Long files do not properly display Time

[Robert Smits]

On Monday 26 January 2009 05:00:12 am Mark Kretschmann wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 6:40 AM, Robert Smits <bob at rsmits.ca> wrote:
> > I listen to a lot of audio books, and I've noticed that when I play them
> > in Amarok 1.4.10 on my Suse 11.0 32 bit box, whenever the length of the
> > file is much more than an hour, the display that shows where in the file
> > you are currently, as well as the total time of the file are incorrect.
> >
> > It's annoying because a file an hour and 30 minutes long will show as
> > 3:24, for example, and after 3 minutes you can't move the pointer to play
> > a different part of the file.
>
> The imprecise track length is a general problem with many VBR
> (Variable Bit Rate) formats. For MP3, the trick is to encode with the
> "XING" tag enabled, which describes the correct length. Without it the
> length can only be estimated.
>
>
> Here's some more info on this topic:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_bit_rate

Thanks for the explanation Mark. I learned something new today.

-- 
Bob Smits, bob at rsmits.ca
"Don't worry about people stealing your ideas.   If your ideas are any good, 
you'll have to ram them down people's throats."
 -- Howard Aiken