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Windows 10 Pro, KODI 18.4.
I have a problem with the start of play for music tracks. It's less than one second, but enough to chop off the beginning of a song. I've had this problem since Eden and am now on my 4th build of KODI on different computers. (I know, why have I waited so long.) It was an annoyance to me but now my sister wants me to fix hers. I haven't found a similar problem with a search, which is surprising given all the builds I've done.
I've tried changing just about every setting I can find related to music playback, but perhaps it's right there in front of me and I'm to stupid to recognize it. Any ideas?
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Not a problem with files. They all play fine in other media players. If I skip back to the beginning of the file after it's been playing for 20 seconds or so, it starts normally, but the next time it gets to a song, automatically or manually, there's that delay. Funny that I'm the only one to report this. It must be a combination of settings that cause this. If I find the fix I'll report back.
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OK, I've done some testing and here's what I found out, at least in my case.
Hardware is a big contributor to the problem, as is the bitrate of the music file. My main KODI system is an Intel NUC with an i5-7260U CPU (2.20/3.40 GHz) running Windows 10. My media files are on standard Seagate Barracuda 8TB drives loaded into a 4-disc USB 3.0 chassis -- not a NAS setup, just a bunch of disks (JBOD). I have MP3s, 16-Bit FLACs, amd 24-Bit FLACs. In this configuration I have the biggest delay, maybe 1/2 second, which is enough to cut off the beginning notes on songs that start quickly. The 24-bit FLACs (at bitrates as high as 3000+ kbps) are the worst. MP3s, on the other hand, see almost no delay. (NOTE: The drive with my music files is the newest drive in the system.)
Just removing the hard drive from the multi-disc chassis and loading into a docking station is a big improvement, but not enough to eliminate the delay entirely on 16-bit and 24-bit FLAC files. However, I loaded a few files on the NUCs SSD system drive, and that did the trick.
I decided to see what would happen on my main system, an i7-8700K 6-CPU system (3.70/4.70 GHz) with a Barracuda Pro (7200 rpm) 8TB drive on the SATA bus. No problems with any media (no surprise).
Other than finding a faster multi-disc chassis and possibly faster drives, I don't see an easy solution to playing the higher bitrate files. Perhaps if there was a way to buffer the beginning of songs before they start, but I have no idea if that is even possible, let alone how to do it.
There's one bit of good news. I changed the delay in the Skip Delay settings in the Player module of Settings to zero, and that had a small yet noticeable improvement, although I don't know why.
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It was most likely from the begining that the issue was something local to your system, thanks for reporting back to confirm that.
High quality sound is important to me, has been for decades (on this forum "audiophile" has a negative connotation used for those with some idiot ideas about digital processing that they agressively rant about, so I'm not going to call myself that!). Frankly I have never heard any benefit from higher and higher bitrates, for my ears at least the CDDA standard hit a sweet spot for what is percievable. There are differences in recordings and mastering for sure, I can hear the difference made by audio equipment including CD transports and digital interconnect cables etc. (as near to snake oil as I go). So do check first that the pursuit of high bitrate music audio sources is something that you care about and can hear, and then if it is you need to get yourself a system setup fast enough to handle it.
I'm not telling you what you can hear, only you know that, just suggesting you check.
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Ummm, there will inevitably be some (slight) delay as sata is bridged to usb. The docking station thing is interesting though. I'll dig mine out and shove a disk into it with some high bitrate FLAC's on it and see if I can reproduce. I have several albums that should play back with absolutely no gaps in the audio.
Perhaps I should add that currently these files are streamed over LAN to Kodi and yet I'm not experiencing any playback issues. Lets see if the docking station (sata/pata to usb2) reveals anything useful.
Learning Linux the hard way !!
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helta
Posting Freak
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hurricane51: just out of curiosity, do you have anything your advancedsettings.xml file?