VBR Variable Bit Rate MP3s...HELP!!

I posted a message yesterday regarding pausing problems with VBR MP3s. It seems 2.1.1c playing MP3s using the performance pack has problem pausing and resuming MP3s if they are VBR. I decided to switch back to 2.1.1a and low and behold, now if I play a VBR MP3 it halts at some random point in the middle of the MP3. When I say random I mean it is different for different MP3s but that each track will always halt at the same point. There are no exception thrown but it looks to me like some kind of buffer overflow. Please anybody out there, can you help??

MP3 support was removed from 2.1.1c due to license changes. According to Sun, JMF should now use whatever system decoder it can find. Perhaps upgrading DirectX would help.

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"Variable Bit Rate Audio Not Supported"

Hello -
I have several AC-3 files - sourced from satellite broadcast downloads - surround 5.1, 448kbps/48kHz - that I cannot add to DVD SP. When I attempt to import them into the assests pane, DVD SP reports they are incompatible giving the error message in the subject.
Any ideas?

I too have noticed this today when trying to import a new CD. Every track has a variable bit rate despite not requesting it.
The older version of iTunes did not do this, just this new 7.5. I cannot seem to resolve. I tried to create a custom import without VBR but it ignored this too and did it anyway.
Apple, please help! This must be fixable somehow!

Variable bit rate audio assets cannot be imported

Extracted some ac3 files from personal content DVDs I authored and burned myself (using DVDSP) to make a compilation. When I try to import these 5.1 ac3 assets, DVDSP is refusing stating: "Variable bit rate audio assets cannot be imported." These ac3 files play fine in QuickTime and other programs that handle ac3 files.
Can anyone help?

Hi:
Please give us some info about the original movie/audio formats and what encoding presets you used in Compressor.
Alberto

Variable bit rate on importing bug in iTunes 7.5

I have tried importing a new CD into iTunes 7.5, installed this week as an update to the previous version.
Now each track imported comes in at variable bit rates. I cannot seem to stop this. I tried to create a custom import rate without VBR but it ignored it anyway.
Is there a fix for this? 7.4.x and earlier versions was fine.
Mark

Apparently it is related to the new QuickTime AAC encoder.
For more info see http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1197343&tstart=0
stefano

PlayCenter3: variable bit rate: need to know numerical equival

I am using PlayCenter 3 on my desktop computer and always rip MP3s using VBR (the setting: highest quality). In short, I need to know the information that that setting represents; specifically, the guaranteed minimum bit rate. On my notebook I must use other MP3 software because I do not own a Soundblaster for the notebook. Since I am giving my desktop to my parents I need to know the numerical equivalent of the highest quality VBR setting so that I may enter that into the options of whatever ripping software I finally decide to use.
I learned about *guaranteed minimum bit rate* through reading iTunes' options box.
THANKS! :-)

Is the problem inherently answered in your question?
Why use VBR when you bounce? It's a compromise solution, and has it's own problems. What are soundclicks tech specs? Work to those, getting the file as big as you can, it takes moments to bounce multiple files of varying bit depth etc to see how far you can stretch things before you're over-budget on the file size.
best
Steve

Variable bit rate is good

hello everyone,
I've been compressing dvd using compressor at 7.8CBR for my pass projects & it looks great. However on my current project I can't pull a good compression due to the large LCD screen in the background so I have to try vairalbe bit rate with min 6.5 & max 8.0 two passes & it looks great.
Does anyone has any similar experience?
I heard that compressor's VBR is not good so I 've never tried but to my understanding, it's better to do 2passes since the software would analyze the movie better.
just some note.
JP
ps: can't wait to upgrade to fcp studio2

It's said the Compressor 2.3 has solved all problems related with VBR in past versions.
Alberto

Using Variable Bit Rate Encoding (VBR) and playback issues

I have been using VBR when making mp3 for download to "Soundclick.com" in the past, resently, I started to hear complaints from listeners, that my mp3 were garbled, although it is not consistent so, it is true, and I came to believe it was because of VBR. I re-encoded the files in question, and so far the problem has gone away.
The question is this due to OSX 10.5.6, or might it be something with soundclick, I don't know; but it did seem to become evident after loading the OSX 10.5.6 update. I can't find a way to correspond with Apple Development, so I thought to post here. I am also going to pursue this with "Soundclick.com"; VBR seems to be an efficient way to encode, and I would like to keep using it.
If anyone know about this it would be cool to hear for you!
God Bless,
ron c
http://soundclick.com/rone2him

Is the problem inherently answered in your question?
Why use VBR when you bounce? It's a compromise solution, and has it's own problems. What are soundclicks tech specs? Work to those, getting the file as big as you can, it takes moments to bounce multiple files of varying bit depth etc to see how far you can stretch things before you're over-budget on the file size.
best
Steve

Export flash vid with VBR? (variable bit rate)

Does AE CS3 have a choice of VBR when exporting Flash Video (FLV)? I'm going thru the Render Queue, but can't find where to change it from CBR.
Thanks, Mates!

