iTunes makes broken MP3 files now?!

I've always stuck with MP3 files for music because it is the only format that everything we've ever owned will play. Currently we've all got iPhones and iPods but the car machine is one of those no-name head-units that's a radio and a flash-memory player. In the past we've had an assortment of 'phones and no-brand MP3 players and so I think the choice I made back in the late nineties to start moving all my music to MP3 was valid.

People object to MP3s for one of two reasons;

• It's not an open format like OGG Vorbis - it's notionally "owned" by Technicolor. It is so ubiquitous that I suspect they'd have problems enforcing that.
• It's lossy, and not even the best example of a lossy codec.

As ever Wikipedia has a very comprehensive article. On the first point I think life is too short to get all religious about technology choices. In the case of documents formats - sure; send RTFs rather than DOCXs just for politeness (actually, both formats belong to Microsoft!). Not everyone has the right machine or can afford MS Office (oh, and NEVER send Open Office specific files!).

In terms of the lossy nature of MP3s I'd say that if you encode files well yourself it shouldn't matter for most people and most music. With very little effort you can get MP3s that are so close to the uncompressed data that came off the CD that you'll never know. Audiophiles (who still tolerate all the noise and 2nd order harmonics that come off vinyl - and don't get me started on the RIAA characteristic!) claim that no compression is good, but I suspect they do so for reasons of fashion or self-aggrandisement. The reason I say that is I have actually done the tests!

Back in 1999 I was involved in a project to transfer a large audio sound effects library to a server. The start of the project was to see how well compressed audio was suited to the task. Drives were small and expensive back then and so the success of the project rested one us using compression. So - we compressed several dozen bits of audio to 96, 128, 160, 192, 256kbits/sec;

• Spoken word - properly recorded in a high end audio booth for existing TV voice-overs, male & female.
• Music - a selection of acoustic, classical, rock etc
• Sound effects - from the BBC library, spot effects as well as longer ones (bird song etc)

So these were blind-played to the Oasis Television audio staff (at the time a good example of "golden ears" - people who have been trained to hear audio problems) in properly built audio suites (£10k speaker systems in acoustically dead rooms). So - not amateurs making judgements on sub-£1,000 domestic rigs, but a proper blind-test using professionals.

What we discovered was that past 256kBits/sec nobody could get reliably better than 50% correct - it was as good as if they were guessing which was compressed and which was uncompressed. This seems to fly in the face of current opinion that says that even 320kBit/sec is detectable on iPod earbuds (!) - and don't forget that the LAME and Fraunhofer compressors (reckoned to be the best) have been getting better over the last decade-and-a-half (particularly with respect to VBR encoding).

Lots of people also suggest that other codecs (particularly AAC and WMV) are now better than MP3; I've never been able to hear that when I've compared like-for-like (data rate, VBR vs CBR etc) and since MP3 is so ubiquitous it seems likely that manufacturers would have spent more dollars optimising it that any of those lesser used codecs?

So - I compress my music to 192kBits/sec using the LAME VBR setting and I rarely hear an artefact. There are a few albums I did back in 1999 that I've gone back to because modern compressors are so much better and the little MP3 player I had back then could only hold a complete CD at 128kBits! The cruel irony is now that I know what I'm listening for and can (just about!) afford decent speakers my hearing response is rolling off quite markedly. Pretty soon AM radio will sound good. I've also found that when I mix live music I drive the high-end a lot more than I used to and that must be the same effect.

There is another effect that people talk about - how tired you get listening to compressed audio - the brain doesn't like artefacts that you don't encounter in nature. I think this is true, but the people who make play of it tend to be vinyl & FM radio fans - both of which are covered in very unnatural artefacts.

So - to the point of the post; I discovered that a couple of CDs encoded by iTunes over the last year wouldn't play off a USB stick in the car. I had to re-encode them on the old AltoMP3 maker software I used to use. flailing around online seems to suggest it's the way Apple sticks artwork in.

