WinMP3Packer Beta released, GUI front-end for mp3packer.pl script Options

[Omion]

(I don't want to strip out any of the non-MP3 data, as doing so strips out the lame header in the MP3s - and I want to keep that!)

Are you just guessing this or have you really seen mp3packer stripping LAME tags? The latter could be a bug in mp3packer which you should report to Omion (see this thread for details).

Yeah... that shouldn't happen. LAME data is actually in an MP3 frame, so mp3packer shouldn't treat it as "non-MP3 data". If it does, or some LAME data is not transferred correctly to the new file (which has been a problem in the past) then it needs to be fixed.

[psyllium]

I've released a new version, 1.0.4 of WinMP3Packer.

Features:
- Includes new version 1.04 of mp3packer.exe
- Settings get saved into the file WinMP3Packer-config.xml in the same directory as the program. You can save different 'profiles' of settings which are all stored in the same file.
- Drag-and-Drop of files and folders into the processing list from Windows Explorer now works.

The idea behind the different saved profiles is to allow you to save your commonly used settings. These settings are saved when you close the form (so long as you have the 'Save on Close' checkbox ticked). Next time that the form loads up it will recall the settings you had previously. The buttons at the top are to create a new settings profile, copy an existing settings profile (based on the currently selected one) and to delete the currently selected profile.

Here's a new screenshot:


Note that I haven't included any settings profiles other than the 'Default' one. Feel free to suggest different settings which I could include in the distribution.

This post has been edited by psyllium: Jul 15 2006, 12:42

[rutra80]

No-installer version please?

[psyllium]

No-installer version please?

I've been updating it at the same time. It's at the url http://djctm.customer.netspace.net.au/chri...Packer-base.zip

Enjoy

[markanini]

Could you add an option that simply replaces the the orginial files? This would be nice if you have a big collection of mp3 files and don't want to fo it a folder at a time.

[psyllium]

Could you add an option that simply replaces the the orginial files? This would be nice if you have a big collection of mp3 files and don't want to fo it a folder at a time.

I've been a little bit scared of doing that - it's not impossible, but I would want to check if the new file is OK before replacing the old one with it. Maybe in the next version.

Don't forget that you can add entire folders to the Input (i.e. processing) list. You could select the output folder to a 'Custom' output folder, with 'Recreate sub-folders' on. Clear out the 'Append text to filenames' field. Once the processing is finished you could copy the outputted folders over the top of the old ones using Windows Explorer, and the old files should be replaced. I'd recommend checking the new files are OK before doing this though .

[christopher]

(I don't want to strip out any of the non-MP3 data, as doing so strips out the lame header in the MP3s - and I want to keep that!)

Are you just guessing this or have you really seen mp3packer stripping LAME tags? The latter could be a bug in mp3packer which you should report to Omion (see this thread for details).

Yeah... that shouldn't happen. LAME data is actually in an MP3 frame, so mp3packer shouldn't treat it as "non-MP3 data". If it does, or some LAME data is not transferred correctly to the new file (which has been a problem in the past) then it needs to be fixed.

Well, mark that one up to (mayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyybe) user error on my part I've been only partially able to reproduce the error when I've physically been trying to do it, maybe there is a bug or maybe there's not, but either way it won't stop me from using this app - and now I have full drag and drop and preset saving, you have a diehard fan

[gybp]

thx for the app, incredible usefull for my cdj 200 ;P

[gybp]

a sugestion for the development of this application is like for the users of the cdj 200, we need only cbr files, myway of doing this with winmp3packer is select the folder in where i have all my mp3, and convert vbr and cbr files to cbr, wich affects cbr files wich shouldnt be affected.

So my suggestion is that there should be an option that converts VBR files to selected folder and also copies the CBR files without affecting them, only a simple copy, so in this way i will have only the VBR files converted to CBR and my CBR that were that way before in teh same folder, also saving proccesing time to this...

thx again for this release

[bukem]

@psyllium

I have a small request. With mp3packer version 1.08 there was introduced new switch -w which will throw out an entire frame even if a buffer error only affects one granule of the frame. And with version 1.09 there are enhanced error reporting features. Could you update WinMp3Packer to support that, please.

Edit:
Another thing I'd like to clarify is source bitrate value. It seems that it's calculated using only bitrate from first frame of mp3 and therefore WinMp3Packer shows wrong bitrate value. Am I right? (for example: an mp3 vbr file with average bitrate around 250 kbit is detected by WinMp3Packer as 96 kbit)

This post has been edited by bukem: Aug 27 2006, 13:53

[psyllium]

@psyllium

I have a small request. With mp3packer version 1.08 there was introduced new switch -w which will throw out an entire frame even if a buffer error only affects one granule of the frame. And with version 1.09 there are enhanced error reporting features. Could you update WinMp3Packer to support that, please.

Edit:
Another thing I'd like to clarify is source bitrate value. It seems that it's calculated using only bitrate from first frame of mp3 and therefore WinMp3Packer shows wrong bitrate value. Am I right? (for example: an mp3 vbr file with average bitrate around 250 kbit is detected by WinMp3Packer as 96 kbit)

Thanks gybp and bukem for your feedback. I'll get onto making a new version once time permits. The source bitrate value is calculated through a class called MP3Header.cs which I have gotten off the internet and it *should* look into the VBR file to determine the average bitrate. Is it possible that the VBR header is missing from the source file? This could possibly be fixed by assuming all files are VBR in order to get them read properly, or perhaps using mp3packer.exe itself to read file information, but I think that could be a little bit slower.

