VLC 3.0.1 seems to run the same algorithm on random play audio files?.

[j***@astraweb.com]

i have a playlist of some 700 songs and it seem that i can count on the same ones playing in the first
few hours.. (it has a 56 hour play time, according to the calculations of the VLC player)

I can watch the playlist bounce around the list as one finishes so it is not sequential.

Is there a way to prevent this?

[David E. Ross]

Post by j***@astraweb.com
i have a playlist of some 700 songs and it seem that i can count on the same ones playing in the first
few hours.. (it has a 56 hour play time, according to the calculations of the VLC player)
I can watch the playlist bounce around the list as one finishes so it is not sequential.
Is there a way to prevent this?

The current version is VLC 3.0.11.

The toolbar at the bottom of the VLC window has a "Random" button. Do
not select it. If that is not selected, then your playlist should play
in the order listed when you select the "Toggle playlist" button.
--
David E. Ross
<http://www.rossde.com/>

A prayer for the days leading towards the Jewish holy days.

For those who hate, Let there be no hope,
And may all derision and disdain perish in an instant.
May intolerance be swiftly cut down.
May You quickly uproot, crush, cast down, and humble the arrogant,
Speedily in our days.
Blessed are You, Adonai, Who destroys enemies and humbles the arrogant.
— Alden Solovy

Heed this, President Trump!

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

On Thu, 17 Sep 2020 at 07:42:08, David E. Ross

Post by David E. Ross

Post by j***@astraweb.com
i have a playlist of some 700 songs and it seem that i can count on
the same ones playing in the first
few hours.. (it has a 56 hour play time, according to the
calculations of the VLC player)
I can watch the playlist bounce around the list as one finishes so it is not sequential.
Is there a way to prevent this?

The current version is VLC 3.0.11.
The toolbar at the bottom of the VLC window has a "Random" button. Do
not select it. If that is not selected, then your playlist should play
in the order listed when you select the "Toggle playlist" button.

I think he _wants_ a "random" order (so that he doesn't know what's
coming next), but without repeats. Some randomizers (I don't know about
VLC's one) offer this, with varying lengths of not-repeat (single
session, up to complete [i. e. never repeat a track until all others
have been played]).

I think most randomisers have at least some element of not-repeat, since
when the function was initially offered, people sometimes got the same
track twice in a row (which they sometimes would, for a truly random
selection!), and most people didn't like that.

[David E. Ross]

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
On Thu, 17 Sep 2020 at 07:42:08, David E. Ross

Post by David E. Ross

Post by j***@astraweb.com
i have a playlist of some 700 songs and it seem that i can count on
the same ones playing in the first
few hours.. (it has a 56 hour play time, according to the
calculations of the VLC player)
I can watch the playlist bounce around the list as one finishes so
it is not sequential.
Is there a way to prevent this?

The current version is VLC 3.0.11.
The toolbar at the bottom of the VLC window has a "Random" button. Do
not select it. If that is not selected, then your playlist should play
in the order listed when you select the "Toggle playlist" button.

I think he _wants_ a "random" order (so that he doesn't know what's
coming next), but without repeats. Some randomizers (I don't know about
VLC's one) offer this, with varying lengths of not-repeat (single
session, up to complete [i. e. never repeat a track until all others
have been played]).
I think most randomisers have at least some element of not-repeat, since
when the function was initially offered, people sometimes got the same
track twice in a row (which they sometimes would, for a truly random
selection!), and most people didn't like that.

Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 x64
VLC 3.0.11 x64

Aha! So I started a playlist of 41 relatively short .mp4 files and
selected the Random button but not the button for looping. After a
while and before all files had played, I indeed started getting repeats.
In the VLC forum, this is the topic at
<https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=153301&p=508868#p503050>,
which started last April.
--
David E. Ross
<http://www.rossde.com/>

A prayer for the Jewish holy days.

For those who hate, Let there be no hope,
And may all derision and disdain perish in an instant.
May intolerance be swiftly cut down.
May You quickly uproot, crush, cast down, and humble the arrogant,
Speedily in our days.
Blessed are You, Adonai, Who destroys enemies and humbles the arrogant.
— Alden Solovy

Heed this, President Trump!

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

On Tue, 29 Sep 2020 at 10:55:38, David E. Ross
[]

Post by David E. Ross

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
I think most randomisers have at least some element of not-repeat, since
when the function was initially offered, people sometimes got the same
track twice in a row (which they sometimes would, for a truly random
selection!), and most people didn't like that.

Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 x64
VLC 3.0.11 x64
Aha! So I started a playlist of 41 relatively short .mp4 files and
selected the Random button but not the button for looping. After a
while and before all files had played, I indeed started getting repeats.
In the VLC forum, this is the topic at
<https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=153301&p=508868#p503050>,
which started last April.

Did you get any instances of the same file twice in succession, though?
(Preventing that would only involve remembering what the previous track
was, not a whole tick-list. Preventing a repeat with only one
intervening would involve remembering the last two, and so on. Probably
no repeats within say four or five would keep most people happy.)

[David E. Ross]

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
On Tue, 29 Sep 2020 at 10:55:38, David E. Ross
[]

Post by David E. Ross

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
I think most randomisers have at least some element of not-repeat, since
when the function was initially offered, people sometimes got the same
track twice in a row (which they sometimes would, for a truly random
selection!), and most people didn't like that.

Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 x64
VLC 3.0.11 x64
Aha! So I started a playlist of 41 relatively short .mp4 files and
selected the Random button but not the button for looping. After a
while and before all files had played, I indeed started getting repeats.
In the VLC forum, this is the topic at
<https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=153301&p=508868#p503050>,
which started last April.

Did you get any instances of the same file twice in succession, though?
(Preventing that would only involve remembering what the previous track
was, not a whole tick-list. Preventing a repeat with only one
intervening would involve remembering the last two, and so on. Probably
no repeats within say four or five would keep most people happy.)

I had no immediate repeats or repeats after only one different.

My saved VLC playlists are in .xspf files, which are actually xml files.
After some introductory markups, there is a tracklist section
containing a track element for each .mp4 file. Each track element
contains a vlc:id sub-element that is merely a unique sequence number.
After the tracklist section is an extension section that lists the
sequence numbers as vlc:item elements.

I would design playing a playlist to use the extension section in the
order listed, using a temporary copy of that section. With the Random
button selected, however, I would randomly (pseudo-randomly) rearrange
the vlc:item elements when making the temporary copy.

If the looping button is NOT selected, playing would stop when the last
vlc:item is used. Thus, no file would be played twice before all the
other files were played. If the looping button is selected, a new
randomized temporary copy of the vlc:item elements should be generated
for each loop. Yes, this might cause the last file played during one
loop to become the first played in the next loop; but with my playlist
of 41 files, there would be only a 1/41 chance of that happening if the
randomizer were reasonably good.

NOTE: An encryption application that I use depends on a randomizer. It
does not use a mathematical random number generator, which would be
deterministic. Instead, it collects random data from many sources on my
PC, including mouse positions, timings, and keystrokes.
--
David E. Ross
<http://www.rossde.com/>

A prayer for the days leading towards the Jewish holy days.

For those who hate, Let there be no hope,
And may all derision and disdain perish in an instant.
May intolerance be swiftly cut down.
May You quickly uproot, crush, cast down, and humble the arrogant,
Speedily in our days.
Blessed are You, Adonai, Who destroys enemies and humbles the arrogant.
— Alden Solovy

Heed this, President Trump!

[j***@astraweb.com]

Post by David E. Ross

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
On Tue, 29 Sep 2020 at 10:55:38, David E. Ross
[]

Post by David E. Ross

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
I think most randomisers have at least some element of not-repeat, since
when the function was initially offered, people sometimes got the same
track twice in a row (which they sometimes would, for a truly random
selection!), and most people didn't like that.

Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 x64
VLC 3.0.11 x64
Aha! So I started a playlist of 41 relatively short .mp4 files and
selected the Random button but not the button for looping. After a
while and before all files had played, I indeed started getting repeats.
In the VLC forum, this is the topic at
<https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=153301&p=508868#p503050>,
which started last April.

Did you get any instances of the same file twice in succession, though?
(Preventing that would only involve remembering what the previous track
was, not a whole tick-list. Preventing a repeat with only one
intervening would involve remembering the last two, and so on. Probably
no repeats within say four or five would keep most people happy.)

I had no immediate repeats or repeats after only one different.
My saved VLC playlists are in .xspf files, which are actually xml files.
After some introductory markups, there is a tracklist section
containing a track element for each .mp4 file. Each track element
contains a vlc:id sub-element that is merely a unique sequence number.
After the tracklist section is an extension section that lists the
sequence numbers as vlc:item elements.
I would design playing a playlist to use the extension section in the
order listed, using a temporary copy of that section. With the Random
button selected, however, I would randomly (pseudo-randomly) rearrange
the vlc:item elements when making the temporary copy.
If the looping button is NOT selected, playing would stop when the last
vlc:item is used. Thus, no file would be played twice before all the
other files were played. If the looping button is selected, a new
randomized temporary copy of the vlc:item elements should be generated
for each loop. Yes, this might cause the last file played during one
loop to become the first played in the next loop; but with my playlist
of 41 files, there would be only a 1/41 chance of that happening if the
randomizer were reasonably good.
NOTE: An encryption application that I use depends on a randomizer. It
does not use a mathematical random number generator, which would be
deterministic. Instead, it collects random data from many sources on my
PC, including mouse positions, timings, and keystrokes.

Interesting that you noticed the sub-element (exhibit a)
it would have to reformatted to be good for more than 9 iterations of non-repetitive playing, otherwise
1, then 10, then 100 return the same value of '1' for the first byte.
(IOW, throw it into a numeric field of whatever you call working storage in a PC program, and compare it
there.)
Exhibit a --
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<playlist xmlns="http://xspf.org/ns/0/" xmlns:vlc="http://www.videolan.org/vlc/playlist/ns/0/"
version="1">
<title>Playlist</title>
<trackList>
<track>

<location>file:///C:/Users/Jasar/Music/soft%20rock%20playlist/Watching-nPSGX433T94.mp3</location>
<duration>120633</duration>
<extension application="http://www.videolan.org/vlc/playlist/0">
<vlc:id>0</vlc:id>
</extension>
</track>
<track>