My home AV rig

I'm often asked what I use at home for music/TV/movies - nothing fancy (haven't got a 5.1 rig yet!) because money has been tight for the last few years and I try and follow the ex-work/cheap-on-eBay way of getting things done. As a family we all listen to podcasts and music on 'phones/iPods/USB-stick-in-car and since we don't have any consistent manufacturer for anything we keep everything as MP3s and DivX AVIs or MPEG2 (for off air recordings of TV shows).

• Music - I started encoding my music in 1999 when I got my first MP3 player (the mighty Diamond Rio 500 in case you remember!) and so experimented with different encoders and data rates. At the time I concluded that the Fraunhofer MP3 encoder at 128kBits/sec was adequate if I was using ear-buds or in the car. I quickly changed my mind and have been encoding all my music at 192kBits/sec using variable bit-rate. I have blind-tested myself on good speakers and conclude that for my middle-aged hearing I can't spot the difference between uncompressed and that data rate. MP3 is the way to go as I have a mix of playback devices (iPhone for personal listening, Dell Digital Audio receiver for the living room along with various PCs & other-brand 'phones & MP3 players for the rest of the family). Consequently I always set iTunes to encode to MP3;
  
  
  I often hear people banging on about FLAC and Apple Lossless but I'm not that bothered. I tend to listen to music for the lyrics and chord progressions, not that last 0.01% of perceived fidelity. I spend my life listening to proper speakers (i.e. thousands of pounds a pair) either from behind a mixing desk or in a dubbing suite so don't try impress me with what you bought in the high-street! I know what good audio sounds like.


• TV recording and video playback - I'm using Windows 7 on a ten year-old workstation to make recordings off air; two £15 no-name Maplin-special USB DVB-T sticks allow multiple recordings via Windows Media Centre. I keep thinking I'll buy a DVB-T2 stick so I can make FreeviewHD recordings but I haven't yet, partly because iPlayerHD is so good. The machine that feeds the living room TV is the same machine machine that is the kitchen iTunes/radio machine - it has two soundcards and dual-display. In there kitchen there is a mini keyboard and mouse and in the living room a hand-held RF mouse. You wouldn't know it was the same computer save for when you want to fast-forward the video playback whilst someone in the kitchen is trying to find a song in iTunes and the mouse pointer jumps off your screen!


• Commercial removal/editing - I used to be a big fan of ComSkip as it is an excellent automated ad-break remover for Transport Stream video. However, I watch so little commercial television that I've found my regular MPEG editor Video Redo to be just as good;
  
• DVD / BluRay - I grabbed a Sony S370 on eBay for £70 and it is an excellent machine; actually better than the S380 that replaced it (Sony lost the right to several codecs). It supports several online video services.
• iPlayer - we used to use the Wii as an iPlayer machine and it is really good, but standard definition only. In fact I picked up a Wii with a faulty DVD drive for my Mum and loaded the iPlayer client onto it and she uses it as her BBC on demand machine. We now use the Sony BluRay player as it supports HD iPlayer and the pictures at 5mBits/sec are indistinguishable from off-air HD playback. Even the SD content looks better than the Wii's output.
  

So that's it - I'm not in a position to spend thousands of pounds but I am pleased the way I've got it all working for virtually no money.

Rio / Sonic Blue / Dell Digital audio receiver

I picked up these on eBay for a fiver a go! They are tiny little Linux boxes that stream audio from a nominated PC on your network. The original Rio/Dell software is very 2002 and although adequate offers no integration with iTunes or Windows Media Player. When you power the box it shouts out a BootP request (that's an old protocol I haven't had to deal with since Phillips/Thompson routers of the mid-90s!) and that starts the download process of a tarball that has the Linux kernel to run the box. Once that's loaded it grabs an IP address via DHCP (from the same client software that serviced the BootP request - I guess not many people had home-routers when this was a product!) and you can then stream your MP3s to it. It has a nice display, IR remote and the audio output quality is good.
However, since it's demise it's become a target for home-brewers and hackers and there is a new kernel that makes it look like a Squeeze Player - the standard that Logitech have used for all of their home entertainment products. This makes it quite an interesting gadget as a network music/streamed radio player and it didn't take me very long to get it working with my Windows 7 media center. Using Logitech's server mean it integrates brilliantly with iTunes and you get access to all the BBC's iPlayer and streamed radio.


