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Subject:Fix The MP3 plugin!?
Posted by: Rednroll
Date:8/2/2004 7:14:56 PM
Ok, I've found this problem when Vegas 4.0 was first released reported the issue, sent in a CDrom with a sample .MP3 file. I've now sat back quiet , through a release of Sound Forge 7.0, and Vegas 5.0 and have heard the same response prior for each of those releases. "We're tarketing the fix for the release of Sound Forge 7.0.".....Sorry, didn't make that one, "We're targeting the fix for the release of Vegas 5.0"....oops, missed that target too. Now how about Acid 5.0, is that the new target? I say, f**k the release targets, let's nudge the .MP3 plugin guru over there at Sony and have an .MP3 plugin patch fix, so that I can open all .MP3 files.......especially the ones that I can open in Windows Media player and Nero, yet can't open in Sound Forge, Vegas, Acid, or CD Architect. I'm sick of having to use Nero to do a job that is more suited to do in Vegas or CD Architect, but I can't because, I can't even open the file in any of the Sony apps. Have your .MP3 guru give Microsoft a call, and talk to one of the Windows media player programmers so he can figure out what he's doing wrong in the Sony .MP3 plugin, which get's used for ALL YOUR APPS. You think a bug which effected all your apps would be considered critical and get addressed in a timely manor. What is up!? |
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Subject:RE: Fix The MP3 plugin!?
Reply by: Iacobus
Date:8/3/2004 11:05:06 AM
What exactly is happening, Red? You can't open any MP3? I'm not having problems opening any of my MP3's in ACID Pro 4.0 or Sound Forge 7.0. (Then again, I author the MP3's in Sound Forge.) For those MP3's that don't open, do they adhere to the official MP3 spec? Iacobus ------- RodelWorks - Original Music for the Unafraid mD's ACIDplanet Page Guitars 4 Kids |
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Subject:RE: Fix The MP3 plugin!?
Reply by: Rednroll
Date:8/3/2004 11:27:00 AM
No, I can open the majority of .MP3 files. I don't know what the MP3 specification is, nor do I really care to research the file to find out if it adheres to the spec. What I know is that these entire length CD .MP3 files, which where created in an application that must be pretty popular, because I've run into quite a few of these files, which I've downloaded from Winmx from different users. Anyways, None of the Sony apps can open them. What I do know is that Windows Media player has no trouble with them, and Nero has no trouble with them and I've even tried them in Adobe Audition with no problems. The problem is that the tools that I use the most and am most effecient and performing tasks on audio files with, won't open them. Sony's known about it for 2 years and has confirmed the problem. The .MP3 plugin got a version update within that time, yet still no fix. If you've ever opened up an 80Meg file in Nero and split that file up into seperate CD tracks, then you would understand my frustration. It will take you 15 minutes in Nero, to draw the waveform, before you can start working. In Vegas it takes less than 5 seconds, if I could just open the damn thing. |
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Subject:RE: Fix The MP3 plugin!?
Reply by: SonyJennL
Date:8/3/2004 3:20:51 PM
Just to quick follow up on this one. Rednroll, have you figured out what program is authoring these files? To my knowledge, the file origin was unknown as it was a filesharing download. Realize that it's not that we aren't opening, for instance, mp3s rendered from Nuendo projects. The header information in this file is corrupt or out of specification and, as a result, our applications do not open the file. I am also unable to open this file with Cakewalk's Sonar 3 Producer Edition, ATI Multimedia Center File Player 4.6, and QuickTime Player 6.5. I understand your frustration with the workaround. The issue is in our bug database. Thanks, Jenn |
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Subject:RE: Fix The MP3 plugin!?
Reply by: Rednroll
Date:8/4/2004 5:05:46 AM
I will dig deeper into finding the app that creates the file. Thanks for the list of other apps that won't open it. I can add to the list of apps that "will" open it, being Wavelab and Nuendo, the other apps that you listed I don't have. Right now alls I know is that the apps that I do have on my PC , the ones I use to do 99.9% of my audio work can't open them and becomes very frustrating. For the time being since I just realized I can open them in Wavelab, then I will start to become more familiar with using wavelab. Myself being an engineer, who has worked on the development of quite a few products, I think this has been handled piss poorly by Sofo/Sony. I have designed CD mechanisms in the past, and have run into CD's that where physically out of the redbook specification, and our CD players would have trouble loading them and also causing player jam-up in a multichanger. We noticed our competitors players didn't have the same problem and we knew our end customer would have no idea about redbook specifications and tolerances, so we did the right thing and made fixes for real world applications to overcome our CD players limitations.Otherwise these problems would be perceived by the customer as our problem, where the real problem was the manufacturer of the CD's not conforming to the Redbook specification. This is the exact same type of problem Sony is faced with in this scenario and sitting on it, hiding behind an .MP3 specification is not a solution to the problem, when your competitors and free programs like WMP already have the solution, for years now. That's right, I can open these files with Wavelab v3.0, which was last updated in 1999. |
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Subject:RE: Fix The MP3 plugin!?