<location>file:///C:/Users/Jasar/Music/soft%20rock%20playlist/On%20the%20Mend-mNWmz_XSxCM.mp3</location>
<duration>125205</duration>
<extension application="http://www.videolan.org/vlc/playlist/0">
<vlc:id>1</vlc:id>
</extension>
</track>
<track>

<location>file:///C:/Users/Jasar/Music/soft%20rock%20playlist/Melody-yGuyuN4un7I.mp3</location>
<duration>132963</duration>
<extension application="http://www.videolan.org/vlc/playlist/0">
<vlc:id>2</vlc:id>
</extension>
~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~
<track>

<location>file:///C:/Users/Jasar/Music/soft%20rock%20playlist/You%20-%20Instrumental-rQF5MLbFmYE.mp3</location>
<duration>174969</duration>
<extension application="http://www.videolan.org/vlc/playlist/0">
<vlc:id>10</vlc:id>
</extension>
</track>

(I hope the exhibit does not scrunch up into unreadability. Also, JP, thanks for the bit on "Truly
Random" I think that goes a waqy towards answering the original question)

[Char Jackson]

On Tue, 29 Sep 2020 19:49:12 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
On Tue, 29 Sep 2020 at 10:55:38, David E. Ross
[]

Post by David E. Ross

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
I think most randomisers have at least some element of not-repeat, since
when the function was initially offered, people sometimes got the same
track twice in a row (which they sometimes would, for a truly random
selection!), and most people didn't like that.

Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 x64
VLC 3.0.11 x64
Aha! So I started a playlist of 41 relatively short .mp4 files and
selected the Random button but not the button for looping. After a
while and before all files had played, I indeed started getting repeats.
In the VLC forum, this is the topic at
<https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=153301&p=508868#p503050>,
which started last April.

Did you get any instances of the same file twice in succession, though?
(Preventing that would only involve remembering what the previous track
was, not a whole tick-list. Preventing a repeat with only one
intervening would involve remembering the last two, and so on. Probably
no repeats within say four or five would keep most people happy.)

Actually, from a programming perspective, it's just as easy to randomize
the entire playlist as it would be to 'remember' the last one or two or
three items.

[g***@aol.com]

Post by Char Jackson
On Tue, 29 Sep 2020 19:49:12 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
On Tue, 29 Sep 2020 at 10:55:38, David E. Ross
[]

Post by David E. Ross

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
I think most randomisers have at least some element of not-repeat, since
when the function was initially offered, people sometimes got the same
track twice in a row (which they sometimes would, for a truly random
selection!), and most people didn't like that.

Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 x64
VLC 3.0.11 x64
Aha! So I started a playlist of 41 relatively short .mp4 files and
selected the Random button but not the button for looping. After a
while and before all files had played, I indeed started getting repeats.
In the VLC forum, this is the topic at
<https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=153301&p=508868#p503050>,
which started last April.

Did you get any instances of the same file twice in succession, though?
(Preventing that would only involve remembering what the previous track
was, not a whole tick-list. Preventing a repeat with only one
intervening would involve remembering the last two, and so on. Probably
no repeats within say four or five would keep most people happy.)

Actually, from a programming perspective, it's just as easy to randomize
the entire playlist as it would be to 'remember' the last one or two or
three items.

MPXPLAY just remembers what it plays and takes it out of the rotation.
When I was using WINAMP it randomized the list and started at the top
working down. You could see the playlist it generated on the screen.
You could shuffle them over and over if you want. I did burn data CDs
from that list sometime for a random play. (150 songs or so)

[g***@aol.com]

Post by j***@astraweb.com
i have a playlist of some 700 songs and it seem that i can count on the same ones playing in the first
few hours.. (it has a 56 hour play time, according to the calculations of the VLC player)
I can watch the playlist bounce around the list as one finishes so it is not sequential.
Is there a way to prevent this?

Randomizers are seldom actually random. Sometimes if you manually
select a song while it is playing random it reshuffles the deck with
some players. I run MPXPLAY and that will scramble them playing that
way.

[j***@astraweb.com]

Post by g***@aol.com

Post by j***@astraweb.com
i have a playlist of some 700 songs and it seem that i can count on the same ones playing in the first
few hours.. (it has a 56 hour play time, according to the calculations of the VLC player)
I can watch the playlist bounce around the list as one finishes so it is not sequential.
Is there a way to prevent this?

Randomizers are seldom actually random. Sometimes if you manually
select a song while it is playing random it reshuffles the deck with
some players. I run MPXPLAY and that will scramble them playing that
way

VLC 3.0.3, Vetinari, seems to run the same algorithm on random play audio files?.

A. It looks like you read the title -- thanks for that!.

B. I have tried that manually selecting thing you talk about and it does seem to work. I just don't
think that kind of hands-on interference should be necessary.

[Paul]

Post by j***@astraweb.com

Post by g***@aol.com

Post by j***@astraweb.com
i have a playlist of some 700 songs and it seem that i can count on the same ones playing in the first
few hours.. (it has a 56 hour play time, according to the calculations of the VLC player)
I can watch the playlist bounce around the list as one finishes so it is not sequential.
Is there a way to prevent this?