Once you've got Squeezebox running you can use it to stream to WinAmp, your iPhone or even another instance of iTunes (rather perversely!).

So, here are the bits you need;
Rio's v. 1.04beta which was the last release. It's the only one that works with Windows 7 and it doesn't have all the instabilities previous releases had with 10 vs 100BaseT ethernet (this was the early noughties after all!).
SlimRIO is the tar-ball with the new kernel to make the box behave like a Logitech Squeeze player.
Squeezebox is the server that makes it all work nicely.
Finally you'll probably need a copy of the LAME encoder so that the server can transcode AAC, RealMedia etc into MP3 streams for live radio - lame.exe - it needs to go in;
\Program Files\Squeezebox\server\bin

Counting Crows 'do a Radiohead'

I've liked the Crows since the early nineties - I've seen them a few times (most recently at the O2 Wireless Festival last summer). They are going label-free;

...the internet opens a world of limitless possibility, where the only boundaries are the boundaries of your own imagination. We want a chance to push those boundaries back as far as we can. Unfortunately, the directions we want to go and the opportunities we want to pursue are often things that our label is simply not allowed to do. We've been friends for a long time and we've worked together for a long time so they understand the direction we need to go in and we understand why they can't always go there with us. We all want what’s best for everyone which is why we've decided to part ways.

Ceative XFi pocket media players

I bought Creative Zen XFi pocket media players for my youngest two this Christmas (8 gig ones for £80 from Amazon). I was thinking about the iPod Nano but for two boys who don't change what they listen to much, don't routinely download podcasts but do watch LOTS of video these have proved a better bet than iPods. Creative shtick is the quality of audio playback which seems superb (better than Joe, my eldest's Nano). They have their own software for managing the thing but you don't need to use it - you can just drag'n'drop onto the various directories and it all shows up where you'd expect. It has some neat PDA-type features (that passed the boys by!) but the real killer from my point of view is that it plays various video formats - typically MPEG-4 AVIs and Windows Media 9 format files. So - if you're used to handling DivX, Xvid etc then it's all good - you have to re-size in some cases but my workflow for off-air recordings is DV-MSR (off-air MPEG2 transport stream)->MPEG2 (MediaPortal does this at the end of a recording if you ask it to and it is instant)->AVI (via VirtualDub MPEG2 edition). Alternatively their tool (which makes WMVs) is pretty slick and can queue stuff up etc.

Excellent!

Pant-wettingly-funny audio

Here are a couple of half-hour recordings I came across from years ago - they still make me laugh heartily and so I share them (as MP3 format files) for your pleasure.

• The Quanicles from Michael Biggins - bear in mind that four of the voices are one guy! Even better than the Jerky Boys;
  

  In this epic series of calls that lasted an entire evening, I play 4 different characters; John Dandell (who is once again in action as a police officer who works specifically for a telephone company), the operator - Joana, the ancient ninja master - master Shreddar (known though out these calls as... the voice.), and the 15 year old - Matt Cheddar. Poor Quan has no idea I am doing all the voices and truly believes that all of these people are real (except for the voice of master Sheddar, who he thinks is Matt) and will do anything to convince the cop (John Dandell) that Matt Cheddar (the teenage mutant ninja turtles fan) is crank calling him. To make things even funnier, I even let one of the characters I am doing, Joana (the operator), side with Quan.

  
  Just over half an hour long, download here.


• Robin Williams on Steve Wright (Radio 1 from 10th May 1989) - back them Williams was the king of improv. I've cut the music but left in the bumpers and stings so you can remember how the late eighties sounded! Get it here - listen for the Jimmy Swaggart references.
  

mp3DirectCut

mp3DirectCut is a fast and extensive audio editor and recorder for compressed mp3. You can directly cut, copy, paste or change the volume with no need to decompress your files (e.g. to wav format) for audio editing. This saves encoding time and preserves the original quality, because nothing will be re-encoded.

