Not very random playlists
Discussion
[rant]
Theres a silly thing that's been bugging me for ages and maybe someone can shed some light on it ........why is it, if I select random play on Winamp or my MP3 player, the same few tracks seem to crop up more often than the other three thousand or so and some virtually never get played??
They're not corrupted or anything - they play ok - it just seems reluctant to do so, whereas there are some it likes! Even my mobile phone does! Can anyone explain why it's so difficult to make a genuinely random shuffle?
[/rant]
Theres a silly thing that's been bugging me for ages and maybe someone can shed some light on it ........why is it, if I select random play on Winamp or my MP3 player, the same few tracks seem to crop up more often than the other three thousand or so and some virtually never get played??
They're not corrupted or anything - they play ok - it just seems reluctant to do so, whereas there are some it likes! Even my mobile phone does! Can anyone explain why it's so difficult to make a genuinely random shuffle?
[/rant]
The behaviour you're describing is 'random'... that is for each song played pick a random song between 1 and N regardless of what's been played before. What you want is all your songs added in a random order to a playlist so that each song is only played once. I'm pretty sure my rio carbon constructs a randomised playlist, I guess yours doesn't.
Try these plugins for winamp... http://www.winamp.com/plugins/search/?q=random
Try these plugins for winamp... http://www.winamp.com/plugins/search/?q=random
Edited by dern on Thursday 24th May 09:27
unfortunatly, its impossible for computers to be truely 'random'... they cant, their entire being is built on structure, commands and known entities.
Therefore, telling it to 'random', what actually happens is it runs a pre-defined rountine, which probably selects one of many possible hash algorithms, which then re-orders the songs according to this algorithm.
As for why songs might turn up at the start more often than others, and why sometimes you get groups of the album all comes down to how the algorithm was written.
Therefore, telling it to 'random', what actually happens is it runs a pre-defined rountine, which probably selects one of many possible hash algorithms, which then re-orders the songs according to this algorithm.
As for why songs might turn up at the start more often than others, and why sometimes you get groups of the album all comes down to how the algorithm was written.
Fidgits said:
unfortunatly, its impossible for computers to be truely 'random'...
It's not impossible, it's just very hard. Have a look at http://www.answers.com/topic/dev-random. The problem is that in systems as small as MP3 players, or as badly written as Windows, there isn't enough entropy in the system to derive a decent source of random numbers, and you get the behaviour descrived. (BTW, my Creative Zen is exactly the same, and worse still, it always plays the same track as the first one when on random shuffle.)Also, human beings are very poor at spotting randomness. Our brains are evolved to spot patterns, and will create them even when they're not there (that's why we see faces in flames and so on.)
Zumbruk said:
Fidgits said:
unfortunatly, its impossible for computers to be truely 'random'...
It's not impossible, it's just very hard. Have a look at http://www.answers.com/topic/dev-random. The problem is that in systems as small as MP3 players, or as badly written as Windows, there isn't enough entropy in the system to derive a decent source of random numbers, and you get the behaviour descrived. (BTW, my Creative Zen is exactly the same, and worse still, it always plays the same track as the first one when on random shuffle.)Also, human beings are very poor at spotting randomness. Our brains are evolved to spot patterns, and will create them even when they're not there (that's why we see faces in flames and so on.)
I know this, as its a huge issue in the security sector (which i work in) as we need 'true random numbers', which you cannot generate with software. ever.
I think you've both missed the point. Even if the device exhibited true randomness there would still be a chance that tracks were repeated unless a playlist was created where each song was added once and once only.
For example, if you roll a dice 6 times do you get each number appearing once? Possibly, but not probably.
For example, if you roll a dice 6 times do you get each number appearing once? Possibly, but not probably.
Edited by dern on Thursday 24th May 11:47
dern said:
I think you've both missed the point. Even if the device exhibited true randomness there would still be a chance that tracks were repeated unless a playlist was created where each song was added once and once only.
For example, if you roll a dice 6 times do you get each number appearing once? Possibly, but not probably.
Yeah but if the first track of a random playlist is always the same, that's not exactly random is it?For example, if you roll a dice 6 times do you get each number appearing once? Possibly, but not probably.
Edited by dern on Thursday 24th May 11:47
dern said:
I think you've both missed the point. Even if the device exhibited true randomness there would still be a chance that tracks were repeated unless a playlist was created where each song was added once and once only.
For example, if you roll a dice 6 times do you get each number appearing once? Possibly, but not probably.
Thats a seperate issue though.For example, if you roll a dice 6 times do you get each number appearing once? Possibly, but not probably.
Edited by dern on Thursday 24th May 11:47
Thats just the toin coss randomness... even if you flip a coin and get 20 heads, the next flip is still a 50/50 chance.
The issue with computer playlists is that the 'randomness' is governed by an algorithm to appear 'random', and isnt truely random.
dern said:
The OP's question was... "why is it, if I select random play on Winamp or my MP3 player, the same few tracks seem to crop up more often than the other three thousand or so and some virtually never get played??"