Randomizers are seldom actually random. Sometimes if you manually
select a song while it is playing random it reshuffles the deck with
some players. I run MPXPLAY and that will scramble them playing that
way

VLC 3.0.3, Vetinari, seems to run the same algorithm on random play audio files?.
A. It looks like you read the title -- thanks for that!.
B. I have tried that manually selecting thing you talk about and it does seem to work. I just don't
think that kind of hands-on interference should be necessary.

What's a little Whack-A-Mole amongst friends ?

The human brain is a fickle thing, so so hard to satisfy...

*******

Why not get the source for VLC and see *why* it does that.
The VideoLAN site uses mirrors for the source. The free 7-zip.org
tool can extract this for you (as .xz is not all that common on a
windows box).

(Swiss army knife: https://www.7-zip.org/ to open the .xz file )

https://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/vlc/vlc/3.0.11/vlc-3.0.11.tar.xz

Reading source is fun... especially if there are comments about
why a developer did something a particular way. I'm sure the code
for the music shuffler is perfectly unreadable :-) You know,
attempts to satisfy human brains and all.

The tarball has around 4000 files. Do a text search looking
for the word "shuffle" in the code. Thread.c is an example
of a "hit" on that keyword.

******* from thread.c , open the file with Wordpad... *******

void ResetCurrentlyPlaying( playlist_t *p_playlist,
playlist_item_t *p_cur )
{
playlist_private_t *p_sys = pl_priv(p_playlist);

PL_DEBUG( "rebuilding array of current - root %s",
PLI_NAME( p_sys->status.p_node ) );
ARRAY_RESET( p_playlist->current );
p_playlist->i_current_index = -1;
for( playlist_item_t *p_next = NULL; ; )
{
/** FIXME: this is *slow* */
p_next = playlist_GetNextLeaf( p_playlist,
p_sys->status.p_node,
p_next, true, false );
if( !p_next )
break;

if( p_next == p_cur )
p_playlist->i_current_index = p_playlist->current.i_size;
ARRAY_APPEND( p_playlist->current, p_next);
}
PL_DEBUG("rebuild done - %i items, index %i", p_playlist->current.i_size,
p_playlist->i_current_index);

if( var_GetBool( p_playlist, "random" ) && ( p_playlist->current.i_size > 0 ) )
{
/* Shuffle the array */
for( unsigned j = p_playlist->current.i_size - 1; j > 0; j-- )
{
unsigned i = vlc_lrand48() % (j+1); /* between 0 and j */
playlist_item_t *p_tmp;
/* swap the two items */
p_tmp = ARRAY_VAL(p_playlist->current, i);
ARRAY_VAL(p_playlist->current,i) = ARRAY_VAL(p_playlist->current,j);
ARRAY_VAL(p_playlist->current,j) = p_tmp;
}
}
p_sys->b_reset_currently_playing = false;
}
******* from thread.c , open the file with Wordpad... *******

OK, so what we might suspect is:

1) List is rebuilt. I don't understand this code, except to say
that "the starting materials will be the same each time" in the
upper stanza of code. This is probably some sort of linked list
implementation. Some of the linked-list management is done with
macros (the things in all-caps).

2) The lower routine /* Shuffle the array */ is a pretty standard
shuffling method. It uses random swaps from a declining pool of
items.

But what's missing ? How is vlc_lrand48() seeded ?
The seed code doesn't have to be in the same module.
In fact, a typical location might be in the main()
initialization stuff.

Could it be, that the same sequence of random numbers is
generated each time ? Why, yes, that could happen. So now
we have to discover how the lrand48 gets initialized.

Now, open rand.c with Wordpad. The word "seed" isn't even in the code!!!
I think I just saw Jesus start to cry... :-/

The normal way to do this, is to take the TimeOfDay from
the machine, like the current time in nanoseconds and
use that to seed the generator. Since the time monotonically
increases (it's time in the Epoch), the seed won't normally
be the same (without a lot of effort to break it).

The time of day is not a sufficiently random stimulus for
"high quality" random numbers, like say for a crypto algorithm
which must remain secure. An opponent could see what you're
doing to generate a salt and decode every encrypted message
you send. But for the purposes of playing some music, it's
perfectly adequate for the purpose.

OK, patch the code, compile, play tunes... Or something.

*******

If the playlist is a text file, nothing prevents you from
using an *external* randomizer to repair what VLC
might not be doing right.

beatles.mp3 ===> beegees.mp3
beegees.mp3 External randomizer chilipeppers.mp3
chilipeppers.mp3 for text lists beatles.mp3

I don't know what a playlist looks like, but that's just
to illustrate the concept. In fact, you could write your
own (as a form of punishment :-) ).

Paul

[VanguardLH]

Post by j***@astraweb.com
i have a playlist of some 700 songs and it seem that i can count on the same ones playing in the first
few hours.. (it has a 56 hour play time, according to the calculations of the VLC player)
I can watch the playlist bounce around the list as one finishes so it is not sequential.
Is there a way to prevent this?

I doubt they would actually do random play. The seed is generated when
you start the playlist, but presumably you want to eventually hear all
songs. If the list got re-randomized at some pseudo-random interval,
there could be songs that never get played until maybe years later. If
random playback were truly random, some songs will sometimes not get
played until a long time later. In fact, it is possible in a truly
randomized list to keep playing the same song many times in a row. To
hear all songs in a psuedo-random order means once the randomized list
is organized, a play log gets created of which songs to play in which
order, so all songs will play.