MP3s, DRM & The Zune

I listened to Paul Thurrot's podcast - Windows Weekly - which is always interesting, especially with Vista upon us. Episode seventeen features an interview with David Caulton of the Microsoft Zune team. Although it isn't yet launched here in the UK there are several retailers that carry it. A couple of the guys who I work with have them and I have to say they are pretty sweet.
I have been pretty negative about iPods in the past and to be honest I don't see any reason to change my view. Apple need competition and I think the Zune is the gadget to do it - as long as they let it connect over 802.11 to a network rather than just peer-to-peer - having to hook something up with a cable to get content onto it seems very 20th century! The screen on the Zune is lovely - definately superior to the video iPod. The GUI is tasty as well (although missing any direct podcasting support!).

So, it got me thinking about buying music etc. and I realised that with the exception of a couple of quite niche music stores (including the splendid BillTunes) I still buy all my music as CDs. It seems that an industry that has spent a quarter of a century selling digital music without DRM (the compast disc) is now bleeting about how users can only use music they've paid for as the industry sees fit. I have several digital music players - car HD player, couple of cheap flash-based players, my PDA/'phone, and PCs running several different OSes - the only format they all support is MP3 and so I'm never going to download DRM-crippled music from an online store who haven't taken the care to compress the music properly. The 128kBit files from iTunes aren't HiFi (and they wouldn't play on ANY of my hardware!) and, in fact, there is no alternative for someone who (a) cares about the music, and (b) cares about how they spend their cash to buying CDs and ripping them yourself - you at least have a chance of making decent sounding MP3s at an acceptable bitrate (192kbits VBR - all the way baby!).

MP3 for podcasts

Rupert asked me about hosting a podcast for a chum of his who is involved in the Pandora music project. In fact he made me a Vigilantes of Love station on there - very cool!
Anyhow with all this in mind I thought I'd summerise some of the steps I use for the perfect sounding speech podcast!

• Record straight to hard disk - don't go via analogue tape or any compressed system. Pay attention to levels - you can't recover clipped levels after the event so it's better to record low rather than high - try and aim for peaks at -10dBfs.
  
• Once in Audition or Audacity you need to remove any DC bias and normalise the signal.
  
• Save it back to disk (keeping it uncompressed) but convert it to mono - stereo does chew up twice as much space/bandwidth - and you don't need it.
  
• The Levelator is a superb post-process compressor for speech.
  
• Re-import the Levelat'ed(!) file back into your DAW software and save the file out as an MP3 with the following specs; 48kBits, CBR, mono. Why CBR Phil? Well, this MP3 might be played on one of hundreds of ancient and new devices. My first MP3 player was a Diamond Rio500 which definately didn't support variable bit rate! For mono speech the difference in quality is not great.
  
• ID3 tags - get them right - for both ID3 v.1 and v.2 flavours. I prefer Tag & Rename for getting that stuff done - it supports all the standard as well as custom frames. It's very cool to imbed an image with your podcast as well as notes, URLs etc. That MP3 file will have a life of it's own once it's running out via an RSS feed and you want to have the best chance of folks being able to find you. You'll be suprised how many aggregator sites scrap your file.
  
• FeedBurner is the best way to make compliant XML for the RSS feed with a multi-media enclosure.
  
• Finally, make sure you subscribe to your own feed (in Juice or iTunes etc.) - you should be the first to know if your feed gets broken.

That's it - go forth and podcast!

More Mellotron nonsense

Radio 4 had a great documentary on the the fabulous keyboard instrement made so famous by Genesis et al.
Sampledelica, History of the Mellotron.mp3

mp3DirectCut

mp3DirectCut is a fast and extensive audio editor and recorder for MP3. You can directly cut, copy, paste or change the volume with no need to decompress your files for audio editing. This saves encoding time and preserves the original quality, because nothing will be re-encoded.

Podzinger - cleverest technology so far THIS CENTURY!

