Music issue on CE6 chinese netbook

I've mentioned this before in another thread, but it perhaps deserves its own topic.

I'm running out of ideas trying to figure out why mp3 files don't play properly in any program on my new CE8 netbook. I've tried:

Windows Media Player 9 (came preinstalled)
voplayer (ditto)
TCPMP
GSPlayer
Nitrogen

In all players but WMP9 and TCPMP, some, but not all, mp3 files have random loud cracks and pops. WMP9 and TCPMP don't do this, but the songs skip and miss content. Most (but not necessarily all) of the files with the problem are lower bitrate (e.g. 56kbps) files I got from others, while the songs I ripped myself from CD are 256K and play fine. All of the files play fine on XP machines.

As an experiment, I converted one 56K track to 256... file size increased, naturally, from 1.6 to 7.5MB... and the problems (the cracks and pops in some players and skipping in others) went away. This is strange... you'd think a slow processor would have trouble on higher quality recordings, not vice versa.

Has anybody ever seen anything like this?

Going through my entire library and identifying all the lower bitrate songs and converting them would be a formidible task, though, that I'd rather avoid... not to mention the increase in storage space it will require.

Another strange issue which may or may not be device related is the bizarre corruption of at least one mp3 file. Playing the song, it starts in the middle, end, then continues with a completely different song. Not a new file, but the data from a different file stuck into the current one. This problem follows the file even after putting it back on the XP machine. I suspect this is related to the fact that I may have a bad USB thumb drive that I was using to transfer the files... it lost all data and had to be reformatted several times perhaps once it didn't lose the format but just scrambled the FAT?... I don't know if the thumb drive is simply bad, or my netbook is corrupting it. Worrying though. I don't mind throwing away a cheap thumb drive but I'd hate to corrupt the 60GB portable drive I have all my music and other data on if the device is the problem.

Dana

What a drag. Can I assume that you've run some mp3s through GSPlayer? Secondly, for purposes of cross-reference, have you ripped a CD on the desktop to make NEW mp3s, then transferred them to the netbook, using a different conduit than this perhaps-damaged USB stick?

Jake

Yes, GSPlayer exhibits the same pops and clicks as voplayer and Nitogen.

The problem (pops and clicks) first surfaced when I was playing music direct from the 60GB external drive, so it's not related to the possibly bad USB sitck... that appears to be a completely separate issue.

Correction, at least one of the 256K files has the cracks and pops in GSPlayer. Right now I'm running a random selection of assorted tracks through dbpoweramp converter, converting them all to 256 (even if they're already 256) to see what happens.

What really bugs me is not knowing if it's a hardware issue (in which case I should send the device back) or a software issue (in which case I don't know what to do).

Dana

And I'm assuming that you've ripped fresh test mp3s and copied them to the actual sd drive of the netbook, and tried to play them from there? Forgoing the external drive altogether?

Jake

Edited by Jake 2010-03-31 8:40 PM

Is it the same threw ear phones as well as the speakers?

I'm not sure if you can, but if you have screen dimming control, try playing music and messing with the dimmer, & see if it changes tone, if so it might be a grounding problem

Jake, yes, it does it whether I play from a USB drive, the SD card, or the flash drive. I haven't tried ripping new files, but most of the files I ripped myself already play fine; it's the lower bitrate files from elsewhere that, for the most part, have the problem (and as I said, don't exhibit the problem on other systems). Converting to 256K mostly, but not always, fixes them.

thcrw739, yes, I first observed the problem when using the headphone jack to feed music to my stereo, and it also does it through the internal speakers. Changing the backlight has no effect.

If anybody who has one of these ce netbooks and is interested in helping diagnose this, you download the original 24bit 56kbps mp3 file here. Play it in Nitrogen or GSPlayer or voplayer and let me know if you hear the clicks.

-Dana

Plays fine on both my machines (ce5 razorbook + ce6 tinybook) with all players (tcpmp, core player, gsplayer, nitrogen and wmp9). However when it downloaded it saved with extention .mpa not .mp3. Maybe your machine lacks the required codec to handle? I'm going to guess its actually a .wma file rather than .mp3. Which if that's the case could make sense. Check \windows and see if you have these 3 dll's (wmadmod.dll, wmvmod.dll and wmvdmoe.dll). TCPMP comes with it's own wma/wmv codecs which may be why it handles that file better.

Cheers

Thanks for looking... that's strange... it definitely has an mp3 extension where it is. I don't have any of those dll's, but if I rename it to .wma it doesn't play at all, so I doubt that's it. Rename to .mpa and it plays in all but Nitrogen which doesn't seem to recognize that extension, but still has the clicks. If it lacked a codec I would think it'd not play at all, no?

Dana

Nice track, BTW - I have that tune in my collection of MP3s on one of my H/PCs.

Their other stuff is pretty good, too... sad only WSOP is ever played on the radio any more. Somehow I missed that band when growing up... only to discover it on a music collection I got from my 21 year old daughter (oh no, I've dated myself...).

Well, I solved it... or at least have a solution. I still have no idea what the actual problem is, but if I convert the mp3's to wma, they play perfectly. Kind of a PITA as wma's won't play on my car player, but I can deal with it. WMA is about 2/3 the size of a 256K mp3, and the conversion (using dbpoweramp) runs a lot faster than mp3>mp3.

Did you test it as a 56k track?

As mp3, yes, that was the original which caused trouble. WMA doesn't have a 56k option. I had used the default VBR Quality 98, 44khz which worked and gave me a 5MB file (the original was 1.6MB) which played properly. There is an option for 64kbps, 44khz CBR, which produces a 1.9MB file. This file also plays properly (thanks for suggesting it), so perhaps it's something in the mp3 codec(s) on my device?

Now to figure out how to convert my entire library... it would be silly to convert low bitrate mp3's to high bitrate wma's; it would just increase the storage space required with no quality increase. However, I don't want to reduce the quality of the 256k mp3's I have... and I'd like to do it in a batch process rather than checking each track and selecting the output option. If need be I suppose I can write an autoit script to check each track individually and process it.

Now to figure out why GSPlayer (which seems the best of the players I have) won't play wma files. It sees and loads them, but won't play.

Dana

For wma playing, you need a codec. I don't think there was ever one for HPC2000, and I don't know what version of GSPlayer you're running, but you might try this:

http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA032810/gsp_wma.htm

Jake

GSPlayer 2.26 from RTFM's archive. I already tried the wma plugin but it still doesn't work. I'd welcome any suggestions... I think I like GSPlayer better than the others.

Makes me wonder, though, if my mp3 problem is dll related... anybody know if/what dll's are required for mp3 files? Perhaps one from somebody else's (RTFM?) CE6 machine might solve the original problem?

Dana