VBR or AVR, would this help with errors

cherrybox 2011-06-19 12:55:43 UTC #1

I have a need to play mp3 and have a particular image on screen at the same time, this I have found is easy enough performed by making sure I have the image in the same folder as the mp3 audio file, then play in the stand alone DVD player connected to the TV.

I have say an hour of multiple mp3's, ripped from CD audio, I then require to join these files into one large mp3 file, which I can do easily enough, but I have had some problems with the Sony DVD player in that on occasion it may get to near the end of the hour long mp3 file and instead of playing right to the end it on occasions stops and returns to the start again, so I am thinking that perhaps it is down to how I am encoding the original music from the original CD.

I was using 192 CBR, and was thinking of encoding to either VBR or AVR and try the highest setting available, this may help the reading of the DVD, and I use DVD as I have loads of audio CD's to encode.

Could anyone give me some advice on whether using VBR or AVR would improve the stand alone DVD player reading the disc, which would help with errors like I mentioned earlier?

chef 2011-06-21 00:58:19 UTC #2

Probably you should use CBR in this case.

cherrybox 2011-06-21 02:24:55 UTC #3

[QUOTE=chef;2593141]Probably you should use CBR in this case.[/QUOTE]

I will do, thanks.

cherrybox 2011-06-21 04:04:30 UTC #4

As there is more than one option while making mp3’s would you have a preference out of these options.

Once I have loaded the original CD… I then have 2 options, one is to rip Audio CD, the other is to convert Audio format, it seems to me although I may be wrong but these two options amount to the same, perhaps you can correct me on that, but which would you choose?

Also in the preferences of the program used to read the disc there are the following…and wondered if you thought that these that are set below look fine to work with, and or what difference to the reading of each start and end track there would be by changing any of those preferences.

Please bear in mind that I am either ripping or converting a max of say 29 tracks first, then I need to join them by keeping the very same bitrate, but on some of the CD’s I am using there can be some that when ripping to the multiple mp3 first can often have maybe a slight part of some of the tracks clipped, and I have found that if I use Shuangs Audio Joiner this helps with that, and I think it helps as the program encodes rather than just batch processing without encoding.

Anyway, please let me know what you think as it takes a while ripping these discs and I would very much like to get this right without the ned to have to rip.convert them all again.

[B]D Drive Settings: Read frames 27
Read type: Standard Read or Jitter Corrected Read
Overlap frames: 3
Check frames: 1

Read CD Text which is enabled
On The Fly Encoding which is enabled[/B]

cholla 2011-06-21 08:29:53 UTC #5

It would help to know the ripper you are using.
I will try to answer some of your questions.
Rip to Audio CD should rip to .WAV files .
It should be a legnth in Time usually under 80 minutes.
This is the way Audio CD’s are measured.
The amount of tracks depends on song legnth in time.
“Convert Audio format” could have more than one meaning .
It might be to convert a different audio format to .wav .
Or convert a commercial Audio CD or a CD burned in Audio format to a format such as .mp3 .
The ripper I use doesn’t have some of the settings your’s does.
So I will answer the ones I can.
1." Read type: Standard Read or Jitter Corrected Read" Unless you have a damaged CD or one you know has a jitter problem . Use Standard.
2. “Read CD Text which is enabled” If the CD you are ripping has CD Text & you want to include it .Enable is the correct setting. This also depends on if your Drive can write CD Text. If it can’t then this should be disabled.
3. " On The Fly Encoding which is enabled " . This depends a lot on your computer . With a fast processor probably OK . I personally don’t encode “On the fly”.
I reccomend using Exact Audio Copy for ripping CD’s . Read the guides on setting it up & I think you will be happy with the results .

For your original problem I suspect it is a media problem or you are overburning the disc .
Your standalone may not be capable of playing an overburned disc to the end.

I don’t know why you are joining all the tracks into one large .mp3 .
When I burn a data .mp3 CD disc I have the songs in a folder with the performers name. Each song is still individual . I can usually get 7 or 8 albums of good quality .mp3’s on one 80 minute CD -R disc. I use VBR & have had no problems . Usually only older CD players have a problem with VBR. My standalone DVD players play them fine.
My preferred burner is ImgBurn.
This is the EncSpot graph of a typical .mp3 I have converted:

cherrybox 2011-06-21 08:50:43 UTC #6

Ok let me explain more.

The reason I didn’t say which ripper I use was down to the fact that some people ridicule each other programs, for instance if I were to mention MediaMonkey you would probably have said it was an amateur program as opposed to the EAC that everyone seems to use. By the way I have tried EAC, but my system just doesn’t like the program one little bit, so EAC is no use to me I’m afraid.

