On 13 Jun 2003 at 13:58, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote: > At 01:06 PM 6/13/03 -0400, David W. Fenton wrote: > >Is there something wrong with the files themselves or is my computer > >causing a problem somehow? It doesn't appear to me to be related to > >other activity on the computer (I've watched the CPU activity and > >there is no spike just where there's a dropout). > > I listened to the files -- after a tussle with the extremely slow bway > server. It was serving at dialup speeds for some reason ... maybe > *everybody* on this list was downloading that file!
Well, that is interesting, too, because I was experiencing delays just reloading files that were already in my cache. That is, I'd click on the links, and there'd be a pause while it checked with bway.net for the file date, then it would load from the cache. I reloaded a few times, and after the initial delay, the actual download was very quick (I'm on cable at a download rate over 1Mbps, on average). > >The MP3s in quesiton are at: > > http://www.bway.net/~dfenton/Collegium/HimmelUndErde/ > >One piece has had it happen just before the end twice when I was > >listening to it. > > There is no trouble with the file. I opened it also in Cool Edit Pro, and > it has no problems. Finally, I back-converted it to .wav using MMWave, and > still fine. OK, it looks like it's a Quicktime problem. Hmm. What other software do I have that can play MP3s? Real Player (which I despise and keep on my system only for Real Audio-only sites) and Windows Media Player (which I use only for WNYC, which doesn't stream anything else; I'd rather use Real Player than WMP!). I just tested the file with "plötzlich" in it in Windows Media Player and it played fine. Right now I'm trying Real Player. It's too bad. I really liked the Quicktime player in comparison to those other two. I don't have to have firewall rules blocking the QT player from trying to phone home, as with the other two players. And the QT player doesn't steal file associations, like the Real Player, and it's not made by Microsoft (need I say more on that one?). > >Any idea on this? > > My guess is the person who had the dropouts and you both have audio > subsystem issues, or perhaps disk access time issues. Hard to say. I know > that a few weeks ago I upgraded to a 120GB hard drive, only to discover a > slowdown as my motherboard's ATA bus was too slow. I installed an ATA133 > card, and audio glitches vanished. Well, the other person is on a Mac. > You might also have software running in the background. Again, I'm not sure > if you're PC or Mac, but if PC, dump the background-scan virus program, > Microsoft's "Fast Find", AOL AIM, and just about anything else you don't > absolutely need to have running. I don't have any kind of software like that. And I watched the Task Manager while playing one of the offending files with QT and saw that there was no disk activity or extra CPU activity when the skip occurred (or any time before or after). > Another culprit on PCs in QuickTime. Depending on your system, it can be > benign or wreak havoc. I don't have it on any of my four PCs because it > just won't behave. The entire audio subsystem was trashed in terms of > glitches and dropouts, so I uninstalled it and combed through every system > directly to get rid of its embedded files. Well, that's unfortunate, as I like QT. > If you're actually ripping from an audio CD, use the best extractor. . . . I'm using FreeRip, which I found from reading reviews on Download.com. I'll try your suggestion: > . . . A > piece of freeware (again, PC only) is EAC (Exact Audio Copy). Do a web > search; it's worth it, because it has very well-written features for making > sure the copy is as good as possible. (Due to the nature of audio CDs, it > was expected that data errors would be marginally corrected or masked; > accurate data copying depends on features not present on audio CDs. Data > CDs are accurate, but they also have about 15% of the disk space given over > to error-correction.) Well, EAC looks very complex. > If you were ripping from the CD directly to MP3, don't. :) Well, FreeRip didn't offer any options on that, though I think it can rip to WAV, and then create an MP3 from a WAV file, which is what EAC seems to be doing automatically. > >I ripped them at 64bits, too, and was wondering if that's normal for > >this kind of situation (putting classical music on a web page). > > Encoding at 128K/44KHz/stereo, no VBR, is kind of the web standard (web > "hi-fi" is 192K). The idea is to use the 'cleanest' compression that's > still streamable at cable/ISDN rates. (It wouldn't matter from the bway > server because it was so slow, at least today.) Is there any bit rate that is going to be usable for > >Can one use less than 64bits and get a decent trade-off of sound > >quality and size? > > Not a good one. If you only want musicological samples, go lower. We use > 32K/mono for our radio show because it streams at 56K dialup, it sounds > okay for a document, and our agreements with composers and labels limit our > archives to dialup speeds. But our many listeners worldwide are quite happy > to hear any of this new nonpop stuff at all! Well, I want something that is listenable, but still downloadable by dialup users. I'll try some 32-bit samples and see what I think. > Hope that's a start. There are lots of online guides, and a CDR listserv as > well (don't have the subscription info). Be sure to look for the extensive > online CDR FAQ (http://www.cdrfaq.org/). Everything you need to know! Thanks for that link, and for all the advice. I'm currently using EAC to recreate the 64bit files to see if they work better in QuickTime than the ones I created myself. -- David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
