USB flash drives

[mollie1950]

I have been using USB flash drives for quite a few years for copying and playing music in MP3 format. Can anybody tell me whether some flash drives are more suitable for music than others? I like to put as many albums as I can and play back the tracks in random order. However I find that the more tracks I put on the less likely that the device (stereo) I'm playing them on is able to recognise them all. Something to do with memory I've heard said.
I'm also finding that again the device that I'm playing them on doesn't always play them all back in random order. What I mean is it seems to select tracks that it's already played recently, still randomly, but the same one's I've heard the previous time I used it. When there's several hundred tracks on the drive you'd think that wouldn't hear the same one again for quite A while.  Unless you're a "music head" like I am you may not understand what I'm saying.
Also I've always wondered whether it's advantageous to sync the music via Windows Media Player? I often just copy it direct from my computer to the drive.
Hope I haven't said too much     

[Geek-9pm]

From my own limited experience, I think one should  a high quality player that has its own built-in storage. But it is hard to find what I think is ideal.

Some devices will let you load playlists that you have created yourself. You would make lists that would suit your personal moods. When you fell happy, a list of upbeat songs.  When you are sad, a list of softer, gentle songs. But it should not cost as much as a portable computer.

The current consumer market for portable music  is myopic. The market makers can not see the need for better medium price portable music systems. If you say 'MP3' they assume you are shopping for a thing like the Apple iPod.  It is near impassible to find a portable music system that  will play any kind of media the way you want.

But if you like listening to music with earphones, you can get  a nice Bluetooth headset and set you PC to broadcast music over Bluetooth. That would be much more versicle than  any  portable MP3 player on the sonsumer market.

[mollie1950]

Thanks for your comments Geek-9pm. I'm reasonably happy with the quality of my music when played back on a USB stick in mp3 (320Kbps) format. If it's played on a reasonable quality player it's usually quite good. I like the simplicity, portability and playability . It's just the capabilities(?) of the stick I'm really asking about. Things such are some better than others. Is it better to sync music using WMP rather than just plonking the folders over direct from your computer. It's all in my original post.   

[BC_Programmer]

There is no difference between flash drives that would make one work better for Music than another.

What you are connecting the USB Flash drive to is going to dictate capabilities, not the Flash Drive itself; This is the case for all the features you mentioned (Except capacity, obviously!). The stereo may have capacity limitations, file format limitations, file system limitations, etc. IF you can find the model number it should be possible to determine what limitations it has and how it works with MP3 playback. Stereo's usually have fairly basic capabilities in this regard as tehre isn't a lot of demand for the feature overall.

I'm also finding that again the device that I'm playing them on doesn't always play them all back in random order. What I mean is it seems to select tracks that it's already played recently, still randomly, but the same one's I've heard the previous time I used it. When there's several hundred tracks on the drive you'd think that wouldn't hear the same one again for quite A while.  Unless you're a "music head" like I am you may not understand what I'm saying.

There are LOADS of algorithms for shuffling. Again, it will differ based on the device, What you've described is "full random"; when it plays the next song it chooses it from all songs. What you want is a weighted algorithm where previous played tracks are less likely to play, or where instead of selecting a track from all available tracks, it will disregard the tracks it has already played until it has exhausted all available tracks.

[mollie1950]

Thank you very much, I've finally got the sort of answer I wanted and I've asked the question many times before. So it's a weighted logarithm I'm after? If you don't mind me asking are there any devices out there that will play music randomly using weighted logarithm and how do know? I never seen one that has that sort of information in it's description. 

[BC_Programmer]

Algorithm, not logarithm. It basically means a way of doing things.

I wouldn't know the best way- or even if- the capability can be determined from say a feature sheet. Dedicated Portable MP3 Player's have had the feature for some time, though; The way my two Sony Walkman MP3 Players (Going back to 2007/2008 or so) have worked is that the Shuffle feature basically creates a random "playlist" and then progresses through it so the same file isn't played twice; when it finishes playing them all it reshuffles the list and starts over (if set to repeat). Most PC Media Players work this way as well.

