I just bought a brand new Mac about a week ago, I also just recieved the update for the new OS (Leopard). Now I am importing CD's into iTunes at 128 kbps AAC and there are bit rates coming up like 127 kbps and 133 kbps. Variable bit rate is unchecked, i redownloaded iTunes after updating my OS and am still expiriencing this problem. Previous to Leopard I never had this issue! HELP!
I just upgraded to Leopard and I'm having the same issue. When I convert or import anything to AAC it will not do 128kbps it's somewhere between 124 and 130. I deleted my itunes preferences and it is still doing it.
I have not yet installed my Leopard upgrade, but this sounds like the way iTunes actually should display the bit rates of the AAC files it encodes. If you play these same files with other software such as foobar2000 on a Windows machine, you'll see minor fluctuations in the bit rate of these files. So, I don't think anything is going wrong with your encoding at all, just that iTunes is interpreting the audio data in a different (yet more accurate) way that it used to.
SINCE UPGRADING TO LEOPARD, I am having the same problem. I import everything at 256 kbps; new imports are displaying in a range between 253 and 260, whereas old imports (before the upgrade) still read 256. Are these importing differently now? Will I eventually have to reimport them in order to get them to conform to the old standards?
I can't imagine why this behavior would have changed with the upgrade, but who knows.
There is nothing broken here for all we know. What we do know is that even if previous versions of OS X and iTunes showed a constant bit rate, the truth is that iTunes AAC files have never used a 100% strictly enforced constant bit rate for encoding. I do not see that there is anything to worry about.
The only way to be 100% sure this performance is intended, is if there are others who have Leopard who are encoding at 128 kbps AAC and are having the same experience as us or are managing to get a Constant Bi Rate of 128 kbps.....so anyone?
matthewb87 wrote:
managing to get a Constant Bi Rate of 128 kbps
You don't seem to be grasping the point that no one has ever managed to have a truly constant bit rate of 128 kbps with any AAC files encoded with iTunes, regardless of what iTunes displays as the bit rate. I'm not here to argue with you, so good luck with your troubleshooting.
Not necessarily the point... For example, I use a smart playlist to separate out the 256 kbps tracks that I use, but now, it's not going to catch them all, because some are less than 256 and some are more.
While this may be a more accurate representation of a bit rate, it ***** for organizational purposes.
If the Smart Playlist functionality is broken as a result of this change (I can't test this until at least tomorrow when Leopard arrives in the mail), then by all means you should submit feedback to Apple following the link below.
Hopefully Apple will be able to tweak things a bit so that encoder settings can still be used as a Smart Playlist criterion even if the displayed bit rate is other than that specified by the user.
I tested this functionality already. I imported 35 tracks at 256 kbps. Only 3 of the 35 are caught by the smart playlist (the other 32 tracks range between 253 and 260, and therefore don't adhere to the playlist's criteria).
Thank you for taking the time to confirm this behavior. Hopefully others will submit feedback to Apple as well, as something definitely appears to have been broken as far as the ability to create Smart Playlists based on bit rate (at least without specifying a range of who knows how many kbps).
P.S. A link to this discussion thread in the submitted feedback would save a lot of typing and explanation.