The VideoLAN Forums

I submit that the "random" playback option in the media player needs to be updated or changed. I find it to not be random at all and consistently get the same artist/band in back-to-back songs and occasionally will get the same artist/band 3 times in a row, which is not random at all imo.

Almost 3 years later, I agree!!!! It still has not been improved.

The random play algorithm is really horrible. I also will hear the same band many times from the same album, too. I will also hear 20 songs in a row of the exact same genre. It really needs to be improved.

What needs to be included is code which states not to play a song from the same artist no more than once per ten songs, or something like that. Why not add random play options in the preferences to include this where people can check boxes and alter the numbers?

"[✓] Play consecutive songs of the same genre no more than [3] time(s) in a row."
"[✓] Play consecutive songs of the same artist no more than [1] time(s) in a row."
"[✓] Play consecutive songs of the same album no more than [2] time(s) in a row."
"[✓] Play consecutive songs of the same folder no more than [3] time(s) in a row."

This way, if I have a very large proportion of my music collection belonging to, say, the jazz genre, I will still hear a LOT of jazz if the genre number is set to 3, so I can alter the number to 10, for example, to give the other genres a fighting chance of being played, if I so desire.

In other want, you want a randomizer that is not random. Well...