BesweetGui All Preset choice

[Phantom_E]

I end up replacing MP3 players from time to time.
In any event, I find whatever it is that Windows Media Player CD Rip generates as MP3 is the most likely to work in the next unit.

I was wondering just what structure WMP uses.

On the BesweetGui Lame1 Screen it gives a bunch of choices. The only two I semi recognize are ABR and CBR.
I guess the rest might possibly be some form of VBR since that is the only other type I have heard of.

Does one of these choices match what WMP makes?

Is there a utility that reports MP3 file structure (besides bitrate)?

PS: Batch mode seems to label all output with a file type of .wav. Not a big problem since the OS Rename function works.
Is there a way to get it to use the correct file type?

[blubb444]

Huh? I've been encoding mp3s for many years with many different encoders (or rather: mainly just different front-ends that use LAME, but used Fraunhofer too), played them on many different devices (including an ancient mp3CD-player from 2002, different HW mp3 players from various manufacturers, Hi-Fis that support USB disks with mp3s, car radios...) with different bitrates and bitrate modes (CBR 192,256,320..., VBR), sometimes mono, sometimes stereo, sometimes joint stereo, with or without ID3v1/2 tags and I never even once had any of those players fail on me by not wanting the file.
A frontend I used a lot when ripping CDs is CDex, I also transcoded with Winamp or foobar2000 or even directly with lame.exe. What other encoder(s) have you used that gave files that didn't work on which player(s)? Maybe some which produced non-standard files like "mp3plus"?
A software I used long ago to view the details and sometimes fix headers/delete erroneous frames was MP3Library, it also cleaned up unused space at the end/beginning or in tags.
EDIT: Oh, totally missed your last sentence somehow. Apparently you can also have mp3 streams in a wav container (I don't know how exactly that works though but I've come across that a couple times too). Just renaming them has of course a great chance to make them unplayable with HW players even though they might work on PC software.

[Phantom_E]

Huh? I've been encoding mp3s for many years with many different encoders ... and I never even once had any of those players fail on me by not wanting the file.
If the question is a little weird, I really am a newbie when it comes to the tools here and their practical application.

WMP can generate a lot of different formats. For any format besides MP3, players seem to play only some of the possible options for a format (even though the player says it will work with the format). Not a lot of choice for the MP3 format.

This is my first time using the Lame encoder.
I'm just trying to find what options I should avoid (I do want to try some different ones to see if I can get something that sounds better).

Maybe some which produced non-standard files like "mp3plus"?
Can Lame produce these?
Sounds like an option I want to avoid.

A software I used long ago to view the details and sometimes fix headers/delete erroneous frames was MP3Library
Is this the same thing?
MP3Library (http://download.cnet.com/MP3-Library-Player/3000-2141_4-75182273.html)

EDIT: Oh, totally missed your last sentence somehow. Apparently you can also have mp3 streams in a wav container[/QUOTE]
Best I can figure from the generated command line and some tests they really are MP3 files.
Most likely I missed a switch somewhere.

Thanks

[blubb444]

Well, if you're not constrained by file size limits, then simply use CBR 320 at highest encoding quality, something like that:
lame --preset insane <infile> <outfile>
No, for all I know LAME produces regular, standard-compliant mp3s that should be read by every working HW/SW decoder (unless, for some strange reasons, there are bitrate and/or other restrictions like not being able to play VBR which really shouldn't be the case in this day and age).
Nah, the MP3Library I'm talking about is pretty ancient, I used it in around 2003 or so, and never had problems with it (used it to clean up some mp3s which had unnecessarily big tags/empty spaces etc). Just checked, the latest version seems to be from 2005, at least I can find nothing newer (http://krick.3feetunder.com/mp3library/), a wonder it starts on my Win7! Just did a test run and it wrongly detected "bad frames" in a VBR mp3 encoded with LAME 3.98 (with CDex as frontend) and "fixing" them destroyed the file (it makes a backup though) so maybe some new features have been introduced by LAME in the last years which confuse the software? Another VBR mp3 encoded with a newer LAME-3.99-5 is displayed correctly though, maybe I'll do some more testing. But there are probably many more and/or better mp3 analysers out there right now.

[Phantom_E]

Thanks for the pointer.
Also "mp3 analyzer" works well as a search key and unlike my previous attempts came up with a number of items.

Unfortunately space has been very much a constraint with mp3 players.
This is changing lately.

Good to hear I can play around with the options and not worry about portability.