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Skipping Ogg Files

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Denzyl:
Hi All

danhibiki

I have very few MP3 files. But tests on the ones I do have show no skipping, using any of the 3 Rockbox systems I have 19-March-07, 07-March-07 & 16-August-06. I tested this before I started to defragment my X5L HD.

As for my discovery of the skipping when playing over the USB! I have checked the X5L Hard Disc.

Partion Magic showed no errors!
Microsoft Scandisk showed no errors

PerfectDisk showed 103 fragmented files mainly Rockbox system files and wps bitmaps. But also included the Vorbis codec.

So I ran the defrag, the result was interesting, all skipping stopped!

I have now reloaded the Rockbox 19-March-07 system! Then defragmented it!

The results are no skipping! Including playing the file over the USB link by Winamp on the PC!

The Audio Thread debug run on the Ogg file that I tested the first time now gives these results!

The codec is running between 10,000,000 & 12,000,000 out of 12,765,152 falling to a low of 9,000,000 at end of track play

pcm is bouncing between 390,000 & max out of 529,200

pcmbufdesc is pretty steady at 14/21 to 15/21 and switches a lot less than it did before!

CPU frequency is 45Mhz with flashes of 124Mhz

Boost ratio is a constant 16% with no fluctuation like previously at start up, it now goes straight to 16% and stays there.

The only other thing to note was that none of the ogg files that I used for testing were fragmented!

So it looks as if the fragmented system files were the problem!

I am at a bit of a loss over why the tracks skipped when played over the USB link by Winamp on the PC if it was fragmented system files causing the problem?

If I get time I will see if I can deliberately fragment the system files again to see if I can get the tracks to start skipping again!

Denzyl:
Well trying to deliberately fragment files it was harder than I thought, so I gave up!

But as it turns out I think I found the underlying reason for the skips from another accidental discovery!

As part of my attempts to see if it was fragmentation and the placement of system files I used Norton Speed Disc 2005 to move all .Rockbox files to the start of the disc & make sure all music came after it (But not at the end of disc)

The result was unusable!

Rockbox booted slightly faster, but all the music tracks were now unplayable?

The track I have used in all my tests, now had 2 to 3 second leaps, stuttering and silences!

Fearing it had corrupted the file I checked the X5L disc, all secure & uncorrupted. So I dragged the file back to the PC and it played okay?

While looking deeper I found that the directory structure on the X5L disc was very fragmented, I suddenly realised that the problem was due to the disc hunting for files & fragments

So my original problem was minor skips!

Files that had been updated repeatedly, had fragmented and their directory entry was no longer near the file as well.
This meant the disc had to find directory then the file parts = skipping!

Speed Disc meant now that no file was near it's directory entry and in some cases they were at either end of the 23Gb of files I have on the X5L, as this now included the all the music files and folders as well! = Major problems as the disc tried to keep up with X5L's demands!

As a result I re-formatted the X5L drive using the command-line FORMAT command /x & /u. Reloaded the latest Rockbox then added the music.

The result is a rock steady with perfect playback. So I will stop fiddling (for now :) )

Thanks again for all those who answered my original queries, I hope that this insight might be of use, if it is correct of course :)

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