Gapless with LAME MP3?

[eboyer93]

Is the Zune HD gapless with LAME MP3? If not what is it gapless with?

[Marvin the Martian]

Originally Posted by eboyer93

Is the Zune HD gapless with LAME MP3? If not what is it gapless with?

My guess would be that it would only be gapless with one of the variants of WMA, being that it's Microsoft's player, and their codec. However, I've never gotten to try one out, so that is only speculation on my part.

[epithetless]

The Zune HD is supposed to be gapless with all of the formats it supports (including, obviously, MP3s). I can't confirm personally that it works as designed, but I believe it does...

[lip]

It works for the albums that I have that need gapless like live concerts...

[grommet]

The Zune HD attempts to be gapless for all the formats it supports, but it's far from perfect. You can experience minor pops or skips. LAME MP3 should be OK most of the time, though. (It seems Microsoft uses "guess" logic, even though LAME does supply proprietary gap info in the MP3 header. Oh, well.)

Do note it's totally broken for protected content... it's not gapless at all, unlike previous Zune devices. Yes, it's a fairly significant bug, especially for Zune Pass users.

It's also pretty bad for WMA Lossless.

[The DarkSide]

I used to have the Zune 30/80/120, and it was gapless w/LAME V~0 vbr. I still have a 120 in the house, and the club mix cd's are gapless (again, same LAME).

[monkeyninja]

Happy New Year to you all!

I'm sharing the following both for information but also in the hope that somebody out there has a definitive answer or solution for gapless playback on my 32gb Zune HD.

I've both read and posted various times on this and no clear guidance has emerged on the best method for acheiving this so-called gapless playback. Now, by my definition, gapless playback would be when two tracks on an album or collection blend seamlessly into one another in the same way they would on the original CD or original recording. This could be an original album or a mix one has put together.

Gapless playback to me is not crossfade. Neither is it a tiny skip accentuated by a click or a pop, no matter how tiny. More than anything, Gapless playback to me is primarily focused on the ZuneHD, so that it is irrelevant if the Zune software plays the music gaplessly, if it pauses or clicks when it is uploaded onto the ZuneHD.

I am speaking from experience as I have spent the last three or four days experimenting on the various types of ripping, converting, formatting that the Zune software will play (WMA, WMA lossless, MP3). None of these formats have reproduced the required seamless transition between tracks as they appear on the original CDs. Examples of the recordings I have been working on are Jean-Michelle Jarre's albums such as Oxygene, Equinoxe and Magnetic Fields, as well as Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here and Joe Jackson's Night and Day. All these albums have several tracks which blend into one another and any kind of gap, pop or click spoils the listening enjoyment for me. None of the tracks are DRM-protected, and none are downloaded from Zune Marketplace. All the albums I have referred to have been ripped from the original CDs.

What I have been getting is about 90% success, but have not been able to get rid of all the small clicks between tracks on each album. Also, I have noticed how each time I replay the segue (or transition) on the Zune HD it can give differing results, giving the impression that there is guesswork involved by the software of what is and isn't gapless.

I have not been able to deliver consistent results, although I have been able to get some of the tracks to play gaplessly. But this really is after a great deal of effort, time and sheer bloody-mindedness. I hope you would agree that this is not a proper solution.

To my mind a proper solution would be disc in, transfer, rip, whatever....and job done...transfer to ZuneHD...gapless playback every time, thankyou very much. I understand the iPlop does this very well, not to mention other platforms. If Microsoft can't achieve this, then add in a crossfade option which might form some kind of sticking plaster over the problem.

I could alternatively just reproduce the albums as a single track, but then I'd have no indexing between tracks!!

Grateful for any thoughts or ideas.

[monkeyninja]

An update to my post - I've had a noticeable improvement by using a LAME converter (winLAME) and gives me an improved success rate and mostly elimates clicks between tracks.

Cheeers!

[muziklvr]

^ what bit rate, and are you ripping to cbr or vbr mp3 using winLAME? I've used 192 wma in the Zune software and it works pretty good, but always can use some improvement.

[monkeyninja]

I generally transcode to 320mbps VBR, mostly using WMA where tracks are meant to transition seamlessly.

Works better on Zune software than Zune HD device.

Overall, still hopeless broken in my opinion. Doesn't dent my love for the device though!!

[muziklvr]

..yep I have the same experience with wma. Thanks, love my zunes..both the 80gb and the hd.