Music pauses a few seconds

[nl07451]

With playback I frequently (1 or 3 times within an album) notice a pause (no sound) in the music of a few seconds. This always happens within the first 10 seconds of a song.
I use a HDD100 with MP3's on 192ps Kbps CBR.

Anyone experience the same? cause? solution?

Thks.

[dang]

what player are you using? how much system memory? anything effecting your cpu at that moment (like a cpu spike?)

[ECA]

Or backgraound programs,
Have you updated the hardware in the HDD100?

[nl07451]

The MP3 player is the Philips HDD100 with 15GB Harddisk,
40% is still free.
It's just a dedicated MP3 player, so I am not able to run background programs or update hardware.

Firmware has been update to the latest level.

Also defragmenting the disk does not help.

Any suggestions?

[ECA]

Ok,
What type of computer do you have??? FULL specs..CPU, RAM, HP/DELL/Compac, video ram, AND OS..

HDD100, Firmware VERSION, and software version..

PS, yes, you can UPDATE the firmware/hardware...

[ECA]

http://www.p4c.philips.com/cgi-bin/dcbint/cpindex.pl?ctn=HDD100/17&scy=US&slg=AEN&tmplt=&SearchTxt=&grp=PORTABLE_ENTERTAINMENT_GR&cat=MP3_PLAYERS_CA&sct=HDD_AUDIO_JUKEBOX_SU

Firmware is upto v.6.6
Install CD, is there..
AND PC sofware is upto v.2.0

PS, Im talking to Philips to see about this Also.

[edbethea]

What ripper are you using? Are all your mp3 files tagged (id3) correctly (none blank)? Esp. artist, album, track name, trk # and genre.

[chicubs]

hey eca, if you are talking to philips, could you ask them if they will ever release new firmware or a new dmm...they are both far from perfect.

[ECA]

i can, but Dont expect much..
Took them 1 year to fix it the LAST time.

[nl07451]

PC hardware and software is not relevant, the MP3 songs play well from the PC.
I use CDex 1.51 for converting, cant be an issue because the MP3's are correct. All tag-fields are filled correct.
A restart from the song on the HDD gives a good result.
So nothing wrong with the MP3.

I only have the interruption of two seconds whitin the first 10 seconds when albums are played on the HDD.

Suggestions ?

[ECA]

http://forums.designtechnica.com/showthread.php?threadid=5211
Another Upgrade...

No comment from Phillips yet.

I could suggest:
1, its a loadup problem. Its storing the song and takes a breath to load the whole thing...Is this only on ALBUMs.. And not Shorter Individual songs.
It starts to play as soon as the music hits the ram, but hasnt Loaded it all in yet.

Hwow big are your album files??

[ECA]

If you see, its only got 32 megs of working ram.

System
• Output power 2x5mW (16 Ohm)
• Frequency response 20-20.000Hz
• THD 0.01%-0.1%
• Equalizer 5-band DSP controlled
• Buffer memory 32MB for approx 30
min music buffer
(depending on bitrate)
• USB connection USB2.0 (USB1.1
compatible)
• Display 4-level grayscale,
160x128 pixels
• Backlight White superbright LED
• Battery Built-in 1200mAh
Li-Polymer
• Lens Hardened optical glass
• Encasing Die-cast molded
magnesium

[nl07451]

The 1-2 seconds pause errors have also been reported by others, so it's not unique to my HDD100.

My songs are sampled at 192 Kbps/CBR and vary from 3 to 7 MB. Single track or album playback does not make any difference.

I noticed that it occurs every 6th/7th track and so runs parallel with the internal 32MB memory loading.

I assume that not everyone has this error so I like to know what workarounds can be advised.

[ECA]

Still sounds like a RAM refresh problem...

It loads the 32 meg with ALL that it can, even if it has to split the last file.

It plays from the ram. to that LAST file, then skips to load more into ram, including the last part of the first fill.

Kinda stupid really.. But it solves a problem with loading EVERY song and having a pause between EACH song.

Look at your song list and do the math. Add up to 32 megs and buess where the skip will be.

[nl07451]

Problem of the shorts interrupts has been solved!!

What did I do?

1 - Installed HDDtool onto the HDD100, made a shortcut on the desktop.
2 - Deleted all MP3 songs from the HDD100 via HDDtool.
3 - Installed all MP3's back again to the HDD100 via HDDtool
4 - Removed DMM2.0 from my PC (won't use it again)

That's all folks.
Analysis of the disks shows that no defragmentation is required.
All files are in perfect order after initial load with HDDtool.
No interrupts and shock sensitivity anymore.
I'm happy again.