on another note , i found something interesting this evening. someone on this thread posted earlier about the Kazaa reading the tag wrong.
here's what i found..........i was ripping(encoding, watever) at CBR(constant bit rate) 160/kps. i thought i couldn't tell the diff. well, many argued with me so i sat down in front of my hi fi at home ( has pc running to amp) and listened over and over to a STone Sour song that i ripped at CBR 160kps, CBR 192kps, & VBR 160-192kps. i could barely notice a diff if any at all. if i did notice a diff it was in the hi freq. range and not the lows (perhaps it was a better encoding of the voice. im unsure). anywayz that was enuff to convince me to use the VBR rate of 160-192kps. using that bit rate was just a bit bigger than the 160 CBR but not near as big as the 192 CBR. that tells me that 160 CBR is close but needs just a little more hard drive space for the complicated parts of the song. since there is no bit rate between 160 and 192 i reccomend using the VBR(variable bit rate 160-192). OK i know wat your thinxing "where the hell is this stoner going with this".
here's the kicker........Kazaa lite recognized all my id3v2 tags that were ripped at 160kps CBR but once i changed to the VBR of 160-192kps the tags were listed wrong thru Kazaa lite ( the my kazaa in the software engine) the times of the songs were wrong (usually longer than they actually are), the sizes of the files were listed wrong as well, and most annoying of all is that Kazaa lite listed the songs ripped at 128kps!!!!!! That's terrible cuz at this higher bit rate the song's quality is much better than at 128!!!! it makes me wonder how many songs ive past by in kazaa becuz of it listing it as 128kps.
Does anyone know how to remedy this. Now MusicMatchJukeBox read the tags correctly. Window Media Player 9 did as well, but the mini Windows media Player 2 read the times incorrectly as well.
Is there some kind of decoder i need to install that is new enuff to read these VBR mp3's accuratley? or just deal with it........ i dunno , do you?



this is a post from another thread in another forum that i posted. kazaa i know is irreletive here i know, but im more concerned with these VBR mp3 encodings of mine. my Windows media Player 6.4.07 won't play half of them but MMJB will. is there a special decoder i need for all my media players to play these mp3's? im encoding mp3's with cdex at this VBR (160-192) i alwayz used to use Fraunhauffer encoders at 160 CBR. im wondering if this VBR is worth it. does anyone have any input on this subject......lemme know, thanx

update:: hahaha here's a link that helped me a bit
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/wi...decs/audio.aspx

main concern here is getttin all my players(MMJB, WMP9, WMP2ver.6.04.1, etc.) to play these new VBR mp3's i created with CDEX!!!

The link appears to be broken.

Two suggestions. On this forum, the Fraunhoffer encoder is usually considered crap (you'll probably see it referred to as the FHg encoder). We use Lame around here, and typically with the flag --alt-preset standard.

VBR is a more efficient use of bits than CBR. In fact, people only still use CBR because they have crappy players that don't properly deal with VBR. If Windows media player 6.4 can't handle it, then go to windows update and get a more recent version. If you can't stand WMP afte 6.4 (like me), then get Media Player Classic.

I don't think that there's a way to get ALL your players to read and deal with VBR properly if they player is crappy, but I don't know for certain.

Dude if you are ripping with say MM Jukebox (FhG) or many other FhG encoders you'll find that the VBR header isn't written correctly and so you get messed up times in various players and crazy bit rates displayed.

The answer is not in the players, Musicmatch frigs a work around on playback anyway, the answer is to switch to coding with Lame using CDex, dbPowerAmp http://www.dbpoweramp.com/ or EAC.

dbpoweramp is user friendly although it wont code on the fly without paying for the powerpack add on. It's "secure" ripping is due soon too.

Anyway try one of these with Lame and your bitrates and times will display ok, I know because I payed for Musicmatch and was annoyed to discover it's limitations.

Cheers,
Fairy

i started ripping with the CDEX software using the LAME encoder in that software. im encoding my mp3's @ 160-192kbs VBR. MMJB reads the tags, time , and VBR correctly. my windows media player classic and the player that is in the KazaaLite engine reads these mp3's incorrectly.
is it just cuz the classic WMP is old and just can't read the VBR mp3's or do i need to install a up to date Decoder for it? is that even possible.
I like the file sizes and quality of these VBR mp3's that CDEX is encoding. i just want to be able to play all my mp3's with all my players(if that's possible)

Try a program called VBRFix. It will reright the header in VBR files so that bitrate and length are correct

god thats a lot of tl;dr you got there. Learn to use paragraphs!

Thread went to flaming. Split and Closed.