Hi guys. I searched the forum, but the last post I found addressing this topic was about 4-5 years old, and didn't seem to provide the solution I'm looking for.

It seems that all my VBR files don't display the track remain / total track time correctly. For example, a song I know to be 4:30 might display as 33:15 or so. Is there something I should do to fix this?

Lame tags I've been using are -q, -b, --resample, and sometimes --lowpass, also either -m s or -m m.
I haven't used vbr in the past 2-3 years or so because of this time display issue. I'm currently running Lame 3.97 b3 or b4. Would 3.98 b6 have this fixed, or has it already been fixed - I'm just doing something wrong?

Also, it doesn't matter what player I play it on. Winamp 5.5, my old Sony D-NS921F CD player (which was built like a tank, but unfortunately stolen), etc. They all display it wrong.

If I encoded the tracks wrong, is there a way to retroactively put the proper times (tags?) in them, without having to re-encode the entire songs?

And for songs I haven't yet encoded, what tags should I be using? I'd like to use VBR again, but I also like my track times to be displayed accurately.

Also, I'm looking for a replacement CD/DVD/HDD MP3 player that's built like a tank and skip free, with a good UI, to replace a badly skipping (among other things) Sony D-NE330 mp3 cd player. I have a topic started in Audio Hardware (edit - mistakenly said general audio), though, so I won't go into that in this topic.

what ripper do you use? in my experience, when directly ripping and encoding using the lame.exe file (not the dll), lots of strange things happen to the resulting file, one of which is incorrect time display.

you could try ripping to wave then encoding the file separately (whether your ripper is EAC or even good ol' Audiograbber).

for the earlier encodes, you could try vbrfix (i'm not sure, but i hope this works) to fix length/time display.

i'm not sure if there was lame 3.97b3 or b4 though.

EDIT: vbrfix will repair your mp3 tag losslessly, with no harm to the original file.

I use CD-DA Xtractor to rip, then Razorlame to encode, but not all in one operation - I have to initiate RL separately after Xtractor has finished doing its thing.

I've been using my parents' computer, so haven't had admin access. I now have my own (as of yesterday, although I'm still setting it up) so I can pretty much install anything I want. (before, I haven't really been able to try things like EAC, Audiograbber, etc. CD-DA Xtractor & Lame would work fine without installing as root/admin/etc, though)

I couldn't remember which version, but I'm sure somewhere in there it was a beta of 3.97 or so.

I'll have to give that vbrfix a shot. btw, for future reference, what mp3 tag do I need to pay attention to when I encode future files?

since i have no experience with razorlame, i downloaded the latest razorlame version (1.1.5.1342) and used lame 3.97 (i guess what you have there at your cpu is 3.97b2).

anyway, i tried to encode one wave file, ticking the "disable writing of the vbr tag" box in the "lame options > vbr" menu. this gave me a resulting file with inaccurate time, just like yours.

you have to un-tick this option to get an accurate time display of your future vbr mp3 files.

Hmm.. maybe that's what's going on... I thought that did the opposite hehe or something - i don't remember specifically what...

What program do you like to use? I like the lame + razorlame combo cause it gives me a lot of control over advanced settings, but if there's something better, I might want to look into it.

(Also, what are some good WMA, OGG, FLAC, AAC, MPEG4, XviD, H.264, etc. encoders that give me as much control as or more than LAME?)

i still use ol' audiograbber + lame

I dl'd and tried vbr fix and it didn't work for me. I'm wondering what I could have done wrong... any ideas?

Also, I went to try to decode some of my mp3s back to wav, then was going to try to re-encode the VBR, but somehow I did something wrong, it came up with errors, and, well... basically several of my mp3 files in one folder somehow now all took up 5k (and had nothing in them). I also made the mistake of deleting the WAVs. GRRR... so now I'll have to dig out the original CD-R that has the songs on it (which I haven't touched in a few years or more)

A few years ago, I had the same problem using LAME, but adding CRC values to my VBR files fixed it for good ...



Just add "-p" and you should be fine.

