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CyberMonk · Feb 23, 2003, 01:42 PM

*Don't know where else to stick this, so I'll post it here*

I finally installed my CD player in my car yesterday, and it's working fine. But, I'm having some trouble with MP3 CDs skipping and/or urping (as in, sounds like there are encoder errors, when in fact the files play fine on the computer). I'm wondering if anyone has any insight as to what might be causing this.

At first I thought it might be due to the fact that some of the tags were v2.2-2.3, and upon looking back to the manual I came across a note that said the CD player is only compatible with v1.1 ID3 tags (it doesn't display ID3 info, but I figured the tags somehoe interfere with the reading of the file). I downloaded a couple tag editing applications and removed the tags on all the MP3s in one of my MP3 CD burn folders (all copied as to not lose the original files, of course). First I tried changing them to v1.1, but this burn too had urps. Then I tried removing all tags alltogether, and this CD still had urps. I might add that not every song does this. It seems the MP3s from my System of a Down album all urp rather badly, and the Audioslave album MP3s urp as well. But many of the songs work just fine in any of the above tag configurations.

Anyway, I don't know what the hell I can do to fix this, if anything. Does anyone know of anything I could do? Oh, and if it's of any help, I've been burning these in Toast 5.2. iTunes creates a folder for each artist and album when it burns MP3 CDs, and I like to stick all the files in one folder and stick it on random once it's in the CD player. Oh, and most of these MP3 files probably started out with iTunes MP3 tags. Thanks in advance for any assistance.

torifile · Feb 23, 2003, 02:03 PM

Are you sure it's not the cd player itself? I've got an aiwa mp3/cd player in my car and I've found that when playing mp3 cds, it's way more sensitive to things. Sometimes it'll have problems even when there is nothing wrong. I dunno.... for me, I've just accepted it as a limitation of the technology for now...

CyberMonk · Feb 23, 2003, 02:22 PM

I don't know. That seems rather lame to me, especially since many MP3s play just fine while others do not. And I wad doing all my testing with the car off (set to accessory power only), so there was no movement or jolts or anything like that to interfere with the player.

anti-sleep · Feb 23, 2003, 02:47 PM

Is it possible that the player is having issues with VBR encoded files?

CyberMonk · Feb 23, 2003, 07:33 PM

Don't think so. None of the obvious problem files are VBR, and I know for a fact that many of my VBR files play just fine.

foobars · Feb 23, 2003, 07:38 PM

Are you using cheap CDRs?

A friend of mine once talked me out of getting an MP3 in car CD player for the following reason (I dont know if its true or not): Since MP3s are data a CD player doesn't really know what's its reading whereas with an audio CD it can detect errors and re-sample, thus preventing any skipping.

CyberMonk · Feb 24, 2003, 06:34 PM

So, I think it may have something to do with 192kpbs encoded files, seeing as all my definite identified troublemaker files are encoded at 192. This leads me to my next question:

I really don't see how this might be possible, but I'm wondering if anyone knows of any way in which one can slightly upsample, or even downsample an MP3 without actually reencoding the thing (which, obviously, would be an encoded encode, and therefore sound craptacular). If this were somehow possible, I might be able to salvage the 192kpbs portion of my iTunes library for use in my car stereo, assuming my hypothesis holds true.