Song Ratings & Shuffle Feature: A Question!

[xuclarockerx]

Hi, I'm new here and this is my first post. I have a black 80GB iPod. Now, it's to my understanding that song ratings affect the frequency with which they appear in the shuffle mode...correct? I have a few questions regarding this.

First, doesn't the shuffle mode simply shuffle all your songs in a random order? Therefore, how could higher rated songs pop up more frequently? Or is it that they are theoretically placed closer to the beginning because you probably won't get through all your songs? (I have over 5000 and growing.)

I'm curious because I want to start by rating everything a "3" and then as I remember which ones I really like, bump them up to a "5", and the ones I don't like as much, a "1". I'll probably use 2 and 4...I just want there to be a clear difference between the *awesome*, *good*, and *ok* songs. (All the songs that go on my iPod are hand-picked already - I have few complete albums. I'm a nut.)

Will I notice the effect of rating my songs when I use shuffle mode? (Which is almost always because I am so indecisive about what to listen to.) I guess that's my biggest question.

THANK YOU!

[Roo42]

i'm not sure that rating songs does that - on my 60G ipod the shuffle mode dosen't seam to be randon - it always seems to play two songs from the same album back to back. Also, i'm sure that my high rated songs don't come up any more often than the others - anyone else actually know how this works????

[bdb]

Check out this Google search.

The iPod is well-known for doing a poor job of shuffling, though in all fairness I've yet to see a player that doesn't "play favorites". Personally, I shuffle my iPod's playlists in iTunes and use the "copy to play order" function to retain that order, so I don't have to use the iPod's shuffle function.

I've never seen anything to indicate that the ratings make any difference in shuffling. Unless you use the rating for playlists, I don't really see the point of rating songs...a way to pass the time, I guess.

I only "rate" songs to remind myself to do things that I can't do on the iPod: 1 means the tag needs fixing, 2-4 means it should be added or deleted from a playlist, 5 means I really don't want that song on my iPod.

[xuclarockerx]

Bump for more insight, hopefully.

[beyondzion]

To bump a REALLY OLD thread ... with a more complete answer:
SUMMARY:
Yes, ratings do matter.

DETAILS:
http://www.omninerd.com/articles/How...ive_Star_Songs

Haven't found if they've updated this logarithm more recently than 2005 (v.7.1)
so... it might be more robust these days. Or not. Depends which way the Jobs winds blow.