[N8N]

As some of you may know, QOTSA's new album is out today... I'd preordered it from Amazon so I had the MP3s waiting for me when I got up this AM. I downloaded them, let easy tag autocorrect the tags, and loaded them onto the micro SD card that I use with a USB adapter for mobile music storage. Car says invalid file when I try to play one... anyone know what the issue may be? was really looking forward to hearing this album....

[N8N]

damn, think I found the answer here

http://www.m3post.com/forums/showthread.php?p=4368576

pretty sure the files are VBR and >256 kb/s

they did play on my laptop :/

I do not have the physical CD in my possession yet only the mp3s as the CD hasn't shipped yet...

I guess that this has not come up before as due to the fact that I have a huge amount of music I've been using a target bitrate of ~192 kb/s for my own rips as I haven't found a good compact storage device >64GB. I've been ripping everything to .flac as well and archiving on a 1TB portable HDD but higher quality than a 192 kb/s .mp3 seems to be wasted in the car...

well I guess I will have to wait until this evening to give this a listen and I won't be able to cruise around listening to it until I actually get the CD and rip it myself

[gpb]

Originally Posted by N8N

Car says invalid file when I try to play one... anyone know what the issue may be?

First questions that come to mind are:
Have you tried playing the files from your USB stick on your computer and did it work?
If not, have you tried playing the downloaded files on your computer and did they work?
If not, have you re-downloaded the files and tried to play them?

Core idea is identify whether it's the car or the stick or the files.

I see you posted more info as I was typing the above -- If it's simply a matter of format, then any number of converters could handle converting the mp3s to a flavor compatible with your car.

[N8N]

yup, I'm hopeful that that will do it... posted over on AudioKarma soon as I figured out the above, using "MP3 Quality Modifier" to batch convert the files now, will try it in a few.

That 256 kb/s limit is pretty cheezy though. I bet I have other files that are higher than that, I just haven't tried to listen to them in the car yet. Every other means I have of playing mp3s - PC, phone, aftermarket head unit in other car, etc. has handled them correctly. Granted, all other devices are newer than the Bimmer but still. Like someone who buys a BMW isn't going to be snobbish about other things? (really wish we could use .flac but whaddayagonnado.)

[deepsrd]

256? I have all my mp3 at 320Kbps (CBR and VBR) .. never had any problems....
And they play perfectly..
My setup : CIC with V41, and Combox .

Files show as invalid when there is some problem with copying it over to the USB..

[N8N]

Didn't work. Misspoke in previous post. Amazon files are all 320 kb/s except for track 4 which for some reason is 256. I converted them all to 192 and loaded those files on SD card. The downloaded files play on PC and so do the converted ones. I am listening to one track now on PC playing off SD card. Have been using SD card to play all my other files in the car for a month or so now (upgraded from 32GB thumb drive recently) and this is the first problem; I just played a few tracks from other albums just to confirm that nothing has changed.

So now I don't know what the problem is, unless there's some DRM thing that I need to strip from the Amazon files - how would I do that?

This is the first time I've pulled anything off Amazon's cloud - I do have other CDs that I've bought from Amazon but never tried the cloud until today as I was anxious to hear this album.

thanks for any help!

[deepsrd]

Amazon MP3 is DRM-free..

[N8N]

well then I'm cornfused as to why these files aren't playing. The only possible issues that I saw in the m3post link were the bitrate and possible presence of DRM. I'm currently listening to the downloaded files through headphones on my PC as I type this so both the files and the storage media are OK.

I did notice that they have info in the "comment" and "copyright" fields... maybe I should remove those and try again?

Now this is gonna bug me until one of you smart people points out the forehead smacker that I'm missing...

My life ain't gonna be complete until I can cruise around listening to an album that nobody else has yet

[deepsrd]

Send me one of the files, I can check it for you, in my car as well..
Email : deepsrd@gmail.com

No worries, I wont play it around ;-)

[N8N]

I figured it out, the tags were id3v2.4 not 2.3. The odd thing is that they played on Windows Media Player, they wouldn't have last time I ran into this problem which is why I didn't check the tag version first thing. ran them through MP3tag and it's all good. The 320kb/s files are playing fine in the car as well, so apparently that limitation is documented but not an actual limitation. deepsrd, it is a really killer album, been listening to it all afternoon

This was the first time I ran into this message, I guess the issue must have been that I was not waiting for everything to load and then looking for the album by artist -> album but was navigating straight through to the directory and trying to play them. Before when I tried to find an album that was tagged id3v2.4 it just simply wouldn't appear.