So, I use MediaMonkey for converting.

I don’t use inferior media only the best, so it isn’t a media issue.

The DVD’s I eventually burn as data disc are not overburned, I take great care never to overburn.

As for why do I need to join the files, well I need to join them as the gaps between each track are lengthened on playback and I don’t know if this is because I have an image on repeat as the music is playing, and I need this to be like that so the only way round it was to join the files for each CD compilation into one single file.

Oh, and lastly I use Nero 6.

cholla 2011-06-21 10:46:50 UTC #7

If your OS doesn’t like EAC then it doesn’t. Undoubtedly there are software or codec conflicts that are causing this but there may be too many to track down.
I’ve never used MediaMonkey so I have no comment on how well it works or doesn’t work.
It is evident something in your process is not working.

[QUOTE=cherrybox;2593192] The DVD’s I eventually burn as data disc
[/QUOTE]
Many DVD players don’t play .mp3s from a DVD disc . I use CD-R discs for my .mp3 data discs.

The software I use to convert .mp3s all use the LAME codec . My preferred converter is dBpowerAmp . I also get good results with Audacity & foobar2000 . I have also used EAC to convert . So there are many options to convert other audio formats to .mp3.

I have a friend that has burned a couple of data CDs for me with Nero6 & they work fine . So I don’t think Nero6 is the problem .

So I think the problem is in the rip & conversion .
I don’t know of another software other than EAC that will remove the gaps during the rip. Maybe someone else knows one.
If you can rip the commercial music (Audio) CD to your hard drive with the gaps removed that should eliminate part of the problem. Even when you do that There will probably be some silence between tracks when converted to .mp3. But less.
I will test Audacity to see if it can make a single .mp3 from a cd ripped without gaps to .wav files . I usually use ImgBurn to burn data discs.
I will let you know if I get good results.

cherrybox 2011-06-21 12:59:18 UTC #8

[QUOTE=cholla;2593203]If your OS doesn’t like EAC then it doesn’t. Undoubtedly there are software or codec conflicts that are causing this but there may be too many to track down.
I’ve never used MediaMonkey so I have no comment on how well it works or doesn’t work.
It is evident something in your process is not working.

Many DVD players don’t play .mp3s from a DVD disc . I use CD-R discs for my .mp3 data discs.

I have a friend that has burned a couple of data CDs for me with Nero6 & they work fine . So I don’t think Nero6 is the problem .

Not sure what you mean when you say remove the gaps, what gaps? are you talking about the track divisions between each piece of music? if so then that is the same as joining the multiple files together as one long mp3.

cholla 2011-06-21 16:23:44 UTC #9

[QUOTE=cherrybox;2593230]Not sure what you mean when you say remove the gaps, what gaps? are you talking about the track divisions between each piece of music? if so then that is the same as joining the multiple files together as one long mp3.[/QUOTE]
No the 2 second gap or more correct pregap remains when ripped from a commercial Audio CD.
Here is an explanation I copied:

The pregap on a Red Book audio CD is the portion of the audio track that precedes “index 01” for a given track in the table of contents (TOC). The pregap (“index 00”) is typically two seconds long and usually, but not always, contains silence. Popular uses for having the pregap contain audio are live CDs, track interludes, and hidden songs in the pregap of the first track.

So not the same as what you hear when you join multiple .mp3s into one long .mp3.
This is another reason you get a silence gap between .mp3s when you use .mp3s as the source:

Additionally, make sure you don’t export MP3 files for burning to your gapless CD, even if you’re burning a “data CD”, because MP3s have inherent silence padding due to a restriction of the MP3 format.

However if you rip .wavs from a commercial CD with or without gaps.

Import all the tracks into Audacity.
2.Select each track one at a time starting with the second track.
3.“Cut” this track & paste it to the end of the first track.
Repeat for all tracks.
This is kind of a tedious process.
When done Select & cut the “silence” at the end of each track.
You might want to “Zoom in” a couple of times so the above is easier.
7.“Export” as a .mp3 select the options you want but I select best quality,Standard, VBR , & stereo.
I was satisfied with the result .

cholla 2011-06-21 20:05:45 UTC #10

I burned the one .mp3 as a data CD to a CD-RW & it played fine on my standalone DVD player . There were no tracks clipped or silent gaps. It played to the end . The single .mp3 was made from an 18 track CD. At 148MB I could have put 4 more like it on the same CD. That would have equaled 72 tracks . A good bit more than the 29 track max cherrybox was attempting.

cherrybox 2011-06-22 02:09:06 UTC #11

Actually I don’t have a problem with those 2 second gaps no matter how I rip using MedMonkey as it rips or converts as is.

