different encoder listed during encoding...

[Unregistered]

i just noticed some strange behavior. using the current stable release of dMC and converting from FLAC to MP3 with the built in "Lame (mp3)" option.

when a file is finished encoding (or transcoding in this case), the file's metadata correctly shows it as encoded with "Lame 3.92", but i noticed that DURING the encoding, if i hovered over the mp3 file it shows (in the cool tooltip thingie) that the encoder is Xing.

i poked around the forums here and didn't see any mention of it. is this a bug? does it just show the wrong info because i shouldn't be looking at it during encoding?

i'm apparently one of those "golden ear" people that can tell the difference between encoders and bitrates (to a reasonable degree) and the final files sure sound like Lame encoded files to me - as I think the Xing encoder sounds like garbage, but it would be nice to know why the discrepancy.

one final thing that's a little off topic, but can probably be answered really quickly here... i noticed that the current betas of dMC mention a different mp3 encoder. is this in addition to Lame or is it replacing Lame?

Thanks!

[xoas]

Re: different encoder listed during encoding...

I recall a post from Spoon in reply to a similar question in which, as I recall, he indicated that the feature that determines the tag information for the encoder of the file is not fully reliable, especially (I believe) for older mp3 files. My guess is that your experience, as you thought, is due to your trying to read the tag encoder information as you are creating the mp3 file in question. Most likely you may need the completed file to be able to get accurate encoding information.

As for the betas, they feature a new mp3 decoder (the part of the codec that reads existing mp3 files). The betas still use Lame for creating (encoding) new mp3 files. For more on the new decoder you might want to review this information here:

http://www.underbit.com/products/mad/

I hope this helps.
Best wishes,
Bill Mikkelsen

[Unregistered]

Re: different encoder listed during encoding...

Cool. Thanks Bill! I figured the metadata thing might be something like that.

Thanks for the link to the MAD decoder too! I had never heard of it before but I'm currently downloading the beta dMC and MAD Winamp plugin.

Aaron

[Spoon]

Re: different encoder listed during encoding...

Whilst it is encoding the correct final identification information has not been written, so it guesses a codec (and one that does not write such information is XING).