Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Yes and no. MP3Cutter will scan and play-back all frames perfectly although the time
indicated by the cutter might be a little off, since it is calculated using CBR arithmatic.
The frame-number indicated will be correct as well as the resulting output.
Only drawback, when saved, is that a VBR-header will not be written so some
players might have problems seeking into these exported-files.
Because all MPEG Audio layers are the same, stucture-wise, MP3Cutter should be able to handle
files that were encoded in layers I and II.
But since those layers are not supported by the decoding ACM and they are not used that much,
I've decided not to support them in MP3Cutter 4, sorry.
MP3Cutter is, as the name might suggest, a cutter for MP3 encoded files.
Files encoded with another scheme are not supported and will not be supported in future releases.
MP3Cutter is only capable of reading and writing wave files with the MP3 format.
The cuts and cue-list can be exported as "Waved" MP3's.
These files can be imported as OLE-objects in programs like Word but also in web-pages.
Playback is only possible, however, if the target system has the right ACM codec installed.
You could be right; there isn't any...
There are two reasons for that:
- Showing a graphical waveform, like for instance CoolEdit does, would take much longer to load and scan a file,
since all frames need to be decoded before they can be shown.
- With MPEG Audio you cannot make a sample accurate cut; the smallest possible cut is 1/37's of a second (or one frame).
Taken the first reason into account, this would be a waste of time and energy.
This is not the fault of you, your MP3 or MP3Cutter.
The problem is that the decoder needs to "See" an aligned stream of frames.
In a loop, the last frame of the loop isn't correctly aligned to the first frame in the loop,
resulting in a blip-sound while the decoder tries to re-synchronize.
Some decoders are better than others and might be faster at resynchronizing than others
so, when playing back with other players, these can give different responses...
No you can't.
It's impossible to apply "Analog" effects like echo, flanger or amplitude-changing on MPEG encoded files
without first decoding the frames; that's one of the down-sides of the MPEG algorithm.
You're getting blips, squeeks and other weird noises between tracks, although you DID
set the pause in-between track to 0 seconds, right ?
Well, you made a step too much if you just wanted to copy the CD.
If you just want to make a backup copy of your Audio-CD, you didn't need to
do the "encoding to MP3"-step.
Especially not if you want a perfect copy of your CD.
Encoding it to MP3 will introduce some quality loss, since MPEG is a so called "Lossy" algorithm.
Another side-effect is that every MP3-track has its own begin and end and does not align-up to
the next MP3-Track (digitally speaking), resulting in unwanted noise.
In the case of separate tracks, this is not a great problem, but with mix-CD's or a live recording
this means big trouble.
The only solution is to make an uncompressed copy of the CD (in "PCM"-mode) or if you only
have a backup copy in MP3 format (you don't have an illegal copy of-course!) you first need to
decode all the MP3-tracks to plain "PCM", allign their begin- and end-ings up with a good
wave-editor, for instance CoolEdit, and then burn it to an Audio-CD.
Some good CD-burning programs, for instance Nero Burning ROM, have got a PCM
editor built in.
Theoretically the maximum size of a MP3 would be about 2 GB, but since I don't have
such large MP3's I cannot garantee this.
Also MP3Cutter uses memory to store frame-index information, so for very large files I suggest
you check the "Use disk for temporary data" in preferences to use a disk-file instead.
This indicates that the format of the file you're trying to play is not supported by your system.
Typically this means that the "MPEG Layer III ACM Codec" is not installed or that the codec is disabled.
You can install this codec by installing Windows MediaPlayer version 6 or higher or by downloading
the "Decode Only"-version from my site.
This has only one real reason: cost (royalties).
Not many people know that playing MP3's costs money, or at least the decoding engine.
At first I started with a very flexible decoder called "XAudio".
XAudio has now been taken over by another company, but before that it was required
to register your copy (for free) before you may deploy it allongside your application.
This isn't off-course a big problem, but after requesting for a registration I didn't hear
from them since and before I've got a law-suite on my back-side...
Other "freeware" decoders like BASS and FMOD are also good available alternatives
but don't have the ability to handle a MP3 stream on the frame level (and are a bit "overpowered" for this work).
Not in the near future, sorry, although I have Kylix (the Linux version of Delphi) lying around.
I make use of a lot of direct Windows API calls (specially in the cutter for playback), those are not
available in Linux, so these routines would need to be rewritten before MP3Cutter can be ported to the Linux platform.
But what's not available now, might come in the future, who knows...
...but I'm missing "Time critical"...
Actually you don't need to change the priority of the cutter-player, I only included it as a little "Advanced" feature.
If you set the number of "Playbuffers" large enough, playback will be nice without many hick-ups while
jumping to another "Thread" (or task).
Oh yeah; if you'ld set the priority to "Time-Critical" the player gets full CPU time, hanging the rest of the system ;-)
If you think you've found a bug or if you're just curious about some details of your computer, you can make a debug report.
You first have to make sure you've got a "Debug" version of MP3Cutter.
Do this by checking the version
- in the About-box (Help->About)
- by invoking "/V" on the MP3Cutter command-line
But it can be easier spotted by searching for a magnifying glass in the "system"-tray while MP3Cutter is running.
If you hoover your mouse over it, it will say "VideoRipper Debug (Click to show)".
Click it and wait a second... an extra window will pop-up over the other MP3Cutter windows.
If not, make sure MP3Cutter has focus and the MP3Cutter windows don't cover the debug-window.
You can view some of your computer's info by choosing the tabs and you can save a copy of that information
to disk by right-clicking the window and selecting "Save debug".
Attach this file (preferably zipped) to an e-mail describing the problem and send it to me
Note: I'm Dutch so please only use the Dutch or English language in your e-mail.
Lately I'm getting a lot of e-mail written in German (although I'm able to read it, I'll reply in English).
There are no benefits in registering MP3Cutter.
It only gives me an indication about how many people are using my program.
You won't get more functionality.
At the moment it's not yet possible to register the current (Debug, Beta) version.
When registering you'll be placed on my list and will be notified (if ever) if there's
a major update or news-flash...
Your name and/or e-mail address will NOT be sold (or given) to a third party !
This page has been KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) enhanced
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