Windows Media Player .mp2 files time readout

[Bill[_20_]]

I can't easily test this myself, so I wondered it anyone here knows the
answer.
I've been asked why, when using Windows Media Player in Windows 7 to
play wave and mp3 files, he sees and can select a countdown timer at the
bottom of the screen. However, when playing mp2 files, the countdown
timer doesn't work.
I understand that the mp2 files are of radio programmes captured
digitally from DAB broadcasts.

He thinks, but can't be certain, that it used to countdown under XP.

I wonder whether "Classic Media Player" or something else would show
this, but I can't instantly find any .mp2 files here to test with..
--
Bill

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[Jason[_15_]]

In article >,
says...
> I wonder whether "Classic Media Player" or something else would show
> this, but I can't instantly find any .mp2 files here to test with..
>

VLC will show a countdown at the right end of the progress bar. Normally
it just shows the duration, but if you click that field it turns into a
countdown timer.

[Bill[_20_]]

In message >,
Jason > writes
>In article >,
>says...
>> I wonder whether "Classic Media Player" or something else would show
>> this, but I can't instantly find any .mp2 files here to test with..
>>
>
>VLC will show a countdown at the right end of the progress bar. Normally
>it just shows the duration, but if you click that field it turns into a
>countdown timer.

But does it show that timer when a mpeg1 Layer 2 file is being played?

I have now found some .mp2 files on

http://www.mpgedit.org/mpgedit/testdata/mpegdata.html#ISO_m1l2

but they are only 1 or 2 seconds long, and I haven't yet managed to be
fast enough on the mouse to cycle through the VLC or Media Player timer
options. Setting loop playing up on WMP appears to show a countdown
timer, but it's hard to be certain.

Interestingly, VLC shows the files as 1 second long, whereas Media
Player shows 2 seconds as the length.
Properties in VLC shows the file as mpeg Layer 1/2(mpega), but Windows
Explorer says they are .mp3 files under Properties.

I think I'll have to wait until he can pass me some of his files.

--
Bill

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[Jason[_15_]]

In article >,
says...
> But does it show that timer when a mpeg1 Layer 2 file is being played?
>
Yes. I found a 50-second sample file by googling.

[geoff]

On 13/09/2018 4:39 PM, Jason wrote:
> In article >,
> says...
>> But does it show that timer when a mpeg1 Layer 2 file is being played?
>>
> Yes. I found a 50-second sample file by googling.
>


Why not simply make one ? Assuming you have basic audio editing software ...

geoff

[Bill[_20_]]

In message >, geoff
> writes
>On 13/09/2018 4:39 PM, Jason wrote:
>> In article >,
>> says...
>>> But does it show that timer when a mpeg1 Layer 2 file is being played?
>>>
>> Yes. I found a 50-second sample file by googling.
>>
>
>
>Why not simply make one ? Assuming you have basic audio editing software ...
>
>geoff

Thanks, Geoff.

Nowadays I just use Audition 3, which doesn't, as far as I know, enable
saving as .mp2.
When I was actively doing this a long, long time ago, I used to use a
"Media Magic" soundcard with Cool Edit, which was the only affordable
device I could find that supported .mp2. Sadly, I no longer have a
working machine with an ISA bus.

I've just tried Audacity and used it to record a test file. I am
embarrassed to say that I didn't think of looking at Reaper or the other
audio softwares I have here, either.

The countdown timer does work here in both VLC and Windows Media Player
on the files I've created, and I haven't yet managed to get hold of one
of the files that showed him the problem.

