Hi,

I just purchased WireTap Pro and after making some 2 hour long recordings directly to mp3, neither iTunes nor Quicktime can play them. They are captured as follows:

MP3
VBR - 256 - Best
44.100 - 16bit - Stereo

In iTunes (or Quicktime player, or the preview in the Finder's Get Info), they show up as 32kb/s and with a length of 8:14:56 instead of about 1:55:00. They play for just an instant, maybe less than a second, then goes quiet, if I skip forward it will again play about a second then go quiet.

Strange thing is I can burn the file and play it on my car's mp3 CD player, which supposedly would choke worse with "strange" mp3 files. My intention all along was to use these captured files in my iPod, so I hope there is a workaround for this.

I did read about some problems with the "Best" quality in AAC format, are you aware of the same issue in MP3? Is there a fix planned?

I have an Intel iMac 2Ghz, 1GB Ram, Mac OS 10.4.8, Quicktime 7.1.3

Thank you

Victor

Hello Victor,
We're aware of a similar issue where the length of recordings with a VBR are not reported correctly in iTunes, but it still plays fine. It would also show correct length in QuickTime, etc. Your problem is similar, though not identical. It seems like WireTap Pro produced a legit file as it's playing in your car, but is only having problems being read. Have you seen this problem with shorter recordings? What is the file size? I will try to reproduce the problem and will keep you posted.

Thanks for the reply, in the meantime I made another recording with the "Better" quality setting this time and still got the same problem. This time instead of the usual 2 hour recordings I did only a 21 minute one. Then I tried doing another one for just under one minute and that one played fine, so the problem would likely lie within this time frame.

I you could try to reproduce it I would appreciate it, in the meantime, I'll keep trying to narrow it down, 5, 10, 15 mins...

Thanks again

Ok, this gets weird now:

I took one of the 2-hour files from yesterday, imported to iTunes (copies it to the library folder) and it does play, it says it's 32kbps quality, 8+hour length, and if I forward-skip around, it will skip to the next song in the Library. It seems that if I let it play, it will play just fine, thought I don't know what will happen after two hours are gone and iTunes says it still has 6 hours to go, probably will just go to the next track.

Weird thing no.2: I did a 12 minute file, iTunes says it's 11 minutes and 160kbps (instead of VBR 256 or so), yet after 11 minutes it keeps going until 11:20 or so, pretty strange, to me at least.

Just did a 15 min which won't play in Quicktime, but it will in iTunes just with wrong time and bitrate info, so the problem may be between 12 and 15 mins... is this the same issue? will it play on an iPod?

Hey Victor,
We did a few tests here using the settings you provided and we can't reproduce it yet. The durations ranged from abvout 15 minutes to over 2 hours. Try giving this a try:

Download the latest version of WireTap Pro from:

http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/wiretap/addons.html

1. Be sure that WireTap Pro is not running. If it is, please quit it.
2. Drag the the entire WireTap Pro folder to the trash.
3. Remove the WireTap Pro preference file "com.ambrosiasw.wiretap_pro.plist" which is located in the Home/Library/Preferences folder
4. Go to System/Library/Extensions and trash the AmbrosiaAudioSupport.kext file. You may be asked for an admin's username and password to verify you have permission to alter the System folder.
5. Run the WireTap Pro installer you just downloaded.

Hi Evan,

Thanks for the tip, tried it and today I got the same problem again. I'm going to try it again, deleting everything first, then create a "clean" account, then install and try, I'll let you know how that goes.

V

[WTS 1.0.4, iTunes 7.5, OS X 10.5.1] I get this problem of the wrong time shown in iTunes when I send an MP3 - Voice Podcast format recording from WireTap Studio to iTunes. The solution, for me, is to change the Encoding Type from Variable Bit Rate (VBR) to Constant Bit Rate (CBR). Then iTunes shows the correct time.

Hello iSaw,
Thanks for the heads up. We'll look into this

Hey iSaw,
I just looked into this. I believe this is due to the way iTunes is reading MP3 files with a variable bit rate (VBR). If you open the same file in QuickTime, the correct duration will be displayed both in playback as well as in the Inspector window. As you saw, you can simply change the bit rate to constant.

Not sure where the problem lies, and I'm pretty sure the developers are aware of this. I will double check with them. Best of luck to you