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Jokoto · 10-16-2009, 04:50 AM

There is no excuse for any player to not play VBR MP3 files. Constant bitrate MP3s are just a special case, where each frame just happens to have the same size (thus wasting space if it's forcefully so). I suppose some early, very cheap MP3 chip(s) just did the dumb thing and looked at the size of the very first frame only, irresponsibly ignoring the rest and filling the market with barely functional mp3 players. It is easier to calculate the length of the track if it is CBR but that's just awfully lazy!

I just now tested my Bebook Mini's support (Hanlin V5). I gave it a VBR MP3 file and it plays, even though it has some extra APE tags (in addition to the usual ID3v1 and v2 tags) in it from replay gain operations (made with MP3Gain, recommended to get your mp3 collection "replay gained" properly). It didn't quite calculate the track length properly, but at least it didn't reject it outright.

Have you tried encoding the mp3 files with LAME?

http://www.rarewares.org/mp3-lame-bu...p#lame-current

Get the current (not the alpha build) and see how that fares. It's a command-line tool, but a good GUI front-end allows you to tell it to use LAME.

Alternatively, try foobar2000 if you don't feel comfortable using the command prompt. It's much faster to quickly try it out like this though - no installing or configuring required.

Just extract the zip archive somewhere, put a test wav file in the same directory and say "lame test.wav test.mp3 --preset medium" on the command line and you get a VBR mp3, in this case "test.mp3". Leave out the --preset medium to get a 128 kbps CBR file and test that too (give it a different name though).

If neither of those plays, there must be something seriously wrong with the player. If only one plays, it's still broken but that's how many mp3 players are... and you should (still) tell them to fix it!

10-16-2009, 04:50 AM	#3
Jokoto Member Posts: 13 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jun 2009 Device: Bebook Mini	There is no excuse for any player to not play VBR MP3 files. Constant bitrate MP3s are just a special case, where each frame just happens to have the same size (thus wasting space if it's forcefully so). I suppose some early, very cheap MP3 chip(s) just did the dumb thing and looked at the size of the very first frame only, irresponsibly ignoring the rest and filling the market with barely functional mp3 players. It is easier to calculate the length of the track if it is CBR but that's just awfully lazy! I just now tested my Bebook Mini's support (Hanlin V5). I gave it a VBR MP3 file and it plays, even though it has some extra APE tags (in addition to the usual ID3v1 and v2 tags) in it from replay gain operations (made with MP3Gain, recommended to get your mp3 collection "replay gained" properly). It didn't quite calculate the track length properly, but at least it didn't reject it outright. Have you tried encoding the mp3 files with LAME? http://www.rarewares.org/mp3-lame-bu...p#lame-current Get the current (not the alpha build) and see how that fares. It's a command-line tool, but a good GUI front-end allows you to tell it to use LAME. Alternatively, try foobar2000 if you don't feel comfortable using the command prompt. It's much faster to quickly try it out like this though - no installing or configuring required. Just extract the zip archive somewhere, put a test wav file in the same directory and say "lame test.wav test.mp3 --preset medium" on the command line and you get a VBR mp3, in this case "test.mp3". Leave out the --preset medium to get a 128 kbps CBR file and test that too (give it a different name though). If neither of those plays, there must be something seriously wrong with the player. If only one plays, it's still broken but that's how many mp3 players are... and you should (still) tell them to fix it!