Hi Folks
I’m using the k8095 to do random MP3 play.
What dictates the time delay between tracks?
I recently dropped several Gb (possibly up to 5 or 6!) of mp3s onto a SD card -
and the player seems to stop & ‘think’ for much longer between tracks (several tens of seconds) than it
used to, with a smaller number of tracks on a different SD card.
The player also takes much longer to play its first track after power-on.
Surely it’s not reading the complete directory every time it looks for the next random track…
is it ??
This is strange problem.
I made a test: I put 2700 MP3 files to 45 folders on the SD card.
There is no noticeable delay in the random mode or in the shuffle mode.
[quote]Surely it’s not reading the complete directory every time it looks for the next random track…[/quote]Indeed the player doesn’t read the complete directory every time.
In shuffle mode the number of folders is read once.
When playing, the folder is selected by random number.
The next step is to check how many MP3 files are in this folder.
When the number of files in this folder is got, the random file is selected.
In the random mode the player should be even faster.
In this mode a list of folders and the number of files in each folder is first generated.
Next step is just to select a random item from this list.
Do you have equal delay both in the shuffle mode and in the random mode?
Possible cause to the delay may be:
If all the files are in the same folder, it may take longer time to create a list of the files.
If there are a lot of other files on the SD card, the MP3 file search may be slower.
There may be (a lot) hidden “Album Art” JPG files on the card. This may delay the MP3 file search.
HI
Thanks for the reply.
I’ll get the SD card out of the player and give you some numbers
I’ll also get the stats for the older card, which worked without gaps between tracks.
I think it’s all mp3’s on the card - and they are all in the same folder…
BTW - What’s the difference between random & shuffle ?
(I’m not sure which one I’m using!)
The random mode is on when the button SW7 is pressed and the “RND” LED LD3 is lit.
The shuffle mode should be selected from the “Play Mode” menu.
Here a snippet from the manual:
[color=#000080]To select a play mode keep push button SW6 long pressed so that you come into the setup mode, press once shortly to go to the “play mode” folder. With the push buttons SW4 “volume up” en SW5 “volume down” you can choose the mode and confirm with SW6.
If you want this mode for next times after switching off the power you must place the MP3 shortly in sleep
mode to save your settings.[/color]
[quote]I think it’s all mp3’s on the card - and they are all in the same folder…[/quote]It may help if you distribute the files in folders.
Please select the folder view option to display the hidden files to see if there are such files too…
Old card, Sandisk SDHC 8Gb - Fat32 - has 2.94Gb of MP3 music stored on it in the root folder.
They’re all mp3’s - except for a few wma’s than seem to have sneaked on to the end of the drive.
I’ll try removing those later on and see if that makes a difference… but this drive works fine in the player.
New card (the one that’s creating long delays between each track) is also a Sandisk 8gb / FAT32 - which has (amazingly!) 2.95Gb of mp3’s - plus couple of stray wma’s and four jpg’s than somehow snuck on there…
Do you think that taking out the jpg’s might solve the problem (I’ll try it myself tomorrow, but it’s pouring down outside right now and the mp3 player’s in the outside workshop )
With this SD card, the LCD displays the greetings message for about 50seconds, and then goes blank for about 30 secs before starting to play…
[quote]Do you think that taking out the jpg’s might solve the problem [/quote]I do not think this solves the problem. There is something else wrong with this SD card.
The file system may be corrupted maybe…
You may test it by removing first all the files and putting then only a couple of files there and test the operation in the player.
[quote=“VEL255”][quote]Do you think that taking out the jpg’s might solve the problem [/quote]I do not think this solves the problem. There is something else wrong with this SD card.
The file system may be corrupted maybe…
You may test it by removing first all the files and putting then only a couple of files there and test the operation in the player.[/quote]
Hi
You were right! - it didn’t solve the problem.
I’ll back up the SD card to my C; drive and try the SD again after a format with only a few files on there…
Thanks
Adrian
…And now we’re back to the long delay on initialisation, plus the 30-second delay before a track plays and between tracks…
Very strange.
