Very annoying music problem.

Manny Cav · **on:** August 30, 2007, 05:50:21 PM

I have some problems playing some MP3s I got off of Galbadia Hotel. They're some Sonic the Hedgehog 2 MP3s. I can't get them to play with Windows Media Player on the Windows XP laptop I am typing this on. HOWEVER, the will play with QuickTime on this computer, and they will also play with Windows Media Player on a Windows Vista computer that I use occasionally. Another odd thing is that I'm not having any problems playing the Sonic, Sonic 3, and Sonic & Knuckles MP3s found there. I suspect it's a codec issue, but I don't know what it is. Can someone help me out? And don't give a smarty-pants answer like "use QuickTime, idiot"; I really want to get these to work with Windows Media Player.

Petrie. · **Reply #1 on:** August 30, 2007, 07:40:29 PM

The problem lies with Windows Media Player...it absolutely hates old LAME (before 3.90) encoded mp3 files, but these files will play back on just about anything else. I even tried fixing the mp3 stream and header and it still doesn't want to work with WMP, so I'm sorry to say, try something else.

Petrie. · **Reply #2 on:** August 30, 2007, 07:49:02 PM

Hold up...are you running Windows Media Player 10? If you're having no trouble with Vista (which uses WMP 11) all you'd need to do is update your player. If you're unwilling to do that, then you need to find some other media player like Winamp or Foobar (my favorite). Microsoft did some really bad coding and it seems like they fixed it for WMP11.

Manny Cav · **Reply #3 on:** August 30, 2007, 08:07:16 PM

Both computers are running version 11. I'll check and see if there's an updated version I need to download for XP.

landbeforetimelover · **Reply #4 on:** August 30, 2007, 09:48:09 PM

I use dvdx player professional for just about everything. It has features that enhance the music and no, I'm not talking about a stupid equlizer, I'm talking about an independant program that's integrated into it. Unfortunately, the dvdx player is $69.95 but it really is the best one I've ever seen. It has it's own built in dvd decoder that intigrates with all players on the computer on installation. It even playes dvd's well in a 1X dvd drive! It deregionizes the dvd so you can play literally ANY dvd in it. My second choice would be vlc media player. It's free!

Petrie. · **Reply #5 on:** August 30, 2007, 09:55:48 PM

Manny, I really don't think that wil solve the problem then. I just know WMP whines about pre-3.90 versions of the LAME mp3 encoder in VBR mode and for some reason cannot play them when everything else can.

You've a choice:

1.) Play them in something else.
2.) Convert them into another mp3 (called transcoding)
3.) Burn an audio cd of the files, and then rip the audio (also transcoding)

My opinion: do #1 because #2 and #3 will cause a serious loss in audio quality.

Petrie. · **Reply #6 on:** August 30, 2007, 09:58:32 PM

Quote from: landbeforetimelover,Aug 30 2007 on 08:48 PM

I use dvdx player professional for just about everything. It has features that enhance the music and no, I'm not talking about a stupid equlizer, I'm talking about an independant program that's integrated into it. Unfortunately, the dvdx player is $69.95 but it really is the best one I've ever seen. It has it's own built in dvd decoder that intigrates with all players on the computer on installation. It even playes dvd's well in a 1X dvd drive! It deregionizes the dvd so you can play literally ANY dvd in it. My second choice would be vlc media player. It's free!

Why would anyone in their right mind pay $70 for things that are readily available for free? VLC and The KMPlayer can do all that whiz bang free of charge. I don't like sound plugins that "enhance" music either; unnatural sound...leave the good sound to the engineers and mixers who made the cd.

landbeforetimelover · **Reply #7 on:** August 30, 2007, 10:08:16 PM

I watched LBT 11 in vlc media player and then in dvdx player and in dvdx player, it sounded like a movie theatre! Wonderful sound!

There is an excellent program out there that will convert any audio file to a modern mp3 without any loss in quality (exception is wav to mp3 which is true with all converter programs). I used it on my website music and it turned out pretty good. It's called absolute mp3 splitter and converter. I use it all the time.

Manny Cav · **Reply #8 on:** August 30, 2007, 10:12:52 PM

But why will they play with WMP on Vista and not XP!? Oh, well. I've just transcoded them for now untill a better solution comes along. I really want the original files to play, though.

Petrie. · **Reply #9 on:** August 30, 2007, 10:29:44 PM

Quote from: landbeforetimelover,Aug 30 2007 on 09:08 PM

I watched LBT 11 in vlc media player and then in dvdx player and in dvdx player, it sounded like a movie theatre! Wonderful sound!

There is an excellent program out there that will convert any audio file to a modern mp3 without any loss in quality (exception is wav to mp3 which is true with all converter programs). I used it on my website music and it turned out pretty good. It's called absolute mp3 splitter and converter. I use it all the time.

I'm pretty certain they use the same filter to show video. Audio shouldn't make a difference unless you turned on some special filter to "improve" the sound.

Lets get audio encoding straight here. Anything (wav, flac, ogg, wma, mp3) --> mp3 = loss in quality! Case closed. Whether or not you actually notice is another story altogether.

Petrie. · **Reply #10 on:** August 30, 2007, 10:31:30 PM

Quote from: Manny Cav,Aug 30 2007 on 09:12 PM

But why will they play with WMP on Vista and not XP!? Oh, well. I've just transcoded them for now untill a better solution comes along. I really want the original files to play, though.

That's unusual, but maybe some bug which was causing that codec error was fixed. In any case, that's good news.

What did you use to transcode?

Manny Cav · **Reply #11 on:** August 30, 2007, 10:33:00 PM

I used a program to convert the MP3s to WAV and back again. I've still got the original files if I notice a better way to transcode it.

Petrie. · **Reply #12 on:** August 30, 2007, 10:39:08 PM

What program? They're not all created alike.

Manny Cav · **Reply #13 on:** August 30, 2007, 10:44:10 PM

http://www.mp3towma.com/

Petrie. · **Reply #14 on:** August 30, 2007, 10:51:30 PM

Ok.

I wanted to see what mp3 encoder was installed...Lame 3.92 is fine.