Seamless loop

[rayman3003]

There are some sid files that has an ability to be looped continuously (& without any halt); So when u play these sid files with some sid players (like sidplayfp), the sid play with continuous loop, & it sounds like a long clean song.

Download this sid, enable the repeat in BZR2 & play the 5th subsong of it with BZR2.

M_A_C_H--5.zip

The BZR plays & repeats the 5th subsong with a halt or break in the middle.

But try the same sid (5th subsong) with this sid player:

https://github.com/libsidplayfp/sidplayfp/releases/download/v2.4.0/sidplayfp-2.4.0-lib2.4.1-w64.zip

sidplayfp plays & repeats it without any halt or pause in the middle.

So why can't BZR2 play these types of sid files continuously?

[ciros88]

have a preference for enabling gapless playback & seameless loops for any file format played by bzr2 could be really interesting. but, as a preference (two different preferences, not enabled by default) because lot of people want the little time break between tracks & loops

[ciros88]

btw, here a list of players that support gapless playback: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gapless_playback

[rayman3003]

Yeap. It's good to have gapless playback in BZR2.

& as u said, it can be an a choosable option in the settings, to be enabled or disabled.

So people can choose to turn on or turn off the "gapless playback" in the BZR2.

Optional, always is a good path. :)

[ciros88]

there are 3 concepts here:

• gapless playback: the ability to avoid any audio gap between end of one track and beginning of another track. i think this is something we really don't need.

• seamless loop: the ability to loop a single track, from beginning to end, then to beginning again, without any audio gap. this feature is the one asked in the ticket, and it is really interesting to have.

• continuous playback: the ability to respect the audio track behaviour as originally intended by the author: this means, for example, that if a mod has an endless loop for some specific patterns, this should be respected (not a simply end to begin loop as seamless loop). this results in a per-plugin specific feature, and is be better detailed in #460

seamless loop specs:

a switch is needed in the preferences ("general" tab) called "seamless loop (when looping single track)", that will enable seamless loop when loop button will be set to "loop one" (not "loop all"). so when both seamless loop and loop one are set, the track will be start from beginning without any audio gap, the seeking will be disabled, the song length will be "??" and the current timestamp will be the effective playback time (that is, the total amount of time the track has been played)