(SOLVED) SAME PROBLEM- Please help!

[PGA]

See post #41. This suggests that our earlier references to cbr vs vbr had some substance.

I think that you should rebuild the audio tracks. Peter's suggestion of converting the tracks to wav would eliminate the vbr problem.

DG

Dave,

Please don't mis-quote me. I did not recommend "converting the tracks to wav". I pointed out that MP3 is not a format that is suited to "work in progress"; it is a "delivery" format. I then generalized and suggested that, in order to preserve the best possible sound quality in our AVs, WAV format should be used throughout the build process until the very last moment.

A conversion of the existing 22.05KHz MP3 files to 44.1KHz WAV would involve massive interpolation of sound points (To all intents and purposes, every other sample point will have been created by the user's computer rather than by the original sound engineer). That is likely to introduce unwanted and probably unpleasant audible "artefacts" (It would be analogous to zooming a JPG to the point where it started to pixellate).

Speaking now as one who does try to obtain the best possible sound quality, my way out of this problem would be to buy CDs to obtain all the music items and then use Windows Media Player to rip the desired items to WAV files. Those would be added to the soundtrack and I would let PTE v8 convert the soundtrack to a single MP3 file when it publishes the EXE file.

Peter

[davegee]

Peter, I had no intention of mis quoting you but careful examination of the contents of the zip indicates that some of the mp3 files are (might be) downloads and therefore the only option is to convert those to wav. Quality would eventually be compromised but surely what we are doing here is fault finding and any method used is valid?

DG

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Just gone back to the last two up-grades of PTE & both contain changes to the DVD burner. I burned a DVD mid October but haven't tried it with 8.0.7, has anyone else besides grey spider burned a DVD with the latest version? I know ISO's have been created.

Yachtsman1.

[PGA]

Having now had time to download the Zip file and investigate the sound files in a little more depth I have discovered that there is a mixture of both 22.05KHz and 44.1KHz sample rates. Both Cooledit and Audacity can struggle to do the right thing when you ask them to mix together different Sample rates. It doesn't surprise me that PTE is struggling too!

I very much regret that Greyspider has broken the first "law" of digital sound editing: make sure all the input files have the same sample rate. To explain what can happen if that law is broken I'll use Audacity as my frame of reference.

• If I start assembling the soundtrack in Audacity by opening one of the 22050Hz items, Audacity sets 22050Hz as the sample rate for this Audacity project. When I come to export the final soundmix, Audacity will "down-sample" all the 44100Hz items - with consequent degradation of sound.
• If I start assembling the soundtrack in Audacity by opening one of the 44100Hz items, Audacity sets 44100Hz as the sample rate for this Audacity project. When I come to export the final soundmix, Audacity will "up-sample" all the 22050Hz items - with consequent degradation of sound.

Using files with different characteristics is always going to produce problems of some kind or another. I have used sound quality as my example. Other problems can be expected, as has been discovered by Greyspider. I am certain in my own mind that, if Greyspider goes back to to the original sources and downloads fresh copies, ensuring that all files have identical Sample rates, are all either WAV (for preference) or CBR MP3 (next best), then he/she will have no further problems with soundtracks.

Peter

[davegee]

It is possible that by using separate tracks, PTE is better able to cope with Bite Rate anomalies.

The ISO created with the original files works perfectly when assembled as per my original diagram.

However the problem of the waveform being cut off (but still playing) persists.

Taking the "Blue Danube" track into Soundbooth and saving as a 128kbps MP3 solved that problem and the complete waveform now shows.

Once again the ISO plays perfectly.

None of this is "good pratice" but serves to show that, as earlier posts suggest, having known and trusted sources for MP3 files and checking that they are all the same bit rates etc pays dividends.

DG

[PeteFine]

DG and Peter,

First I want to sincerely thank you for all your valuable advice and for taking the time to try to help.

Peter, your detaIed analyses of the audio is the first thing so far here that makes sense- no offense to the others. I did indeed download those songs at the request of the person for whom I was making that "memorial" project. I am very aware of the fact that wav files would be optimum but this was acceptable and necessary, as opposed to projects where I use my own symphonic music...

I will start from scratch with the downloads and watch carefully not to mix sample rates, etc. I already know not to do that in any audio project and I just never thought that was happening.

Thanks again everyone. I will give you an update when I'm done.

Pete

[PeteFine]

It worked!!! I checked the specs on all my audio files downloaded from Amazon and, as you suggested, re-saved them all with a 192kbs bit rate- they were all different! Now the DVD burns correctly- a exact duplicate of the pte playback.

I never realized that mp3 downloads were not "standard" - apparently pte has no problem playing them but in the conversion to DVD things got crazy... you could see something was amiss because of the added spaces in the waveform...

Thank you so much for your everybody!

Pete

[Cedric Dawnhawk]

See my post on similar sort of problems with mp3 files http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?/topic/18008-custom-mp3-bitrate/