Reply by: SonyJennL
Date:8/4/2004 9:47:34 AM
Rednroll, Thank you for looking into finding the app that creates these files. Realize that if we didn't think that we could improve on our file handling to allow corrupt files, the issue would NOT be in the bug database. As a QA engineer, the fact that we aren't better about adjusting for corrupt files annoys the snot out of me. Trust me, I understand. It's on our list. If you do find more information, let us know. Thanks, Jenn |
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Subject:RE: Fix The MP3 plugin!?
Reply by: MyST
Date:8/5/2004 6:22:10 AM
See my post in the SF forum. Mario |
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Subject:RE: Fix The MP3 plugin!?
Reply by: Rednroll
Date:8/5/2004 8:29:22 AM
Good Stuff Myst. The website you posted looks to be in French, by has a link to do an English translation through the use of google. Here's the translated link, which has a lot of good information on this problem. http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cyberkameleon.com%2Flui%2Finformatique%2Fmp3%2Falbw%2Findex.html&langpair=fr%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools |
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Subject:RE: Fix The MP3 plugin!?
Reply by: MyST
Date:8/5/2004 11:41:41 AM
Glad to have been of help Brian. Mario |
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Subject:RE: Fix The MP3 plugin!?
Reply by: Rednroll
Date:8/5/2004 2:55:50 PM
Update, Myst you found it!!!!! This Album Wrap is a utility that gives you the ability to take multiple .MP3 files, put them in a playlist order and then creates a new .MP3 file. If you download their extractor, you can extract the original individual .MP3 files. It's basically an Archive utility like Winzip, but allows everything to be saved into an .MP3 file instead of a Zip file. Therefore, you can listen to it while you are downloading. I used the utility and created an album with individual known files that would playback in the Sony apps. The rendered .MP3 file would playback in Windows Media Player, but not in the Sony apps. Here's further info from Album Wrap's help file: "AlbumWrap files are simple to make and easy to use. AlbumWrap files are distinguished by their '_ALBW' file extension , which directly precedes the '.mp3' extension. AlbumWrap files might also have '(AlbumWrap)' attached to the front of their file name. Your original files are left exactly the same... AlbumWrap does not change or delete your original MP3s. It will simply create the new archive file out of the chosen MP3 files. A new window will show you the wrapping progress. It may take a few seconds to a minute to wrap an album, depending on the number and size of your MP3s. I know what you're saying. You're saying "Hey, but what if they open this file without knowing what it is?" Actually, the file is designed to be an MP3 itself. So if the user does happen to open the file in their MP3 player, IT SHOULD simply play all the tracks in a row." Obviously, this last statement is what the Sony apps won't do. SonyJennL: Get it Here or www.infamus.com |
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Subject:RE: Fix The MP3 plugin!?
Reply by: MyST
Date:8/5/2004 5:51:23 PM
So I guess that means you'll be stickin' around the Sound Forge forums? It would have been awful tacky of me to go to the Wavelab forums to ask you a question about Sound Forge. ;-) Mario |
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Subject:RE: Fix The MP3 plugin!?
Reply by: Rednroll
Date:8/5/2004 7:11:44 PM
Oh yeah, I wouldn't totally abandon the Sony Products, I'm a die hard. I had to dig through my storage archives to find Wavelab, it wasn't currently installed on my system. I've been spending quite a bit of time working on some personal MP3 stuff, and this reminded me of this problem I reported awhile back. I have a large collection of 80's music on Cassettes and CD's taking up a lot of space and collecting dust at home. I have over 250 cassette albums that I paid alot of money for when I was younger. They basically sound like sh*t to me now, and I aint gonna spend time recording them into sound forge, using noise reduction etc. or repurchasing the CD's of something I already purchased once, if they're even to be found. So I've been doing a lot of downloading of these albums. I guess, it is a form of piracy, but I think it isn't ethical on the record companies part to benefit from a format change (ie Cassette>CD). I mean everyone here buys Acid/Sound Forge, and doesn't even expect to pay full price for the next version, yet the record companies think it's alright to charge full price for a cassette release, and then you have you pay full price again if you want to listen to the same recordings on a cleaner sounding format. Seems like I paid for the music once, I didn't think I was paying for the cassette hiss that came along with it also. It's things like this though that make the record companies crying about plumeting record sales and being overly greedy and then the consumer is finally able to fight back. I laugh at it though, I go to quite a few audio conventions and hear these record execs crying about kids having internet access and CD burners and their record sales are dropping. The thing they don't mention to you though is the money they get from publishing rights. They basically have free advertising through the internet by increasing a groups fan base. Publishing rights has to do with merchandise sales with the groups logos on it. How much is a concert T-shirt now? $50 to $75? I've worked with I.C.P. and talk to their managers regularly. One concert, they took in $200K in ticket sales, but close to $300K in T-shirt sales. Publishing rights is where the money is, but they don't tell you that side of the story when they're crying. Sorry, went on a little rant of how I personally feel and justifying my stealing. Basically, I'm currently taking my entire 400 album 80's collection and putting it onto ONE DVD-R in .MP3 format and creating my own personal jukebox and putting the originals in a box in the garage. Also just bought one of these 20Gig RCA Lyra players, to connect into my car audio system. Sure beats having a couple hundred CD's floating around in my back seat. |
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Subject:RE: Fix The MP3 plugin!?
