Timecode issues

Greetings!

When selecting different timecodes, I find very strange behavior. Song durations appear to be very far off from their actual times. Examples:

Pink Floyd: Hey You (The Wall) - 35:37
Kate Bush: Jig Of Life (Hounds Of Love) - 25:37

Note: it also looks like these files are being tagged as fixed rate stereo 32kbps, when they are actually a much higher quality VBR.

It makes my playlist remaining time very interesting... I am shooting for multi-year playlists!!!

And, just in case I didn't say it before in the other threads - WOW!!!

Paul G.
SN# 090000587 (96GB Smoke)
SN# 030103046 (10GB Blue - Emergency Spare)

See if it's bad VBR headers. In the Riocar.org FAQ there is a link to a VBR-header repair tool, try that.

Note that even if it is the file's fault, you should hang on to a copy of the "bad" file in case Empeg wants to look at it.

___________
Tony Fabris

Greetings!

I will check into it. But until I get sync capabilities again, I am not going to worry about that one much. I will download with displayserver in the morning and experiment.

Paul G.
SN# 090000587 (96GB Smoke)
SN# 030103046 (10GB Blue - Emergency Spare)

Greetings!

Now in the office. I took one track that I knew was bad (the Pink Floyd, Hey You track) and ran it though some stuff.

mp3Trim gives it a clean bill of health - correct times and no errors in any of the frames.
vbrfix claims it fixed something, but the files look identical
encspot says it was an fhG encoder (Help. I have no idea if this is good or bad.) Bitrate 183kbps, Green quality.

Emplode also reads the time incorrectly.

I will continue to experiment.

Paul G.
SN# 090000587 (96GB Smoke)
SN# 030103046 (10GB Blue - Emergency Spare)

What does my Linux mp3tool think of the file,
and does the --repair option have any effect on
how the empeg player treats it?

http://rtr.ca/empeg/

Greetings!

Is that tool available to run on the empeg itself? I do not have another Linux box to test with.

I tried doing a fix on it, reuploaded it, and the time looks correct. This implies bad headers, but mp3trim did not detect anything wrong.

(If I have to download everything, run a fix and reupload, this will not be done for a very long time... That would take a very long time. Perhaps when a new builder comes out, with official support for larger hard drives...)

Meanwhile, I have never had this problem on previous releases. The times appeared correct in emplode (if I remember correctly).

Paul G.
SN# 090000587 (96GB Smoke)
SN# 030103046 (10GB Blue - Emergency Spare)

Edited by pgrzelak on 18/10/01 03:42 PM.

Repairing the mp3 file headers on the empeg would be a real time saver!! The only problem is how do you force an update of the (*1,*0) file (you know the one with the tag info in it - can't remember which one it is at this time of the morning)? Forcing a database update is no problem though. Would love to be able to do this as I encoded a heap of music using VBR in MusicMatch and they all seem to have broken headers (or at least empode/the empeg doesn't read them properly). Would actually be nice to be able to use Marks mp3tool on the empeg to strip out all that unwanted/space wasting data from the mp3s too.

(list 6284, Mk1 S/N 00299 4GB blue [for sale]. Mk2 S/N 080000094 26GB blue)

Would actually be nice to be able to use Marks mp3tool on the empeg to strip out all that unwanted/space wasting data from the mp3s too.

Well, it is a Linux tool, so, in principle, why not? Memory footprint? One can add swap (16MB by default, I think; can Debian mkswap make swap in an ordinary file?). Of course, the things will become quite slow then...

Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Zagreb, Croatia
Q#5196, MkII#80000376, 18GB green

that's OK, I'd be quite happy to set up a batch job and let it run over night if need be. Don't have access to another Linux box to run it on, although I could try out the Windoze tool that Tony mentions in the FAQ. Then I would have to do every mp3 by hand thought -> no fun!

(list 6284, Mk1 S/N 00299 4GB blue [for sale]. Mk2 S/N 080000094 26GB blue)

can Debian mkswap make swap in an ordinary file?

Yes, Linux can use swap files too. I see no reason that that functionality would have been removed from mkswap for arm.

Normally you avoid them as they're slower than a separate partition.

/Michael

There's already a swap partition - /dev/hda6

Hugo

I thought in addition to /dev/hda6 - it is only some 16MB. mkswap usage shows only device, but I guess it can be a pre-created file in filesystem, as well.

Of course, programs that need three or four times more memory than is physically there won't run particularly fast...

Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Zagreb, Croatia
Q#5196, MkII#80000376, 18GB green

Really, Mark, have you tried to port mp3tool to empeg (I suppose it is character mode app). Would it fit? How about Windows/DOS (or Cygwin)? I am asking because my Linux laptop let out its holly smoke and I am for at least a month more stuck with Win98 (which I must keep on the remaining machine for various reasons) and, of course, empeg itself.

Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Zagreb, Croatia
Q#5196, MkII#80000376, 18GB green

Really, Mark, have you tried to port mp3tool to empeg (I suppose it is character mode app). Would it fit? How about Windows/DOS (or Cygwin)? I am asking because my Linux laptop let out its holly smoke and I am for at least a month more stuck with Win98 (which I must keep on the remaining machine for various reasons) and, of course, empeg itself.


Mark was gracious enough to provide me with the source for mp3tool to compile on the empeg..... unfortunately, it compiles without errors.... but doesn't run "well" at all on the empeg. I'm going to take a closer look at it, but I'm afraid that I won't be able to do much with it.... Mark appears to be a heck of a lot better coder than I was... And unfortunately, I'm more of a manager now a days than a tech... :(

Even if it does get to run, I'm still not sure of what it's effect would be.... How would changing the mp3 file without updating the metadata file effect the DB? Plus, if you have ANY sizable mp3's, better count on adding a fair bit of swap.

I thought it could perhaps 'repair' my rather numerous (~100) files that either provoke 'Illegal format' error or cause a loud burst of noise, both at the very end. They all pass MP3Trim without it detecting anything wrong (all that I tested, that is), and most of them are CBR files bought from MP3.com, so I have nothing to re-rip and encode.

Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Zagreb, Croatia
Q#5196, MkII#80000376, 18GB green

Okay, I'll release the source code for mp3tool.c, under GPL.

Look for it on my website shortly.

Thanks!

Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Zagreb, Croatia
Q#5196, MkII#80000376, 18GB green