From a quick scan of their forums and help, looks like you need to click
the Shuffle button every once in a while. Seems this will start the
playback with the next song randomized, and start the random playback of
the playlist at that point. This is what gfretwell mentioned. I would
think in the 3 days to continuous play 700 hours of music that you would
revisit your computer, and then just tap the Shuffle button.

What VLC needs is to re-seed their random algorithm when all songs have
been exhausted (and the list plays again). Then it would be a different
psuedo-random list that gets play on the next playlist exercise. That
is, generate a new seed to randomize the playlist to select the order in
which to play all songs, and when the playlist restarts then generate a
new seed to re-order the playlist. The effect would be like you
clicking the Shuffle button each time the playlist restarts. However,
since it is a fixed algorithm to do the seed hashing, even that won't be
truly random, but likely it would be a long time before the same seed
got used.

You could use https://www.videolan.org/support/#bugs and
https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ to report their randomizer is just a
one-time seed generator, replaying the list uses the same seed, and they
should be generating a new seed on restart of the playlist. To be more
random (but never will be truly random), the sort order needs to get
changed on every restart (loop) of the playlist.

I went to the 2nd URL and searched on "~random". Lots of tickets found,
but only some to do with the sort order of the playlist. Alas, they
won't let me search on multiple words in an AND search, like specifying
"~random playlist". Although I can get their advanced search form,
clicking AND, picking summary, adding another term to "Summary" results
in OR'ing the terms, not ANDing them. Have fun searching to see if
there are or were any tickets on this issue.

[j***@astraweb.com]

Post by VanguardLH

Post by j***@astraweb.com
i have a playlist of some 700 songs and it seem that i can count on the same ones playing in the first
few hours.. (it has a 56 hour play time, according to the calculations of the VLC player)
I can watch the playlist bounce around the list as one finishes so it is not sequential.
Is there a way to prevent this?

I doubt they would actually do random play. The seed is generated when
you start the playlist, but presumably you want to eventually hear all
songs. If the list got re-randomized at some pseudo-random interval,
there could be songs that never get played until maybe years later. If
random playback were truly random, some songs will sometimes not get
played until a long time later. In fact, it is possible in a truly
randomized list to keep playing the same song many times in a row. To
hear all songs in a psuedo-random order means once the randomized list
is organized, a play log gets created of which songs to play in which
order, so all songs will play.
From a quick scan of their forums and help, looks like you need to click
the Shuffle button every once in a while. Seems this will start the
playback with the next song randomized, and start the random playback of
the playlist at that point. This is what gfretwell mentioned. I would
think in the 3 days to continuous play 700 hours of music that you would
revisit your computer, and then just tap the Shuffle button.
What VLC needs is to re-seed their random algorithm when all songs have
been exhausted (and the list plays again). Then it would be a different
psuedo-random list that gets play on the next playlist exercise. That
is, generate a new seed to randomize the playlist to select the order in
which to play all songs, and when the playlist restarts then generate a
new seed to re-order the playlist. The effect would be like you
clicking the Shuffle button each time the playlist restarts. However,
since it is a fixed algorithm to do the seed hashing, even that won't be
truly random, but likely it would be a long time before the same seed
got used.
You could use https://www.videolan.org/support/#bugs and
https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ to report their randomizer is just a
one-time seed generator, replaying the list uses the same seed, and they
should be generating a new seed on restart of the playlist. To be more
random (but never will be truly random), the sort order needs to get
changed on every restart (loop) of the playlist.
I went to the 2nd URL and searched on "~random". Lots of tickets found,
but only some to do with the sort order of the playlist. Alas, they
won't let me search on multiple words in an AND search, like specifying
"~random playlist". Although I can get their advanced search form,
clicking AND, picking summary, adding another term to "Summary" results
in OR'ing the terms, not ANDing them. Have fun searching to see if
there are or were any tickets on this issue.

Thanks, you give a lot to think about and experiment with here.

jack

[g***@aol.com]

Post by VanguardLH

Post by j***@astraweb.com
i have a playlist of some 700 songs and it seem that i can count on the same ones playing in the first
few hours.. (it has a 56 hour play time, according to the calculations of the VLC player)
I can watch the playlist bounce around the list as one finishes so it is not sequential.
Is there a way to prevent this?