Reply by: MyST
Date:8/5/2004 7:30:49 PM
The pain I find of creating compilation CDs/DVDs is the constant sound level differences. Have you found a good template that works well, that will give a final product where the songs are all CLOSE to the same level? Or are you adjusting for each "album" only? I also think the record companies are offering a purchasing option that SHOULD help slow down pirating. You can buy songs individually for about a buck each. For a buck, you get the song you want AND you don't have to worry about viruses. For the price of 1 CD (about $15Can), I can create a CD with 15 songs THAT I REALLY LIKE. Mario |
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Subject:RE: Fix The MP3 plugin!?
Reply by: Rednroll
Date:8/5/2004 9:52:23 PM
"Have you found a good template that works well" I've been using the RMS Normalization, just select the preset for speech and knock the level from -10dB to -11dB has been my preference. It's quick and dirty and I find it doesn't add a lot of distortion or alter the spectral characteristics. On the Sound Forge VU meter this usually gives me an average level around +3dB with most songs. For some songs I have to raise the level a little bit to -10dB or -9dB. You can select a small part and do a preview in the rms normalization window and adjust the level setting, and see what it reads on the VU meter. That's the beauty of a VU meter over a peak meter. I'm not going overboard with the leveling, but like I said -11dB RMS normalization has been working good for me. "You can buy songs individually for about a buck each." Yeah, I think that will be the end of good artists as we know them today. Everything will become a flavor of the week, with no long term artists. I am the poster child for anti-Top 40 artists, and that's exactly the kind of fan a buck a song promotes. There are a lot of albums I listen too, and in a good album I find almost every other week I have a different favorite song depending on my mood. For example, I remember when I first bought GNR's Appettite for Destruction "cassette", it seemed like every other week I had a different favorite song off of that album. To me that's what makes a good album. Alot of those songs that where my favorite where never played on the radio, so how else would I know about the song unless I bought the album? That's one "Cassette" that I did find it worth the money to later buy on CD, but there only a hand full that I can say that about. |
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Subject:RE: Fix The MP3 plugin!?
Reply by: MyST
Date:8/6/2004 4:17:05 AM
See, I would have thought the opposit. I don't know anything about the business, so... Yes, I think you're right that it will probably be the end of "hidden treasures" or "B sides" as they used to be called when 45s were around. One example I can think of off the top of my head is Dido's No Angel CD. There were, I think, 2 songs off that CD that played regularly on the radio. To me, there isn't a weak song on that entire CD. It's one of those CD you can stick in the player and not have to worry you'll need to go back and skip over some. Sade's Lover's Rock is another example. (All you 17 year olds, feel free to skip over this post). Supertramp's Even In the Quietest Moments is another. Van Halen's first album, and others. That's why I think the GOOD talent will survive, and the one hit wonders (there'll be more of those) will fall. The one hit wonders will make less profit because people will buy their singles and they won't have the talent to come out with more songs. Artists like U2, The Stones, Bon Jovi, Madonna, etc will be able to consistently put out quality work, and therefore guarantee their survival. But, like I said, I'm not in the business, so maybe my theory is wrong. Mario PS: Sorry, I'm kinda going off topic here with your thread. |
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Subject:RE: Fix The MP3 plugin!?
Reply by: Iacobus
Date:8/6/2004 1:48:06 PM
Can I add my 2 cents? :) I don't mind the idea of paying single-by-single. If an artist wants to do an album, I have no problem with that either. I have always received the impression that a lot of artists are rushed to produce content for an album, hence maybe why there are maybe only 1 or 2 songs off the whole album that are any good. Have you noticed, for example, that the more comfortable, successful artists can take their sweet time to produce another album, while the lesser known but just as talented have to keep trotting out content? A nasty business, this is. Iacobus ------- RodelWorks - Original Music for the Unafraid mD's ACIDplanet Page Guitars 4 Kids |
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Subject:RE: Fix The MP3 plugin!?
Reply by: Rednroll
Date:8/6/2004 2:40:40 PM
I think you're right on MD. I have always felt this, it seems like it's almost always that an artists first album is their best album with few exceptions. The reason I feel this is because the artist has taken a period of time developing their style and did not have a record label pushing for that release, they have worked on the material prior to getting signed to a label. Then that material get's signed and sells a million copies, then it's rush into the studio and release the next album and try to sell another million copies. An example In my opinion, is Kid Rock. Sure he had a few local releases prior to Devil without a cause, but it sure looks to me he's still living off the success of that one album, where his later releases under the big record company sounds like doggy poo poo with a couple good songs thrown inbetween. So to me, Kid Rock is still living off the success of Devil without a cause. |