A couple of things here, as was mentioned computers use a random generator which starts from a "seed". If the seed is EXACTLY the same you will get the same sequence, if the seed is even slightly different you will get a very different sequence. I don't know what seed is used in SBS, as has been mentioned the current time is frequently used. But in order for this to be an issue it would have to be EXACTLY the same time to cause the same sequence, even one second difference would cause a VERY different sequence.
The other issue is the nature of randomness. Randomness does not preclude a piece from never being played again once it has been played, it is perfectly possible to have the same piece played twice in a row, that can still be random, not likely, but still random. True randomness is far more ordered than most people think. Having the same song show up twice in one day of random playing is perfectly correctly behaving random play. Now if its always the SAME song that repeats, or if the time between play of the same song is always the same, THEN we have a broken algorithm. You can also get true non random behavior if the randomness is working off different lists and the same song is on more than one list. For example if the algorithm says "randomly choose an artist, then randomly choose a song with that artist" and a song is listed in two artists, it will get played twice as often. This type of behavior depends very much on how the random algorithm on the touch works. I haven't looked into this so I don't know how it works. If its working off a flat list of all songs then this should not happen. But I do know you can put restrictions on random play such as only within certain genres or artists, if so its possible that the issue of the same song being on more than one list may come into play. John S. -- JohnSwenson ------------------------------------------------------------------------ JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=91009 _______________________________________________ Touch mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/touch