I doubt they would actually do random play. The seed is generated when
you start the playlist, but presumably you want to eventually hear all
songs. If the list got re-randomized at some pseudo-random interval,
there could be songs that never get played until maybe years later. If
random playback were truly random, some songs will sometimes not get
played until a long time later. In fact, it is possible in a truly
randomized list to keep playing the same song many times in a row. To
hear all songs in a psuedo-random order means once the randomized list
is organized, a play log gets created of which songs to play in which
order, so all songs will play.
From a quick scan of their forums and help, looks like you need to click
the Shuffle button every once in a while. Seems this will start the
playback with the next song randomized, and start the random playback of
the playlist at that point. This is what gfretwell mentioned. I would
think in the 3 days to continuous play 700 hours of music that you would
revisit your computer, and then just tap the Shuffle button.
What VLC needs is to re-seed their random algorithm when all songs have
been exhausted (and the list plays again). Then it would be a different
psuedo-random list that gets play on the next playlist exercise. That
is, generate a new seed to randomize the playlist to select the order in
which to play all songs, and when the playlist restarts then generate a
new seed to re-order the playlist. The effect would be like you
clicking the Shuffle button each time the playlist restarts. However,
since it is a fixed algorithm to do the seed hashing, even that won't be
truly random, but likely it would be a long time before the same seed
got used.
You could use https://www.videolan.org/support/#bugs and
https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ to report their randomizer is just a
one-time seed generator, replaying the list uses the same seed, and they
should be generating a new seed on restart of the playlist. To be more
random (but never will be truly random), the sort order needs to get
changed on every restart (loop) of the playlist.
I went to the 2nd URL and searched on "~random". Lots of tickets found,
but only some to do with the sort order of the playlist. Alas, they
won't let me search on multiple words in an AND search, like specifying
"~random playlist". Although I can get their advanced search form,
clicking AND, picking summary, adding another term to "Summary" results
in OR'ing the terms, not ANDing them. Have fun searching to see if
there are or were any tickets on this issue.

MPXPLAY, the one I have 20 years of experience with, does check off
the songs as they play so you won't get the same one twice. My list is
always longer than the session so I am not sure whether it resets the
played bit when they all play or not but it does get reset when you
start over. I had it running in my car for over 15 years before I
bought a factory player and I did start to get pretty familiar with
the various things it does. The Developer (Attila Padar) used to be
available on the net but I haven't talked to him for a while. I was a
very early adopter of his program and I still think it is the best MP3
player out there. For one thing, it responds to a keypad, so you can
select songs jukebox style. In my case that is a bunch of wireless
keypads scattered around and a real Seeburg 3W1 wallbox, modified into
a keyboard. In my setup, it still reverts to random play if you are
not picking songs but picking a song seems to get the randomizer into
another batch of songs. The options do seem endless tho.

[j***@astraweb.com]

Post by g***@aol.com

Post by VanguardLH

Post by j***@astraweb.com
i have a playlist of some 700 songs and it seem that i can count on the same ones playing in the first
few hours.. (it has a 56 hour play time, according to the calculations of the VLC player)
I can watch the playlist bounce around the list as one finishes so it is not sequential.
Is there a way to prevent this?

I doubt they would actually do random play. The seed is generated when
you start the playlist, but presumably you want to eventually hear all
songs. If the list got re-randomized at some pseudo-random interval,
there could be songs that never get played until maybe years later. If
random playback were truly random, some songs will sometimes not get
played until a long time later. In fact, it is possible in a truly
randomized list to keep playing the same song many times in a row. To
hear all songs in a psuedo-random order means once the randomized list
is organized, a play log gets created of which songs to play in which
order, so all songs will play.
From a quick scan of their forums and help, looks like you need to click
the Shuffle button every once in a while. Seems this will start the
playback with the next song randomized, and start the random playback of
the playlist at that point. This is what gfretwell mentioned. I would
think in the 3 days to continuous play 700 hours of music that you would
revisit your computer, and then just tap the Shuffle button.
What VLC needs is to re-seed their random algorithm when all songs have
been exhausted (and the list plays again). Then it would be a different
psuedo-random list that gets play on the next playlist exercise. That
is, generate a new seed to randomize the playlist to select the order in
which to play all songs, and when the playlist restarts then generate a
new seed to re-order the playlist. The effect would be like you
clicking the Shuffle button each time the playlist restarts. However,
since it is a fixed algorithm to do the seed hashing, even that won't be
truly random, but likely it would be a long time before the same seed
got used.
You could use https://www.videolan.org/support/#bugs and
https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ to report their randomizer is just a
one-time seed generator, replaying the list uses the same seed, and they
should be generating a new seed on restart of the playlist. To be more
random (but never will be truly random), the sort order needs to get
changed on every restart (loop) of the playlist.
I went to the 2nd URL and searched on "~random". Lots of tickets found,
but only some to do with the sort order of the playlist. Alas, they
won't let me search on multiple words in an AND search, like specifying
"~random playlist". Although I can get their advanced search form,
clicking AND, picking summary, adding another term to "Summary" results
in OR'ing the terms, not ANDing them. Have fun searching to see if
there are or were any tickets on this issue.

MPXPLAY, the one I have 20 years of experience with, does check off
the songs as they play so you won't get the same one twice. My list is
always longer than the session so I am not sure whether it resets the
played bit when they all play or not but it does get reset when you
start over. I had it running in my car for over 15 years before I
bought a factory player and I did start to get pretty familiar with
the various things it does. The Developer (Attila Padar) used to be
available on the net but I haven't talked to him for a while. I was a
very early adopter of his program and I still think it is the best MP3
player out there. For one thing, it responds to a keypad, so you can
select songs jukebox style. In my case that is a bunch of wireless
keypads scattered around and a real Seeburg 3W1 wallbox, modified into
a keyboard. In my setup, it still reverts to random play if you are
not picking songs but picking a song seems to get the randomizer into
another batch of songs. The options do seem endless tho.

Running Win 7 64 bit here .......
I downloaded MpxplayMMC v 308 x86 but have not installed it yet.
Is this the same one you have?

