MMC - Slow to add new tracks?

[Narler]

Hi,

Doing a test with Razgo, when he adds whole drives (thousands of files) to the MMC it's done in about 2 minutes, but when I select add (mmc screen is empty). it takes over 9 minutes to add only 542 tracks (all mp3) ? (no other tasks operating in the background either. only dap running)

Is there something I can adjust so that it adds tracks faster?.

For example can I get it to just add the path and filename to the MMC, and then during playback have DAP add all the other stuff from the mp3 id tag ONLY when that track is loaded to play?.

It seems that MMC opens each file, reads the ID info and play length, then adds that info with the filename to the mmc display, then moves onto the next mp3 ? Can that be set as an option which can be turned off?.

It is this reason I don't use MMC or Playlist, but prefer to just select OPEN file and tag a whole directory, or just drag'n'drop files into DAP to play them instantly without waiting so long.

Any thoughts Spoon?..

(oh i'll mention. pc is 1.2ghz Pentium 3, 384MB ram, Win98SE, all mp3's are stored on are either U160 SCSI or 7200rpm ide ata-133, sound card is SB-Live, tested using DAP R3B2 (downloading B3 now)

[Spoon]

Not much you can do, when tracks go into MMC they need to be examined and read properly otherwise there is no point to MMC.

[Narler]

Ok, I can appreciate that, although using the quick scan method, then read on play; once the tracks are all played, the MMC list will be filled with all the relevant info, and then if you save the collection, the next time you open it, MMC doesn't check all the tracks it just "assumes" they are all there.

The only downside to this is if users want to immediately play selective (ie genre). but if they are all *new* tracks, then that probably wouldn't happen anyways. On a pre-existing music collection, yea I could see that affecting MMC's abilities, but i'm only concerned about the initial "adding" of new tracks to MMC.

How about an option that once the first track has been read, dap starts playing that track while MMC is collecting the information on all remaining tracks?.. Is that possible?

If not, then I'll just stick to using drag/drop or Open.

[Spoon]

It is everything else, Track Length, frequency, etc they are all read at the same time.

[Narler]

Hi Spoon,

I just did a test: On a 6.5gb hdd, i have 2gb fat16 partitions. On one 2gb parition is 582 mp3 files. (using all 2gb)

I load MMC (currently blank) and I select add tracks, then select this partition. I takes 6 minutes and 7 seconds to add all tracks.

Now I run another test: I use xcopy and time how long it takes to copy all 582 mp3's from this drive to another drive, and it takes 6 minutes and 1 second ? (only 6 seconds faster than MMC !)

So the question I have to ask, is: Does MMC have to load every byte of every mp3 in order to obtain basic information such as track id, time length, bitrate etc ?

I haven't looking into the actual fileformat for mp3's, but having MMC read all files, certainly floggs the hdd's and makes using the PC while MMC is adding/reading tracks very slow.

I also ran a test using my other pc (on a 100mbit network using switched (not just dumb hubs) and cat5 cables), and adding these identical tracks to MMC took 9 minutes and 6 seconds ?.. The irony is the network was only doing a pathetic 2MB/s, but it can easily sustain 9MB/s (i know this because I constantly stream uncompressed live video over it) and it plays back flawlessly, So i can't understand why MMC is even slower over a network?

Tested using Release 3 Beta3.

Thanks.

[Spoon]

It should only read the first 20 frames of the mp3, but everything about mp3 is slow because of the standards - you have first to look for ID3v1 at the back of the file, then Id3v2 at the front, then scan 20 frames incase it is VBR...copying the files the PC will burst read Megabytes - modern hard discs are as quick at giving 1 MB out as 1 byte.

[Spoons]

Re: MMC - Slow to add new tracks?

i know its an old thread but it's relivant to the same problem.

i don't know how wmp handles it but using wmp9 to search the hard drive on my second computer on the network, a 80gig DRIVE, using wi-fi it took 2 hours to scan and collect including subfolders over 13,000 audio files and all the artist/album info and totaling 2.53GIG's worth.

MMC takes 13 min's just to add 13 tracks, and another almost one min to actually play after you press the play button.

do you have a network at home to test on?

[Spoon]

Re: MMC - Slow to add new tracks?

How fast is your network? assuming an mp3 file is 7MB and it takes 60 seconds to start playback, then that is 116KB per second. It is possibly not going to work very well over a wireless network.

[Spoons]

Re: MMC - Slow to add new tracks?

how fast is besides the point at the moment. why? because wmp does it fast.

i press play on wmp9and it plays across the network instantly. dap will take one minute.

see what i mean? i am guessing network speed isn't an issue here becasue it works with the other one.

the reality is you may not understand this until you network yourself to see whats going on.

[Spoons]

Re: MMC - Slow to add new tracks?

my network is 54.0Mbps, i can play a 20meg mp3 across the network in wmp instantly.

with dap i didn't wait it out. it did suck up approx 70% memory trying to load/play the file though.

[Spoon]

Re: MMC - Slow to add new tracks?

>70% memory trying to load/play

Try the new dMC beta, it has a rewritten mp3 decoder.

[Spoons]

Re: MMC - Slow to add new tracks?

it loaded in 30 sec's this time. so a little quicker.

[Spoons]

Re: MMC - Slow to add new tracks?

there is a vast improvement. a folder with 16 tracks only took approx 2 min 15 sec's this time. play time varies from 10 to 30 sec's.

[Spoons]

Re: MMC - Slow to add new tracks?

in wmp it only took a second or two. i turned off their network options thinking that's where they might have improved performance over network but it did't make any difference. it was still fast.

[Spoons]

Re: MMC - Slow to add new tracks?

it would be good if others using a netwrok could do some testing also.

i just tried it again and it is working lightning fast across the network. what changed? buggered if i know.

for some strange reason all the slow tests were with my savage garden mp3's but any other mp3 i choose will load up and play fast across the network.