I did wonder if vbr .mp2 files might behave differently. I don't know
whether DAB .mp2 is vbr or not.
--
Bill

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[geoff]

On 13/09/2018 9:51 PM, Bill wrote:
> In message >, geoff
> > writes
>> On 13/09/2018 4:39 PM, Jason wrote:
>>> In article >,
>>> says...
>>>> But does it show that timer when a mpeg1 Layer 2 file is being played?
>>>>
>>> Yes. I found a 50-second sample file by googling.
>>>
>>
>>
>> Why not simply make one ? Assuming you have basic audio editing
>> software ...
>>
>> geoff
>
> Thanks, Geoff.
>
> Nowadays I just use Audition 3, which doesn't, as far as I know, enable
> saving as .mp2.
> When I was actively doing this a long, long time ago, I used to use a
> "Media Magic" soundcard with Cool Edit, which was the only affordable
> device I could find that supported .mp2. Sadly, I no longer have a
> working machine with an ISA bus.
>
> I've just tried Audacity and used it to record a test file. I am
> embarrassed to say that I didn't think of looking at Reaper or the other
> audio softwares I have here, either.
>
> The countdown timer does work here in both VLC and Windows Media Player
> on the files I've created, and I haven't yet managed to get hold of one
> of the files that showed him the problem.
>
> I did wonder if vbr .mp2 files might behave differently. I don't know
> whether DAB .mp2 is vbr or not.


Soundcard has nothing to do with file format playback - that's the
software. If your audio editor can save an MP2 file ( actually is
MP1-Layer-2) it can play it back thru any soundcard. Even Windows Media
Player can !

Surely Audacity can do it, or Reaper ?

geoff

[Phil W]

Bill:

> The countdown timer does work here in both VLC and Windows Media Player on
> the files I've created, and I haven't yet managed to get hold of one of
> the files that showed him the problem.
>
> I did wonder if vbr .mp2 files might behave differently. I don't know
> whether DAB .mp2 is vbr or not.

Sounds like you might need MediaInfo for info, which codecs and settings are
actually in use. It´s free and easy to use - can even run "portable"
(without installation).

https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo

A little useful tool...


Phil

[[email protected]]

mp2??

Are you a radio station or something?

[John Williamson]

On 13/09/2018 15:59, wrote:
> mp2??
>
> Are you a radio station or something?
>
Do keep up. The OP is asking on behalf of a client who has some .mp2
files he would like to know the duration and/or time to end of.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

[None]

"John Williamson" wrote in message ...

> On 13/09/2018 15:59, wrote:
> > mp2??
> >
> > Are you a radio station or something?

> Do keep up.

He can't. His short-bus can't go that fast, because "the man" is keeping him
down with daylight saving time, imaginary tire pressure conspiracies, and
highly compressed Badfinger cassettes.

[Bill[_20_]]

In message >, John Williamson
> writes
>The OP is asking on behalf of a client who has some .mp2 files he would
>like to know the duration and/or time to end of.

The "client" is just a friend in not-very-good-health, particularly with
his sight, who is recording series' of radio programmes using some sort
of desktop computer interface, the whole thing being switched on and off
by timers programmed into the PC.

There are some complications to do with the way the interface comes up
and goes down, which he has to cope with, and everything recorded has
the same generic name, with suffixes, I assume.

He is an ex-broadcast engineer, and the countdown timing has something
to do with being able to identify the shows and also to identify edit
points to remove leading and trailing audio.

Everything so far is based on his one phone call. At least, with the
help here, we have established that a normal .mp2 file should show
countdown and other timers in Media player and VLC. As soon as I have
time I'll drive over, see him and bring back a copy of one of the files
to play with here.
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Bill

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[Bill[_20_]]

In message >, geoff
> writes
>On 13/09/2018 9:51 PM, Bill wrote:
>> Nowadays I just use Audition 3, which doesn't, as far as I know,
>>enable saving as .mp2.
>> When I was actively doing this a long, long time ago, I used to use a
>>"Media Magic" soundcard with Cool Edit, which was the only affordable
>>device I could find that supported .mp2. Sadly, I no longer have a
>>working machine with an ISA bus.
>> I've just tried Audacity and used it to record a test file. I am
>>embarrassed to say that I didn't think of looking at Reaper or the
>>other audio softwares I have here, either.
>> The countdown timer does work here in both VLC and Windows Media
>>Player on the files I've created, and I haven't yet managed to get
>>hold of one of the files that showed him the problem.
>> I did wonder if vbr .mp2 files might behave differently. I don't
>>know whether DAB .mp2 is vbr or not.
>
>
>Soundcard has nothing to do with file format playback - that's the
>software. If your audio editor can save an MP2 file ( actually is
>MP1-Layer-2) it can play it back thru any soundcard. Even Windows Media
>Player can !
>
>Surely Audacity can do it, or Reaper ?