No, I don't think so. After Effects only does one-pass rendering/compression, so you're probably better off with Flash Video Encoder or something similar.
- Jonas Hummelstrand
http://generalspecialist.com/

What, exactly, is variable bit rate?

I understand the basic concept of VBR, but how does it actually work? I realize that more bits are devoted to the parts of the movie that have the most action. This means that other parts of the movie are subsampled in some way. Is it spatial subsampling, temporal subsampling, or a combination? Temporal subsampling could be done, for example, by dropping every other frame (although I doubt that this approach would give good results). Spatial subsampling could be done by rendering certain frames with less precision (similar to selecting a lower quality for a jpeg image). I have tried to figure out how this works by looking closely at samples, but I can't tell.

Michael,
I understand the basic concept of VBR, but how does it actually work?
Try this page to understand how VBR works, http://www.creativevideo.co.uk/pages/cvpinfo_mpeg2dvd.htm

Bit-rate -- please help

I have a Video Ipod ( 60gig ) and an Ipod HiFI speaker system. When I went to buy I tunes, I saw they are only 128 bitrate -- will they be ok? Don't you get better sound with higher bitrate? What do most people use and why
Thank you
Gary

This page has some info on 128 Kbps AAC.

What are the Bit Rates of the Music Store and Podcasts?

What is the bit rate quality and format of a song downloaded in the Music Store? And podcasts? Are they perfect, Apple Lossless quality or what...?

This might be true, but you won't experience any improvement in sound quality. Here's some info on bit rates:
This was originally posted by the incredible Sparky the wUnderdog
"As a general principle, you can fit more CDs on your iPod if you encode at lower bitrates (making smaller files), but at the cost of audio quality. Lossless promises to capture all the data on the original CD (thus preserving quality) but coded so the file takes half the space. MP3 and AAC (an implementation of variable bit rate MP4) both eliminate some of the information on the CD in order to compress the digital recording into ever smaller files--the lower the bitrate, the smaller the file, but smaller files mean more information lost and consequent poorer sound quality.
iTunes's MP3 encoder is so-so; the LAME encoder is better at preserving sound fidelity to the original. AAC files ripped in iTunes certainly sound better than its MP3s, with audio quality close to the best LAME MP3s at higher bitrates. With the type of music I listen to most often, sound quality declines substantially as bitrates fall below 256kbps, but LAME or AAC @ 256kbps sounds pretty darned good, and at 320kbps LAME alt-preset-insane is amazingly faithful to the original. However many users claim that with the music they listen to they can't hear the difference between 192 or even 128 kbps files and the original CD source, so they naturally choose higher compression rates to fit more "songs" on their iPods.
CDs take approximately 10MB per minute of music; Apple lossless takes 5MB/minute; LAME insane takes 2.5MB/min; AAC or MP3 at 256kbps take 2MB/min; and iTunes Store files (AAC@128kbps) take 1MB/min. At these rates, a 20GB iPod (really 18.6GB) can hold anywhere from 30 hours to over 300 hours of music. (iPod marketers express this potential playback capacity as "songs," figuring 4 minutes per song--thus 300 hours at 128kbps = 4500 "songs.") You will need to listen to samples ripped with different bitrates and codecs to determine the optimum tradeoff point for you between quality & quantity. It's worth taking some time to do this at the start as it sure beats reripping everything in your collection 2 or 3 times to get it right later.
So far as convenience goes, nothing beats iTunes's one-step process. To change bitrate as you import from CD, go to the iTunes menu > Edit > Preferences, select the Importing tab, choose AAC or MP3 encoder in the "import using" selection box, then choose "Custom" in the "setting" box, and the window permitting bitrate selection will pop up. If you choose iTunes MP3 encoder, at least use VBR (variable bit rate) to maximize the sound quality. (VBR increases sample size as data complexity increases.)
If you would prefer LAME MP3s, fear not, for the easy-to-use CDex ripping software is a free download and requires only one simple extra step to get the files into iTunes for transfer to your iPod. Now if AAC sound quality is comparable to LAME MP3, you might wonder why you should even consider LAME: Because of portability to other devices. At present, hardly anything but iPods can read AACs or Apple Lossless, but almost everything reads MP3s. So if you plan to burn CDs of your compressed files for playback on your home or car CD player (for instance), it would be wise to choose MP3.
One other consideration specific to the iPod: It has a 32MB cache. If you choose a compression rate that results in large files (i.e. lossless), then the cache won't hold very much 'music' and the hard drive will have to spin up frequently to fill it, and that will shorten your battery life somewhat."
JC

Maximum Bit Rate help

I have been trying to find the best bit rate settings to display from a USB drive on an Xbox 360 or PS3. I found the recommended settings but the maximum bit rate that I set it at, is always exceeded during playback.
For example if I am using the h.264 codec with the bit rate settings of VBR and the maximum bit rate set for 10 Mbps, my bit rate will always spike way higher then 10 Mbps during scenes with more movement. A scene where I'm pointing my camera out of a moving car with houses going by displayed a bit rate of 38.8. In case anyone is wondering I use the bit rate counter on my PS3 to find the bit rate at any give time.
Now When the bit rate spiked at 38.8 for that scene, it dipslayed fine on my PS3, but when played back on my Xbox it stutters a little at that moment.
If I use a CBR of 10 Mbps the bit rate still goes quite a bit over 10 Mbps but didn't approach 40 Mbps like it does when using a variable bit rate. When using a CBR it played back flawlessly on both devices but there was a little drop in quality.
Is there something I am doing wrong or is this just how it works? I assumed the target bit rate is what you are shooting for and the maximum bit rate would never be exceeded. Is that not the case?