What to try now ?
FWIW - there are 570 mp3s on the SD card…
I’m not sure that the player is in Random mode - Led1 is lit when it’s playing -
so I guess it’s operating in Shuffle mode ?
I vaguely remember having this discussion before - was it the case that the player can’t ‘remember’
to power up into Random mode - but it can remember to power up into ‘shuffle’ mode ?
The application is to provide ‘random’ background music at my market stall -
I just want to throw the power switch and have music, rather than having to do any particular set-up
each time…
The player is in Random mode if the LED LD3 is lit.
Now it is in shuffle mode. This is OK too.
The settings are remembered if you press long time the Play button until the player goes to sleep mode for a moment before turning it off.
Please see the manual how to select this play mode:
[color=#000080]Startup play on: When the MP3 unit is powered off it will start automatically to
play when powered on.[/color]
The player is in Random mode if the LED LD3 is lit.
Now it is in shuffle mode. This is OK too.
The settings are remembered if you press long time the Play button until the player goes to sleep mode for a moment before turning it off.
Please see the manual how to select this play mode:
[color=#000080]Startup play on: When the MP3 unit is powered off it will start automatically to
play when powered on.[/color][/quote]
HI
Thanks…
OK on the corrupted file - I suppose the only thing to do is copy ‘blocks’ of files across (say 20 at a time) until it goes wrong… tedious!
Many thanks…
Now the only other thing I need to do is to arrange a
‘semi-mute’ facility - so that I can drop the playback volume if I need to chat to somebody…
I was looking at the potential divider between the MP3 circuit and the input to the PA -
maybe switch a resistor across the ‘earthy’ side of each input - workable, do you think ?
I know I could simply adjust the volume via the buttons - but they’re on the back of the unit
out of reach!
[quote]OK on the corrupted file - I suppose the only thing to do is copy ‘blocks’ of files across (say 20 at a time) until it goes wrong… tedious! [/quote]You may check first the biggest files (I think they are most suspicious).
[quote]I was looking at the potential divider between the MP3 circuit and the input to the PA -
maybe switch a resistor across the ‘earthy’ side of each input - workable, do you think ?[/quote]I think this is a workable solution.
To attenuate the volume you can connect small resistors (e.g. 10 ohm) from pin header SK1 terminals to GND.
I ran my mp3 library through MP3VAL - which reckoned that quite a few of the files were corrupted.
Some of them it was able to fix - others it couldn’t, so I’ve deleted them…
I also ran MP3VAL on the SD cards and it claimed to have fixed all of those files.
However - even after this, the problem still persists.
I think the only way from here is to drop groups of files onto the SD card,
and test after each group. Sooner or later I’ll hit a point where the fault manifests itself -
and then it’s just a matter of ‘slicing’ the last group of files to find the culprit…
When I identify it - would you like to see a copy, so you can see what it is that’s causing the problem ?
I downloaded the MP3val program too and tested some MP3 files.
This program seems to be quite “strict”.
It gives message “PROBLEM” if the Tag info is missing from the MP3 file.
The Tag contains only some text info about the album, artist, etc.
If the Tag is missing there is no info displayed on the K8095 LCD but the music can be played.
There is no need to delete the files having this kind of “PROBLEM”.
[quote]I think the only way from here is to drop groups of files onto the SD card,
and test after each group. Sooner or later I’ll hit a point where the fault manifests itself -
and then it’s just a matter of ‘slicing’ the last group of files to find the culprit…[/quote]It seems that you have to do this to find the problematic file.
[quote]When I identify it - would you like to see a copy, so you can see what it is that’s causing the problem ?[/quote]Yes, I would like to test and analyze the file.
[quote]OK on the 10r to ground - I’ll sort that out…[/quote]Please use two separate chains (resistor + switch) from the pins of SK1 to ground. This way you avoid connecting the pins together via the 10R resistors.