Audacity Forum

On the 1.3 beta for Windows 7, I have constructed an audio project that runs about 45m56s. When I export the project to mp3, it's listed as 45m45s. When I pay the file in Winamp, the whole file plays (all 45:56) but when the time counter hits 0:00, it simply starts counting UP.

(e.g. I'm listening to the mp3, watching the clock. It counts down :05. :04. :03. :02. .01. :00. :01. :02....)

I've attempted to encode the mp3 under different formats (alt-preset-standard) through Audacity's export options but still, the same problem. Any help?

It's quite a common issue for players to report the time/length of VBR encoded MP3s incorrectly.
WinAmp should report the duration correctly (to within a second) as I believe that WinAmp reads this from the file header, but playback time may be off as the player needs to approximate the playback position based on the bit rate, but for VBR (Variable Bit Rate) encoded files, the bit rate is constantly changing. The processing required to track the bit rate exactly would probably be unacceptably high, but an approximation is usually close enough. If you really need exact time readout, then using CBR encoding should solve the problem. The disadvantage of CBR encoding is that the trade-off between file size and sound quality is not as good as VBR.

The main problem I experience is when I put the file on a mp3 player (in this case, an ipod) the last few seconds are chopped off so the file plays (i.e. whoever listens to it hears the file) as incomplete.

I'll try shifting to CBR and see what that does.

edit: Same problem. Still the 45:54 time with an extra :10 played.

Alternatively you could export as WAV, then use iTunes to convert the WAV files to AAC and put them on your iPod.

I added a buffer of five seconds to the end of the mp3 as a short fix.

The WAV version didn't cut anything off. I'll see about going that route in the future. Thanks for the help.