variable bitrate mp3's and the mp3 cue plugin

[ubamous3]

1/ variable bitrate

i have run across some mp3's that have variable bitrates instead of constant 192 or 128, or whatever; is that a result of the way it's ripped or it can result from data corruption while uploading/downloading the mp3?

2/ mp3cue plugin

i have ripped some mix cd's with eac and result with a cue and 1 big mp3, but when i play the mp3, the cue isnt loaded automatically - i have to import it for winamp to recognize the cue; the mp3 and cue are in the same directory and i assume the file name reference in the cue file is correct since eac created it automatically; therefore, winamp should load the cue automatically, no? it does it with a lot of mix cd's but not all cd's and i dont know why the difference.

 

[zver]

1.......Vbr is theoretically(for most people atleast)preffered format.....Couse when encoder do his work(encode wave to compressed """put your format here""")if its a strict bitrate--he got to make it--compress it-- for a certain size file.....vbr(variable bitrate)will encode too,but with diffrence that he`s not worringbout` bitrate(size of the file)...So if it`s a kind of a diffucult file to encode--he will make a attempt to reaistically encode it--as close to original as possibvlle,which means that vbr will sound more like original file then cbr file......But with cost that vbr file will have bigger size then cbr...So,you shouldn`t run from vbr files......Also,do not worry about things like joint-stereo....Lame-vbr-js is as close to original as mp3 can be..If you make your music and compress it...??You should go with some other format then mp3........Couse mp3 is a old format,and even he got all world hardware support ..You should try some other like......for example mpc Its a great lossy format....And will make a size around 30% smaller then mp3--with same or better quality!!!!Btw,check this link for some more of mp3--you can also get there lame encoder--if you need?As for question 2--failede to understand what do you want??

 

[ubamous3]

thanks for your response; i didnt know that vbr does sound better (i.e. closer to original sound than cbr mp3's as most mp3's that i have seen are constant bitrate)

2/ about question 2, i am just curious as to why winamp mp3cue plugin fails to automatically load the cue file on certain occassions and not all the time.

 

[LTR12101B]

VBR effectively borrows from les complex passages and uses the surplus on more complex ones (though that's a fairer description of ABR - AVERAGE Bit Rate).

For the same file size, IF VBR works properly, quality should be better than CBR of the same size.

The difference is that CBR encodes to a set bitrate (with a small amount of carry/borrow if the bit reservior is enabled), while VBR encodes according to a quality rule - and if that rule says that a given amount of distortion is acceptable, then it will encode using the minimum amount of bits to achieve that.

VBR demands a much better tuned psychacoustic model.

The presets in LAME 3.92 ARE well tuned - alt-preset-standard is usable for most things, while alt-preset-extreme is larger, but better for the tough ones.

The two primary VBR parameters are:
1. Quality level
2. Minimimum bitrate

Where VBR was less well tuned, setting a 128 minimum stopped it misjudging the "easy" passages and ensured that quality could not drop below 128 CBR - the presets will include that if it's still required.

 

[Deft]

........

thanks for your response; i didnt know that vbr does sound better (i.e. closer to original sound than cbr mp3's as most mp3's that i have seen are constant bitrate)

2/ about question 2, i am just curious as to why winamp mp3cue plugin fails to automatically load the cue file on certain occassions and not all the time.

Yeah i experienced exactly the same thing.
The reason it does this is that when EAC rips the cd image and you then convert to mp3 the cue file it originally created still points to the .wav it ripped.
Open the .cue file in notepad and change the file reference (the bit in the " ") to the .mp3 file, and then also change the WAVE reference outside the " " to MP3.

eg. the first few lines will read

PERFORMER "Various Artists"
TITLE "Deft - Breaks Mix - 2002"
FILE "Deft - Breaks Mix - 2002.wav" WAVE

change this to

PERFORMER "Various Artists"
TITLE "Deft - Breaks Mix - 2002"
FILE "Deft - Breaks Mix - 2002.mp3" MP3

Also make sure the filenames are the same and it hasn't just added a .cue to the .mp3 extension - i seem to remember it doing this.
i.e. have

Deft - Breaks Mix - 2002.mp3
and
Deft - Breaks Mix - 2002.cue

 

[ubamous3]

hi deft,

thanks for the tip; i didnt notice the wav and the mp3 thing b/c i just saw the name being the same and that i ripped them via eac myself so i overlooked the name;

also, all the mix cd's that i have ripped don't have artist and song title; i dont know how to set it in eac to do that; is there any easy way to edit the cues so that instead of just showing track 1, 2, 3, etc.... , it willshow the artist name and song titles for each track?
or may be there's a program out there that will make the process easy? b/c with lots of cues to edit/copy/paste, it will get old real fast

thanks in advance.

 

[Deft]

........

If it's a commercially available mix type cd, then you should be able to just go Database>Get CD Information From>Remote FreeDB. This should pull all the track names out for you. When you now rip the cd it'll include all the cue information for you. Handy for copying cd's and adding cdtext as well.
Obviously if it is a custom sort of mix cd i just edit the cue sheet manually which is a bit laborious - but then you only have to do it once if you are banging out lots of copies.
Unless someone else knows of a better way?