Windows Vista mp3 playback errors

May 13, 2007 8:07 PM

I've installed MS Vista on my shiny new computer and everything works. Except mp3 playback. Whenever I play an mp3 file, be it in Winamp, MediaMonkey, or Media Player 11, songs 'skip' and screech every few seconds, mostly during louder or more complex passages, and as a vast majority of my collection is heavy metal and rock, that is almost all of the time. I've done Google searches and everything keeps pointing to turning off sound enhancements in the Vista Audio control panel. I've tried that and I've even tried updating the bios of my nice little Shuttle xpc. I've updated the Realtek drivers. I'm at a complete loss. Has anyone either run into this and fixed it or know of a solution?
posted by Ikazuchi to computers & internet (14 comments total)

Does it happen with other formats, or just mp3? If it's all formats it could be something hardware related. If it's just mp3 then something software.
posted by parallax7d at 8:40 PM on May 13, 2007

I just found out that I can't watch mp4 video, even in VLC and Winamp.
However, I've never noticed any audio skipping in World of Warcraft.
posted by Ikazuchi at 8:43 PM on May 13, 2007

Hmm.. sounds like Vista isn't very media friendly. Quicktime should be able to play mp4's, but that is another issue.

If I were you I would convert one of your cracking/skipping mp3's into a .wav and see if that cracks/skips. Then you can be absolutely certain it's not a bad soundcard.
posted by parallax7d at 9:00 PM on May 13, 2007

Vista doesn't like your hardware, especially video.
posted by Mr. Gunn at 9:32 PM on May 13, 2007

My advice? Let someone else beta test Microsoft's crap. Wait until Vista sp2 (service pack 2.)

Seriously.
posted by blenderfish at 10:03 PM on May 13, 2007

I'm trying to skip Vista completely, I have a feeling XP is going to last a while. It already runs 83% of the worlds computers, and developers will probably support it for as long as possible.
posted by parallax7d at 11:10 PM on May 13, 2007

Its probably a feature.
Maybe Vista thinks you are pirating something?
posted by Iax at 12:34 AM on May 14, 2007

These blanket "it's Vista's fault" answers aren't helpful. I have Vista and have no media playback problems. It's probably a driver problem. Unless you can tell the asker what component of his/her system is causing the problem, you're not helping.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 12:36 AM on May 14, 2007

Unless you can tell the asker what component of his/her system is causing the problem, you're not helping.

We are telling the asker which component of his system is causing the problem. I'm glad your particular hardware configuration works, but the fact is that Vista is designed to make playback of media more problematic; it is one of its major 'features.'

If someone else has some specific input which can help him, without switching away from Vista, all the better. Nobody is precluding that by pointing out the elephant in the room.
posted by blenderfish at 2:05 AM on May 14, 2007

Good point blenderfish; as an Internet TSR, I've already run into many problems that Vista produces, such as randomly disabling your network connection.
posted by booticon at 5:55 AM on May 14, 2007

Try VLC?
posted by chuckdarwin at 6:20 AM on May 14, 2007

are you using a laptop or a desktop?

the battery management program I have on my laptop makes video skip and screetch when its not plugged in because its trying to keep processing to a minimum. Took me a long time to figure that one out.
posted by ZackTM at 7:22 AM on May 14, 2007

To answer a few questions and comments:
I will try converting to wav and seeing if I still have the skipping.

I doubt MS thinks I'm a pirate as I've successfully activated the software.

I'm more leaning to think the problem lies within how Vista is using the Realtek soundcard that is built into the Shuttle xpc case. However, I've updated the drivers to no avail.

I haven't tried VLC for audio playback, but with 3 other media players tested and failed I have little hope.
posted by Ikazuchi at 8:45 AM on May 14, 2007

I doubt MS thinks I'm a pirate as I've successfully activated the software.

Has nothing to do with it. Basically, one of the major design goals of Vista is to lock _you_ out of the media you're playing on your own machine; pretty much all of the video and audio drivers have been reengineered to detect if they're being 'tampered' with (by you,) and stop working. Obviously, it will get 'better' over time, but for now, that means a lot of false positives.
posted by blenderfish at 12:12 PM on May 14, 2007