[Jason Dunn]

http://zuneinsider.com/archive/2007/02/01/on-skipping-and-listening-to-the-community.aspx

"A few folks have expressed concern over skipping (Cesar looks at Sportsunit), so I wanted to address that here. If you have a Zune that isn’t skipping (which, truth be told, is the majority of owners), move along, nothing to see here, move along. But if the content from ZMP is skipping on your device, I want to tell you that the team is aware, and is working on it. Overall, the comments on this blog help the Zune team get a feel for what’s really happening out there among Zune users. We’re a new player on the scene, and I think it’s important for the team to stay connected – so, thanks for leaving comments and for the great discussion that goes on here."

Cesar Menendez did up a quick post about the skipping problem - so it seems that the Zune team knows about the problem, but there are no official details from the team as to why it happens. From what I've read in our forums and on other sites, the skipping seems to be linked to Zune Marketplace content, which is why people have wondered about DRM and CPU load being the culprit. Have you had the skipping problem? If so, have you "fixed" it or nailed down what causes it? I've heard bizarre things like it won't skip if you set the back light to always stay on. I wonder how/when the Zune team will address this problem?

[Jason Dunn]

http://zuneinsider.com/archive/2007/02/01/on-skipping-and-listening-to-the-community.aspx

"A few folks have expressed concern over skipping (Cesar looks at Sportsunit), so I wanted to address that here. If you have a Zune that isn’t skipping (which, truth be told, is the majority of owners), move along, nothing to see here, move along. But if the content from ZMP is skipping on your device, I want to tell you that the team is aware, and is working on it. Overall, the comments on this blog help the Zune team get a feel for what’s really happening out there among Zune users. We’re a new player on the scene, and I think it’s important for the team to stay connected – so, thanks for leaving comments and for the great discussion that goes on here."

Cesar Menendez did up a quick post about the skipping problem - so it seems that the Zune team knows about the problem, but there are no official details from the team as to why it happens. From what I've read in our forums and on other sites, the skipping seems to be linked to Zune Marketplace content, which is why people have wondered about DRM and CPU load being the culprit. Have you had the skipping problem? If so, have you "fixed" it or nailed down what causes it? I've heard bizarre things like it won't skip if you set the back light to always stay on. I wonder how/when the Zune team will address this problem?

[NPrtmn4evr]

Glad to see the team is working on the issue. It doesn't seem to happen very often, but it has happened to me on more than one occasion.

I haven't done any sort of actual test to try and figure out what the cause of the problem is, but it really seems to happen more often when I listen to a single album (not shuffled) that I downloaded with my Zune Pass. To combat this problem I've started listening to my Zune on "Shuffle All" and I haven't really noticed the skipping problem since then.

[grommet]

The strange part... it never happens to me, including Marketplace content.

[egads]

I have ZERO Zune Marketplace content on my Zune and it skips on just certain songs that play fine on other devices. It does not do it all of the time, just every once in a while.

[minty]

i have no marketplace stuff either (in the UK)

mine has not skipped.
Isn't it supposed to happen when the zune is almost full?

[jnoel]

Mine skips all the time!

95% of my content is ZunePass. I have a lot of Photo's on my zune (~4,000) and it is about 30% full.

I tend to wonder if it is an issue with fragmentation of the hard drive....

[umbrage]

I've dealt with a skipping problem, but I don't know if it's the skipping problem. Mine happens when the song starts, and persists for maybe 5 - 15 seconds. There's no correlation with its position in a playlist, or file size, as far as I can tell. I'm also 99% certain it has happened with non-ZMP music as well.

My Zune currently has around 11 GB of material, mostly music.

Honestly, though, they have a ways to go with the OS's responsiveness when a song isn't in memory. When loading a new playlist, or moving backwards in one, the interface usually blocks for a while - if you watch the timer, you'll see it jump from 0:02 to say 0:08 or so while it's presumably throwing the entire playlist into memory from the HD. During this time, button presses are either ignored, or worse queued up and pretty much executed in a batch once the Zune starts responding again.

So when this happens every time I load a new playlist, and to a lesser extent every time I go back to the previous song...it wouldn't be surprising in the least if the file gets corrupted a bit while loading it. Who knows what the Zune's trying to do in those six seconds.

They just need more time to figure out the most efficient way to do things with the hardware, because it's always a tradeoff between responsiveness and preserving battery life with a HD-based player.

Originally Posted by jnoel

I tend to wonder if it is an issue with fragmentation of the hard drive....

I really doubt it...the seek and read times on hard drives, even a 4200 RPM one like the one in the Zune, are super-fast (around 15 ms). The entire song is probably loaded into memory within a second. So it's not like the song is skipping because the Zune hasn't found the next block to read.

[egads]

Originally Posted by egads

I have ZERO Zune Marketplace content on my Zune and it skips on just certain songs that play fine on other devices. It does not do it all of the time, just every once in a while.

More info,

I have no pictures, no movies, and I'm about 20% full.

[eufreka]

Originally Posted by jnoel

Mine skips all the time!

95% of my content is ZunePass. I have a lot of Photo's on my zune (~4,000) and it is about 30% full.

I tend to wonder if it is an issue with fragmentation of the hard drive....

Yep!

Tons of Marketplace content (subscription is great!); just about full. Some video, bunch of photos...

Actually, the skipping gets worse after the first 3-4 tracks... But if you are actively interacting with the device as tracks start, it doesn't seem to happen...so I vote for the whole cpu/drm conspiracy theory...