[Salmon Trout]

Shouldn't we be clear about the difference between a "USB flash drive" and a "USB mp3 player"?

[Geek-9pm]

You do not have to have a true random number sequence to snuffle soundtracks.
The goal is to make the list less monotonous by skipping over some tracks and play them later. A true random sequence is not uniform.
 Suppose you have ten tracks. Let the symbol 0 represent ten.
Examples of offsets 1,2,3 and 5.

+1
1234567890

+2
2468013579

+3
3692581470

+7
7418529630

The above playlists have all songs, but in a different order.  So here you can have  four playlists with a different sequence. It does not have to be rocket science.
(I had to count on my fingers, so there might be an error.)

[mollie1950]

Thanks Geek-9pm I'm not quite that smart I'm afraid. Logarithms weren't my thing in in high school and you've lost me on this one, sorry. I know they say something on the net about "batching" and renaming the tracks.

[mollie1950]

Just realised I was barking up the wrong tree. Didn't understand it anyway.

[mollie1950]

Algorithm, not logarithm. It basically means a way of doing things.

I wouldn't know the best way- or even if- the capability can be determined from say a feature sheet. Dedicated Portable MP3 Player's have had the feature for some time, though; The way my two Sony Walkman MP3 Players (Going back to 2007/2008 or so) have worked is that the Shuffle feature basically creates a random "playlist" and then progresses through it so the same file isn't played twice; when it finishes playing them all it reshuffles the list and starts over (if set to repeat). Most PC Media Players work this way as well.

It all gets a bit confusing for me I'm afraid. As I see I have to buy a quality flash drive and not a Chinese cheepie to have any chance at all of things working properly. Music is different than normal data and that's a priority from my experience. I love the computer and how it works but my knowledge is limited and it doesn't look like improving any time soon. I've learned the difference between random and shuffle and a few other things from you guys and I thank you. I also know not to call a logarithm an algorithm or vice versa. . Still like to know though wether there's any advantage in putting music on a flash drive via the sync on Windows Media Player?
   

[Geek-9pm]

If you like WMP and if you like a portable music player, you may like to get them to work gathering.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Media_Player

Windows Media Player (abbreviated WMP) is a media player and media library application developed by Microsoft that is used for playing audio, video and viewing images on personal computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system,

It can organize external devices.

Portable device sync
Windows Media Player allows the user to connect, share and sync data with portable handheld devices and game consoles since version 7. Media can be optionally transcoded to a format better suited for the target device, automatically, when synchronizing. When deleting playlists from devices, Windows Media Player can automatically remove their contents. Devices can be formatted using Windows Media Player 9 Series and later. Version 10 and later support the Media Transfer Protocol and Auto Sync. Auto Sync allows users to specify criteria such as recently added music or highest rated songs, by which media will be automatically synchronized with the portable device and other advanced features like setting the clock on the portable device automatically, communicating with the device to retrieve the user's preferences. Windows Media Player 10 also introduced the UMDF-based Windows Portable Devices API.

In short, the MP3 format has not been universally used until now.there has been a lot of opposition to the widespread use of MP3. And it was not always about audio quality. MP3 suffers from NIH.
(NIH = Not Invented Here.)

If you wish, you can study the early history of MP3 and find that like many innovations there was some very intense competitive interests.
http://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2011/03/23/134622940/the-mp3-a-history-of-innovation-and-betrayal

"I don't like the title 'The Father of MP3,'" says Karlheinz Brandenburg. But he kinda is. "Certainly I was involved all the time from basic research [to] getting it into the market."

 

[BC_Programmer]

Music is different than normal data

Music Files are is no different from any other file. A Flash Drive cannot do anything special at all to improve or change audio quality in any way. (aside from speed, but this is seldom an issue).

Which of course leads into the WMP sync question. WMP sync is just performing the copy for you, so there is no real benefit unless you are actually syncing to a real MP3 Player device and not to a Flash Drive you plan to connect to a stereo (which if I understand is your instance)