When willl a Firmware update bring Gapless Audio Playback ?
Its been “PLANNED” since WD TV 1
3,425 Votes on
http://wdtv.uservoice.com/forums/17442-general/suggestions/184982-gapless-audio?ref=title
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Only contacting WD Tech support you will get an official response. Because this is a user to user forum and WD technicians seldom post here.
Does any competing player have this feature, at least for FLAC files? It’s one of the biggest things I miss.
Think most other media players support gapless audio playback
Most £15 mp3 players support gapless audio
I just think wd tv would be so good if it supported this, a serious no brainer when deciding which media player to buy.
I know there has been talk of it needed a duel core chip to process two mp3 files to stop the horrible gap we hear but this thing plays 1080p video at mbps so I think the chip is up to it , well is it WD ?
It can play 8 channels of lossless audio at once (Dolby Tru-HD 7.1), at the same time as 1080p video, so I don’t see why 4 channels (2 tracks, both in stereo) mp3 should be a problem.
Steve W
Never thought of that …true it support Dolby Tru-HD 7.1
WD TV needs this … please fix it WD
Ya’ll are comparing apples and oranges.
Just because it can do 8 channels of audio in a single stream doesn’t imply it should be able to do gapless audio of stereo sources.
The difference is because one is a SINGLE STREAM, the other requires DUAL STREAMS.
*ALL* media players (be it a streamer or an iPod or MP3 player) must start up a new decoding thread in the CPU for each new track. The reason being: The encoding may be different between the two tracks.
Track one may be MP3 / 192KHz, the next one may be M4A / 128 KHz.
iPods handle all of that in hardware; the CPU can decode multiple streams simultaneously.
It actually STARTS decoding Track 2 in hardware BEFORE track 1 completes.
In hardware players that only decode a single stream, the decoder and all the buffering must be reset between tracks, hence the gap.
Gapless audio is MUCH more complex than most people imagine…
But there *IS* a workaround.
If your MP3s are all encoded the same way, you can CONCATENATE them and make them gapless quite easily.
The downside is that you have larger single tracks. :)
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Cheers for that.
But can we confirm this new model doesn’t have enough grunt to do what is required?
Steve W
I think its safe to say that an album will most likley be encoded at the same bit rate and format, and this is where we need gapless playback : audio books, live concerts and nearly every dance cd ever made.
Its safe and you woudl expect a gap with a mixture of tracks from differnt albums say in a playlist where the encoding could be differnt.
Maybe WD coudl add a switch for this ?
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