I took that it could be inaccurate in to consideration but when I play a blu-ray back the bit rate usually fluctuates between 25-35 Mbps so I assumed the readings were pretty accurate.
I'll try the VLC player as you suggested when I get home. Does it show you the bit rate during playback, the average bit rate, or what?
Also if I set my maximum bit rate to 10 Mbps should it never exceed that?

MP3 Optimum bit-rate/rule-of-thu

Hi
I am ripping my pop and classical CDs and enconding them to MP3 files to play on my GB MuVo V200
and I am wondering what bit rate would be best as I'd like the sound to be high quality (~ like CD)
but then again, I do not want take up *too* much memory space per track.
A friend suggested that I use a bit-rate of 92kbps, and use VARIABLE bit rate encoding.
Is this a good suggestion as a rule of thumb?
Or is the standard suggestion of 28kbps better?
Add if so, which is better FIXED or VARIABLE bit rate?
Finally, does VARIABLE bit rate cause the MuVo to use up more battery power decoding the
MP3 file? (or less?) If more, how much more? 0%?
Thanks in advance

Well virtually all of my mp3s on my zen touch are between 92k to 320k (constant or variable bitrate) and I get around 8 hours playback which isn't that much less than the stated 24 hour playback using 28k mp3s. Also note that I don't just leave it playing continously, but I frequently browse my playlists, switch tracks and use fast forward/rewind which also consumes battery life. Therefore, I wouldn't worry too much about bitrate effects on battery life for any mp3 player.
For the same sized file, variable bitrate gives better quality than constant bitrate. If you want excellent quality mp3s with fairly low disk space usage, i'd recommend you use the lame mp3 encoder and use the "alt preset standard" encoding preset. This basically uses variable bitrate that gives an average bitrate of about 90k.
Otherwise just use 92k CBR mp3s or 60K CBR wmas.

ITunes & Constant Bit Rate

Hi. Okay this is my first time posting here. Up till now I've been decently satisfied with my iPhone. However right now I'm trying to import some songs from a CD that I own onto my computer and into my iTunes Library.
Okay so I watched the tutorial video. I did a little research online and I found the way to change the import settings.
I want a HIGH QUALITY music file in the .aac format at a CONSTANT BIT RATE.
Following me so far? With that in mind when it came to the 1st screen I selected "Custom" and I choose
Stereo Bit Rate: 320
Sample Rate: 44.100 kHz
Channels: Auto
Within this window the option "Use Variable Bit Rate" was SELECTED.
I unchecked/deselected it because I want a CBR (Constant Bit Rate).
And then I hit "Okay" thinking that I had done everything correct and perfectly.
Then I was back at the Main Pain. I hit Import CD hoping it would use the custom settings. However when I went to the folder to my shock and surprise it was giving me music files with a varying bit rate.
Some files were 325. Others were 321 and a few 319. This is NOT what I wanted and not what I expected from iTunes. I tell it to not use VBR it should be doing CBR right?
So that's why I'm hear. What do I need to do to get this to WORK the way I want it to? Or should I just give up and use another program like Windows Media Player to rip my songs into .mp3? I'd rather use .aac since I hear it's better quality and it's the evolution of mp3.
Any help would be greatly appreciated....
Message was edited by: TheLionOfAzzalle

It's still NOT working.
I've done exactly the way you suggested. I've also tried it with "use error correction" and it still doesn't give me what I want.
The only thing that sorta produces what I want is when I put it to mono and start the importing process the files all come out at the same bitrate.
However the highest bitrate I can get with that is 160. And that's not what I want.
I'm about to just give up. On top of iTunes being ridiculous slow on all Windows computers I now find that importing songs is a complete hassle.

Bit Rate confusion!

My default import option is AAC 128 KBPS. I don't have custom settings or anything like that. For some reason, the last 3 or 4 albums I have imported have had varied bit rates. One song will be 126, and the next will be 130, and it's driving me crazy! Please help?
I'm using 7.5, in case that helps.

Yes this appears to be either a change in QuickTime or a bug in iTunes 7.5. Variable Bit Rate appears to be permanently turned on at the moment. For now you will just have to accept it or use a different encoder (like MP3).
See here for other discussion on this...
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=6122846
Patrick

VBR Variable Bit Rate MP3s...HELP!!

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