Travel Technology - What is my iPod doing?

I just connected my iPod to my computer to transfer over a movie for my flight tomorrow -- I decided to use iTunes, rather than one of my other iPod management programs, because it is a little easier to manage movies with. After the movie transferred over, the iTunes progress window displayed, "Determining Gapless Playback Information" and started going through the songs on the iPod (5,700+ of them).

What is it doing? I have a 5th Generation iPod -- I thought that gapless playback was a hardware feature only available on later iPods. Will I actually have gapless playback after this process is finished? That would be great -- I listen to a lot of albums and it would be nice to hear them as they were recorded. If that's the case, I'll wait through this process which, I assume, is a one-time thing due to a firmware/software upgrade?

Okay, I'm going to answer part of my own question:

5th Gen iPods, when loaded with the latest firmware, will do gapless playback! I'm excited -- this is a real improvement.

I just connected my iPod to my computer to transfer over a movie for my flight tomorrow -- I decided to use iTunes, rather than one of my other iPod management programs, because it is a little easier to manage movies with. After the movie transferred over, the iTunes progress window displayed, "Determining Gapless Playback Information" and started going through the songs on the iPod (5,700+ of them).

What is it doing? I have a 5th Generation iPod -- I thought that gapless playback was a hardware feature only available on later iPods. Will I actually have gapless playback after this process is finished? That would be great -- I listen to a lot of albums and it would be nice to hear them as they were recorded. If that's the case, I'll wait through this process which, I assume, is a one-time thing due to a firmware/software upgrade?
Happen to me too after plugging in my 2nd generation iPod mini. ^

I didn't realize that gapless playback existed, and just clicked it on, a version of Beethoven's Ninth. The recording (which was from 1935!) has ten tracks.

Could be due to my (what I believe is) 1st generation Mini, but iTunes did not automatically determine where gapless play is possible. I think I'm running all the latest firmware (1.4.1 for the Mini, and 7.0.2.16 for iTunes).

I'm confused. I thought gapless playback was what you setup when you ripped a CD? The entire CD should be just one song to the Ipod, right?

Then again, I can't figure out how to rip a CD as a single mp3 file using Windows Media or Real. I know it must be possible as I have downloaded entire albums as a single mp3 file off the net.

I'm confused. I thought gapless playback was what you setup when you ripped a CD? The entire CD should be just one song to the Ipod, right? Well, that's one way. I don't know how Apple does it, but other companies use a different strategy for gapless playback that involves pre-loading the next song in a playlist. Based on the fact that my iPod "reviewed" all 5200+ songs on my system, I suspect that it was looking to see whether a specific sequence of two songs should be played "gapless" and, if so, setting some sort of internal flag to permit pre-loading of the following song.

Then again, I can't figure out how to rip a CD as a single mp3 file using Windows Media or Real. I know it must be possible as I have downloaded entire albums as a single mp3 file off the net.I wouldn't use either program for ripping CDs, particularly Real (which I wouldn't allow on my computer -- too many privacy issues). I've never tried ripping an entire CD at a time because I'd lose the individual song information.

I wouldn't use either program for ripping CDs, particularly Real (which I wouldn't allow on my computer -- too many privacy issues). I've never tried ripping an entire CD at a time because I'd lose the individual song information.

Funny, I don't use Itunes for the same reason. That and it's an awful memory hog. Anyhow, which program would you use to Rip a CD?

Funny, I don't use Itunes for the same reason. That and it's an awful memory hog. Anyhow, which program would you use to Rip a CD?I use Music Match, primarily because it gives me the most control over both format and tags. It's also very fast.