iTunes “Determining Gapless Playback” bug workaround

Over the years I have bought into the iTunes ecosystem, to the point where I can’t really consider MP3 players/smartphones other than Apple’s offerings.  I suppose I *could*, but it would require a pretty monumental effort to reorganize all of my digital junk.

But one big problem I have had with iTunes is the “Determining Gapless Playback” bug.  In a nutshell, every time I open iTunes, it is apparently “determining gapless playback” for the same two dozen tracks.  I keep my iTunes library on my Windows Home Server, and usually access it over wi-fi via my laptop.  With iTunes 8 and 9, this could take upwards of two minutes; in the meantime iTunes was completely unusable – beachball hell.  Connecting my laptop to the router sped things up a bit, but it’s still an annoyance.

Turning off the gapless playback scanning in iTunes preferences didn’t help.  By scouring the Apple support forums, the problem seems to lie in corrupted MP3 files.  They will play back fine, but there’s one issue or another that keeps iTunes from properly doing gapless playback scanning.

My previous solution was just to remove the offending MP3, and then re-encode it from my FLAC archives.   That solution works – up to a point.  The only information I have to go on is the track title that is displayed during the scanning process.  I have a lot of tracks with the same name – for example, I have a lot of Christmas albums, so when one of the offending tracks is “Silent Night”, that means I would need to delete each instance until I found the right one.  Not an ideal way to fix the issue.  So I still had about 15 songs that were subject to this problem.

Enter iTunes 10.  Apple’s latest and greatest still has not fixed the problem, and now it takes far longer to scan the offending files.  We’re talking 5 minutes on a wired connection; I never waited long enough to see how long it took over wifi.  So I had to find a better fix.

After googling for “fix my stupid MP3s”, I ran across MP3 Validator at gromkov.com.  I pointed it at my iTunes library, and it chugged away at my collection for about 30-45 minutes.  Surprisingly, about half of my collection was marked as broken.  I allowed it to fix everything, and “a-la peanut butter sandwiches”, I can now work with iTunes as soon as it launches.

Nice work.  Unfortunately this doesn’t help those in a pure Mac environment, as it’s a Windows-only program.  Doing a quick Google search for “Mac MP3 Validator” turned up a similar program: http://triq.net/mac/mp3-validator-mac-os-x (among others.)  I can’t speak to how well it works, but hopefully it will be as effective as well as the program I used.

Long time no see

Been a while since I’ve updated this blog; a fact exemplified by a post referencing HD-DVD on the the first page.  I plan to start updating this a *wee* bit more often, but as the old saw goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Windows Home Server: A Series of Unfortunate Events

I have been using Windows Home Server since the public Beta was released a year ago. I *want* to love it, but there are just too many quirks at the moment (many of which are due to faulty hardware on my build). But more severe is the data corruption issue that the WHS team announced back in January. Anandtech has an article on the nuts and bolts of this particular problem

When it rains, it pours, and sometimes you get hit by lightning too which will really ruin your day.

Since very late last year, Microsoft has been facing an issue with Windows Home Server where under certain conditions files on a server’s shares could become corrupt. The severity of the situation is pretty immense and the situation straightforward: nothing should be getting corrupt on a file server, otherwise it’s a pretty useless file server. Since the initial report Microsoft has been attempting to reproduce the issue in order to fix it, and finally this week they have announced that they have fully identified the problem, its causes, and what needs to be done to fix it.

It just about couldn’t get any worse.

Microsoft unveils revamped Zunes

Microsoft announced on Tuesday that it will offer three new models of the Zune in November, including two equipped with flash memory. The 4GB and 8GB versions are iPod Nano look-alikes that will sell for a suggested retail price of $149 and $199 respectively. An 80GB player equipped with a hard drive will sell for $249. The pricing scheme for the devices exactly mirrors that of Apple’s iPods.

Some of the other changes include a complete overhaul of the device’s software and a redesign of Marketplace, Zune’s music store. Other interesting features include wireless syncing and the new Zune Pad, a touch-sensitive technology that enables users to slide their finger across the main navigation button instead of always having to click.

Microsoft is a living example of the “third time’s the charm” axiom. Windows, Internet Explorer, Windows Media Center, etc.; it usually takes Bill G and company three times to knock it out of the park. They’re certainly heading that way with the Xbox 360, and it looks like the Zune may follow this trend as well.

No one in their right mind – or at the very least, anyone without an axe to grind – believed or said that Microsoft would be able to unseat the iPod right out of the gate with the Zune. And they didn’t. They won’t with this revision either – but they’re much closer to parity. For now, I’m still sticking with the iPod for my portable media (just bought a 160GB iPod Classic) – but come next year and the Zune 3.0, it may be a different story. The Zune may never be the literal “iPod Killer”, but it may well give Apple a run for their money.

