Silent MP3's

[Stuart Grimshaw]

Hi there,

I have several mp3's that will not play on my slimp3, I'm currently
using slimserver 5.4.0, but I had the same issue with earlier
versions. The mp3's all play on xmms & winamp.

A good example is available from the BBC at this url:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/audio/fighting_talk.mp3

The mp3's that don't play are all spoken word, which might suggest a
lower, and therefore incompatable bit rate?

--
-S

[kdf]

Quoting Stuart Grimshaw <stuart.grimshaw (AT) gmail (DOT) com>:

> Hi there,
>
> I have several mp3's that will not play on my slimp3, I'm currently
> using slimserver 5.4.0, but I had the same issue with earlier
> versions. The mp3's all play on xmms & winamp.
>
> A good example is available from the BBC at this url:
>
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/audio/fighting_talk.mp3
>
> The mp3's that don't play are all spoken word, which might suggest a
> lower, and therefore incompatable bit rate?

That's likely. You may have better luck with the analogue outputs since they
are not restricted by SPDIF standards. If you search the archives via
gmane.org, you can find a discussion on converting mp3 to wav in order to allow
the conversion resample to 44kHz for audible digital output.

-kdf

[kdf]

Quoting Stuart Grimshaw <stuart.grimshaw (AT) gmail (DOT) com>:

> Hi there,
>
> I have several mp3's that will not play on my slimp3, I'm currently
> using slimserver 5.4.0, but I had the same issue with earlier
> versions. The mp3's all play on xmms & winamp.
>
> A good example is available from the BBC at this url:
>
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/audio/fighting_talk.mp3
>
> The mp3's that don't play are all spoken word, which might suggest a
> lower, and therefore incompatable bit rate?

sorry...nix that. I just realised, you mentioned slimp3. I'm not sure what the
minimum rate was for the hardware, but its possible. Unfortunately, in the
case of slimp3, the hardware for mp3 conversion is stuck that way.

-kdf

[Stuart Grimshaw]

Wouldn't the same technique work to raise the bitrate to enable them
to be played on a slimp3?


On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 02:28:17 -0800, kdf <slim-mail (AT) deane-freeman (DOT) com> wrote:
> Quoting Stuart Grimshaw <stuart.grimshaw (AT) gmail (DOT) com>:
>
> > Hi there,
> >
> > I have several mp3's that will not play on my slimp3, I'm currently
> > using slimserver 5.4.0, but I had the same issue with earlier
> > versions. The mp3's all play on xmms & winamp.
> >
> > A good example is available from the BBC at this url:
> >
> > http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/audio/fighting_talk.mp3
> >
> > The mp3's that don't play are all spoken word, which might suggest a
> > lower, and therefore incompatable bit rate?
>
> sorry...nix that. I just realised, you mentioned slimp3. I'm not sure what the
> minimum rate was for the hardware, but its possible. Unfortunately, in the
> case of slimp3, the hardware for mp3 conversion is stuck that way.
>
> -kdf
>

[Craig Eales]

Stuart,

I had a hack at this a couple of weeks ago - a patch is attached to
the following bug

http://bugs.slimdevices.com/show_bug.cgi?id=624

The change forces a resample via lame if the sample rate < 44.1Khz

I just tried the fighting-talk.mp3 you posted on the link and it seems
to work OK, - note the fix only works if you download the file locally
before playing it; it does not fix playing it as a stream.

I have plans to expand the ideas to work on more file types, etc.
Unfortunately, I have not had time to implement it yet.

