APE to VBR MP3 - song length bug?

[malgre]

Hi,

I have a large library of APE files. Now I'm trying to convert some of them to MP3 to go on a portable (iPod). I've been getting some weird behavior. When converting from APE to MP3 (alt-present-standard), some files end up with data indicating the song length is much longer than it really is, and other tags, such as the bit rate and the original size, are wrong also. When these files are placed on the iPod, it now thinks a 3:52min song is 9:56min, and plays it accordingly, so that after the actual song data is over, the remaining time is filled with silence until the full 9:56 is up.

If I convert the APE to WAV, and then convert the WAV to the MP3 (same settings), this does not happen. The tags are correct (well, the numbers are very very close to the ape tag numbers, in the above example, the APE file has the song length at 3:53). The resulting file size of the MP3 created this way (APE->WAV->MP3) is the same as if I directly coverted from APE.

Something seems to be wrong with the APE->MP3 conversion for VBR MP3s. I would copy the tag info and paste it here for the original APE file, the APE->MP3 file and the APE->WAV->MP3 file, but I can't see a way to just copy the tag text (maybe the powerpack is needed to get this?).

Thanks for any help.

malgre

[Spoon]

Re: APE to VBR MP3 - song length bug?

Are you using the new Release 10 of dMC?

[malgre]

I'll check tonight...

I downloaded dMC a couple of days ago, so I might have just missed release 10. Looking at the version fix list, I think you have the problem I described on there ('Mp3 decoder - now gets the right track lengths for difficult samples (large metadata, vbr)')?

If I do have the previous version and the new version fixes this, then this app is a godsend for me - I have been archiving all my music with EAC as APE files.

Maybe Sveta Portable Audio with the iPod driver is the best way to go. Then I could just select a bunch of APE files and have them sent to the iPod as VBR MP3s or MP4s, right?

Thanks.

malgre

[malgre]

Re: I'll check tonight...

OK, the new version fixed this problem. Everything is good.

Well, almost everything.

I've decided that what I really want is to convert my collection of APE files to MP4 (rather than MP3) for the iPod. However, I have tried it and the tags do not transfer. I read about this issue here and it was posted that Apple is working on a fix? Is there really no way right now to get APE files into an MP4 format that can be imported into the iPod (on a batch automatic basis, of course)?

malgre

[Spoon]

Re: I'll check tonight...

You mentioned Sveta in your previous post, have you tried that? I should recognize the tags.

[malgre]

Sveta works!

You mentioned Sveta in your previous post, have you tried that? I should recognize the tags.

I gave Sveta with the iPod driver a try last night and it does change APE into M4A, sending files direct to the iPod, keeping the tags. This is great. Before I tried it, I didn't think it would work because I thought the Sveta app used the dMC engine to covert the files and when I used dMC to go APE->M4A, the resulting file had no tags and couldn't be imported (using iTunes or Anapod) into the iPod as a music file. So, what a relief that Sveta manages to do everything correctly. I don't need to know how it works so long as it works.

I haven't had a chance to listen to many of the M4A encoded songs, yet, but a couple of piano selections are sounding quite nice. I'm hoping this will be the best choice for a lossy codec, for now.

Thanks for your help, Spoon.

malgre