I heard about Podzinger on the Inside the Net podcast and thought it sounds neat but I couldn't believe it did what they suggested - a Google-like service that trawls mp3 podcasts (NOT iTunes ACC encoded content - Ha!) does speech recognition and then builds a hash-table based on timecode so that when you do a text-search of what was said and then you can play the file from a few seconds before the utterance right there - in the browser!
Now my interest comes from the fact that in the mid-80's I was doing a degree in maths & programming and I spent my final year doing a thesis on speech-recognition. I did build a system that could reliably recognize about two-dozen words spoken by one person - all coded in native x86 and Pascal! I was aware of multiple-speaker / large vocabulary recognizers but this system is something else. I notice that BBN are the company behind it and since they built the original nodes of ARPAnet they clearly have a long technical pedigree.
Anyhow - give it a go - type in a word like "Media Portal" and see what podcasts are talking about homebrewed PVRs (for example).

Podcasting and all that - I'm amazed by how much I like Adam Curry's Daily Source Code given it had quite a Mac emphasis and also seems to have no post-production. He does it live like a trad radio show which seems to fly in the face of podcasting and it's anti-radio paradigm. It is a good listen though.
I did reflect on my MP3 listening habits over the last couple of years that really started in 2001 with Chris Parillo's radio show "Call for help" that used to come out of a station in Des Moine. Someone (I don't recall who) who lived in the area used to snag the audio and make it available as an MP3. He put me onto Total Recorder that I've been using ever since to grab internet radio streams (in effect creating PodCasts from anything that streams).
In closing I'm also really enjoying my friend Kevin Cade's cast First Person Show - he interviews interesting people - that's it!

Jackass JoeJoe's RenameMaster utilities was a utility I came across when I had to selectively rename about six hundred HTML files within several thousand - no leading zeros on files numbers below ten. This made it a breeze and I normally pride myself on being able to do anything through a command prompt! It also has great rename options for MP3 and JPEGs (can stick in all the metadata you can discover) - a must for webmasters and folks with big music collections everywhere - and it's free!.

You gotta love open source!
I have a Neo35 car MP3 disk system - thirty gigs of MP3s in the boot and a wired remote on the dash - very nice - all my CDs in the car! Anyhow - about a year ago (and a few days outside the warranty period!) it developed an annoying fault whereby the back key would randomly press itself (sending the song back to the start). Once this started it was like it until you reset and sometimes you had a few minutes grace, sometimes half an hour. I was is a logic issue as it does it whether the wired remote is attached or even if the disk is in the USB caddy you use to download into it on the PC. Ho hum - then, along comes the Open Neo Project where the company has opened the firmware to the wider programming community and they've produced a version that allows you to re-map the keys - nuff said! I'm back in-car-MP3-nirvana!

I use my SmartPhone to listen to MP3 content every day - music and spoken. My beefs with the Microsoft Media Player are:
1. Takes an age to fire up - I presume it scans my entire 256meg SD card for content every time it runs.
2. It often stutters during playback (doesn't seem bitrate related - 32kbit spoken content or 160kbit music is equally effected),
3. It doesn't save the playback position when you leave the application - half way through an hour long radio programme and you're stuffed!
4. No jog/shuttle within a file (see note 3!)
5. If you receive a 'phone call when listening it quits the application (see note 3 and 4!),
6. No eq.
7. No playlists.
8. It slows the 'phone down so that other functions are unusable while it is running - can't compose emails etc.
PocketMusic suffers none of these inadequacies and is free! get it here.
Oh, it also supports WinAmp skins (hmm - not top of my agenda! I'd rather a command line interface!).
That URL was wrong - now it's right!

Results of 64kbit/s Listening Test

Interestingly venerable MP3 codecs fair better than more recent Windows Media and Quicktime.

1. No codec at 64 kbit/s can claim to be as good as mp3 at 128 kbit/s.
2. High efficiency AAC (AAC with spectral band replication, similar to mp3 with SBR, aka mp3pro) makes a good first showing, being the first among equals (he-aac, mp3pro, and ogg vorbis).
3. WMA9, Real, and Quicktime AAC make poor showings. While better than the hoary mp3 at 64 kbit/s, they are definitely worse than the top three 64 kbit/s contenders.