[deepsrd]

Great!! :-)

320Kbps mp3s sound good, but not to my liking..
trying to experiment with wma lossless, to see if it gets better..
pity with flac that it does not support it.. :-(

[N8N]

yes, the last 40-50 CDs that I've acquired I've been ripping to .flac with EAC then converting to .mp3 to play in the car, usually VBR around 192 kb/s - simply because otherwise I'd be running into storage issues. I've been keeping the .flac files on a 1TB USB hard drive in case I ever want to set up a media server and/or much larger mobile storage options become available affordably, then I could batch convert to 320kb/s .mp3 in one shot. Unfortunately even if that were the case because the car's USB port is only USB 2.0, at that point I'd probably get to my destination before the car finished reading the media and importing all the tags...!

I still have 4-5 boxes of CDs that have been ripped to .mp3 but not to .flac because I didn't think to do that at the time, "why would I ever need to do that" well now i see the need but don't have several days to go back and re-rip everything :/

have you had any luck with converting from .flac to wma lossless and then playing the resulting files in the car? If there's an easy way to batch convert I could do that, I just standardized on .flac because that seemed to be the way that everything was going.

[deepsrd]

Yes, and I have good news!!

I used foobar2000, and WMAEncoder (on a win7 PC) to convert my flac to WMA lossless (set to 24bit 44KHz). (Guides are everywhere, but I can send it to you tomorrow if needed, as I use a Mac at home)
Conversion was a breeze (it does batch convert) .
And it plays perfectly fine in the car..
Note: This was from the USB drive in he console..

I also tried 16bit 44KHz, and they also play perfectly...

I have logic7, and for some reason, 320Kbps sounds better for surround sound, but the WMA lossless has more clarity, and separation (albeit far-fetched in a car)..

[N8N]

OK, foobar2000 is pretty straightforward, but what is WMAEncoder and how do I get it? Or is that part of windows and I just need to set up some configurations?

This is pretty academic as I haven't ripped most of my stuff to FLAC yet (and it will be a heck of a project; I'm just ripping a few CDs every time I'm bored) but I would like to know for future reference.

[deepsrd]

YOu can get it from here..
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/downl....aspx?id=17792

It is a command line exe, used by foobar to convert it..
Follow the guide here (dont use the vbs, point to the exe you downloaded above) :
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/...howtopic=47759

If you have problems, I will send you the exe I am using tomorrow..

Cheers,
Deeps

[N8N]

Cool, thank you, I will have to test a few files and load them onto a spare thumb drive and see how it goes. I apologize for acting dumb about this; I'm really more comfortable in a *nix environment but have grudgingly started using Windows for audio stuff because some of the things I want to do just have better software there.

Oddly I just converted some FLAC files to .mp3 using Sound Converter on Linux and the tags came out as ID3v2.4 - and I just grabbed them without checking them and/or running them through mp3tag - and the files played fine in my car! I'm now very confused about this whole working/not working thing...

[deepsrd]

Tell me about it..

I run a VM on my Mac to work with audio files.. Tags are a nightmare on Mac.. iTunes is a joke.

Think the tag versions also depend on the version of software on the car, but I am not sure of it.. I will check on mine and see..

[N8N]

OK, I finally got back to this... got it up and running, trying to convert my very first file right now. Two problems:

1) Foobar2000 seems to be hanging; it appears to have completely converted the file (if I navigate to the file and double click it will play) however there is still a temporary file in the folder and Foobar2000 progress window only offers me options "Pause" and "Abort" as if it does not realize that the program has terminated.

2) More importantly, the wma file does not appear to have any tags associated with it? I'm assuming that those are additional command line options probably similar to what I do with EAC to set up for ripping in the first place, do you know what parameters I need to pass to maintain my tagging?

Sorry for the dumb questions and also for letting this thread sit for so long; I've been having computer problems, I mean challenges, I mean opportunities... this has been a low priority for me at this time especially since I doubt I could put all my music into the car in a lossless format anyway at least not without a really expensive thumb drive (or USB connected SSD?)

[N8N]

I've let this slide as my PC died... got a new one today and am messing with this and also INPA... got foobar2000 set up, installed Windows Media Encoder, set up foobar2k exactly per the instructions here

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/...howtopic=47759

WMA Lossless

Encoder: C:\Program Files\Windows Media Components\Encoder\WMCmd.vbs
Extension: wma
Parameters: -silent -a_codec WMA9LSL -a_mode 2 -a_setting Q100_44_2_16 -input %s -output %d
Format is: lossless
Highest BPS mode supported: 24
Encoder name: WMA Lossless
Bitrate: <blank>
Settings: VBR Quality 100

Change the argument marked with green color according to the table:
CODE
Argument Quality Sampling rate Channel
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q100_44_2_16 Q100 44 2 16
Q100_44_2_24 Q100 44 2 24
Q100_48_2_24 Q100 48 2 24
Q100_48_6_24 Q100 48 6 24
Q100_88_2_24 Q100 88 2 24
Q100_88_6_24 Q100 88 6 24
Q100_96_2_24 Q100 96 2 24
Q100_96_6_24 Q100 96 6 24

got this error

8 out of 8 tracks converted with major problems.