Cheers,
Maggi

I was under the impression that all mp3 players ignore the crc.

dunno ... at least winamp had problems displaying the accurate total playtime until I added CRC values

How would I do that with songs that are already encoded? Should I decompress them and recompress them with options -V 0 -b 8 -B 320 --resample 44.1 --lowpass 22.05 -m s -p -k, and what other options (and I suspect there's a few redundant ones in there as well)?

If your files don't have a proper VBR frame, you can add it using Foobar2000 (Fix MP3 Header). It's that simple. You absolutely don't need to encode again.

I've seen some crazy MP3 files which had reserved space at the beginning for tags or whatnot and the VBR frame wasn't there. Most likely the program adding CRCs also computed and wrote VBR data.


Only programs supporting the Xing VBR standard frame will be able to display time correctly. Winamp could do that for ages, but not all players are the same.


From the list above only WMA does not have a nice, small tweakable encoder. Most websites I've come across tell to install big SDKs, distributives, or the Media Player.

Maggi seems to be saying that he encodes with lame, but depending on whether or not he uses the -P switch, vbr times either work or don't.

presuming you are using LAME for encoding, your flags are pretty messed up ...

"-k" disables filtering, but you add a lowpass filter

"-b 8" is not possible with stereo files, "-b 32" would be minimum setting, but it is used automatically in VBR mode when possible

"-m s" will result either in larger files or degraded sound, depending on your footage, just use joint stereo instead


simply use "-V0 -q0 -p" if your aiming at the highest possible quality VBR mode with CRC protection, but the general consensus in these boards are that -V2 is indistinguishable from -V0 (maybe except for a few rare critical samples)


recompression will usually result in degraded sound quality anyways, so you should either re-rip everything properly or use the suggested methods of adding CRC values to your existing files




Spot on ...

The only other workaround would be to let the decoder scan the entire file before it actually starts playing it.

Cheers,
Maggi

[quote name='j7n' date='Mar 4 2008, 06:20' post='550921']
If your files don't have a proper VBR frame, you can add it using Foobar2000 (Fix MP3 Header). It's that simple. You absolutely don't need to encode again.
[/quote]
I'll have to give it a shot.

[quote name='j7n' date='Mar 4 2008, 06:20' post='550921']
I've seen some crazy MP3 files which had reserved space at the beginning for tags or whatnot and the VBR frame wasn't there. Most likely the program adding CRCs also computed and wrote VBR data.

[quote]Also, it doesn't matter what player I play it on. Winamp 5.5, my old Sony D-NS921F CD player (which was built like a tank, but unfortunately stolen), etc. They all display it wrong.[/quote]
Only programs supporting the Xing VBR standard frame will be able to display time correctly. Winamp could do that for ages, but not all players are the same.[/quote]
So.. does this mean that no matter what I do to try to do my VBR songs correctly, there'll be something out there made within the last 6 to 8 years that may not display the times correctly?

[quote name='j7n' date='Mar 4 2008, 06:20' post='550921']
[quote](Also, what are some good WMA, OGG, FLAC, AAC, MPEG4, XviD, H.264, etc. encoders that give me as much control as or more than LAME?)[/quote]
From the list above only WMA does not have a nice, small tweakable encoder. Most websites I've come across tell to install big SDKs, distributives, or the Media Player.
[/quote]
Where would I go to find the encoders you speak of? I'd especially like some that are at least as tweakable, if not more so, than LAME, with GUIs. (Also, I'm not limiting myself to those codecs - I used that list as an example.)

[quote name='pdq' date='Mar 4 2008, 06:25' post='550924']
[quote name='j7n' post='550921' date='Mar 4 2008, 10:20']
I've seen some crazy MP3 files which had reserved space at the beginning for tags or whatnot and the VBR frame wasn't there. Most likely the program adding CRCs also computed and wrote VBR data.
[/quote]
Maggi seems to be saying that he encodes with lame, but depending on whether or not he uses the -P switch, vbr times either work or don't.
[/quote]


[quote name='Maggi' date='Mar 4 2008, 06:54' post='550934']
[quote name='pianoplayer88key' post='550914' date='Mar 4 2008, 15:47']
How would I do that with songs that are already encoded? Should I decompress them and recompress them with options -V 0 -b 8 -B 320 --resample 44.1 --lowpass 22.05 -m s -p -k, and what other options (and I suspect there's a few redundant ones in there as well)?
[/quote]

presuming you are using LAME for encoding, your flags are pretty messed up ...