As for track max, I have performed much more than cholla mentioned, and they do work fine, just occasionally have problems, but I put this down to the player.

I just about filled up a DVD 4.7GB of music with folders containing hour long mp3s, so if you think about it it’s obvious that the reader just may have a problem with the lens moving about to and fro from time to time, it can happen with normal audio discs so I see it no different with data CD’s played on a stand alone DVD player.

chef 2011-06-22 03:43:19 UTC #12

Many dvd players have different issues with such tasks and content.

cherrybox 2011-06-22 04:12:58 UTC #13

[QUOTE=chef;2593281]Many dvd players have different issues with such tasks and content.[/QUOTE]

I totally agree.

t0nee1 2011-06-22 06:50:55 UTC #14

I have only a few suggestions/comments to add…

Anyway, please let me know what you think as it takes a while ripping these discs and I would very much like to get this right without the need to have to rip.convert them all again

If you had ripped to a lossless format e.g wav , flac, there should be no need to re-rip your CD’s, providing you had error free rips.
.

The reason I didn’t say which ripper I use was down to the fact that some people ridicule each other programs, for instance if I were to mention MediaMonkey you would probably have said it was an amateur program as opposed to the EAC that everyone seems to use.

I doubt anyone here would have done such a thing as ridicule for your choice/preferences…Most would steer you (think horse and water) towards what works for many, which is why cholla suggested EAC, it works great(for many)…I’ve used Mediamonkey before and while it does do a good job as a player and convertor, AFAIK it does not support AccurateRip or reports read errors or not…If your CD’s are new or in good condition, choice of rippers isn’t as critical…That said, for many including myself EAC or dBpoweramp ARE the top dogs (IMO) for ripping Audio CD’s…And DBPA is of course a good convertor as well…
Normally I rip my Cd’s to flac(lossless) for archiving purposes, and I’ll use these flac tracks to convert with my choice of SW and format, mainly MP3 amd AAC/m4a…
AFAIK, most if not all apps/tools, with the exception of MP3directcut, will re-encode your MP3’s when joining and saving one long MP3…Just a FYI…
And last, most HW devices today support USB…Why not copy as many dang MP3 tracks that’ll fit the USB stick, plug er in and fogget about all this burning mp3 to DVD disc nonsense(no-offense)…I don’t know, just a thought!..
Good day!..

cherrybox 2011-06-22 09:03:07 UTC #15

t0nee1,

Thanks for your reply, I burn to DVD so I can play and have a particular image on screen, and I need to have the music from the TV at the same time, hence DVD burning, also flac(lossless) will not play on the stand alone player.

I do use MP3directcut as it saves a hell of a time when joining.

t0nee1 2011-06-22 12:47:07 UTC #16

The point of my suggestion to use flac or other lossless copy is, so you don’t have to [I][B]re-rip[/B][/I] again…But sounds like you got it all worked out…
Cheers!..

cholla 2011-06-23 12:11:41 UTC #17

Hey t0nee1 I gave MP3directcut a try . I let it do pause detection & it did but on listening there are still some silence at the end of tracks. I think it could be done manually & be better. Anyway an interesting tool.

When I used Audacity as above I was working with .wav files ripped with EAC so they should have been lossless. So after joining all the .wavs into one track then editing out silences when exported as an .mp3 there were no detectable silences between tracks or clicks or clips. The encode done by Audacity shouldn’t have been any different than a ripper would have done on the fly to create a .mp3 for each song. So only one encode to .mp3 for a large file exported from Audacity. I think better quality.
I also agree with t0nee1 on using a flash drive or similar media. For the car I use a micro SD card 2GB in a USB adapter & this works great. For the house I’m using an external HDD.
I did do a test DVD burned as a data DVD with ImgBurn . This played on my newest DVD player but not any of my older DVD player/recorders which I already knew.
I agree with archiving lossless & I need to do that with all my commercial CD’s . Right now I have the archived as good quality .mp3s. I do have some as .wav .
The sad thing is I ripped them as .wavs & to save space I archived them as .mp3 & deleted the .wav files. I had less external HDD space at the time.
I don’t know that Audacity would help the original problem of a DVD player being able to play an “hour” long .mp3 to the end . I think the OP should give it a try .
I don’t remember seeing the media used so try Verbatim AZO or TY DVD discs & see if this stops the problem.