[GK 0.27] Bug when Besweet is NOT used

[arno]

It seems that Gordian Knot corrupts the sound on the final avi file when BeSweet is NOT used (the option is disabled). I don't think many people notice this issue as normally you always want to use BeSweet. Though I'd mention it anyway, so it can be fixed....

[TheWEF]

Originally posted by arno
It seems that Gordian Knot corrupts the sound on the final avi file when BeSweet is NOT used

corrupts it in what way?
the problem might be that the included lame.exe is not the latest one. not all the commandline switches are possible that you can use with besweet. standard abr should work fine though.

anyway, i guess there is absolutely no reason not to use besweet and i should probably remove this checkbox.

wef.

[arno]

Originally posted by arno
...And about removing the BeSweet checkbox, better think about it twice as the tip you placed under the box, clearly says "For AC3 sound only"...

yes, i still did not change the routines for wav input. that's why lame.exe and azid.exe are still included in the package. if input is wav the checkbox has no effect and lame.exe is used.
that wouldn't change if the checkbox was not there at all.

wef.

[hakko504]

Originally posted by arno
It seems like a VBR header is added to the MP3 stream (file), while the MP3 is actually a non-VBR (=CBR) file. That is not a bug, that's a feature. Lame always writes a mp3-header in the same way, i.e. one that is intended for VBR even though the file itself is CBR.

[arno]

Originally posted by hakko504
That is not a bug, that's a feature. Lame always writes a mp3-header in the same way, i.e. one that is intended for VBR even though the file itself is CBR.

This is not true!!! Check the MP3 file created by Gordian Knot, it doesn't contain any Xing VBR header!!!

But this isn't the biggest problem!!!! I found another far more serious problem, that seems related: When MP3 CBR sound is used (via custom audio settings), a VBR header is always written within the AVI file!!!! At first it doesn't seem a problem as I've encoded several movies without any problem, but now I have one movie which shows audio-sync problems because of this. I found the problem because when I open the GK generated AVI-file (with custom CBR MP3 sound), VirtualDub complains it has "improper VBR encoding". I now for sure the header is causing at because when I manually merge the seperate .MP3-file (by first adding a WAV-header) in VirtualDub into the AVI-file (with the bad audio), the audio-sync problem is solved.

To be brief: A problem with CBR MP3 files exists, both when BeSweet IS and IS NOT used!

So please, TheWEF, have another look at it, please....

[seewen]

I think you should really post the BeSwet/lame logfile in here. So all can verify the setting you've used.

[TheWEF]

Originally posted by arno
When MP3 CBR sound is used (via custom audio settings), a VBR header is always written within the AVI file!!!!

sorry arno, but i do not support any custom lame commandlines you are using.
gknot is ment for use with vbr-mp3 and it works fine. i'm using nandub for audio-muxing, it assumes every mp3 is vbr by default. can't change that.
if you want to use cbr audio (why?) you have to uncheck "finally mux" and do what we did in the old days: use wavmp3 to add a wav header to your mp3 file, change the file extension to '.wav' and mux manually with virtualdub.

wef.

[arno]

Originally posted by TheWEF
sorry arno, but i do not support any custom lame commandlines you are using.
gknot is ment for use with vbr-mp3 and it works fine. i'm using nandub for audio-muxing, it assumes every mp3 is vbr by default. can't change that.
if you want to use cbr audio (why?) you have to uncheck "finally mux" and do what we did in the old days: use wavmp3 to add a wav header to your mp3 file, change the file extension to '.wav' and mux manually with virtualdub.

wef.

I always used CBR audio, because I had some problems with VBR audio in the past. Maybe nows the time to change that view ;-) Anyway, it might be useful then, if GK doesn't support CBR that you add a warning (tip) in the audio window, so other users won't make the same mistake.

[hakko504]

Actually it seems like a lot of people have tired of problems with vbr and gone back to cbr, myself included, but that's mostly because I use DD5.1 for HQ rips. I have so far never had any problems with synch when I used VBR, but I sometimes had problems seeking in the file.

[mazzo]

When I record an old movie from tv, I use to make a 96 Kbps mono mp3 file. You can't do that with Besweet, can you?

[hakko504]

Besweet uses lame for mp3 encoding so just make sure the lame command is:lame --alt-preset cbr 96 -m m file.wav file.mp3

[arno]

Originally posted by TheWEF
sorry arno, but i do not support any custom lame commandlines you are using.
gknot is ment for use with vbr-mp3 and it works fine. i'm using nandub for audio-muxing, it assumes every mp3 is vbr by default. can't change that.
if you want to use cbr audio (why?) you have to uncheck "finally mux" and do what we did in the old days: use wavmp3 to add a wav header to your mp3 file, change the file extension to '.wav' and mux manually with virtualdub.

wef.

I did some investigation myself, I used the knowledge I got from making a package myself to transcody *any* avi-audio track to (CBR or VBR) mp3.

Anyway, this is what I'm proposing:
- Instead of using Nandub for audio-mux, use VirtualDub. "He, but VirtualDub doesn't support VBR MP3 audio" you're going to say now. That's true, but face it: NanDub is obsolete anyway (If you look at the VirtualDub version it was based on (1.3?). And especially concerning VBR audio, VirtualDub/NanDub had some issue's in the past that with for example VBR audio that have been resolved since the latest version (1.4.13). Check the changelog of the latest 1.4.13, if you like.
- To be able to import VBR (or CBR) MP3 (or PCM etc...) audio into VirtualDub, we need a WAV file. For this we can use mp3wav.exe (download http://www.divx-digest.tv/software/encode/mp3wav1.0.zip). This utility attaches a WAV header to *ANY* MP3 file so it can be imported in VirtualDub (via Audio, "WAV Audio").

I hope this helps in improving your program.

I rest my case ;-)

p.s. : You might also want to consider an option which cleans up all *.AVI files that were created by GK during the process (except the final one of course).

[N_F]

Not sure if it's what you're looking for, but have you tried VirtualDubMOD?