"-k" disables filtering, but you add a lowpass filter
[/quote]
ok... so should I use -k or --lowpass (sample frequency / 2)? Or does VBR kind of have like a dynamic lowpass filter?

[quote name='Maggi' date='Mar 4 2008, 06:54' post='550934']
"-b 8" is not possible with stereo files, "-b 32" would be minimum setting, but it is used automatically in VBR mode when possible
[quote name='Maggi' date='Mar 4 2008, 06:54' post='550934']
Ok... just so long as the max range is available. I just don't want it wasting bits when encoding silence, but I want it to have enough when encoding a complex symphonic orchestra cresendo.

[quote name='Maggi' date='Mar 4 2008, 06:54' post='550934']
"-m s" will result either in larger files or degraded sound, depending on your footage, just use joint stereo instead
[/quote]
What's the difference between stereo and joint stereo? I want my stereo field aspect of the compression to be at least transparent, if not lossless.

[quote name='Maggi' date='Mar 4 2008, 06:54' post='550934']
simply use "-V0 -q0 -p" if your aiming at the highest possible quality VBR mode with CRC protection, but the general consensus in these boards are that -V2 is indistinguishable from -V0 (maybe except for a few rare critical samples)
[/quote]
I've been using -q 2 lately for my CBR files and have gotten fairly good results, except that in general (unless I'm trying to save space by encoding at 16kbps) I get noticeably better results by upping the bitrate a couple steps over what Lame recommends for the lowpass filter it uses (for example, if it lowpasses at 13kHz at 80kbps, I'll encode at 112kbps and force lowpass at 13khz).

[quote name='Maggi' date='Mar 4 2008, 06:54' post='550934']
recompression will usually result in degraded sound quality anyways, so you should either re-rip everything properly or use the suggested methods of adding CRC values to your existing files
[/quote]
There's quite a few (maybe several hundred thousand or more, for example) songs that I'll eventually need to re-rip (most for the first time, probably) and record off cassettes, LPs, etc. Also I'll want a good way to do id3 tags. For now I've been "tagging" them in the filenames (which I'd continue to do that, too).

here's a nice overview about LAME's VBR modes

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=18091



and here's an excerpt from LAME's fine manual:



to sum it up, by default LAME will choose automatically whether it uses joint stereo or L/R stereo on a frame by frame basis, usually resulting in smaller files with higher quality

Maggi

Please fix your QUOTE BBcodes, or don't use them at all when referring to last couple posts above.

I don't know how 'hardware' players handle Xing frame in general. Any serious audio software for PC probably knows VBR at least 8 years. WinXP built-in DirectShow doesn't, but it's not a serious program.


As with LAME, GUI frontends are often separate programs. I'm only using generic front-ends myself, so don't know about those.
OGG Vorbis - OggEnc2
FLAC - FLAC itself
AAC - Nero AAC Encoder
MPEG-4 ASP - Xvid
MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) - x264


Silence is encoded with the smallest possible frame size (32 kBit/s for 32, 44, 48 kHz) even if a min bitrate is set.


I would add all metadata in tags and then format filenames based on this data. Filenames might get truncated or lost during copying.

-

Try to use mp3val in repair mode, please. If your problems haven't gone with your hardware player afterwards then we need to find another solution. Winamp is not a measure as Winamp does not show the times correctly in general for vbr MP3.

It doesn't? It did since the time Xing encoder was around.

It doesn't ! I see it daily with Winamp. fb2k is really accurate but not Winamp. Winamp uses both the size information in the mp3 header as well as a fast seeking algorithm optimized for speed (as far as I know) while foobar checks the real playing time.

Ah, you're talking about seeking.