in some cases by killing all background tasks. Maybe its also the performance of Meridian? I haven't used that app, but just a guess.

[The DarkSide]

Funny, I was just listening to some mp3's on my Droid 2 and my phone froze when I got a text, then when I later was browsing the net on the phone. Then I got another text while/browsing and the music app crashed and quit. My phone froze for about 30 seconds the last time, so no more music on my phone for me,.....and I was using the stock media player at that!

[richteratmosphere]

Thanks for the feedback Enzo. I'm gonna go for a long walk, kill a bunch of apps, and listen to some music on my Incredible and see how it goes. It seems like a lot of apps that I installed will start running in the background without me selecting to turn them on. Maybe there are some settings I can change in these apps so that they don't automatically run in the background and only run when I click on them for active use?

[The DarkSide]

Update: I tried the latest Rockbox build on my Droid 2, and it's not quite there yet. I mean, my ass couldn't even get it to play - damn it!!! I might go w/a WP7 device just for a year for the music playback alone (if the reviews are positive, and I'm thinking they will be), since it's gonna be a media-centric device. Do you guys thing it'll have an EQ?? I can hope, eh?!?!?!

[medion]

I've had the same problem on my Samsung Jack. Smartphones that are capable of multitasking do sometimes stutter during media playback. Outside of the iPhone, these things really aren't ideal at media playback yet, but they're getting there.

Like I said before, I like music/videos, so I keep a dedicated PMP for that. My wife is a photographer, and she keeps a dedicated camera. Convergent devices are getting better, but they still have a long ways to go.

[kasrhp]

Richter, Enzo, DS, do you guys generally use task killers?

If so, these can sometimes cause lots of problems. I do not use one, and have not had any playback issues on my N1 nor my G2. I will get a pause in the music for a notification sound, but no glitches or skips. Read this about task killers, and it could be the cause of these issues.

http://androinica.com/2010/05/07/goo...are-pointless/

[medion]

Ditto on the task killers. I'm ok with minor task management though, IE, setting a profile to automatically make my GPS turn on when entering Google Maps, and off when exiting. Granted, my Windows Mobile could be set to do this in Google Maps without a separate app, not sure why I can't on Android.

[richteratmosphere]

I was using a task killer for a while, but I uninstalled it yesterday to see if it made a difference. I bought the Music PlayerPro app that others have said was a good music player, and I uninstalled a bunch of other apps that I almost never use. Even after this, when listening to an album around 45 minutes or so, I still get one or two glitches / stutters during playback when the screen is off and I'm not actively using other apps.

Also, just to see how active multitasking affected things, I was listening to music while quickly uninstalling multiple apps, and during the rapid app removal, I would get stuttering during audio playback that sounded like the glitches / stuttering that I mentioned above.

So, it seems like the stuttering / glitches are due to some kind of process that kicks in while my screen is off and I'm listening to music.

I could understand that something like this would happen when I'm vigorously multitasking, but when the device is mostly running idle besides the music playback, it seems like this shouldn't happen, given the processing power and RAM of the device.

So, do you guys think that this is due to some kind of problem with the Android OS? I thought on a hardware level, the new Android phones are comparable to the recent iphones.

Do you guys think this could be remedied by future Android OS updates?

I don't mind usiing the dedicated music players, but it's just frustrating that with such great visual displays and all of the expandable microsdhc memory to store media, I still get playback glitches.

Does anyone else get similar stutters / glitches during music playback with the screen off, when the phone is otherwise idling?

[kasrhp]

Hmmm, you can try re-booting the phone to the original state (clean install) and see if that might clear anything up. I haven't heard much about this issue from other people (which doesn't mean it doesn't exist), but I will keep my eye out. I have not seen that issue personally with any of my phones (never listened to music on the original G1 though). But, that would be the only thing I could come up with.