I'll consider all this when I get to making a new version (probably within the next couple of weeks).

[Omion]

or perhaps using mp3packer.exe itself to read file information, but I think that could be a little bit slower.

It probably would be, since mp3packer reads every single frame. That is the only way to make 100% sure if a file is VBR, but it is also the slowest way.

The best way I've seen to handle VBR files (if the VBR header isn't there) is to seek to some number of random places in the file. At each position sync to the next frame and read its bitrate, then average out all the bitrates. This would be very fast (depending on the number of sample points) and should be able to tell if the file is VBR with only a few samples.

Actually, since you don't need to know the exact bitrate, you can probably do an adaptive approach: get one sample. Then, keep getting another sample until you find one that doesn't match the first sample's bitrate. In this case, it's VBR. After a set number of samples (say, 10) at the same bitrate you can assume it's CBR.

This post has been edited by Omion: Aug 28 2006, 01:32

[bluewer than blu...]

Any progress in the new version of the gui;

You have done a great job and I'm grateful to both of you guys!

[psyllium]

New version 1.0.13 of WinMP3Packer released today:
- Includes new version 1.13 of mp3packer.exe
- Improved refresh rate of progress dialog when processing files.
- New option to 'Copy unprocessed MP3s' when using a custom output folder. This option will ensure all the input MP3s end up in the output folder regardless of whether they require processing or not.
- Fixed bug where the settings portion of the screen was not being disabled while processing.
- New option to 'Super-squeeze files' which sends option '-z' to mp3packer.exe
- New option to use an 'Alternate broken frame behaviour' which sends option '-w'
- New checkbox for input type 'All' which basically just checks the CBR and VBR checkboxes. This is just for GUI niceness and no other reason.
- New checkbox to enable/disable the 'Append text to filenames' option.
- When the 'Overwrite existing files' checkbox is enabled and the program has the same input/output filename for an operation, the existing file will be replaced by the newly processed file. The enable this behaviour, untick the 'Append text to filenames' option and set the 'Output folder' to 'Same as input'. This comes with a warning though: The original files will be replaced!
- The installation package now contains some example profile settings. These include the default settings and profiles to convert to CBR or VBR (these will overwrite the original mp3 files). The settings are stored in WinMP3Packer-config.xml. A copy of the new settings is available in WinMP3Packer-config-default.xml.

Enjoy If you have any problems either send me a PM or reply in this thread.

The new version is available here (Windows Installer inside a ZIP).

If you want just a ZIP without the Windows installer, it is available here

This post has been edited by psyllium: Oct 22 2006, 13:22

[bluewer than blu...]

Great job psyllium. Thanks for this precious little gem.

[Omion]

New version 1.0.13 of WinMP3Packer released today

Very cool. Glad to see you're still working on this!

[psyllium]

There's something I forgot - does anyone require an option for the different types of debug output messages? If not I won't bother but if there is a request from someone to do it, I'll look into it.

[bukem]

Great work Psyllium! Could you add support for the different types of debug output messages, please?

This post has been edited by bukem: Oct 23 2006, 20:18

[Lys]

I have NET framework 2.0, but it asks me to install 1.1. I'd rather not do this.

How can I get it to use 2.0 instead?

[psyllium]

I have NET framework 2.0, but it asks me to install 1.1. I'd rather not do this.

How can I get it to use 2.0 instead?

You'll have to install the .NET framework 1.1, unless I bring out a version for .NET 2.0. Most people have 1.1 and not 2.0, so I build it for 1.1...

[psyllium]

I have NET framework 2.0, but it asks me to install 1.1. I'd rather not do this.

How can I get it to use 2.0 instead?

Lys:
I just realised that a new build isn't required. The solution is to use the non-Windows Installer package here.

The problem is that the installer doesn't detect the .NET framework 2.0 as being a valid substitute for 1.1. If you *really* need a windows installer based copy let me know I can give you one, but it's probably easier for you to just extract the zip file above to somewhere on your hard disk and run it from there.

Let me know if you have a problem

[Lys]

I found the zip file after I posted, I'll use that instead. Thanks for the program though.

[Martin F.]

Could you make it start mp3packer with a lower process priority?

[j7n]

It looks really good, psyllium. Wish I could download it and give it a try. But I refuse to have that [insert expletive here] .NET Framework anywhere near my machine.

Same here. So command line it is then.

[Martin F.]

Sometimes when converting it stops responding … I tried to optimize a large collection of files and after 7 hours it was freezed and the task manager showed a CPU time for WinMP3packer.exe of almost 5 hours. I use -z and chose to create the new files in another directory. It then looks like this:

It usually freezes like that when there are lots of log entries (the warnings can bloat the log very fast). However, sometimes it looks like that, but continues operation after a while (and the window contents reappear).

Edit: It has problems with subdirectories ending with a dot followed by a non-breaking space (Alt+0160 on the numpad) (without the non-breaking space the dot would be removed in the Windows Explorer).

This post has been edited by Martin F.: Jan 4 2007, 06:40