Thanks

jack

[g***@aol.com]

Post by j***@astraweb.com

Post by g***@aol.com

Post by VanguardLH

Post by j***@astraweb.com
i have a playlist of some 700 songs and it seem that i can count on the same ones playing in the first
few hours.. (it has a 56 hour play time, according to the calculations of the VLC player)
I can watch the playlist bounce around the list as one finishes so it is not sequential.
Is there a way to prevent this?

I doubt they would actually do random play. The seed is generated when
you start the playlist, but presumably you want to eventually hear all
songs. If the list got re-randomized at some pseudo-random interval,
there could be songs that never get played until maybe years later. If
random playback were truly random, some songs will sometimes not get
played until a long time later. In fact, it is possible in a truly
randomized list to keep playing the same song many times in a row. To
hear all songs in a psuedo-random order means once the randomized list
is organized, a play log gets created of which songs to play in which
order, so all songs will play.
From a quick scan of their forums and help, looks like you need to click
the Shuffle button every once in a while. Seems this will start the
playback with the next song randomized, and start the random playback of
the playlist at that point. This is what gfretwell mentioned. I would
think in the 3 days to continuous play 700 hours of music that you would
revisit your computer, and then just tap the Shuffle button.
What VLC needs is to re-seed their random algorithm when all songs have
been exhausted (and the list plays again). Then it would be a different
psuedo-random list that gets play on the next playlist exercise. That
is, generate a new seed to randomize the playlist to select the order in
which to play all songs, and when the playlist restarts then generate a
new seed to re-order the playlist. The effect would be like you
clicking the Shuffle button each time the playlist restarts. However,
since it is a fixed algorithm to do the seed hashing, even that won't be
truly random, but likely it would be a long time before the same seed
got used.
You could use https://www.videolan.org/support/#bugs and
https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ to report their randomizer is just a
one-time seed generator, replaying the list uses the same seed, and they
should be generating a new seed on restart of the playlist. To be more
random (but never will be truly random), the sort order needs to get
changed on every restart (loop) of the playlist.
I went to the 2nd URL and searched on "~random". Lots of tickets found,
but only some to do with the sort order of the playlist. Alas, they
won't let me search on multiple words in an AND search, like specifying
"~random playlist". Although I can get their advanced search form,
clicking AND, picking summary, adding another term to "Summary" results
in OR'ing the terms, not ANDing them. Have fun searching to see if
there are or were any tickets on this issue.

MPXPLAY, the one I have 20 years of experience with, does check off
the songs as they play so you won't get the same one twice. My list is
always longer than the session so I am not sure whether it resets the
played bit when they all play or not but it does get reset when you
start over. I had it running in my car for over 15 years before I
bought a factory player and I did start to get pretty familiar with
the various things it does. The Developer (Attila Padar) used to be
available on the net but I haven't talked to him for a while. I was a
very early adopter of his program and I still think it is the best MP3
player out there. For one thing, it responds to a keypad, so you can
select songs jukebox style. In my case that is a bunch of wireless
keypads scattered around and a real Seeburg 3W1 wallbox, modified into
a keyboard. In my setup, it still reverts to random play if you are
not picking songs but picking a song seems to get the randomizer into
another batch of songs. The options do seem endless tho.

Running Win 7 64 bit here .......
I downloaded MpxplayMMC v 308 x86 but have not installed it yet.
Is this the same one you have?
Thanks
jack

I am using V1.59
It was the version written for XP, I think but it does run under W/7
OK.

[j***@astraweb.com]

Post by g***@aol.com

Post by j***@astraweb.com

Post by g***@aol.com

Post by VanguardLH

Post by j***@astraweb.com
i have a playlist of some 700 songs and it seem that i can count on the same ones playing in the first
few hours.. (it has a 56 hour play time, according to the calculations of the VLC player)
I can watch the playlist bounce around the list as one finishes so it is not sequential.
Is there a way to prevent this?

I doubt they would actually do random play. The seed is generated when
you start the playlist, but presumably you want to eventually hear all
songs. If the list got re-randomized at some pseudo-random interval,
there could be songs that never get played until maybe years later. If
random playback were truly random, some songs will sometimes not get
played until a long time later. In fact, it is possible in a truly
randomized list to keep playing the same song many times in a row. To
hear all songs in a psuedo-random order means once the randomized list
is organized, a play log gets created of which songs to play in which
order, so all songs will play.
From a quick scan of their forums and help, looks like you need to click
the Shuffle button every once in a while. Seems this will start the
playback with the next song randomized, and start the random playback of
the playlist at that point. This is what gfretwell mentioned. I would
think in the 3 days to continuous play 700 hours of music that you would
revisit your computer, and then just tap the Shuffle button.
What VLC needs is to re-seed their random algorithm when all songs have
been exhausted (and the list plays again). Then it would be a different
psuedo-random list that gets play on the next playlist exercise. That
is, generate a new seed to randomize the playlist to select the order in
which to play all songs, and when the playlist restarts then generate a
new seed to re-order the playlist. The effect would be like you
clicking the Shuffle button each time the playlist restarts. However,
since it is a fixed algorithm to do the seed hashing, even that won't be
truly random, but likely it would be a long time before the same seed
got used.
You could use https://www.videolan.org/support/#bugs and
https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ to report their randomizer is just a
one-time seed generator, replaying the list uses the same seed, and they
should be generating a new seed on restart of the playlist. To be more
random (but never will be truly random), the sort order needs to get
changed on every restart (loop) of the playlist.
I went to the 2nd URL and searched on "~random". Lots of tickets found,
but only some to do with the sort order of the playlist. Alas, they
won't let me search on multiple words in an AND search, like specifying
"~random playlist". Although I can get their advanced search form,
clicking AND, picking summary, adding another term to "Summary" results
in OR'ing the terms, not ANDing them. Have fun searching to see if
there are or were any tickets on this issue.

