I'm having trouble with MP3 playback...

Rob Babcock · « **on:** 10 Jul 2003, 05:56 am »

can anyone help? I've been experimenting w/ burning MP3 for the first time; for the life of me I can't get a disc that'll play right on my Pioneer Elite DV-45A. Some discs start at track 21 and will only play above that, some will read MP3 but won't play. In the house we also have a cheapo 5 disc Panny DVD carasoul that plays 'em fine.

Is Pioneer "lying" about MP3 playback or am I doin' something wrong? The Pioneer functions flawlessly in every way and sounds great as a player and transport. Anyone else had this problem?

bubba966 · « **Reply #1 on:** 10 Jul 2003, 06:03 am »

Rob,

If my Ai wasn't broke in transit I might be able to test an MP3 disc on it. I don't know when that'll be resolved, and you'll probably have it figured out by the time I'm able to test an MP3 on my Pioneer.

But the one MP3 disc I've made in the past always played fine. I burned it using CDRWin from http://www.goldenhawk.com. That was/is my fav burning program...

Thump553 · « **Reply #2 on:** 11 Jul 2003, 08:24 pm »

Are you sure its a MP3 problem? Does your Pioneer have any problems reading burnt audio discs?

TheeeChosenOne · « **Reply #3 on:** 11 Jul 2003, 09:57 pm »

Do you have the latest firmware for your burner?

Rob Babcock · « **Reply #4 on:** 11 Jul 2003, 11:57 pm »

No, Thump, I'm not at all sure it's the player, although a Panny 5 disc DVD carasoul in the house plays 'em all just fine. I really don't know jack about burning MP3's, these are my first attempts at burning my own. Some were burned w/Nero Burning Rom, but likely not the latest version.

My Pioneer so far has been bulletproof, and it plays CD-Rs (both audio and data) and CD-RWs like a trooper, and will play discs that look like cutting boards. In all respects save the MP3 discs, it plays flawlessly.

It will play some of them, leading me to believe that maybe the discs my brother burned (most w/trail versions of different encoders) my lack a "TOC" (if MP3 discs use one) that my Pioneer needs which the Panny maybe doesn't. I know some units will play unfinalized discs, for instance, while some won't.

It's too early for me to draw any conclusions, and I'm a newb when it comes to 'rolling my own' MP3 discs. Any other suggestions would be welcome.

Thanks guys.

Rob Babcock · « **Reply #5 on:** 16 Jul 2003, 04:15 am »

Okay, a little update. I bought Musicmatch Jukebox & bought the upgrade key today; very nifty program. Discs burned on this software work just fine on my Pioneer Elite player.

This program lets you scale the bit rate from 64 all the way up to a VBR over 320. Now many of you are probably old hands at the MP3 thing, but it's been very interesting to me as I've never worked with them before. I've burned discs using a different bitrate for each song, going from 64 kbp/s to the max in order to compare the sound of each rate. Very illuminating.

One of the main reasons I'm interested in MP3 is that I just took a new computer up to my folks and set it up for them. I hooked the new PC up to my dad's shelf system (don't get me started- a $100 system w/$120 sony bookshelf speakers. I can't get my dad to pop for anything over $125 that can't be used to go fishing!

). At any rate, my idea is to help him rip every song he and mom have to the hard drive and use the pc as the jukebox. They aren't audiophiles- I think I'll likely rip their stuff at 192 kbps. This should be highly listenable on their little Awai while stuffing every possible track onto the 40 GB drive.

My mom likes mostly ooold country (think Patsy Kline and Hank Snow!) and some mellow new stuff. Dad's an odd bird; he digs everything from Herman's Hermits and Jan & Dean to Buck Owens to ZZ Top and RATT! Cinderella, ZZ Top and Molly Hatchet are actually among his favorites.

He's been known to put Marty Robbins and Motley Crue on the same mix tapes!

Mag · « **Reply #6 on:** 6 Aug 2003, 10:45 am »

I'm a little confused by your posts.You say you've burned discs at different bitrates but its your first attempt at making an mp3 disc.
In order to make a mp3 'only' disc where you can get anywhere from 60 to some 200 songs depending on bitrate. It must be done as a data disc and not music. So you have to use a copy program that allows you to make a data disc.
My understanding is that the disc you've made of different mp3 bitrates have been converted to wav files and then tranfered to disc. This method sounds okay if you don't then go and and convert them back to mp3. If you do it will sound like crap.And with this method you can only get about 10 to 25 songs on a disc.
Your player then has to be able to read mp3's to hear the disc.
My apoligizes if you already know this.
Mag

Mag · « **Reply #7 on:** 6 Aug 2003, 11:01 am »

Oh one more thing when you tranfer the mp3's to your parents comp, I think you just have to drag the files onto their HD. I'm pretty sure ripping won't work.
Mag

Rob Babcock · « **Reply #8 on:** 6 Aug 2003, 07:26 pm »

I know that post could be a bit confusing, Mag. The very first discs I burned included about 20 tracks, with using many different rates from 128 to 320, including some VBR, all on the same disc. Some of the discs that I couldn't get to work were not burned by me. I guess I should have said "attempts" (plural), not "attempt" (singular). At any rate, no, they aren't converted back and forth but rather ripped using MMJ.

The posts you're referring to are fairly old; I've pretty much got it figured out by now.

As far as converting music already on the HD as wave files, I've got a utility that does that nicely. After to convert them you just erase the wave file & leave the MP3.

As far as setting up my folks PC for MP3 playback, I'll rip a bunch of there stuff for them next time I'm up there. There's also some stuff I'll rip at my place and burn to a CD-R, which I can just pop in their CD-ROM drive and add to their music library.

By now I've basically abandoned the straight 320 kbps rate and gone to all VBR at the highest settings. As a few guys here advised me, the VBR discs sometimes won't play back on all machines, hence the probs I was having. But the VBR tracks I've ripped w/MMJ all work fine in both the Pioneer DVD decks in the house (added a new one since then

), and all the computers I've tried 'em in play em back just fine. At any rate, notwithstanding the good results Witchdoctor gets with his DFX-equipted Uber PC, I find that 320 isn't entirely transparent with all stuff. Most rock sounds great, but some seems to trip it up a little. Piano and cello recordings can sound like nails on a chalkboard at 320 kbps, so now I just go with the highest rate VBR. I can attest that those recordings sound very good played back thru my DVD deck.

Thanks for the post, Mag.

Rob

Phat Phreddy · « **Reply #9 on:** 20 Aug 2003, 01:52 pm »

Although this is pretty OT here (drop it in the square circle) I would strongly suggest A) using J Rivers Media Centre v9 B) using a good soundcard with ASIO studio interface (works with the above MC9) C) if you can spring for it adding the graphical overlay of Music Lobby by Mario @ Cinemar.

With this setup MC9 can be the data base / tagger / ripper / burner workhorse and MusicLobby is the gloss providing parent proof jukeboxx skins and visual appeal.

MC9 is head and shoulders the best all round app and via ASIO its sound quality is also right up there with foobar or WinAmp + MAD plugins.