Geoff, Yes Audacity can do it, and I have produced some test files.

My reference above to the Media Magic card related to recording .mp2 in
the mid-90's or earlier when I was involved with broadcast audio using
various software. Rival systems used .mp2 files, so we had a requirement
to be able to record .mp2 files for test purposes.

If I remember correctly (always unlikely these days) all mpeg1 layer 2
encoding was carried out in hardware by professional cards. We were
cheapskates, and the Media Magic card was in the domestic market and
available in 2 versions, one of which did hardware encoding, and one
software encoding.

This was well before Audacity, Reaper or any of those appeared. Cool
Edit was the favoured editor then and the version of Audition that I use
still doesn't do .mp2.
--
Bill

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[geoff]

On 14/09/2018 11:31 AM, Bill wrote:

>
> This was well before Audacity, Reaper or any of those appeared. Cool
> Edit was the favoured editor then and the version of Audition that I use
> still doesn't do .mp2.


Audacity could do it even ay back in 2004 from what I can find, but
surely most pro broadcasting outfits would have been using something
more like SoundForge or WaveLab back then, rather than CoolEdit or
Audacity ?

cheers

geoff

[geoff]

On 14/09/2018 10:49 AM, Bill wrote:

>
> Everything so far is based on his one phone call. At least, with the
> help here, we have established that a normal .mp2 file should show
> countdown and other timers in Media player and VLC.

Yep, it purely a function of the player software being used, which
derives the count-up and count-down times from the file's total time.

geoff

[John Williamson]

On 13/09/2018 23:49, Bill wrote:
> In message >, John Williamson
> > writes
>> The OP is asking on behalf of a client who has some .mp2 files he
>> would like to know the duration and/or time to end of.
>
> The "client" is just a friend in not-very-good-health, particularly with
> his sight, who is recording series' of radio programmes using some sort
> of desktop computer interface, the whole thing being switched on and off
> by timers programmed into the PC.
>
<Snip>
Nice of you to help him like that, and glad we could help, though I was
mainly having a dig at Thekma. Thanks for the explanation, too.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

[Bill[_20_]]

In message >, geoff
> writes
>On 14/09/2018 11:31 AM, Bill wrote:
>
>> This was well before Audacity, Reaper or any of those appeared. Cool
>>Edit was the favoured editor then and the version of Audition that I
>>use still doesn't do .mp2.
>
>
>Audacity could do it even ay back in 2004 from what I can find, but
>surely most pro broadcasting outfits would have been using something
>more like SoundForge or WaveLab back then, rather than CoolEdit or
>Audacity ?
>
Hmmm, our fairly low cost systems were being used by some major
broadcasters and colleges. We actively installed and marketed them from
1995 until 2005.
During this period we moved from Windows 3.11 to W95, W98 and 2000.

When I first evaluated audio editors, Cool Edit came out by far the
best. The main rivals (can't remember the names -old age) were the one
written in machine code that didn't handle overflow of its maths, and
the Canadian one.

I don't think any of the editors in 1995 handled .mp2, but could well be
wrong.
--
Bill

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[John Williamson]

On 14/09/2018 10:11, Bill wrote:

> When I first evaluated audio editors, Cool Edit came out by far the
> best. The main rivals (can't remember the names -old age) were the one
> written in machine code that didn't handle overflow of its maths, and
> the Canadian one.
>
As you probably know, Cool Edit morphed into Cool Edit Pro, then Adobe
Audition.

I agree the other editors of the period were not great, especially the
free ones...


--
Tciao for Now!

John.

[[email protected]]

John Williamson wrote: "Nice of you to help him like that, and glad we could help, though I was
mainly having a dig at Thekma. Thanks for the explanation, too. "

I wasn't trying to be critical. But it is true that
radio stations held on to mp2 as their rip-to
format for years after mp3 debuted. Kind
of like how medical dotors attending conventions
stuck to physical slides and carousel projectors
long after PowerPoint and LCD/LED projection
became the norm.

