[zekemon6]

I used to encode ALL of my mp3s at 320 kbps quality. When I got the iPod, I noticed that it seems to skip a lot when playing these files. So, I re-encoded a lot of the stuff (for space...) at 192 kbps, and have no problems with skipping on those mp3s.

comments?

[mrtaber]

Originally posted by zekemon6:
<STRONG>I used to encode ALL of my mp3s at 320 kbps quality. When I got the iPod, I noticed that it seems to skip a lot when playing these files. So, I re-encoded a lot of the stuff (for space...) at 192 kbps, and have no problems with skipping on those mp3s.

comments?</STRONG>

I am having the same problem; I'm still in the rip-erase-rerip stage, finding a happy medium; last night I ripped about 4Gb of stuff at 320kbps and am getting lots of skipping. This didn't happen at 160. Since you said 192 is OK, I'm gonna try 256. The higher the better

Mark

[mitchell_pgh]

Ummm, encode them in 192...

[mmarcos]

Hmm, this is bizarre. I'm very interested in hearing what you find out.

[ChaChi Boy]

320kbs? Isn't that defeating the whole purpose of MP3's and iPods?

[Max8319]

i got most of my stuff at 320 and have no problems at all......interesting

[Max8319]

do you mean taking a couple seconds in between songs to switch or actually skipping during a song?

[as2]

How big are the songs? I've heard about issues with the iPod not bing able to cache the whole song if the file is over 20MB, and so it skipps a little when it has played the first 20MB of the song. If this isn't the case, then I don't have a clue!!

Hope that helps

Adam

[Michael T. Doyle]

I think when iPod is refilling the cache you can hear a tiny pause (sounding like a skip) in the current song. iPod has a 32 meg cache but doesn't necessarily fill all 32 megs up every time it refills it. Songs encoded at 320 can be 10 or more megs long. Thus, assuming the cache is generally refilled before it's empty (maybe every 15 or 20 megs) then it would seem plausible that, if you have all your songs encoded at 320, every other song, and maybe even every song, would exhibit a "skip" or pause.

Or, looked at another way, iPod has "up to" 20 minutes of skip protection when your songs are ripped at 160. At 320, I'd assume that guarantee becomes up to (only) 10 minutes, and probably less.

My songs are all 320, and this is exactly the behavior I'm experiencing. I'm not bothered by it, though I know some will be.

As for whomever told the original poster to encode at 192 as if that rate were the Holy Grail, some of us can actually tell the difference between 192 and 320 (I know I can). Besides, I don't need my whole collection to come with me. As if it would fit anyway. I'm satisfied with my 575 favorite songs :-)

[ 12-13-2001: Message edited by: Michael T. Doyle ]

[zekemon6]

Well, I do get bothered by the skips. Sometimes it skips a lot, and sometimes it messes up the track by putting some odd loops in the beginning. Like a quick and easy transfer from the HD to the cache with problems.

The songs that skipped were various lengths. Some 4 minutes, some around 9. The both skipped. I'm just encoding my mp3s at 192kbps. That's good enough quality for me. Then I can fit more songs on the thing .

Skipping wouldn't be caused by songs larger than the iPod's cache size. When this happens, the HD spins throughout the song, which can be a bad thing. According to some people at iPodlounge.com, if you play all your songs that are larger than 22 megs, the battery life would be reduced to only 3 hours.

-z