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Posted by: Hari Ram Oct 16 2007, 07:10 PM

Question to members using microsoft operating system.
How do you read the Bit Rate of an audio file?
If the audio file is in VBR, does your software display average bit rate?

Hari Ram

Posted by: simplefable Oct 16 2007, 07:14 PM

Hari ram..when you place the cursor over the file, it automatically shows the properties..including bit rate..in kbps. if it doesnt show, just right click on the file and go to properties..

Posted by: Hari Ram Oct 16 2007, 07:23 PM

SF,

Thanks for your quick response.
When you move the cursor, what utility does it use to get the bit rate? (I don't use MS).
More importantly, if the audio is a VBR, does it display average bit rate?
I ask these questions, because I have noticed that several files reported to be at higher bitrate only shows 128 bitrate in my Linux. I suspect that the likely reason for this difference is the VBR audio files.

Hari Ram

Posted by: simplefable Oct 16 2007, 08:48 PM

Sorry Hariram....linux is over my head. Will find out from my nephew..and let you know.. :-(

Posted by: Hari Ram Oct 17 2007, 01:06 AM

Simplefable,

Thanks for trying to help me.
This is a doubt I had for some time. One of these days will compare an audio file in a friends computer.

In my case, MS is beyond my wallet.

Hari Ram

Posted by: deewani Oct 17 2007, 07:13 AM

I realize you are using linux, but for the windows users who were not sure:

If one uses Windows XP (and I assume Vista will be somewhat similar), they actually have built in ways of looking at the info you have added to the id3 tags, but few people use it. One must put the music in a folder that has music properties. (Right click on a folder, select properties, under customize, use this folder type as a template, music should be selected). By default, anytime you create a new folder in windows, and drop an mp3 into it, it automatically becomes a music folder. You will recognize it as such by the musical note in gray in the folder. Please see the pictures:

List View: Normal list view of a music folder, note the gray musical note. This is the way a folder looks if your View is selected as list.



Tiles View: Be default a music folder should be looking like this, it's a copy of the first folder, however in tile view (to see this go to View --> Tiles). Notice if the file is properly tagged, the artist and album info are shown on lines 2 and 3 in gray while the file name remains.



Details View: This is the way the same folder looks if you have changed the View ---> Details
Now this view can be customizable to provide you with more information as seen below.



To add the other fields, right click on the blank space as shown and add or remove any columns you wish simply by highlighting the desired column so that a check mark appears next to it.

http://imageshack.us

And if you click More, you will see the Choose Details window, there you will see two boxes for bit rates, if you click both of them you can see both the average and the actual (vbr) bit rates as seen above in the details view.



If you have something like dbpoweramp installed then simply hovering over a music file provides you with a myriad of details as well including the encoding information:

http://imageshack.us

You can see from above that by default windows shows you the average bitrate, 320 in this case, it's only when I added the second bit rate column that it shows me a vbr number, and dbpoweramp shows this same one as well. In this case I converted a .wav file to 320 vbr .mp3 file. Of course each file in the soundtrack comes out a bit different (270, 233, etc) as it is supposed to do with VBR rips, and since it is variable, the bitrate keeps fluctating as you play it, so the actual bitrate is neither fixed at 320 nor 270, etc. .So in your case Linux is showing you 128 where the file may also be showing 132 in a vbr read. I'm not sure what music player you use to play the files. If you use something like winamp, for example, you will see the bitrate fluctuate in the display window for winamp and that will also let you know it's a vbr rip vs a cbr (constant) one.

And of course iTunes reveals all as well.

http://www.hamaraforums.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=35280&view=findpost&p=355669

So you can probably find some kind of tagging or ripping program that will also show more then just an average bitrate which can lead you to believe it's cbr when it's actually vbr. Most tagging programs show you encoding information, type of encoder and method should let you know if it's vbr or cbr as well. These places may help: http://www.linux.org/apps/all/Multimedia/MP3.html or here http://frankscorner.org/index.php?p=multimedia. Good luck with that.

PS if you can not see any of the posted images, please let me know.

Posted by: Hari Ram Oct 17 2007, 07:45 PM

Thanks Deewani, your post is very informative.
This is could be a very good reference material for HF members.

Hari Ram

Posted by: Sangeet Oct 17 2007, 09:12 PM

Great Informative Post

P.S. Finally a less scary barber also

Posted by: Harjinder Oct 17 2007, 09:51 PM

Hi
If you use 'Jet Audio Player' from COWON Media Center, finding bit rate is easy.Just play the song and in upper left corner of the media player you will see the bit rate and format.Harjinder

Posted by: deewani Oct 18 2007, 04:46 AM

Don't worry I saved the scary one for you on my profile.