[[email protected]]

On Friday, September 14, 2018 at 6:39:01 AM UTC-4, wrote:
> John Williamson wrote: "Nice of you to help him like that,

maybe the best thing you could do to help him is find a way for him to update to record to mp3 instead of mp2 ....or convert the files he has to mp3.

mark

[Bill[_20_]]

In message >,
writes
>maybe the best thing you could do to help him is find a way for him to
>update to record to mp3 instead of mp2 ....or convert the files he has
>to mp3.

The native format of the off-air DAB audio is .mp2. He is capturing
these files digitally, so any conversion to another lossy file format
would reduce the audio quality.

--
Bill

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[Ant]

Wow. I remember MP2 before MP3 during the mid 90s. I never knew it was
from radio stations from your post and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG-1_Audio_Layer_II article.


Bill > wrote:
> I can't easily test this myself, so I wondered it anyone here knows the
> answer.
> I've been asked why, when using Windows Media Player in Windows 7 to
> play wave and mp3 files, he sees and can select a countdown timer at the
> bottom of the screen. However, when playing mp2 files, the countdown
> timer doesn't work.
> I understand that the mp2 files are of radio programmes captured
> digitally from DAB broadcasts.

> He thinks, but can't be certain, that it used to countdown under XP.

> I wonder whether "Classic Media Player" or something else would show
> this, but I can't instantly find any .mp2 files here to test with..

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[geoff]

On 14/09/2018 9:11 PM, Bill wrote:
> In message >, geoff
> > writes
>> On 14/09/2018 11:31 AM, Bill wrote:
>>
>>> Â*This was well before Audacity, Reaper or any of those appeared. Cool
>>> Edit was the favoured editor then and the version of Audition that I
>>> use still doesn't do .mp2.
>>
>>
>> Audacity could do it even ay back in 2004 from what I can find, but
>> surely most pro broadcasting outfits would have been using something
>> more like SoundForge or WaveLab back then, rather than CoolEdit or
>> Audacity ?
>>
> Hmmm, our fairly low cost systems were being used by some major
> broadcasters and colleges. We actively installed and marketed them from
> 1995 until 2005.
> During this period we moved from Windows 3.11 to W95, W98 and 2000.
>
> When I first evaluated audio editors, Cool Edit came out by far the
> best. The main rivals (can't remember the names -old age) were the one
> written in machine code that didn't handle overflow of its maths, and
> the Canadian one.
>
> I don't think any of the editors in 1995 handled .mp2, but could well be
> wrong.


Couldn't be sure about the MP2 side, but surely SoundForge and WaveLab
made Cool Edit (even when it became Pro) relatively like a toy back then ?

geoff

[geoff]

On 15/09/2018 2:22 AM, Bill wrote:
> In message >,
> writes
>> maybe the best thing you could do to help him is find a way for him to
>> update to record to mp3 instead of mp2 ....or convert the files he has
>> to mp3.
>
> The native format of the off-air DAB audio is .mp2. He is capturing
> these files digitally, so any conversion to another lossy file format
> would reduce the audio quality.
>


Unless storage space at a premium, surely recording and archiving to
Broadcast Wave File would be best , and distributing as MP-whatever if
necessary. But still BWF best for that too.

geoff

[Scott Dorsey]

geoff > wrote:
>On 15/09/2018 2:22 AM, Bill wrote:
>> In message >,
>> writes
>>> maybe the best thing you could do to help him is find a way for him to
>>> update to record to mp3 instead of mp2 ....or convert the files he has
>>> to mp3.
>>
>> The native format of the off-air DAB audio is .mp2. He is capturing
>> these files digitally, so any conversion to another lossy file format
>> would reduce the audio quality.
>
>Unless storage space at a premium, surely recording and archiving to
>Broadcast Wave File would be best , and distributing as MP-whatever if
>necessary. But still BWF best for that too.

The DAB workflow was designed so that stuff would get encoded once and then
not have to be re-encoded ever again. At least that was the theory. In the
end, DAB never really took off as much as it was expected and lossy encoding
systems improved dramatically leaving the Eureka-147 people behind.
--scott
--
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