Develop Bugs

Gapless playback in Zune??

Hi all
Had an HD7 for the last week, great phone. I've found a couple of little bugs (eg if your browsing in IE and go back to the home tab, use some other apps then go back to IE, theres no way of going back in the browser as the back button just takes you back to the home page or previous app?)
Anyway, onto my question, does the Zune player on the phone support gapless playback of tracks? I've got a lot of albums of live concerts etc that would normally playback seemlessly on my old iPhone but have gaps when played on the Zune. Couldnt find any options anywhere to change it. Does anyone know if this is supported or not?
Thanks!

I know gapless is supported on the ZuneHD. But I know even then some people had issues in getting it to work, and it is all based on how your albums are tagged in the ID3. Once I get my HD7 I can confirm if albums that played fine gapless on the ZuneHD do so on the HD7 and i'll inspect the ID3 to figure out what the appropriate tags are.

Thanks! All my music is imported into Zune from iTunes so maybe iTunes hasn't tagged the music properly? Or Zune can't read the itunes tags?

Gapless works on Zune HD as long as there is no DRM...thus, if you bring your own tracks with no DRM, gapless works perfectly...however, if you have a zune pass, funny enough, gapless does not work...
This is a known issue for many months but MS has no fixed it so far...(people seemed more upset at the lack of apps for the Zune HD than fixing core music related issues)...

Thanks. I seem to get this from my own ripped CD's as well as music bought from iTunes and music from my Zune subscription.
I might try re-ripping one of my CD's in Zune and see if it works.
Gapless playback seems to be a massive missing feature of an audio device?!

A big one for me is this. I've got 200 or so live/dj mix albums, so not having this feature has pretty much made my new HD7 worthless to me.
All my music is in .M4A format and was ripped/converted in iTunes. I also tried ripping a mix CD to .MP3 format, but got the same result.
I just don't understand why MS haven't implemented it. If there are no plans to add this, then my HD7 will have to be returned.

I know this is an old thread, but I've noticed something when using bluetooth and my music...
I use my HD2 (WinMo7) when I'm down the gym and a lot of my mix tracks often jump at the mix point, some even have some stuttering...
However I've noticed that when I'm streaming via bluetooth to my car stereo, the same tracks don't jump or stutter and play virtually continous. There is only the odd tiny space on some tracks...

Beatles USB gapless
My Beatles, Abbey Road Remastered 2nd side sounds great on Zune on WP7. Very slight breaks between songs, but nothing objectionable to me.
Make sure that when you select the music, you select the Play All or Play Album selection. Don't try to play the 1st track and expect things to go uninterrupted.
Definitely the Abbey Road playback is different than the first side, which has song-to-song gaps.
Enjoy Windows Phone 7!
-e

I've been digging around recently in trying to get some gapless in WP7.
I then finally notice that the Zune PC software doesn't even do gapless! The gap is shorter, I suspect due to the more powerful hardware, but it's still not gapless.
Windows Media Player seems to emit a slight click
Winamp and Foobar both seamlessly transition to the next song.
But, back to WP7. It's now apparent that either MS needs to fix this (they didn't in Mango, so they probably won't for a while, if at all), or a third party app that doesn't use Zune could be created, (or ported).

[Q] Is it Defy or all android that suck at playing media?

I've been trying for days to get the defy to work i want.
I listen to audiobooks, music and podcasts, and I need to be able to control it from the headset
I tried default player, google listen, winamp, doggcatcher. And cant get the thing to work right!!
Music+ doesn't even register the button press, listen resumes and skips to next track, even if you're playing another audio in the background. Winamp on its own is fine but does not download podcasts, and doggcatcher has conflicts with winamp on the headset thing.
Has anyone find a good solution for this? it seems just the way android is built, and the lack of a good unified media player (with or integrated with podcast manager).
Such a disappointment... I was so looking for having an android phone! If I can't find a solution, it seems its not for someone like me untill they integrate things a little more tightly.

