MetaChat - Calling all MetaChat media detectives!

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20 September 2008

Calling all MetaChat media detectives! What's wrong with this file? →[More:]

It's an mp3, but it only plays on some mp3 players. I can't open it with Audacity (it doesn't recognize the file), and it won't play on PocketTunes (my phone's mp3 player). There's no DRM or copyright. Winamp plays it fine. VLC plays it fine. WMP and Quicktime play the file, but there's no sound. I've had the file for years; got it from my dad (so I didn't rip it myself). I've never noticed anything was up with it until my phone refused to play it.

???

Since I can't open the file in Audacity, I thought I might record it in Audacity from Winamp and save that as an mp3. But before I do that, any ideas?

post by: Eideteker at: 20:51 | 7 comments

That was my thought - bringing it ito Audacity. I'm gonna bring it into iTunes and see if my copy plays better. As it is now, your guess is as good as mine as to why it won't work everywhere.

Just a moment . . .

posted by MonkeyButter 20 September | 21:01

Yea, importing into iTunes doesn't work. Is it possible that the extension is wrong. I know that sounds odd.

posted by MonkeyButter 20 September | 21:05

The file info in WinAMP verifies that it is an MPEG 1.0 Layer 3 (MP3). If it were mislabeled (i.e. an m4a or ogg saved as ".mp3"), it would show that.

posted by Eideteker 20 September | 21:11

I got nothin.

posted by MonkeyButter 20 September | 21:14

There's a "RealJukebox" string in that file. If it was ripped by a Real application, it's probably pretty fucked up.

posted by DarkForest 20 September | 21:49

I downloaded the file, re-ripped it with LAME, and it now loads in Audacity without complaint. Every program I've got (MixMeister, Traction, LAME encoder, dbEncoder, MP3 Tag Tools) all say it's an mp3, though dbEncoder says that that's a guess. Looking at the properties, the Security section says "This file came from another computer and might be blocked to help protect this computer" and gives the Unblock button. Which is weird, as I can't remember seeing that before. Looks like RealAudio has some bad encoding going on.

posted by Zack_Replica 20 September | 22:52

Interesting! I didn't think that would work. And the new file is almost identical except Winamp says the header is located at 0 rather than something like 52,000 bytes. So I'm guessing there was indeed some weird data in there.

Thanks for the help; I used your LAME trick and now it works fine.

posted by Eideteker 21 September | 13:04

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