Help Audio Skipping, lagging, during playback with stock player Samsung Captivate

[walkerakl]

Just bought my Captivate today, and all things considered, glad I turned in my iPhone 4 today for the exchange. However, I'm having a problem. The music player is a big deal to me, I have lots of songs and listen to it often.

It's been skipping all day today. At first I thought it was when I was scrolling through the song tracks too fast while a track was playing. Played a track, sat the phone down with no positive results. I'm very new to Android, and I'm not into the rooting and all that. I remembered that, unlike iPhone 4, I have to manually stop some processes. I had the live wall paper going so I stopped that, also some other things that didn't have anything to do with the music player I stopped to. Only 3 processes were running at the time. Played some more tracks and the skipping remained.

I've tried to look around here for an answer, nobody has posted anything that's made sense to me (I'm a newbie). Did I just get a bad phone? Should I take it back?

I forgot to mention, I synced all the songs to the Captivate using windows media player with the USB connected in "media player" mode. I don't have an SD card yet. Should I get one? Might this help?

 

[mckooter]

a) it shouldnt be doing that, regardless of the storage, you dont need an sd as you already have a 16gb micro sd (internal)

b) try running a third party music player (you can do this without rooting, the wonders of moving away from iphone). id reccomend MixZing or DoubleTwist. this will give a better idea of wether or not its from the music player or maybe a problem with the phone or sd card, etc

c) another idea, try connecting it in usb storage mode and manually copying over the mp3's (id put them in the /media/ folder) that way we can rule out the sync process too

 

[thejtl]

I hear you. I've had the phone since release day and the audio's been skippy on and off since then. I've tried everything I can think of--task killing, buffer raising, sacrificing chickens, but still the skipping happens just enough to make me grit my teeth and kill something.

I'm an audio guy. I had an iPhone before and, for better or worse, it integrated with my recording setup flawlessly (iMac, Logic Pro). I don't mind having to manually sync music, but I do mind grinding my teeth down every time the damn player stutters and skips. And I can't find anything that tells me what to do.

Here's a link to a thread I started earlier today, FYI. Not a ton of answers, but something to follow.

http://androidforums.com/samsung-captivate/136252-music-jitter-skipping-revisited.html

Good luck and let me know if you come up with anything.

 

[emuneee]

I have found that playing music from the internal SD card causes more skipping than playing from an external microSD card.

 

[pr0virus]

Its from the CPU throttling during playback.

I had the same problem until I noticed while looking at a system panel app that while music was playing my processor would down-clock to 200 sometimes as low as 100mhz.

Got setCPU, set the minimum it would throttle up to 400mhz, kept it on conservative and haven't had a problem.

 

[walkerakl]

The setCPU program that you're talking about -- is it easy to use/install. Where can i get it from? Like I said, I' m very new to Android, but am pretty tech savvy overall. I don't know that I feel comfortable messing with code on my new investment, but with a little guidance I could do it.

The problem is very frustrating. I haven't noticed anything else at all that would even raise an eyebrow with the Captivate. I have a stand along GPS, no connection issues -- but we've been dealing with mp3 players for the better part of fifteen years, how can this one possibly be that screwed up?

 

[thejtl]

Well, crap. I'm not rooted. Not going to until I know if I'm keeping this thing or not. Alas, the ol' Catch 22.

 

[mckooter]

i have absolutely no problems with skipping using MixZing or doubletwist (or beyondpod for podcasts) and dont have setCPU installed. Is it possible that its more related to the built in player's issues with the cpu?

ill admit ive never used the "Music Player" that came with it

 

[Chew]

^^ I've tried a number of different players: Samsung's stock player, MixZing, bTunes, etc.

They all stutter.

 

[pr0virus]

At first I didnt have problems either, but eventually the stuttering got worse and worse. Set the min to 400 and was good to go.

setCPU is very easy to use. Set the minimum bar to 400, check the checkbox, and hit ok. Your set. The phone overall is much snappier and my battery life is still great.

 

[thejtl]

setCPU is very easy to use. Set the minimum bar to 400, check the checkbox, and hit ok. Your set. The phone overall is much snappier and my battery life is still great.

But you have to be rooted, right?

 

[Chew]

Yeah, not everyone is willing to root their phone.