Answer: Because it's not random, it's more "Play track 3 five thousands times and then play track 10". Computer software isn't wonderfully random unless serious time is invested in it. ThePassenger said:
dern said:
The OP's question was... "why is it, if I select random play on Winamp or my MP3 player, the same few tracks seem to crop up more often than the other three thousand or so and some virtually never get played??"
Answer: Because it's not random, it's more "Play track 3 five thousands times and then play track 10". Computer software isn't wonderfully random unless serious time is invested in it. What the question should be is, "Why isn't doesn't it flag the song once it's played, so the pseudo-random generator will realise it's already been played and skip onto the next?"
Answer: I don't know, sorry. My mp3 player manages it, so it could just be a software engineering oversight.
Answer: I don't know, sorry. My mp3 player manages it, so it could just be a software engineering oversight.
Tonsko said:
What the question should be is, "Why isn't doesn't it flag the song once it's played, so the pseudo-random generator will realise it's already been played and skip onto the next?"
Answer: I don't know, sorry. My mp3 player manages it, so it could just be a software engineering oversight.
There are two issues here;Answer: I don't know, sorry. My mp3 player manages it, so it could just be a software engineering oversight.
- The crap nature of the random number generator in MP3 players, such that some tracks never get played at all
- Do you want tracks repeated or not. If not, then it isn't random!
ThePassenger said:
dern said:
The OP's question was... "why is it, if I select random play on Winamp or my MP3 player, the same few tracks seem to crop up more often than the other three thousand or so and some virtually never get played??"
Answer: Because it's not random, it's more "Play track 3 five thousands times and then play track 10". Computer software isn't wonderfully random unless serious time is invested in it. Edited by dern on Thursday 24th May 16:17
Zumbruk said:
There are two issues here;
- The crap nature of the random number generator in MP3 players, such that some tracks never get played at all
- Do you want tracks repeated or not. If not, then it isn't random!
Agreed, the RNG is pretty rubbish. However, you can select whether you want to hear the song once, or have it repeated again at some point, have the 'randomness' selected from all songs, the current directory (group of albums) or the album etc. There are a few other options, but I don't have them set.- The crap nature of the random number generator in MP3 players, such that some tracks never get played at all
- Do you want tracks repeated or not. If not, then it isn't random!
Edited by Tonsko on Thursday 24th May 16:49
I've heard before about the lack of true randomness. What gets me is the extent of it - I can load my entire music collection (5000+ songs) and hear the same song twice in, say 30 shuffles. Conversely there are some I never hear.
It seems to be even more exagerated on my MP3 player. That has a lot less tracks (under 100) and I drive to work with it playing every day, yet since the begining of April there were some songs I'd forgotten were on there when I swapped them round last night.
It's not the lack of pure randomness, that get's me, it's the overwhelming naffness of the pseudo-random algorythm they use
It seems to be even more exagerated on my MP3 player. That has a lot less tracks (under 100) and I drive to work with it playing every day, yet since the begining of April there were some songs I'd forgotten were on there when I swapped them round last night.
It's not the lack of pure randomness, that get's me, it's the overwhelming naffness of the pseudo-random algorythm they use
Chris71 said:
I've heard before about the lack of true randomness. What gets me is the extent of it - I can load my entire music collection (5000+ songs) and hear the same song twice in, say 30 shuffles. Conversely there are some I never hear.
It seems to be even more exagerated on my MP3 player. That has a lot less tracks (under 100) and I drive to work with it playing every day, yet since the begining of April there were some songs I'd forgotten were on there when I swapped them round last night.
It's not the lack of pure randomness, that get's me, it's the overwhelming naffness of the pseudo-random algorythm they use
Yeah but if I roll a dice ten times, and get ten 6's in a row, you'd say "that's not very random". Well it is! You can't get much more random than a dice being rolled (unless it's loaded of course). As others have said, what you're really after is a non-random selection whereby a track is ignored if it has already been played, and the random selection is taken from the remaining tunes. Anyhow, I think we're repeating ourselves.....It seems to be even more exagerated on my MP3 player. That has a lot less tracks (under 100) and I drive to work with it playing every day, yet since the begining of April there were some songs I'd forgotten were on there when I swapped them round last night.
It's not the lack of pure randomness, that get's me, it's the overwhelming naffness of the pseudo-random algorythm they use
Maybe we are, but what I don't get is how this still seems to be the case with 5000 tracks, rather than 6 faces on the dice. I know they're "independant" events and so it's as likely that a given track, chosen at random will pop up again as another will do. However, it seems to like specific tracks. Believe it or not, I think my computer has taste.....
Chris71 said:
Maybe we are, but what I don't get is how this still seems to be the case with 5000 tracks, rather than 6 faces on the dice. I know they're "independant" events and so it's as likely that a given track, chosen at random will pop up again as another will do. However, it seems to like specific tracks. Believe it or not, I think my computer has taste.....
I've got to agree - mine seems to always play certain tracks and not others. Would love to hear why, but our ears are probably just good at picking out what we perceive to be patterns when actually there aren't any. Gassing Station | Computers, Gadgets & Stuff | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff