Displayed bitrate accuracy & credibility vs foobar2000 bitrate

General Discussion
1

Hi, and ... newbie alert! :sunglasses:
What is the possible reason for different displayed bitrate in MP3TAG v2.66 and foobar2000 v1.3.7? Which one should I trust and what are my options to verify the actual bitrate of a track?

I tend to trust foobar2000, but this is subjective and not based on actual knowledge or expertise. It is weird how some tracks from some albums, supposedly CBR 320kbps (as shown in foobar2000) appear as 160kbps or even lower in MP3TAG. I have converted those albums myself with EAC, therefore it's not like the source of those mp3 files would be questionable.

2

Please provide a small example test file, which demonstrates the situation.

DD.20150221.1359.CET

3

Sorry, I'm not sure how to do that. Can't upload a whole track due to 200K limit. Any advice?

4

Use any free file-hoster, like sendspace.com or such.

In the meantime read there ...
http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=296029
http://www.hydrogenaud.io/forums/index.php?showtopic=69450
/t/4326/1
/t/16212/1
/t/15272/1

DD.20150221.1504.CET

5

Thanks. Here's one.

PS. I have read up a little on the topic and it may be that different programs use different ways to evaluate and display bitrate. If that's the case here, how does MP3TAG process the data and can it be regarded as more adequate than foobar2000?

6

Hi DetlevD
VBRfix can be found here: http://pages.citebite.com/b4i2m2q4w0fve
It repairs the example file provided.

7

Thanks for that tool. There's also a VBR fixer utility in foobar2000, I tried it, but as it appears it was unable to fix my files.

8

Thank you, will do. And sorry, Ich can not Deutsch read. Danke schön anyway.

9

For the given example file ...

  • Foobar displays CBR 320 kbps
  • Mp3tag displays CBR 128 kbps
  • ffmpeg displays bitrate 320 kb/s.

I have tried the foobar utilities ...

  • Fix VBR MP3 Header
  • Rebuild MP3 Stream
    Both operations did not have any effect regarding the incorrect information by Mp3tag.

I have applied the info tool MP3 Diags 1.2.01 ... which detected ...
a XING header containing the value 128000bps
a MPEG audio stream 320000bps CBR

I suspect the failure depends on the XING header.
The XING header may be introduced by the LAME encoder, ... probably by accident, ...
when applying any parameter, which causes the injection of the XING header for VBR or ABR with the incorrect bitrate.

Probably Mp3tag should detect and differentiate between ...
LAME VBR & ABR ==> "Xing"
LAME CBR ==> "Info"

Try out the recommendation by user "ryerman" ... "VBR fix".

DD.20150221.1649.CET

10

Yep, I did apply the same tools in foobar2000, to no effect.
OK, I'll see if the vbrfix will fix that. Thanks for your time.