Well, it's not the Defy. And while I don't think that Android sucks at playing media I do agree with some of your points. I also listen to audio books and podcast. For the moment I'm using AudioBook Player 2 for audiobooks. It's not prefect by a long shot but it does the job. As for podcast I haven't found anything useful yet. The defaut player is suppose to play podcast but there is no way to skip through. If I have to stop listening to the podcast there is no way of getting back to were I left off. And while the device obviously play videos, and does so quite well, I haven't found any type of video player interface. The only way I can start a video is by going into the gallery and taping on the file I want to play. That dosen't seem right to me.
So yeah, I feel your frustration.

JamesDax said:
Well, it's not the Defy. And while I don't think that Android sucks at playing media I do agree with some of your points.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, sorry. I did not meant to bash, its just that I soo wanted to love it... and I don't, and if there is no good solution I think android is not for my for now. I don't know. It has so many great things!
Thanks for your suggestions I'll look into it.

On another subject : When I listen to music, I can't do anything else (switching to landscape mode e.g.), otherwise it's really slow.
Is anybody else having that bug ? Some guy here mentioned it. But he then said he fixed it without having it deodexed. How do you fix this ?

Meridian is a media player that does most of what you want, with the possible exceptin of podcasting (don´t use it, don´t know).
It remembers where you last listened to a track, and if you switch to video (which has a library of it´s own) it still remembers where in the audio track you were when you go back to that. So actually better than WMP there... ;-)
Only thing that grinds my gears with this is an annoying bug that starts a random track when I press the button on any wired headset. If I hang up a call, or if I want to pause and then start playing in Spotify or radio, Meridian starts playing a tune in the background. I thought it was a bug I was having with my Pulse, but it´s there with the Defy as well.
A BT headset has none of these issues though.

Don't worry google is working on a multimedia improvement......soooonnnn soon, also has anyone tried poweramp

Music and the best way to handle it.

Greetings. Im hoping someone might be able to help me with a very annoying problem im having.
I have somewhere around 2000 music tracks, all of which are uploaded to Google Music. Ive had GMusic since they first announced the beta and i love the fact that my entire library is everywhere I go. I also love that i can download the tracks directly on my phone, from my phone.
However using the app to play music is horrible. In the past i used poweramp, which is a wonderful player. My main problem with Google Music is it audibly cuts the power from the headphone jack in between tracks, so when i have it hooked up to my car stereo i hear a pop when the track changes... which annoys me to utter hell. On top of that it behaves weirdly some times, for example i had it set to shuffle all the other day, and it would stop on every song, and i would have to hit play manually to go to the next song.
What i would like to do is go back to using PowerAmp, but be able to manage my music as easily as i do with GMusic. Problem is that, PowerAmp doesnt see the music i download from the GMusic app and the one time it did, all the meta-data wasnt there. So all poweramp said was "Unknown track 1".
The other side of the problem is managing it on my computer. Since i bought music from Itunes and Google Music, keeping everything organized has become a nightmare(i have a number of compilations, and when you download the music from google music, it organizes it by artist not by the album). Which is why i dont want to have to manually move files to my phone. Ive tried WinAmp and Double Twist, and both have their annoyances. I was wondering what other people do, maybe someone can make my life easier.

subsonic, streams from your PC, no need to upload it to the cloud and it the UI is not bad either. it can also cache your streams for offline play

New offline music on watch killing my battery...

After receiving the new 4.4.W.2 update, I decided to move some songs from Google Play on my phone onto the watch for offline playing.
Here's how it went:
Downloaded an album with 12 tracks onto my phone
Took my watch off off the charger at 100% battery
Began to transfer music to the watch, took 25 an hour to move 12 songs. Only checked the screen maybe 5 times during the transfer
After the transfer was complete, I listened to about 5 min of music
Battery dropped from 100% to 70% in a span of half an hour......
Call me crazy, but this leaves a lot to be desired..

