# SUGGESTION: Count the lengths of files with accordance to reality

**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/suggestion-count-the-lengths-of-files-with-accordance-to-reality/45915
**Category:** General Discussion
**Created:** [July 15, 2019, 8:36pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/suggestion-count-the-lengths-of-files-with-accordance-to-reality/45915 "2019-07-15T20:36:13Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 5

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### Author: ![ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/ohrenkino/32/4843_2.png) [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [July 16, 2019, 12:53pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/suggestion-count-the-lengths-of-files-with-accordance-to-reality/45915/5 "2019-07-16T12:53:02Z")

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The problem seem to be very short files where naturally, the percentage of deviation is biggest in respect to the total length.  
But do other programs do it better?  
I took the value display from MP3tag, Foobar from the list, Foobar raw from the properties sheet and Windows Explorer.

Here a selection

| File | Mp3tag | Foobar | Foobar raw | Explorer |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | 00:02 | 00:02 | 0:02.250 (99 207 samples) | 00:02 |
| 2 | 00:04 | 00:04 | 0:04.213 (185 795 samples) | 00:04 |
| 3 | 00:03 | 00:03 | 0:02.913 (128 467 samples) | 00:03 |
| 4 | 00:03 | 00:03 | 0:02.740 (120 844 samples) | 00:02 |

In total the calculation is 116 thousandth of a second off the real value.  
It looks as though MP3tag does not always round to the last whole second.  
Actually, the MP3tag data matches fairly accurately that of the other 2 programs.  
Except ... that the WE shows 1 second less for the last file.  
So I am pretty sure that the more files you have, the closer the result will be to the actual time as it will level out on average.

So the statement

> [@Zerow](#):
>
> And this is plain wrong and misleading

is not quite right as apparently other programs do exactly the same thing.

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