Craig

On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 10:38:00 +0000, Stuart Grimshaw
<stuart.grimshaw (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:
> Wouldn't the same technique work to raise the bitrate to enable them
> to be played on a slimp3?
>
>
> On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 02:28:17 -0800, kdf <slim-mail (AT) deane-freeman (DOT) com> wrote:
> > Quoting Stuart Grimshaw <stuart.grimshaw (AT) gmail (DOT) com>:
> >
> > > Hi there,
> > >
> > > I have several mp3's that will not play on my slimp3, I'm currently
> > > using slimserver 5.4.0, but I had the same issue with earlier
> > > versions. The mp3's all play on xmms & winamp.
> > >
> > > A good example is available from the BBC at this url:
> > >
> > > http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/audio/fighting_talk.mp3
> > >
> > > The mp3's that don't play are all spoken word, which might suggest a
> > > lower, and therefore incompatable bit rate?
> >
> > sorry...nix that. I just realised, you mentioned slimp3. I'm not sure what the
> > minimum rate was for the hardware, but its possible. Unfortunately, in the
> > case of slimp3, the hardware for mp3 conversion is stuck that way.
> >
> > -kdf
> >

[kdf]

Quoting Stuart Grimshaw <stuart.grimshaw (AT) gmail (DOT) com>:

> Wouldn't the same technique work to raise the bitrate to enable them
> to be played on a slimp3?

sadly not. mp3's are played natively, so its not that easy to force the server
to convert mp3's up to a higher rate. The server supports bitrate limiting,
but this does not limit the minimum.

however, being open source, there is likely some way to patch it. I'm still not
sure what the official minimum rates are for slimp3. it may be something else
at play here.

-kdf

[Stuart Grimshaw]

On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 10:51:13 +0000, Craig Eales <craig.eales (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:
> Stuart,
>
> I had a hack at this a couple of weeks ago - a patch is attached to
> the following bug
>
> http://bugs.slimdevices.com/show_bug.cgi?id=624
>
> The change forces a resample via lame if the sample rate < 44.1Khz

Thanks Craig, I'll give that patch a try,

> I just tried the fighting-talk.mp3 you posted on the link and it seems
> to work OK, - note the fix only works if you download the file locally
> before playing it; it does not fix playing it as a stream.

That's OK, I download the file every week so that I always have them available.


--
-S

[Richard Edge]

Try "Tag&Rename" from http://music-management.2-mp3.com/tag-rename/.
Someone else in this forum recommended it a couple of weeks ago. I
have been using the 30 day trial version since then and will
definitely be purchasing it. Slick program. It isn't free, but it
priced pretty low at $24.95. It has saved me quite a bit of work and
therefore worth the money.


On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 09:58:52 -0500, Andy Bunn <abunn (AT) whrc (DOT) org> wrote:
> Hi all: Who has a recommendation for a tag editor to run on Windows. I'm
> after a bare bones editor with online lookup and art support, I don't need a
> player with it although that seems hard to avoid. Free is better than not
> free. Any thoughts?
>
> -Andy
>
>

[Geoff Bonallack]

On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 08:19:48 -0800, Richard Edge <stargazer54 (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:
> Try "Tag&Rename" from http://music-management.2-mp3.com/tag-rename/.
> Someone else in this forum recommended it a couple of weeks ago. I
> have been using the 30 day trial version since then and will
> definitely be purchasing it. Slick program. It isn't free, but it
> priced pretty low at $24.95. It has saved me quite a bit of work and
> therefore worth the money.
>
>
> On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 09:58:52 -0500, Andy Bunn <abunn (AT) whrc (DOT) org> wrote:
> > Hi all: Who has a recommendation for a tag editor to run on Windows. I'm
> > after a bare bones editor with online lookup and art support, I don't need a
> > player with it although that seems hard to avoid. Free is better than not
> > free. Any thoughts?
> >
> > -Andy
> >

I use mp3tag, works very well, reasonably full-featured without being
too bloated. And you can't beat the price (free).
Available here:
http://www.mp3tag.de/en/

[Dave Dewey]

Quoting Richard Edge (stargazer54 (AT) gmail (DOT) com):

> Try "Tag&Rename" from http://music-management.2-mp3.com/tag-rename/.
> Someone else in this forum recommended it a couple of weeks ago. I
> have been using the 30 day trial version since then and will
> definitely be purchasing it. Slick program. It isn't free, but it
> priced pretty low at $24.95. It has saved me quite a bit of work and
> therefore worth the money.

I use MP3Tag from ManiacTools:
http://www.maniactools.com/

I really like it, it works great and the one issue I had was immediately
corrected by the author.

Tag&Rename is decent also, but I definitely prefer MP3Tag.

dave