ok, so here's the sketch - I've spent the last couple of months gradually
digitising my ageing 7" single collection for the following reasons -
a) save the vinyl from wearing out any more by playing the wav's
b) save my lazy ass from having to keep getting up to change the record
d) play them anywhere on the house over the LAN
c) take the music out of the house with me on my mp3 player

I now have over 350 tracks in the library (average 3mins each = nearly 18hrs
of music) , so I would expect NOT to hear the same track more than once in a
4 hour listening session!!!

and yet, MP11 with it's two-bob shuffle algorithm keeps managing to turn up
the same tracks time after time!

oi! coders - sort it out!

anyone know of a media player that actually has a proper shuffle/random play
feature?!?

On Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:37:01 -0700, shuffle-my-sainted-aunt
<shuffle-my-sainted-aunt@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>ok, so here's the sketch - I've spent the last couple of months gradually
>digitising my ageing 7" single collection for the following reasons -
>a) save the vinyl from wearing out any more by playing the wav's
>b) save my lazy ass from having to keep getting up to change the record
>d) play them anywhere on the house over the LAN
>c) take the music out of the house with me on my mp3 player
>
>I now have over 350 tracks in the library (average 3mins each = nearly 18hrs
>of music) , so I would expect NOT to hear the same track more than once in a
>4 hour listening session!!!


Astonishingly, it could *easily* happen : 350 is about the same
ballpark as the chances of finding 2 people in a room with the same
birthday, and it's just basic statistics.

This article explains why (350 is newar enough to 365 days to be a
good representation) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem and
it means if you played *only* 23 tracks - just over an hour - there
could be the same track coming up again...

WMP doesn't keep track of what's been played so it could be a random
aberration (though lots of people have complained about this)


>and yet, MP11 with it's two-bob shuffle algorithm keeps managing to turn up
>the same tracks time after time!
>
>oi! coders - sort it out!
>
>anyone know of a media player that actually has a proper shuffle/random play
>feature?!?


Media Monkey could be worth a look : http://www.mediamonkey.com/

HTH
Cheers - Neil
------------------------------------------------
Digital Media MVP : 2004-2009
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/mvpfaqs

shuffle-my-sainted-aunt is talking about shuffle, not random.

Random mode could play the same song back-to-back or several times in an hour and is usually NOT what people want when playing music.

Shuffle mode, on the other hand, works (or should work) just like a deck of cards:

Shuffle cards (random order) and deal the cards one at a time.
Once a card is dealt, nobody else will receive the same card.
Once all cards have been dealt, shuffle again and repeat process.

Windows Media Player's Shuffle Mode bites because every time I fire it up I hear many of the same songs over and over, while other songs in my playlist have never been played or played only once.

P.S. - WMP does keep track of what's been played.

I believe that WMP's shuffle mode really *is* shuffle, but not among two
different sessions. If you start playing a different playlist, or exit
WMP, the shuffle information of the current playlist is lost.

You could create an Auto Playlist for this in WMP, with a condition like
"Date Last Played is before 30 days", and shuffle that playlist instead.

Regards

--
Tim De Baets
http://www.bm-productions.tk

undisclosed wrote:
> shuffle-my-sainted-aunt is talking about shuffle, not random.
>
> Random mode could play the same song back-to-back or several times in
> an hour and is usually NOT what people want when playing music.
>
> Shuffle mode, on the other hand, works (or should work) just like a
> deck of cards:Shuffle cards (random order) and deal the cards
> one at a time.
> Once a card is dealt, nobody else will receive the same card.
> Once all cards have been dealt, shuffle again and repeat process.
> Windows Media Player's Shuffle Mode bites because every time I
> fire it up I hear many of the same songs over and over, while other
> songs in my playlist have never been played or played only once.
>
> P.S. - WMP _does_ keep track of what's been played.
>
>

Tim, thanks for the suggestion but I don't want to exclude music that was played recently, I just don't want to hear it until I have listened to the other songs that haven't been played as much.

Back to shuffling,... As an experiment, I deleted my WMDB file since that is the only way I could figure out how to "reset" the play counts and ratings for my music library.

I opened up WMP and started one of my playlists in shuffle mode. I listened for a few hours and it *DID* appear to be shuffling correctly. However, I noticed that even though shuffle is turned on, WMP will always start your playlist with the first song. If left alone, this creates a lot of play counts for the first song in the playlist.

Additionally, WMP will increase the rating as the play count increases and for some odd reason (mediocre algorithm?) certain songs will be played more often than others over time.

Does anyone know if there is a way in WMP to start shuffle with a random seed so it doesn't start with the same song every time *AND* take into consideration the play count?

Ultimately, I don't want to know what's coming next and I don't want to hear certain songs more than others. That's what we have the radio for

undisclosed wrote:
> Tim, thanks for the suggestion but it appears that auto playlists cannot
> accommodate "or" criteria. Meaning, I wanted an auto playlist of
> multiple genres: "Death Metal", "Metal", etc. It seems like this doesn't
> work.

Auto playlists do support OR functionality; see
http://thewelltemperedcomputer.com/SW/WMP/Playlist.htm

> I opened up WMP and started one of my playlists in shuffle mode. I
> listened for a few hours and it *DID* appear to be shuffling correctly.
> However, I noticed that even though shuffle is turned on, WMP will
> always start your playlist with the first song. If left alone, this
> creates a lot of play counts for the first song in the

Indeed, the same always happens on my system, so this is probably just a
small bug. I know it's annoying, but you just have to remember to skip
the first song each time you're starting playback.

> Additionally, WMP will increase the rating as the play count increases
> and for some odd reason (mediocre algorithm?) certain songs will be
> played more often than others over time.

I don't have any experience with the auto rating system as it seems
pretty useless to me. Also, I haven't really noticed that certain songs
are played more often. The shuffle algorithm used by WMP isn't perfect,
and that's probably what you're seeing here.

--
Tim De Baets
http://www.bm-productions.tk