What does "plays" mean?

Posted by: canuckInOR

What does "plays" mean? - 27/04/2006 03:04

Just what constitutes a "play"? Or, phrased another way, when is the plays counter incremented?

Does it increment when a song has played through, from start to finish (regardless of interruptions due to turning the empeg off)? Does it increment once the song has started, regardless of whether you subsequently skip it? What if you're in the middle of the song, and re-start it? Does that count as another play?

I looked in the FAQ, and searched on the board, but didn't find the answer. Maybe I wasn't using the right search terms...

Cheers,
Posted by: Roger

Re: What does "plays" mean? - 27/04/2006 05:01

It's incremented after 5 seconds.
Posted by: matthew_k

Re: What does "plays" mean? - 27/04/2006 21:02

There's an even better answer somewhere if you search for it. From memory, the play counter is incrimented when you move on to the next song, if you have been listening to the current song for 5 secconds. This means that repeating a song doesn't add to the play count, and songs under five secconds never get a play count.

Matthew
Posted by: ricin

Re: What does "plays" mean? - 27/04/2006 21:16

I found this thread.
Posted by: matthew_k

Re: What does "plays" mean? - 27/04/2006 21:33

I have a vauge memory of Peter or some other blue person giving an explanation. But I don't really think there were any more details that what's been covered.

Matthew
Posted by: Dignan

Re: What does "plays" mean? - 28/04/2006 01:27

Quote:
This means that repeating a song doesn't add to the play count

That's the only behavior that annoys me. I'm always listeneing to full albums, but I occasionally manually repeat a song when it's close to ending, which doesn't increase the count.
Posted by: canuckInOR

Re: What does "plays" mean? - 28/04/2006 03:05

Ah, thanks for the replies, folks. Looks like I need to brush up on my search-fu.

I've been looking at the search/timeline display screen, because it seemed that that was the most reliable way of telling if a song had completely played through at least once, which led me to wondering about the plays counter.

Cheers,
Posted by: TRUNGLE

Re: What does "plays" mean? - 05/05/2006 02:28

Anyway to change the 5 sec timer? Perhap a simple hex edit.
Posted by: schofiel

Re: What does "plays" mean? - 05/05/2006 16:06

It's the standard for CD players world-wide (header pre-play, or preview).