Wrong time displayed for mp3 file with VBR. Bug?

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Wrong time displayed for mp3 file with VBR. Bug?

Hi all,

When I play mp3 files with Variable Bitrates (VBR), iTunes display it's time incorrectly.
For example, a song with 8:59 (correctly shown in the info in Finder) is recognized more than a hour!
But, it ends playing after 8:59 while the scroll bar is still in the middle.
I guess iTunes calculate the time just using the first bitrate of the file, which is usually much lower than the average bitrate.
Is it a bug?

Thanks.

Macbook pro, Mac OS X (10.5.6), My iTunes is the latest version: 8.0.2 (20)

Posted on Jan 7, 2009 10:00 AM

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Answer 1

Limnos

Level 10

427,967 points

Jan 7, 2009 10:36 AM in response to yyoo

I recall this with some older VBR files. I don't think it is iTunes as such but something to do with how the rate characteristics are identified (or not) in the coding of the file. I don't recall how I cleared it up or if it just eventually did it on its own as I changed software. As I said, this was with old files so maybe newer software was able to handle those better.

You could try running the file through mp3Trimmer (shareware). This re-writes the mp3 without re-encoding and may clean up the issue without losing quality.

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