I noticed that MP3s I was generating with LAME (3.97 final) and foobar2000 (0.9.4.2) would not play back in DirectShow based players. If I stopped the generation of the MP3 before it was finished, then the file would play back. It appears to be an issue with the ID3 tags being generated by foobar2000 and the Windows DirectShow "MPEG-1 Stream Splitter". You can see a graph of an unfinished file in GraphEdit here.
I tried playing with "ID3v2 Writer Compatibility Mode" but the results were somewhat unpredictable. I performed a bunch of tests where I use a file that had been generated in another program, that contained tags and would play back fine in DirectShow applications. Here are my results:
Test 1:
1. Compatibility Mode off.
2. Select Rebuild MP3 Stream.
Result: File NOT playable in DirectShow.
Test 2:
1. Compatibility Mode off.
2. Select Rebuild MP3 Stream.
3. Select Rewrite File Tags.
Result: File NOT playable in DirectShow.
Test 3:
1. Compatibility Mode off.
2. Select Rebuild MP3 Stream.
3. Select Remove Tags from File.
Result: File playable in DirectShow, BUT there are no tags.
Test 4:
1. Compatibility Mode on.
2. Select Rebuild MP3 Stream.
Result: File playable in DirectShow, BUT tags show as Chinese characters in DirectShow players.
Test 5:
1. Compatibility Mode on.
2. Select Rebuild MP3 Stream.
3. Select Rewrite File Tags.
Result: File playable in DirectShow, BUT tags show as Chinese characters in DirectShow players.
Test 6:
1. Compatibility Mode on.
2. Select Rewrite File Tags.
Result: File playable in DirectShow, BUT tags show as Chinese characters in DirectShow players.
Test 7:
1. Compatibility Mode on.
2. Select Rewrite File Tags.
3. Turn Compatibility Mode off.
4. Select Rewrite File Tags.
Result: File playable in DirectShow, WITH correct tags.
Test 8:
1. Compatibility Mode on.
2. Select Rewrite File Tags.
3. Turn Compatibility Mode off.
4. Select Rewrite File Tags.
5. Turn Compatibility Mode on.
6. Select Rewrite File Tags.
Result: File playable in DirectShow, BUT tags show as Chinese characters in DirectShow players.
Test 9:
1. Compatibility Mode off.
2. Select Rewrite File Tags.
Result: File playable in DirectShow WITH correct tags.
Here is the only test that is different for a file generated in foobar2000.
Test 9:
1. Compatibility Mode off.
2. Select Rewrite File Tags.
Result: File NOT playable in DirectShow.
What is going on here? The only way to get a file that both plays in DirectShow players AND has the correct tags is to rewrite them with compatibility mode first, and then rewrite them without compatibility mode. Is there a way to fix this?
(Notes: Selecting "ID3v2 + ID3v1" versus just "ID3v2" didn't seem to make a difference. Windows Media Player 7 and up use their own internal MPEG splitter which doesn't seem to suffer from these problems. MP3 files generated inside or outside of foobar2000 behaved identically in these tests. )