I've just converted several Mp3 Files to Mp3 files, due to my ipod not playing the originals and i've found that the converted files have up to 20 additional seconds added to them. Does anyone know the reason for this and also, is there any loss of quality with the converted files?
Conversion form lossy to lossy is always "double lossy". First the MP3 file is decoded to wave and this wave file can have only the audio information that the MP3 file had. Then a new MP3 file is created and once again audio information is removed. It is like taking photocopies of photocopies. Each generation has a lower quality. If you use a high bitrate or a high vbr quality setting the second generation MP3 files may not sound too bad.
The best solution would be to rerip the files from the original CD, but I assume you would already have done that if the CD had been available.
There are a couple of other possible solutions but I need to know answers to the following questions first:
- Is the "up to 20 seconds" some extra audio (or silence) that should not be there or is it just a difference in the reported duration?
- Have you actually checked which one of the durations is correct? If not, play one of these files and check the real duration with a clock.
- Are the files VBR?