IPOD question

[marcello]

You can always play the songs in a alphabetical order. That will mix the shit up unless you have 20 versions of 'Round Midnight.

[md655321]

You can always play the songs in a alphabetical order. That will mix the shit up unless you have 20 versions of 'Round Midnight.

Only seven versions for me at the moment.

Rod, how do you know its random though? Do you really know how its programmed? I, quite often, get 2 or even 3 songs in a row by the same artist. When you are talking 7500 songs and i get 2 straight by an artist i only have ten songs of, that is kinda odd. Usually I am pro'your mind is wrong and the computer is right' but this has simply happened on SOOO many occasions. And ALOT of other people have had the same complaints.

Hey, its could still definitely by our minds playing tricks on us, im just wondering if you know exactly how apple does it.

[rostasi]

Rod, how do you know its random though?

It's become kind of a humorous topic that's come up so much on various Apple forums

and in the various magazines, NPR, and even a thesis. Here's one from Newsweek from a year ago.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6854309/site/newsweek/

I'll try to find the funny article that quotes Steve Jobs' comments about

how people don't seem to really want true randomness,

but, rather less randomness in order to give people the feeling that it is random -

He tells of the frustrations that the tech guys were going thru trying to implement this random function.

BTW, in the newer versions of iTunes, there is almost a kind of

"explanation" that was born out of these discussions about randomness.

In it's playback preferences, it now has an explanation of what the "smart shuffle"

feature does:

Notice that "random" is smack dab in the middle.

From a personal point of view - I know that just a few years of use isn't really a lot of time -

but I've done my own tests with files that have been given numbers for names -

sometimes songs, sometimes artists - and carefully looking at what comes up both on mine

and my sweetheart's iPod. it seems to really be as close to true randomness as is necessary

for an item like this (after all, it is not generally used for physics or astronomical calculations).

When it comes to true randomness, you should be more surprised that it hasn't

played the same song twice in a row! Which, if it hasn't happened yet, will eventually happen.

Also, tho the above article uses "Wilco" as an example of repeated artists

(tho the "Steely Dan" ref is closer to believable - the letter "s" being one of the most frequent letters),

if the random element is "artist-name" centric in it's decisions, then it's more likely that you'll get,

as I said before, more Monk than Zorn even if you have half the amount of Monk.

Random calculations based on mathematics alone

have a tendency to favor the center 67 to 75% of the spectrum.

This has some flexibility based on various quantities of course, but in general this is the rule.

Edited January 19, 2007 by rostasi

[makpjazz57]

Wow! This is all great info. My 20GB iPOD (R.I.P.) was very good at doing random. I purchased an interim solution 'til I can get the 80GB, a SanDisk 2 GB player and I love it for now, but maybe because it holds less tunes, the SanDisk is not doing very good at random (or perhaps it is my lack of knowledge of programming this model).

I appreciate all the input regarding features, protective cases, where to go for a good deal on an iPOD, etc.

Marla

[rostasi]

Wow! This is all great info. My 20GB iPOD (R.I.P.) was very good at doing random. I purchased an interim solution 'til I can get the 80GB, a SanDisk 2 GB player and I love it for now, but maybe because it holds less tunes, the SanDisk is not doing very good at random (or perhaps it is my lack of knowledge of programming this model).

Hi Marla, don't worry, it has little to do with anything that you're doing.

A player that holds one-tenth the amount of info will naturally seem to appear to be less "random"

(actually, I think that you mean "chaotic" or a "least likely" scenario).

You're 80GB will appear more "random" than your 20GB and this continues as the storage increases.

This seems to be one of the reasons that many folks like a larger and larger size.

Even tho it is downright difficult to actually go thru a large iPod's complete library

(the library seems to too easily reset to track 1 after some basic routines -

song transfers, recharges, etc.), the larger the storage, the less likely that you'll

seem to get repeating songs, artists, et al.

[makpjazz57]

Thanks for the clarification, Rod. I'm looking forward to buying the 80GB two weeks from today, if all goes well. Believe it or not, the first order of business will be to see if I can add some of my jazz videos. to the iPOD. I know I may need to get some kind of conversion software. I tried it on my little SanDisk player and it worked - in fact, the SanDisk player software had converter software and I was able to see my videos on the Sandisk player. Of course, with only 2 GBs to work with, I immediately deleted! Hopefully, the iPOD will have an easy video converter interface, but somehow I doubt it!

