MP3 Durations Wrong

[Bryson Jones]

I’ve never seen them that far off but I’ve seen wrapper errors “fool” catdv before.

In our case it was QT files mis-reporting their duration while catdv was reading the true media file. Is catdv right or wrong? And have you timed one to see which is correct? And finally, is it 5 sec regardless of length?. That would be weird.

Perhaps try downloading a trial of version 10 and see if that works. 11 is showing next week so that’s a pretty old version now.

bryson

bryson “at” northshoreautomation.com

northshoreautomation.com

[Andrew Pearson]

Thanks for the reply. It does seem to be consistently 5 seconds on any length file. I’ve used the Windows OS, MediaInfo and MP3Tag to confirm the 5 secs shorter length (though I haven’t actually listened with a stopwatch!).
I’ll try the demo of 10 and see if it’s different.
Can anyone else try an mp3 quickly and see what you get?

Cheers
Andrew

Andrew Pearson
British Library

[Bryson Jones]

Version 10.0.9 on OS X is right on 1:33 mp3 reports as 1:33

bryson

bryson “at” northshoreautomation.com

northshoreautomation.com

[Andrew Pearson]

urghh – hope it’s not Windows7 then

Andrew Pearson
British Library

[Brad Starkey]

If you can I would post a mp3 that was done with your encoder. How are you encoding it? A lot of software doesn’t do an acceptable job audibly these days, who knows how they handle maintaing mp3 ID3 standards? Just guessing, but since its becoming an outdated standard and licensing is relaxed…

[Andrew Pearson]

Hi
We’re mostly using Wavelab 7 batch processing to do the encoding, with the Lame codec. Unfortunately, we have around 200,000 MP3s on a server and are not yet in the position to re-encode them from the masters to a better, more modern codec, so are stuck with this outdated standard!

However, as you mentioned sending a test file, I used a manual save in Wavelab and the duration came out correct in CatDV. So you’re probably right that it’s our encoding process that’s at fault. I’m trying to get the encoders to do me a short, copyright free file to upload so you can have a look. There’s probably different durations at different positions in the file header and essence which are conficting. Do you know which bit CatDV reads? Maybe it’s different to the bit other software uses?

How do I upload a file (it’ll be a week or two – I’m off for a Easter)?

Cheers
Andrew

Andrew Pearson
British Library

[Andrew Pearson]

I’ve been trying to reproduce the fault in making a file to send you. It looks like something our end – I still have the faulty files, and know how/where they were made, but can’t make any more faulty ones.

Ah, well…

Andrew Pearson
British Library