Quote:
Stoepsel:
Well, that would imply that the client would have to scan each and every frame of each and every mp3 you share. Even if this would only be done for VBR files (assuming there is some way to tell that from the header of the files or by scanning the first few frames), it still would mean scanning a helluva lot of data when creating the meta data of all shared mp3s. I don't think it would be a good idea to let the client do all that work to get the maximum bitrate of a VBR file.
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As there is no common header specifying the frame statistics of an mp3 file it seems indeed that scanning through all frames is the only way to determine reliably both the highest/lowest bitrates as well as the average bitrate. This may not be as heavy though as it sounds - we would not be decoding the mp3 file, just reading the bitrate figures from the individual frames. This might be wise to do at the same time when we calculate the hash number for the file contents.
- tg
ps. the lack of common header info is probably the reason why my WinAmp keeps guessing the remaining playtime for the VBR mp3s I play....