VBR problens with iPod

[scirious]

Well, I've been considering buying an iPod, but after reading so many posts about iPod not beeing able to play VBR MP3 properly, I'd like to know if Apple have already adressed this problem.

Thansks in advance,
Scirious.

[hacp]

you can play vbr mp3s. I'm pretty sure.

[interlude]

A great deal of my MP3s on my mini are VBR-encoded and they play flawlessly.

[cowboypunk]

it does play vbr mp3's. maybe the old ipods dont. im not sure.

[MrZebra77]

You know how some VBR MP3s sometimes show weird times when played on the computer? While most programs will eventually realise that it's wrong and play the file normally but the iPod seems to treat the initial duration as the absolute truth and play the song for that time no matter what. So if a 4 minute song reports as lasting 2 minutes, it will cut at 2 minutes.

This is actually a bug with the encoder, if the encoder doesn't tag the files properly, it will do this.

All my MP3s are encoded with LAME most being at Preset Extreme which is VBR and have no problems.

Due to a bug with the LAME front-end I use, albums with international characters don't work too well so I used another encoder for those which had that bug I mentionned and found about this problem.

I reripped the album in question using a different program (That also uses LAME for encoding) and it plays fine now.

[MOCKBA]

All my collection (mostly) VBR 256, no problems so far.

[sabresfan007]

Mine also, all of my VBR's play great and I have over 30 of them.

[scirious]

Well, I mean, I'm not saying iPod isn't a good player, but you have to agree that with so many posts about this issue, it's something to consider. As I'm understanding, what you say is that the problem resides in people's files, not int the player itself. So, what do you have to say about the following posts?

(Well, I've tried to post the links for other posts here but I wasn't allowed. So, I'm sorry!!!)

Well, read the topics above and you will see that it is not only a few people wiht this issue. And, as I have my whole collection in encoded in LAME VBR MP3, I'd like to kown if it has been fixed because I don't iintend to reencode then all. Also, all my files play fine with Winamp.

Thanks for your response,
Scirious.

[stinkiedmb]

i think VBR problems can be attributed to the application that encoded the VBR files.

all the VBR mp3's on my iPod that were encoded with iTunes play perfectly.

when i encoded VBR mp3's with DVD Audio Extractor, i ran into problems, and had to chose CBR instead.

[scirious]

Actually, I'm using EAC+LAME to create my MP3 and I don't intend to use iTunes, since I don't like it.

[sabresfan007]

Originally posted by scirious
Actually, I'm using EAC+LAME to create my MP3 and I don't intend to use iTunes, since I don't like it.

How come you don't use iTunes? I think it's extremely user friendly and an impressed at its ease of use. Just wondering your side of it.

[scirious]

I'm not talking about usabilaty and userfrienlyness, but about sound quality. To me, and that is to me, LAME encoded MP3 sounds better than iTunes ones. And I don't want to use AAC format.

[sabresfan007]

I see.

But in a perfect world we would all use Apple Lossless

[dimmer]

The majority of my mp3s are encoded with EAC using the -alt-preset-standard setting. I have never had any problems with my 3g or 4g iPod playing the resulting VBR files. I think this might have been a problem with some older mp3 players, maybe including the first generation iPods, but is not a concern now.

[scirious]

Actually, those links that I was going to post ware talking about problens in 4G and 2G mini iPods. So it is not in the old ones.