Skipping Issue Workaround

[Damion Chaplin]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.zunerama.com/articles_010.php#070104_zune_story' target='_blank'>http://www.zunerama.com/articles_010.php#070104_zune_story</a><br /><br /></div><em>&quot;Some users have found that skipping or stuttering occurs in the first few seconds of songs. The skipping settles down after a few seconds, but then recurs with the next song.&nbsp; Through some collaboration in our Tech Support board, we've found some common characteristics that can cause this. The symptom occurs with Zune players that have been synced to capacity or near-capacity, and where a significant portion of that content has been downloaded through a Zune Pass subscription.&nbsp; We've passed those clues on to Microsoft (via David from Zunester), along with this surprising workaround: <strong>If you set your backlight to Always On, the symptoms disappear</strong>.&quot;</em><br /><br />Yes, 'cause the backlight has oh so much to do with song playback and how much data you've got.&nbsp; I wish I could use the rolley-eyes smiley here.&nbsp; Anyone here encountered this error?&nbsp; I have not, but my Zune is not quite at capacity.&nbsp; This problem will no doubt be fixed in a future firmware update (crosses fingers), but in the meantime, I will be keeping this workaround in mind.

[egads]

Yes I've seen this, but my Zune is less than 10% full and all I have on it are MP3's that I've rip'd :confused:

[NPrtmn4evr]

This happens to my Zune as well. I have about 19 GB remaining in storage, although I do have a lot of songs from using the Zune subscription pass. You can sure bet that I won't be leaving my backlight on all the time. This is something that needs to be fixed soon.

[doug.nelson]

I suspect what is happening is when the backlight is off, overall the system voltage is reduced to conserve battery life. With the newer generation of embedded cpu's the clock rates are also lowered to conserve power. This is the only thing that makes sense.

With the backlight always on but the brightness level set to low, the skipping is still not eliminated and occurs enough to be very annoying. Raising the backlight level to high mimizes the problem. And again, the higher the backlight level, the higher I suspect the system voltage and thus the higher CPU clock rate.

Runing the device with the backlight on high will take the battery life down to about 2.5 hours of play time at best. I bought an AC adapter. Be sure to get the one that is the based on an USB cable, I am able to then power the device from my desktop at work, which is where I mainly listen to the device anyway.

Without the backlight and the device about a 1/3 full, the skipping was occasionaly a problem but tolerable. As the device filled, it became intolerable. With the backlight on, it still happens randomly. I have about a 1/3 content ripped, 2/3 downloaded and my device is full.

One of the other things I have noticed is when a track is a downloaded track, the elasped play time indication is not updating and the buttons are unresponsive. This is most annoying when trying to sample listen to album tracks and then try to skip to the next one. The button clicks are not ignored, when the device finally gets back to processing input, the clicks are then replayed.

It seems that on this forum is about the only place this skipping issue is being discussed. I had hoped the latest 1.2 firmware update would have addressed this issue or the at the very least the www.Zune.Net (http://www.Zune.Net) site should acknowledge that this is a significant problem with these devices. I can not see where getting a replacement device is a good solution for this problem.

I have never had an issue with any of my ripped content. It always plays and the screen does not hesitate at all. That tells me this is an issue with the DRM being decoded as the device is trying to play the song.

I willing to tolerate things being it's a first generation device and I love the quality of the playback, the display is very good. But I wish MS would acknowledge this issue and then get it resolved.