Problem playing MP3's

[finster]

Hi,

I am having problems playing MP3's - there is just no sound. I have Live TV working, and recordings work, along with DivXs.

This problem seems to happen intermittently - sometimes I can get them playing, then after I have switched between a few, they stop playing.

I am using an AMD XP2400 along with a PVR-250 - all sound is channelled through my sound card. This is on Win2k with GB-PVR 0.17.

I have looked in the logs, but can't see any error messages. Anybody got any ideas?

Cheers.

[sub]

What renderer are you using VMR7/9/Overlay?

[finster]

I was using VMR9. The config app won't let me change to VMR7. I have tested it with "Overlay" and get exactly the same problem.

I have just done some more testing, and it looks like the problem may be with it not liking some of my MP3's. Certain ones won't play no matter what. I can't see anything in common with the ones that do and don't work - I have 128kbps files, and the "problem ones" play fine with Windows Media Player or Winamp.

Again, in the GBPVR.exe.log and GBPVR.exe-native.log, I can't see any messages that are different for ones that work, and ones that don't.

Are there any audio decoders that I should have installed, or does the problem lie elsewhere?

[sub]

Could you email me one of the MP3 files? Send it to support@devnz.com.

[finster]

email sent.

[sub]

Hi finster. I had good look tonight, but I'm not sure whats up with that MP3. Its weird - I can play it in WMP, but I cant play it GB-PVR and I cant make a graph in GraphEdit that can play it. It hasn't got any DRM stuff? There definitely something strange about the MP3 file.

[finster]

As far as I know, there aren't any DRM stuff in the files.... I just ripped it myself.

I have plenty more MP3's with exactly the same problem.

Strange.....

[jeffcora]

Hi Sub,

Did you ever manage to track this issue down? I have the same problem with a reasonable number of my mp3's, they just play silent so I hit gaps when listening to playlists etc. All my mp3's come from ripping using CDEX and most are albums that are ripped in one go, where some tracks play and some don't.

I've just done 6 rips of the same track using different settings within CDEX. When the track is ripped at MPEGI 256 or MPEGI 320, it play's silent, ripped lower than 256 i.e. MPEGI 224 and it plays fine. A different track ripped from the same album at MPEGI 256 (didn't touch the setting in between ripping) play's fine     Of course they all play in Media Player and on MVP with GBPVR etc.

I noticed finster reported the same problem with 128 files, so it can't be on bit rate alone, but this must be a factor. Any ideas?

Rob

[sub]

No, I never found what caused this - but it didn't just affect GB-PVR. The file that finster sent also wasn't able to be played with graphedit or several other directshow based players.

You could try emailing one of the files and I'll see if I can take another look.

[nkh]

It may be something with the mp3 bitrates. I have an album that's ripped in VBR (max 320kbps), the songs plays but one of them shows up as being twice as long as it really is so I get 6 min of nothing when the song is over (I have tried to play it in the jukebox plugin, and it also states the lengh as about 12min, and plays scilens for the last 6 min). Other songs on from that album has the same problems.

Now to the interesting part. When you look at the file info in winamp (double click on the songtitle / alt+3 in the playlist, in the winamp window the bitrate jumps around while playing vbr) it says this song has a bit rate of 240kbit. The songs that play fine has stated bitrates of 212kbit, 169knit, 186kbit, 198kbit, 236kbit, 250kbit, 193kbit, 207kbit, 185kbit and 157kbit. It looks like the song lengh is estimated as longer the higher bitrate stated (the song that says 250kbit in winamp is 4:43 long, gbpvr says 9:14).

I also have the problem with non-playing tracks, one is a normal 256kbit mp3.