 

[walkerakl]

Yeah, I don't think I'm willing to root it just yet. I did try Mixzing and that helped quite a bit.. in the transfer of media to the phone, all of my album covers and song titles got screwed up -- so that's my next big project.

 

[Reggie3]

I had some problems with video - and it was related to the settings I used to make the videos. Might be a similar issue with the audio that people are converting - the settings may be too fast for the processor to use.

 

[Chew]

For me it isn't: I've pretty much listened to some of the same mp3s for years, through 3 iPods, 2 iPhones, 4-5 other cell phones, etc etc.

This is the first device that has ever stuttered these same files.

 

[pr0virus]

Turning off all or some of the options for (using mixzing) recommendations and album art helps too.

Yea I think its just silly that this phone is so aggressive when it comes to downclocking its rediculous. It should at least stay at a reasonable level when you have music or streaming going on.

 

[walkerakl]

I had some problems with video - and it was related to the settings I used to make the videos. Might be a similar issue with the audio that people are converting - the settings may be too fast for the processor to use.

Are you referring to the bitrates? For instance, 128, 160, 192, or 320 I, a bigger and faster is always better theorist, have mostly 192 songs. Should I convert them to 128 maybe?

 

[thejtl]

Are you referring to the bitrates? For instance, 128, 160, 192, or 320 I, a bigger and faster is always better theorist, have mostly 192 songs. Should I convert them to 128 maybe?

Argh, no. don't convert down. 192 is already pretty low. the bitrate of the files shouldn't have anything to do with this problem.

 

[Chew]

I have found that playing music from the internal SD card causes more skipping than playing from an external microSD card.

I didn't see this post the first time I read the thread, but this seems to have solved my problem (for today at least )

Anyone else with the music stutter issue should move all their music to an external card and give it a try as well.

 

[belyle]

Hey guys, I had this problem too, with the same circumstances as the OP. I found that when I copied the files over using Windows Media Player, it was (poorly) converting them from iTunes format, or aac, to wma. Now, the iTunes music has a funky extension, but it's still an aac file that the Captivate will play. However, wma doesn't play as nicely with the Captivate.

I drag and dropped files directly over and have had 0 problems since then. Skip the middleman (wmp), don't let Windows convert the files (it will probably ask), and your problems should go away.

 

[rurouni572]

Hey guys, I had this problem too, with the same circumstances as the OP. I found that when I copied the files over using Windows Media Player, it was (poorly) converting them from iTunes format, or aac, to wma. Now, the iTunes music has a funky extension, but it's still an aac file that the Captivate will play. However, wma doesn't play as nicely with the Captivate.

I drag and dropped files directly over and have had 0 problems since then. Skip the middleman (wmp), don't let Windows convert the files (it will probably ask), and your problems should go away.

This problem does not go away that simply. I'm a big fan of drag and drop. That's the whole reason I went android, to bypass the mess that is called "iTunes." I drag and dropped all my songs and I got skipping. I switched over to mixzing as well and still got skipping.

I'm sure different people are having different results, but for me, I leave my phone on my desk only playing music in the background with nothing else running and I still get skipping. This is my only gripe with the phone. I'm confident that everything else I have problems with should get fixed with froyo/a gps fix (whenever that rolls around), but I can't see this music skip being any sort of priority on samsung's to-fix list. I suspect it has something to do with SD card communication.

 

[Chew]

^^ Did you try it on an external card?

 

[Sjla2kology101]

if you have a anti virus try removing it... I was experiencing crazy lag and stutter...un Installed my anti virus and so far so good.

 

[rurouni572]

^^ Did you try it on an external card?

Not yet. I'll give that a shot when my 16gb external comes in. I have a 2gb that I could test some songs on but I'd prefer it if I could keep all my music in one location.

But honestly, I shouldn't have to find these workarounds just to get music running. The thing has far more processing power than needed for music. My 5 year old creative zen plays music better than this thing.

 

[clint328]

Its shite mate. Ive got a desire and its doin my friggin head in. Ive even bought a 32g card I so wish Id gone for a Iphone now. The main reason for this phone was for the car and music. Not only skipping but speeding up slowing down, its ruining my music enjoyment. Ill be dragging the classic 20gb Ipod back out tomoz. Its 6yrs old been round the world and still going strong.
Has anyone got a up to date way of sorting this stupid fault out?