Source: "C:\Users\Studio\Music\Beethoven, Ludwig van\Beethoven - Symphonien Nos. 7 & 8\01 Symphonie Nr. 7 A-dur op. 92- 1. Poco sostenuto - Vivace.flac"
An error occurred while finalizing the encoding process (Object not found) : "C:\Users\Studio\Music\Beethoven, Ludwig van\WMA Test\Symphonie Nr. 7 A-dur op. 92- 1. Poco sostenuto - Vivace.wma"
Conversion failed: Object not found
Source: "C:\Users\Studio\Music\Beethoven, Ludwig van\Beethoven - Symphonien Nos. 7 & 8\02 Symphonie Nr. 7 A-dur op. 92- 2. Allegretto.flac"
An error occurred while finalizing the encoding process (Object not found) : "C:\Users\Studio\Music\Beethoven, Ludwig van\WMA Test\Symphonie Nr. 7 A-dur op. 92- 2. Allegretto.wma"
Conversion failed: Object not found
Source: "C:\Users\Studio\Music\Beethoven, Ludwig van\Beethoven - Symphonien Nos. 7 & 8\03 Symphonie Nr. 7 A-dur op. 92- 3. Presto.flac"
An error occurred while finalizing the encoding process (Object not found) : "C:\Users\Studio\Music\Beethoven, Ludwig van\WMA Test\Symphonie Nr. 7 A-dur op. 92- 3. Presto.wma"
Conversion failed: Object not found
Source: "C:\Users\Studio\Music\Beethoven, Ludwig van\Beethoven - Symphonien Nos. 7 & 8\04 Symphonie Nr. 7 A-dur op. 92- 4. Allegro con brio.flac"
An error occurred while finalizing the encoding process (Object not found) : "C:\Users\Studio\Music\Beethoven, Ludwig van\WMA Test\Symphonie Nr. 7 A-dur op. 92- 4. Allegro con brio.wma"
Conversion failed: Object not found
Source: "C:\Users\Studio\Music\Beethoven, Ludwig van\Beethoven - Symphonien Nos. 7 & 8\05 Symphonie Nr. 8 F-dur op. 93- 1. Allegro vivace e con brio.flac"
An error occurred while finalizing the encoding process (Object not found) : "C:\Users\Studio\Music\Beethoven, Ludwig van\WMA Test\Symphonie Nr. 8 F-dur op. 93- 1. Allegro vivace e con brio.wma"
Conversion failed: Object not found
Source: "C:\Users\Studio\Music\Beethoven, Ludwig van\Beethoven - Symphonien Nos. 7 & 8\06 Symphonie Nr. 8 F-dur op. 93- 2. Allegretto scherzando.flac"
An error occurred while finalizing the encoding process (Object not found) : "C:\Users\Studio\Music\Beethoven, Ludwig van\WMA Test\Symphonie Nr. 8 F-dur op. 93- 2. Allegretto scherzando.wma"
Conversion failed: Object not found
Source: "C:\Users\Studio\Music\Beethoven, Ludwig van\Beethoven - Symphonien Nos. 7 & 8\07 Symphonie Nr. 8 F-dur op. 93- 3. Tempo di Menuetto.flac"
An error occurred while finalizing the encoding process (Object not found) : "C:\Users\Studio\Music\Beethoven, Ludwig van\WMA Test\Symphonie Nr. 8 F-dur op. 93- 3. Tempo di Menuetto.wma"
Conversion failed: Object not found
Source: "C:\Users\Studio\Music\Beethoven, Ludwig van\Beethoven - Symphonien Nos. 7 & 8\08 Symphonie Nr. 8 F-dur op. 93- 4. Allegro vivace.flac"
An error occurred while finalizing the encoding process (Object not found) : "C:\Users\Studio\Music\Beethoven, Ludwig van\WMA Test\Symphonie Nr. 8 F-dur op. 93- 4. Allegro vivace.wma"
Conversion failed: Object not found

any ideas? There are no files in the destination folder.

I was using 44/2/16, could that be a problem? But my files are in fact 44100 and stereo (and I assume 16 bit but I can't seem to see where foobar will display that info)