----- Original Message ----- From: "Gabriel Bouvigne" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, June 10, 2002 2:45 AM Subject: Re: [MP3 ENCODER] 417 byte header offset, why?
> > Inspecting the files with a Hex editor and File Info function in Winamp, I > > discovered that if Lame generates no ID3 tag, or a v1.1 tag only, it > "pads" > > the first 417 bytes of the file with zeros. > > This is the space reserved to write the info/vbr tag. This tag should be > written after encoding is finished. The problem might be that the front-end > that you are using to encode doesn't properly call the needed function to > complete this tag after encoding. This was not a problem with vbr files, the vbr files I have made get the header placed at zero. > > So I set about looking for a switch to perhaps discontinue this feature > > (assuming it is a feature) but had no luck. > -t Dosen't it seem odd that that switch would be required when writing a cbr file? > > Only when it sees a bunch of zeros at the > > start of the file does it get rude and display "Not MP3". > Might be an indication that your player is broken. Compliant mp3 players > should skip unrecognized data. Apparently the Sony was designed to be tolerant of other (non MP3) files on the disk. It alluded to this in the manual. It would seem that it examines a portion of the file and if it finds neither an ID3 tag or an MP3 header it assumes that there is some other filetype. Apparently if it finds and ID3 v2 tag it will search quite a way into the file for the header though. I'm curious to see how far my Rio Volt will search into a file for a header. I'll have to do some more experiments with that. I guess compromises have to be made with the limited processing power of these portable players. I haven't been able to make any of the other encoders pad the beginning of a file with zeros the way that Lame seems to under certain conditions (discounting the ones that are not vbr capable, since they would have no reason to) so I guess Sony's engineers didn't teach their decoder to look that far into the file for a header (unless a tag is found). It would have to be a design issue rather than a single broken unit, unless the floor models at BestBuy and CircuitCity are broken in the exact same way as mine. :) All in all, it's a behavior that's easy to live with, and I learned a lot trying to solve the mystery of why some of my files would play and some would not. Lame is certainly cutting edge and even if I had to break down and use a CLI version, I would probably do so, despite being the lazy bastard that I am. :) Chris _______________________________________________ mp3encoder mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/mp3encoder