Jbuch84 said:
After receiving the new 4.4.W.2 update, I decided to move some songs from Google Play on my phone onto the watch for offline playing.
Here's how it went:
Downloaded an album with 12 tracks onto my phone
Took my watch off off the charger at 100% battery
Began to transfer music to the watch, took 25 an hour to move 12 songs. Only checked the screen maybe 5 times during the transfer
After the transfer was complete, I listened to about 5 min of music
Battery dropped from 100% to 70% in a span of half an hour......
Call me crazy, but this leaves a lot to be desired..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know how to transfer music, but how do you play music from the watch?

ChrisNee1988 said:
I know how to transfer music, but how do you play music from the watch?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Since the new OTA lets you store music on the watch itself, go into settings and pair the watch with a bluetooth speaker or headphones. I have mine paired with the Moto Hint, when I have the hint in my ear and I play a song on the watch it will stream to the earpiece.

Call me crazy, but I think you are expecting too much from a device that isn't really intended to be a standalone media player.
Putting music on a smartwatch, or a Moto 360 to be specific, is kind of dumb to begin with imho.
Why? First, it's a watch.. Second, it has only 4GB of storage. Third, it has no speakers or audio output jacks. Fourth, ya, it's a watch.
Playing music from a smartphone and controlling via the M360 is more than sufficient and has almost no effect on battery other than regular operations.
My 2 cents.

Jbuch84 said:
After receiving the new 4.4.W.2 update, I decided to move some songs from Google Play on my phone onto the watch for offline playing.
Here's how it went:
Downloaded an album with 12 tracks onto my phone
Took my watch off off the charger at 100% battery
Began to transfer music to the watch, took 25 an hour to move 12 songs. Only checked the screen maybe 5 times during the transfer
After the transfer was complete, I listened to about 5 min of music
Battery dropped from 100% to 70% in a span of half an hour......
Call me crazy, but this leaves a lot to be desired..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Test it again taking out the transfer step. I would bet that is what is eating up battery not the actual playing of the music.

how to transfer song to watch?

Andromjb said:
Call me crazy, but I think you are expecting too much from a device that isn't really intended to be a standalone media player.
Putting music on a smartwatch, or a Moto 360 to be specific, is kind of dumb to begin with imho.
Why? First, it's a watch.. Second, it has only 4GB of storage. Third, it has no speakers or audio output jacks. Fourth, ya, it's a watch.
Playing music from a smartphone and controlling via the M360 is more than sufficient and has almost no effect on battery other than regular operations.
My 2 cents.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's your opinion, but... if excusing faults based on the fact that "it's just a watch"is sound reasoning, then you're completly abandoning the appeal and leaving many wondering why bother dropping $250 on "just a watch".
Aside from notifications, wasn't this feature one of the main selling points for the device? Personally, I looked forward to being able to leave my clunky phone at home while going on a run. It seems natural that a smartwatch should be able to set me free of cords and allow me to listen to music wirelessly. If the device battery struggles to handle that, I can't imagine how short the life would be if music and GPS ran at the same time.
This turned into a rant.. but I was hopeful that this update might bring purpose to the Moto 360. As it stands now, its a $250 watch that is less useful than my $75 g-shock anytime I move more than 25 ft. away from the smartphone it was meant free our addiction to.

I agree this would be a useful feature. I could see not bringing my phone to the gym and using my watch to listen to music.
I still think this watch is worth every penny I paid for without this feature. Hell, being able to change the watch face daily is a pretty cool feature by itself. Add in the ability to get notifications on a device that looks like a watch I'd wear with a suit, and it's worth the $250.

