What a stupid glitch [Archive] - Quintessential Forum

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Roj
05-15-2004, 02:24 PM
I hadn't noticed this before, so I thought I'd relate it here.

I use EncSpot Basic 2.0 to have a look at the encoders used in creating various files. Yes, I know it has its quirks and inaccuracies. This one is funny.

I ripped a bunch of tracks from various CDs for a project I'm working on for my car and I set CDex to encode on the fly at 192 CBR q=0. I also set it to not create any tags (I use the excellent MP3Tag to do that). So, here I am with a folder full of files and I run EncSpot against it out of curiosity. It reports a bitrate of *191*. That's right fellow illustrious chilibeans, not *192*. For each and every file. I'm puzzled. I rip and encode at various variations in quality of 192 CBR and get the same results out of EncSpot each time. I check encodes I downloaded known to be 192 LAME 3.92 (which is what I'm using in CDex) and they are 192.

Then I had a brainwave. What's the obvious difference? I added a tag to my freshly encoded files.

Voila!

EncSpot now sees them as 192.

Wazzup wid DAT???

Inthewoods
05-15-2004, 03:27 PM
I hadn't noticed this before, so I thought I'd relate it here.

I use EncSpot Basic 2.0 to have a look at the encoders used in creating various files. Yes, I know it has its quirks and inaccuracies. This one is funny.

I ripped a bunch of tracks from various CDs for a project I'm working on for my car and I set CDex to encode on the fly at 192 CBR q=0. I also set it to not create any tags (I use the excellent MP3Tag to do that). So, here I am with a folder full of files and I run EncSpot against it out of curiosity. It reports a bitrate of *191*. That's right fellow illustrious chilibeans, not *192*. For each and every file. I'm puzzled. I rip and encode at various variations in quality of 192 CBR and get the same results out of EncSpot each time. I check encodes I downloaded known to be 192 LAME 3.92 (which is what I'm using in CDex) and they are 192.

Then I had a brainwave. What's the obvious difference? I added a tag to my freshly encoded files.

Voila!

EncSpot now sees them as 192.

Wazzup wid DAT???


Yep...It's too bad Encspot is an orphan program. I've seen similar glitches and some even weirder ones. The topper? I've been experimenting with an alpha release of lame4, and Encspot reports the files as gogo encoded, not even lame. I have also seen tags (or lack of same) affect bitrate, including 320 being reported as 420! yep....420. I wish somebody with the programming skills would take over this program.

Roj
05-15-2004, 03:56 PM
I've been experimenting with an alpha release of lame4
Is Dibrom back in the driver's seat on this one as far as audio quality is concerned? The sad little boys who took over after he minimized his involvement way back when have made a right mess of audio quality by sacrificing it for speed IMO.

sld
06-09-2004, 07:43 PM
Nah. LAME 4 isn't being intensively developed yet. One of their developers has to finalise some psychoacoustic nitty-gritty tuning first (Naoki Shibata, IIRC).

An alpha's an alpha, you know :p

Roj
06-10-2004, 12:24 PM
Nah. LAME 4 isn't being intensively developed yet. One of their developers has to finalise some psychoacoustic nitty-gritty tuning first (Naoki Shibata, IIRC).

An alpha's an alpha, you know :p
I can wait... :)