I am looking forward to being able to load lots more of my jazz collection on the 80GB. With about 1,000 jazz CDs now doubtful I'll be able to do load all of them!

Marla

[.:.impossible]

I'm still rocking the 3G 20GB ipod. It is scratched to hell and has a sticker on the back from when I sent it in to have the battery replaced in 2004 under warranty. I just had the battery replaced again under the class action suit and have retired it to the car. I installed a USA Spec that my wife gave me for Christmas. I'm thinking this ipod will last a long time now that I am never using the battery anymore.

Honestly, I wasn't much of a walkman type of person anyway. I have always wanted to be able to use this thing in the car and FM transmitters just weren't worth a damn.

As the 3G 20GB ipod reaches 'classic' status, I am using it more than ever before.

My other new toy is the Squeezebox. Man, this thing is great. Rod, how can I find your rodcasts???

[rostasi]

I'm still rocking the 3G 20GB ipod. It is scratched to hell and has a sticker on the back from when I sent it in to have the battery replaced in 2004 under warranty. I just had the battery replaced again under the class action suit and have retired it to the car. I installed a USA Spec that my wife gave me for Christmas. I'm thinking this ipod will last a long time now that I am never using the battery anymore.

Tell me about this "USA Spec" thing? Been using a cassette adapter (which is better than the FM transmitter which I use in rentals).

For one week in my old car, I had a direct link that was great! (but I sold the car soon afterwards).

Rod, how can I find your rodcasts???

It's always listed in my sig file under each post. If you have sigs off, then you can click here.

If the link doesn't open up for you,

then you can put the address directly in your favorite audio player.

I've bought a simple router that I have to make some adjustments to,

but until the time comes when I'm fiddling with that,

you should be able to listen now.

[mjzee]

For a while now, I've suspected that the "random" feature on my iPod wasn't really random.

Thanks for sharing this, but as a guy who's devoted his life to

randomness and statistics I can tell you that the iPod random feature

is as close to random as can be without using physics or astronomical methods.

Hmmm. For now, I respectfully disagree. Remember, I'm referring here to the iPod, not iTunes (which is very satisfying from a random selection perspective). Although I had suspected the iPod's limited randomness for some time (why does it always play Louis Armstrong/Fred Astaire/Sil Austin, but some other artists almost never?), what really ticked me off was that I purchased from iTunes "The Bob Dylan Collection"...literally every song Bob recorded and released, almost 800 songs. I did a wipe of the iPod's hard drive and reloaded using iTunes to select the songs at random, and not a single Dylan song from the Collection loaded. That's when I reviewed what did load, and noticed that it transferred whole albums only.

[rostasi]

That's when I reviewed what did load, and noticed that it transferred whole albums only.

OK, I've read this explanation over and over and I don't know what you mean by this last statement.

What do you mean by "it" - that your iTunes transferred just full albums to your iPod?

If that's the case, then you've got your settings set to "albums" in your iTunes for the shuffle feature

(or even possibly "Groupings").

I, of course, understand that we're talking about iPods here - check the Newsweek article link -

or dozens of other articles concerning the iPod's shuffle feature.

[.:.impossible]

Tell me about this "USA Spec" thing? Been using a cassette adapter (which is better than the FM transmitter which I use in rentals).

For one week in my old car, I had a direct link that was great! (but I sold the car soon afterwards).

USA Spec

Rod, I think USA Spec and direct link are synonymous. I just couldn't deal with the FM transmitter. Constantly looking for a clean frequency to use. I hated it.

My wife found the USA Spec parts on ebay for half price. Definitely look there.

[rostasi]

USA Spec

Rod, I think USA Spec and direct link are synonymous. I just couldn't deal with the FM transmitter. Constantly looking for a clean frequency to use. I hated it.

My wife found the USA Spec parts on ebay for half price. Definitely look there.

Great! Thanks for the link.

Yeah, FM transmitters are a pain. I'm glad that my car still has a cassette player,

but even with those adapters you have to change them out every 6 months or so

'cause they get all loose and rattling.

[.:.impossible]

Alright. Back to the random feature. Last night I hit shuffle, then play in itunes and got to work. First song, "Baby's Home" The Lemonheads.

Tonight I hit shuffle, then play in itunes and got to work. First song, "Baby's Home" The Lemonheads.

Smart Shuffle is set right down the middle. I have 99.58GB in itunes all ripped 256k vbr. What are the odds Rod??? Nuts.