Jbuch84 said:
That's your opinion, but... if excusing faults based on the fact that "it's just a watch"is sound reasoning, then you're completly abandoning the appeal and leaving many wondering why bother dropping $250 on "just a watch".
Aside from notifications, wasn't this feature one of the main selling points for the device? Personally, I looked forward to being able to leave my clunky phone at home while going on a run. It seems natural that a smartwatch should be able to set me free of cords and allow me to listen to music wirelessly. If the device battery struggles to handle that, I can't imagine how short the life would be if music and GPS ran at the same time.
This turned into a rant.. but I was hopeful that this update might bring purpose to the Moto 360. As it stands now, its a $250 watch that is less useful than my $75 g-shock anytime I move more than 25 ft. away from the smartphone it was meant free our addiction to.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I never said it was "just" a watch. I was more implying that it's main purpose is not to be a media player specifically.
Being that Android Wear & Google Play Music just implemented this feature in the latest update, I don't believe this was a selling point at the time of M360's sale. Not to mention, the first implementation is most definitely not going to be optimized.
Is it a cool feature? Of course. Is it it useless? Of course not. But that is also dependent on the user.
Seems you just are not happy with the battery life and watch in general from your response.

even if you store music on your watch and leave your phone at home while going on a run or gym... don't u still have to carry a bluetooth speaker to hear the music..lol.. anyways.. resetted watch 4 times.. no luck here...ughhh..

Andromjb said:
I never said it was "just" a watch. I was more implying that it's main purpose is not to be a media player specifically.
Being that Android Wear & Google Play Music just implemented this feature in the latest update, I don't believe this was a selling point at the time of M360's sale. Not to mention, the first implementation is most definitely not going to be optimized.
Is it a cool feature? Of course. Is it it useless? Of course not. But that is also dependent on the user.
Seems you just are not happy with the battery life and watch in general from your response.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Battery life is great, can last 30 odd hours so long as I only use the watch to check time a handful of times a day.
My post was to see if anyone else is experiencing such problems and if they had any real world uses similar and ways to save battery.

no one should be surprised that using the watch as a media player would kill the battery.
the best use for the media player on the watch is to be used while working out or running. because it will definitely need to be recharged after using it for an hour as a media player.

Is offline music only support google music? ? I still not.figure out how to.download local song to.watch, anyone can clairfy? Thanks.

gammite said:
no one should be surprised that using the watch as a media player would kill the battery.
the best use for the media player on the watch is to be used while working out or running. because it will definitely need to be recharged after using it for an hour as a media player.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if you go to the start menu on the watch and select the play music app, it will inform you there is no music stored on the watch and you need to change a setting on your phone to "download to android wear". go into play music on your phone and in the settings is where that option is. As soon as I checked it, the music i had downloaded to my phone started downloading to my watch. once it's done you can access the music from the play music app on your watch. the newest play music version is required i believe.

FlowingAway said:
if you go to the start menu on the watch and select the play music app, it will inform you there is no music stored on the watch and you need to change a setting on your phone to "download to android wear". go into play music on your phone and in the settings is where that option is. As soon as I checked it, the music i had downloaded to my phone started downloading to my watch. once it's done you can access the music from the play music app on your watch. the newest play music version is required i believe.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks mate. Now i know.
Since i have not played google music before, so does this offline download to.wear only support.song.from google? But not local music? And how I know the download.is.happening? Also can I select which songs be download to 360?

mmx6688 said:
Thanks mate. Now i know.
Since i have not played google music before, so does this offline download to.wear only support.song.from google? But not local music? And how I know the download.is.happening? Also can I select which songs be download to 360?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From the looks of it, it's only music you've purchased from the play store, or music you've uploaded to play music. local music residing on your phone won't transfer over. you'll definitely know it's happening, a notification appears on the watch that says how many songs are left remaining to download. as far as which songs you're getting, i'm still testing it, but it looks like it's going to be all songs you've downloaded to the phone, but i could be wrong about that.

FlowingAway said:
From the looks of it, its only music youve purchased from the play store, or music youve uploaded to play music. local music residing on your phone wont transfer over. youll definitely know its happening, a notification appears on the watch that says how many songs are left remaining to download. as far as which songs youre getting, im still testing it, but it looks like its going to be all songs youve downloaded to the phone, but i could be wrong about that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks. Now I have a full.picture.

