Gapless Playback

[Mystic_Teuton]

Hi, I have been reading about this for a couple of hours now and would like to clear up a few things.

First, I understand that Ogg Vorbis and LAME encoded mp3s can be played gaplessly with Rockbox.

However, what happens with existing wma or mp3s on my computer, which I might not have a CD for?
Can I convert them into Ogg Vorbis and gain gapless (though with further quality declines)?

How does this compare to iTunes? They seem to have software that recognizes gaps, therefore playing old "non-gapless" mp3s gaplessly, as well as encoding new files with proper gapless provisions. Or am I being too charitable?

Thanks!

[saratoga]

If files are encoded gaplessly, they'll play back gaplessly.  If not, you will need to rerip them from the original CD.

I think the exception is WMA, which probably isn't gapless.

[XavierGr]

If I am not mistaken when you rip from a CD to ogg it should be gapless. For mp3 you will need the lame mp3 encoder.

I suggest using Exact Audio Copy if you use Windows and you need to rip albums that need gapless playback.

I don't think that transcoding from another format that didn't playback gaplessly, will help at all. You could give it a try though just in case.

[Mystic_Teuton]

Thanks for the answers.

I am under the impression the iTunes7 has gap detection software that can eliminate gaps on existing mp3s (in addition to properly coding new rips in the way Ogg Vorbis does).

Is this true?

Does Rockbox have similar features (now or planned)?

[Mystic_Teuton]

I have been browsing HydrogenAudio and people say that iTunes7 does the following:
1. encodes new files with iTunes gapless metadata
2. detects existing LAME gapless tags
3. as a last resort does silence detection, catching files without the above

So basically my question boils down to:
Does Rockbox have silence detection (or some other method) to catch files that were not properly encoded at the beginning?

[XavierGr]

IIRC Rockbox uses LAME gapless tags.

Do yourself a favor and scrap using iTunes. Horrendous piece of software, mostly a bloatware I would say. Stick to something simpler if you are on PC. Something that will take care of ripping/transcoding separately from other tasks. And always, always use LAME for mp3.

[Mystic_Teuton]

Hehe point taken
Instead I have a load of wma files.
If only I had seen the error of my ways earlier.