[CNET News.com]

Amazon's MP3 store brings more DRM-free music at lower prices than iTunes Store

Found at Ars Technica:

Amazon has launched a public beta of its long-anticipated digital music download store, offering more than 2 million songs as MP3 files. Those who have been paying attention to the digital music business can probably guess what’s included: tracks from EMI and Universal Music Group, music from another 20,000 independent labels, and $0.99 downloads…

While download stores might have gotten away with encoding music at a 128kbps constant bit rate a year or two ago, that’s not going to fly today, and Amazon knows it. Most tracks are variable bit rate 256kbps MP3 files, though the occasional track is encoded at constant bit rates. Large, high-quality album art comes embedded in each file…

The default song price is $0.99 per track, but the top 100 songs are only $0.89 apiece, and the top 100 albums go for $8.99….

The prices are still a bit too high for me to give up physical CDs anytime soon, but this is definitely a step in the right direction.  Apple has made some steps in the right direction with their “iTunes Plus” program, but Amazon’s got the better deal right now:

• Cheaper tracks ($0.89/0.99 vs $1.29)
• MP3 vs. AAC (More compatible, virtually identical quality)
• No need to use another application (i.e. iTunes) to download

It will be interesting to see where this goes – more competition is good, and Amazon’s definitely a credible competitor.

[Link: ArsTechnica.com]

New iPod lineup

Looks like Apple has pulled out all the stops with their latest refresh to the iPod line. FatPod Nanos with video capability, touchscreen iPods, and a 160GB “iPod Classic” (my personal objet d’desire). They also mentioned something about ringtones for the iPhone, but I find them incredibly annoying, so the less said, the better.

The iPod Touch apparently has wifi capability, so you can browse the web and purchase songs directly from the iTunes Music Store.

And a Starbucks/Apple partnership? Wow – that borders on self-parody there, Steve-o.

Xbox 360 video support update

Last month I blogged about the upcoming Xbox 360 update that would add MPEG-4 and h.264 video support. A few days before I first heard the news, I had ordered an Apple TV, which natively supports these formats. As soon as I found out that my Xbox 360 would support these newer formats, I quickly cancelled my order. I’d have to wait a month, but hopefully it would be worth it.

So at 5 am this morning, the update downloads to my 360. So I quickly flip over to the Media blade to see if the MP4 files shared from my PC will work, and… AND…!!!!

Nothing. I get a listing of a bunch of videos that the Xbox still doesn’t support (namely the XviD/Divx variety), but no MP4 files. I’ve got all the Firefly episodes encoded and ready to go, and I can’t watch them – what insolence!

After some snooping on the Xbox team blog, I discovered the problem at the bottom of the Spring ’07 Video Playback FAQ

21. What are the different video codecs that Zune and Windows Media Player support out of the box for streaming?

The Zune software supports unprotected WMV, MPEG-4 Part 2 and H.264. Windows Media Player 11 supports protected and unprotected WMV.

22. How can I get Windows Media Player 11 to stream MPEG-4 Part 2 and H.264 to my console?

By default, Windows Media Player 11 does not support MPEG-4 Part 2 and H.264. You can either convert your MPEG-4 Part 2 and H.264 content to WMV or you can install a 3rd party MP4 DirectShow decoder pack to import MPEG-4 part 2 and H.264 files into your library. Once they are in your library they can be streamed to your console just like WMVs.

Basically, my Windows Media 11 install wasn’t doing the job – despite the fact that I can view MP4 files just fine on my PC. I have ffdshow installed, but I guess that won’t do the trick. So I downloaded and installed the Zune player – despite not actually owning a Zune – and now it’s indexing my fairly large media collection.

–

Twenty minutes later…

Zune player finishes indexing my media, and I hop on the 360… it’s still not showing any MP4 files. I disabled media sharing in Windows Media 11, and disconnect then reconnect to my PC. Hallelujah! There’s my episodes of Firefly. I click “Play” and…

Sweet jumpin’ Jehoshaphat – it has to download an “Optional Media Update”. One I’ve already downloaded apparently. I’m so confused. So I re-download it, and finally – success!

I was able to play back the Xplay video podcasts, Firefly episodes encoded with Handbrake (iPod compatible), and Futurama episodes encoded with MeGUI (not iPod compatible). That was a lot of hoops to jump through, but at least it’s working now, and much better than having to transcode with TVersity or Transcode360.

Related Links

Xbox team video playback FAQs

Zune player download

Handbrake

MeGUI