Jbuch84 said:
Battery life is great, can last 30 odd hours so long as I only use the watch to check time a handful of times a day.
My post was to see if anyone else is experiencing such problems and if they had any real world uses similar and ways to save battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Gotcha. Results are pretty sporadic from what I've gathered. There are too many variables right now, such as people using poorly optimized watch faces and/or apps. Possibly running older frimware/software, enabling/disabling ambient screen, brightness settings, etc.
Hard to get a baseline, but my results personally have been pretty great. I can't complain.
I use stock Moto watch faces, most specifically Retrograde (black background). Textra for SMS, it offers a lot of customization (vibration settings, color, etc), and is one of the most fluid in terms of replying via watch. Sometimes I use Mini Launcher, but it tends to drain battery a little more than usual and gets in the way a lot while swiping.
If you aren't using stock faces, then I recommend you stay away from third party watch faces until the Wear update with face customization becomes available.

Not just you. I listened through the watch for 30 minutes and it absolutely smoked my battery.

I wonder how the other watches hold up
Sent from my HTC6525LVW using Tapatalk

Chromecast Audio Review from a Squeezebox User

As title says, this is going to be a Chromecast Audio review from the point of view of a Squeezebox user. As such, it will mostly be comparing CCA and Squeezebox. I'm also hoping some other CCA users see this and might be able to chime in on some of the shortcomings I'm having with CCA.
Overall, I'm liking CCA better than Squeezebox. CCA sync is dead on, and I have 6 rooms going. My squeezebox setup was a mix of PC and android devices running various squeezebox player software, and the sync would always be off for the first few seconds of a song. Occasionally, audio would get out of sync and starting and stopping playback was necessary. I listen to a lot of podcasts, some of which I pay for, and Squeezebox doesn't support HTTPS for podcasts. CCA is so easy to use for podcasts, it's increased my already high amount of podcast listening by quite a bit. Another benefit of CCA and podcasts, since I'm using the same app I listen to podcasts with on my phone, playback is synced. I used to listen to part of a podcast in the car on the way home from work, then have to scrub through podcast on squeezebox to find the spot I was at. Not the largest inconvenience in the world, but it's nice that I don't have to do it any more.
Now on to the shortcomings of CCA. Two things that worked with Squeezebox that are important features to me were mixing local files with tracks from Spotify and Last.fm Scrobbling. I have a large music library and quite a bit of it isn't available on most streaming services. Google Music let's you upload your local library and stream it, so I'm trying to match the Spotify/Local file functionality this way. So far, it's working pretty well, but that leads to the scrobbling issues. If I play music from my phone, the app seems to time out and stop live tracking what is playing, thus the scrobbling app I have also starts to miss playing tracks. This happens even when the phone is plugged in to charge. As a work around, I'll play music from my PC using Google Play music on chrome with a chrome extension to scrobble. This works great, except now the only thing I can control with my phone is play/pause and volume. If I want to add tracks to playlist, change songs, etc, gotta walk over to the PC. With squeezebox, I could control the music with any device, and switch between devices doing the controlling with no issue.
There are programs, like Kodi and Emby, that have the ability to cast music. I'm pretty sure they also have plugins for Last.fm. So they would seem to solve scrobbling and controlling with multiple devices. I'm not 100% clear on whether they can play local files as well as tracks from Spotify or Google Music (or any other streaming service for that matter) on the same playlist. I think my next project is going to be setting up Kodi or Emby and seeing if I can get the functionality I want.
Another minor thing about CCA I'm not liking is that you can't control volumes until after playback is started. If I'm playing music in the evening before heading out with friends, I'll turn the volume up. Then in the morning, if I want to play something to get me moving, I have to hit play and then pause as fast as possible so my eardrums aren't blown out. I'm going to have to start teaching myself to turn down the volume when I stop playing music...

I have my personal music library on a NAS and play it all through BubbleUPnP App on a range of android devices. Best option I have found for anybody in the family being able to control all the music collection from any device.

I'm trying to match the Spotify o download music from insta-downloader.online l file functionality this way. So far, it's working pretty well, but that leads to the scrobbling issues. If I play music from my phone and I heard very nice in my app the music

Yeah this is App https://insta-downloader.online/ on a range of android devices, In my opinion is very nice