bugNormalize Audio - Bugs: bug #37267, normalize-mp3 uses a hardcoded...

 
 

bug #37267: normalize-mp3 uses a hardcoded default bitrate

Submitter:  Joachim Reichel <joachim_r>
Submitted:  Mon 03 Sep 2012 07:23:52 PM UTC
   
 
Severity:  3 - Normal Status:  Wont Fix
Privacy:  Public Assigned to:  cvaill
Open/Closed:  Closed
* Mandatory Fields

Add a New Comment Rich Markup
   

Wed 05 Sep 2012 03:39:03 AM UTC, comment #1: 

I see what you're saying, but I don't think this is worth doing.

When we say we want to use the bitrate of the input file, we're really talking about reproducing the conditions under which the original mp3 was encoded.  In general (e.g. for a VBR-encoded mp3 or an ogg vorbis file), the bitrate doesn't tell us that, and we're just creating an output file that happens to have the same size but is not necessarily encoded like the original.  There are some heuristics we could use, rummaging around for id3 and lame tags and the like, but in general we can't make the output encoded like the input.

And even if we could, data is lost regardless, since we're doing a lossy re-encoding.  If someone uses normalize-mp3 expecting not to lose data, they're doing the wrong thing.  Possibly that could be made more clear somehow, and that people who really care about the exact encoding options used by normalize-mp3 should modify the script.

I guess I should say that I never use normalize-mp3 myself.  It always seemed like kind of a bad idea, but years ago I got a lot of requests to help automate the decode-normalize-reencode process, so I threw it together.  It's caused some confusion, and I'm somewhat inclined to remove it in future versions.

All of which is not to say that I wouldn't accept patches to it, but I'm unlikely to find time to hack on normalize-mp3 further myself.

By the way, thank you for your work as debian maintainer.  I've been a loyal debian fan since I converted from slackware way back when :-)

Chris Vaill <cvaill>
Group administrator
Mon 03 Sep 2012 07:23:52 PM UTC, original submission:  

Orginal bug report:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=686452

normalize-mp3 uses a hardcoded default bitrate (128bit/s) which is not very user-friendly (data is lost if the input data had a higher bitrate). It would be much better if the default bitrate would be based on the bitrate of the input file.

Joachim Reichel <joachim_r>

 

(Note: upload size limit is set to 16384 kB, after insertion of the required escape characters.)

Attach Files:
   
   
Comment:
   

No files currently attached

 

Depends on the following items: None found

Items that depend on this one: None found

 

Carbon-Copy List
  • -email is unavailable- added by cvaill (Posted a comment)
  • -email is unavailable- added by joachim_r (Submitted the item)
  •  

    There are 0 votes so far. Votes easily highlight which items people would like to see resolved in priority, independently of the priority of the item set by tracker managers.

    Only logged-in users can vote.

     

    Follow 3 latest changes.

    Date Changed by Updated Field Previous Value => Replaced by
    2012-09-05 cvaill StatusNone Wont Fix
        Assigned toNone cvaill
        Open/ClosedOpen Closed

    Back to the top

    Powered by Savane 3.13-d3ae.
    Corresponding source code