I tried to use lame 3.98 beta 2 with flags -b 8 -v 5 and it returned a 'fatal error during initialization'. It works only with -b 32 and above. Can anybody explain why?

-v 5 produces a MPEG 1 stream, where the minimum allowed bitrate is 32 kBit/s.

Maybe this should be overridden by LAME internally when reading the parameter list or could this be achieved by using free format?

Btw, this might be off topic, but is a free format MP3 playable on any h/w MP3 players?

You can force MPEG2 stream (so you can use -b8) by resampling to less than 32kHz.

Interesting, I was looking for this very function today, because I wanted to encode a voice recording with much silence. Downsampling to 22.05khz changed the sound of the voice a bit.

Well, I just tried it with the linux version of 3.97b2 from Rarewares, and likely encountered a bug. When I tell the encoder to use 8kbps, 44.1khz joint-stereo (yes, I know, its useless), the encoder gives countless error messages, like "strange error flushing buffer..." Issue is gone with mono or at 16kbps. Further, it seems like vbr and freeformat don't mix, since I cant get lame to use -b8 in MPEG-1 vbr mode even with --freeformat.

MedO