Hi there, I use EAC, LAME 3.90.3 and --alt-preset standard and of course all my mp3s are in VBR (Variable Bitrate)
The question is... is it possible to listen VBR MP3 songs in a DVD Player or in a Minicomponent MP3 player or a standalone MP3 player like Creative MuVo NX? Or only CBR (Constant Bitrate) is aloud?
Thank you
Greetings.
GONZALO

I've no notice of a modern MP3 player that couldn't handle VBR. The days of only CBR MP3 Players are off. Besides, no player could allege MP3 compliance with no VBR support any more, since VBR is part of the format.

All of my MP3s are EAC & LAME aps. I listen to these soongs on my Creative Nomad Zen Xtra. I have never had any problems playing these files. It is safe to assume that all modern MP3 players are capable of playing VBR files (except perhaps the Ipod).

Creative MuVo NX

Just bought one. Workd perfectly with APS files, 320 files,etc.

Lovely device BTW.

Only problem I've ever run into have to do with incorrect time info. My DVD player and my old, old, old Rio 300 usually think songs are much longer than they are, but they all play great. You shouldn't have any problem at all on a new device.

The iPod has absolutely no problem playing back VBR files, and I'm not sure that it ever did. What it does have a problem with is the correct decoding of high-bitrate CBR files like --api.

If you're player is incapable of playing back VBR mp3s, then it is not standard compliant and I would return it if I ever have one that didn't. Thankfully very few players don't support VBR nowadays so it's not usually a problem. VBR mp2s though are a different story. Why couldn't VBR have been a standard for them too

I was going to ask why iPod were an exception. But the case seems to be they can really play VBR, although they have quality problems with high bitrate frames.

Many players don't even claim to fully support the mp3 standard, a lot work fine but lack sufficient memory so can't support high bit-rates with out skipping, you will see many discmans that say "support mp3 up to X bit-rate". Track duration & seeking are common problems with VBR mp3's. Quality names such as Apple & Iriver are reported to have problems with high bit-rates/VBR mp3's so you can't just say "find a better player" when you have the best. Unless your buying something just for mp3 playback your best just adjust encoder setting to your hardware's liking instead of having to spend more money or buying something you don't like.

Really? I've not seen any of these players, except perhaps the crappy cheaper ones. These restrictions usually apply to iRiver's vorbis support, because of this format's really greedy requirements.




As far as I know, iPod's problems are audio quality related, and could be theoretically solved by firmware update, then it cannot be atributed to hardware limitation. I've no notice of such iRiver's problems, and people at their forum usually complain about promised updates (and features, such as the "multi-codec" thing) that are delayed.




I don't like this idea of constraining the encoder in order to please the player. It is what people must do if they want to use vorbis on iRiver's flash players, but it is far from the ideal. I find it shocking that any player still has not full MP3 support, since this format seems far simpler to implement.

My point is that there are many hardware mp3 decoders that have problems firmware or not it will effect the quality of the playback & you can't do anything about it, it's very common.





I have read some posts here related to Iriver VBR problems, If you have a search I'm sure you will find the thread(s)


Here is an example, I want to buy a Toshiba DVD player to watch movies which is said to have perfect image quality, perfect sound quality, all the features I could want in a DVD player for a great price but lacks mp3 VBR support. Am I going to buy the cheap looking no name one beside it which has a bigger price tag just because it fully supports the mp3 standard? when I could just encode with LAME --preset insane?

[quote]I don't like this idea of constraining the encoder in order to please the player. It is what people must do if they want to use vorbis on iRiver's flash players, but it is far from the ideal. I find it shocking that any player still has not full MP3 support, since this format seems far simpler to implement.[/quote]
Here is an example, I want to buy a Toshiba DVD player to watch movies which is said to have perfect image quality, perfect sound quality, all the features I could want in a DVD player for a great price but lacks mp3 VBR support. Am I going to buy the cheap looking no name one beside it which has a bigger price tag just because it fully supports the mp3 standard? when I could just encode with LAME --preset insane?

[/quote]


I purchased a multi-disc DVD player for my home theater system that claimed to play MP3s and I recently tried VBR mp3s on it and it worked fine.

I have a pretty old Sony DVD player, and actually, it supports any VBR mp3, while in CBR mode it supports only certain (very few) bitrates. So I'd rather expect problems with CBR files than with VBR ones.