MPXPLAY, the one I have 20 years of experience with, does check off
the songs as they play so you won't get the same one twice. My list is
always longer than the session so I am not sure whether it resets the
played bit when they all play or not but it does get reset when you
start over. I had it running in my car for over 15 years before I
bought a factory player and I did start to get pretty familiar with
the various things it does. The Developer (Attila Padar) used to be
available on the net but I haven't talked to him for a while. I was a
very early adopter of his program and I still think it is the best MP3
player out there. For one thing, it responds to a keypad, so you can
select songs jukebox style. In my case that is a bunch of wireless
keypads scattered around and a real Seeburg 3W1 wallbox, modified into
a keyboard. In my setup, it still reverts to random play if you are
not picking songs but picking a song seems to get the randomizer into
another batch of songs. The options do seem endless tho.

Running Win 7 64 bit here .......
I downloaded MpxplayMMC v 308 x86 but have not installed it yet.
Is this the same one you have?
Thanks
jack

I am using V1.59
It was the version written for XP, I think but it does run under W/7
OK.

Thanks! I have been surprised at some of the XP applications that have run under win 7 64-bit.

[g***@aol.com]

Post by j***@astraweb.com

Post by g***@aol.com

Post by j***@astraweb.com

Post by g***@aol.com

Post by VanguardLH

Post by j***@astraweb.com
i have a playlist of some 700 songs and it seem that i can count on the same ones playing in the first
few hours.. (it has a 56 hour play time, according to the calculations of the VLC player)
I can watch the playlist bounce around the list as one finishes so it is not sequential.
Is there a way to prevent this?

I doubt they would actually do random play. The seed is generated when
you start the playlist, but presumably you want to eventually hear all
songs. If the list got re-randomized at some pseudo-random interval,
there could be songs that never get played until maybe years later. If
random playback were truly random, some songs will sometimes not get
played until a long time later. In fact, it is possible in a truly
randomized list to keep playing the same song many times in a row. To
hear all songs in a psuedo-random order means once the randomized list
is organized, a play log gets created of which songs to play in which
order, so all songs will play.
From a quick scan of their forums and help, looks like you need to click
the Shuffle button every once in a while. Seems this will start the
playback with the next song randomized, and start the random playback of
the playlist at that point. This is what gfretwell mentioned. I would
think in the 3 days to continuous play 700 hours of music that you would
revisit your computer, and then just tap the Shuffle button.
What VLC needs is to re-seed their random algorithm when all songs have
been exhausted (and the list plays again). Then it would be a different
psuedo-random list that gets play on the next playlist exercise. That
is, generate a new seed to randomize the playlist to select the order in
which to play all songs, and when the playlist restarts then generate a
new seed to re-order the playlist. The effect would be like you
clicking the Shuffle button each time the playlist restarts. However,
since it is a fixed algorithm to do the seed hashing, even that won't be
truly random, but likely it would be a long time before the same seed
got used.
You could use https://www.videolan.org/support/#bugs and
https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ to report their randomizer is just a
one-time seed generator, replaying the list uses the same seed, and they
should be generating a new seed on restart of the playlist. To be more
random (but never will be truly random), the sort order needs to get
changed on every restart (loop) of the playlist.
I went to the 2nd URL and searched on "~random". Lots of tickets found,
but only some to do with the sort order of the playlist. Alas, they
won't let me search on multiple words in an AND search, like specifying
"~random playlist". Although I can get their advanced search form,
clicking AND, picking summary, adding another term to "Summary" results
in OR'ing the terms, not ANDing them. Have fun searching to see if
there are or were any tickets on this issue.

MPXPLAY, the one I have 20 years of experience with, does check off
the songs as they play so you won't get the same one twice. My list is
always longer than the session so I am not sure whether it resets the
played bit when they all play or not but it does get reset when you
start over. I had it running in my car for over 15 years before I
bought a factory player and I did start to get pretty familiar with
the various things it does. The Developer (Attila Padar) used to be
available on the net but I haven't talked to him for a while. I was a
very early adopter of his program and I still think it is the best MP3
player out there. For one thing, it responds to a keypad, so you can
select songs jukebox style. In my case that is a bunch of wireless
keypads scattered around and a real Seeburg 3W1 wallbox, modified into
a keyboard. In my setup, it still reverts to random play if you are
not picking songs but picking a song seems to get the randomizer into
another batch of songs. The options do seem endless tho.

Running Win 7 64 bit here .......
I downloaded MpxplayMMC v 308 x86 but have not installed it yet.
Is this the same one you have?
Thanks
jack

I am using V1.59
It was the version written for XP, I think but it does run under W/7
OK.

Thanks! I have been surprised at some of the XP applications that have run under win 7 64-bit.

It just has to be 32 bit compatible.