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Other => Technical stuff => Topic started by: Steve on December 28, 2007, 09:10:43

Title: 24 bit playback on ipod classic 80gb
Post by: Steve on December 28, 2007, 09:10:43
I was about to post this in Lara's thread about portable players, but didn't want to derail it, so here goes (mods feel free to move it if you think it should live there).
I recently got a very good 24 bit FLAC recording from dime & spent a while listening to it using winamp (thx for the advice Caley).
But as that didn't really do it justice & I have a fairly nice system at home, I wanted to bung it onto cd & let it rip in my living room in all its glory.
Having done that, I then wanted to have it in my itunes library to synch to my ipod so I can also enjoy it in the car & when out on walks.
So, I converted to wavs, dropped into itunes & then converted to apple lossless, all the time checking the bit rate as I went. So far so good & I now have a 24bit version all tagged in itunes.
I synch up the ipod & all seems to be fine & dandy & yesterday I go for a walk to see a friend to play him the aforementioned show.
BUT!!!
On the ipod, the songs start to break up after 20 secs or so & are simply unlistenable. I re-checked the itunes playback & that is perfect, so is it that the ipod cannot deal with 24 bit playback (even if itunes can)? :?
I posted this on the apple discussions board too, but I thought I'd ask the opinion form people whose opinions I actually consider worthy (ie you lot). :-D
Title: Re: 24 bit playback on ipod classic 80gb
Post by: japanesebaby on December 28, 2007, 16:23:28
i'm generally Apple friendly so i feel like i should be able to say something, but in this case i have to admit i've no idea:
as i've only a pretty old 1 GB iPod myself so 24-bit flacs have been pretty much out of my reach what comes to portable listening devices. :?
anyway i'd be curious to hear what they might have to say on the Apple board...
Title: Re: 24 bit playback on ipod classic 80gb
Post by: Steve on December 28, 2007, 16:46:45
I think they are ignoring me, but then again, they are usually so arrogant there that I am not holding my breath.
Just seems a shame if I need to downsample it, but if I do, then I do.
At least I can get it banging out when I'm at home eh? :smth023
Title: Re: 24 bit playback on ipod classic 80gb
Post by: japanesebaby on December 28, 2007, 16:58:22
Quote from: Steve on December 28, 2007, 16:46:45
I think they are ignoring me, but then again, they are usually so arrogant there that I am not holding my breath.

say no more. i never post any questions on that board anymore, there're some really arrogant pricks over there who think they rule the whole damn world.
i'd be happy to send you a link to some friendly apple community but the only one i use at the moment (and can guarantee for) is in finnish...
maybe i could throw a question over there, though. let's see.
Title: Re: 24 bit playback on ipod classic 80gb
Post by: Steve on December 28, 2007, 17:07:14
That would be triffic.
Cheers, you are an angel  ;)
Title: Re: 24 bit playback on ipod classic 80gb
Post by: japanesebaby on December 28, 2007, 17:56:13
let's see if anyone might react there. might be a bit slow though since it's in the middle of holidays (or hey, since it's a forum for computer nerds, so shouldn't they be more or less present 24/7? ;P)

and sorry if i am insulting your intelligence here (not my intention) but since it's not stated in your story: did you also downsample from 48 to 44.1 when you converted to wavs? i assume so, just asking to be sure.
Title: Re: 24 bit playback on ipod classic 80gb
Post by: Steve on December 28, 2007, 18:44:27
Actually, no I didn't. I didn't want to fcuk up anything in the chain.
Didn't think of that  :oops:
Title: Re: 24 bit playback on ipod classic 80gb
Post by: japanesebaby on December 28, 2007, 18:56:58
yes i see, of course you tried to keep both bitrate and sample rate up there, so naturally you kept it at 48/24.

i really have no clue about this yet but i started wondering whether it might be a sample rate and not bitrate problem (or maybe it's both? :/ ), so i just needed to be sure of all your specs before posting a question anywhere.

Title: Re: 24 bit playback on ipod classic 80gb
Post by: Steve on December 28, 2007, 19:03:06
Oh right.
Okay then here is as much as I can tell you.
Bit rate 1558kbps (apple lossless)
Sample rate 48Khz
Sample size 24bit
Itunes version 7.5.0.20

Ipod sw version is the latest.
Title: Re: 24 bit playback on ipod classic 80gb
Post by: japanesebaby on December 29, 2007, 15:20:06
reporting: it looks like the thread i posted there has a lot of readers, but no replies so far...  :?
Title: Re: 24 bit playback on ipod classic 80gb
Post by: lostflower4 on December 29, 2007, 18:33:04
I have doubts that an iPod can really output 24-bit resolution. My guess would be that it dithers everything down to 16 bits for playback (if it can play at all).

I've never tried it yet...
Title: Re: 24 bit playback on ipod classic 80gb
Post by: Steve on December 29, 2007, 19:39:59
I think that's what it's trying to do Caley, but it just seems a little odd that Itunes does & yet the pod can't.
Prolly the itouch can (even though it has a woefully small memeory, so not gonna hold much 24 bit stuff).
Looks like I just need to downsample to 16bit then & just enjoy the "high res" copy at home  :cry: