WMP 11 won't play good mp3 from external hard-drive

Hello all!
I need again help from the experts :)
My head just doesn't get it. I've bought several days ago an external hard disk - trekstor 120GB and I'm using it mainly to play for mp3 and movies.
With the movies there is no problem - they are running without a problem(however I haven't tried them with WMP 11).

So but let us speak for the mp3s. I'm trying to play mp3 files and they are playing - so long, so good. But somehow every file seem to be corrupted at the end. There is in every mp3 one second not to hear right.

I tested with winamp and there is no such effect with it.

I just don't get it - the mp3 are playing right from my internal hard disk - what is wrong?

Thank you in advance!

Howdy.

Just wondering but a few more details would be nice.:)

For instance what version of windows are you using XP ....? Or Vista....?

How much Ram, CPU etc etc

i could give a few suggestions but it would be a LOT easier to troubleshoot the problem if there where a few details on your computer setup also. ;)

cheers
acidtone..:)

Hi there Dan~ just let me get this clear in my mind:

1. Winamp plays MP3s from both the internal and external drives without problem?

2. Videos play OK, both from the internal and external drives?.

3. WMP 11 won't play complete MP3s from the external drive?

So, the questions are:

4. Will WMP 11 play a movie from the external drive?

5. Will WMP 11 play an MP3 (completely) from the internal drive? If it will, what happens if you simply copy an MP3 from the internal to external drives.

6. If you copy one of these MP3s from the external drive back to the internal drive............... Will WMP11 play it completely?

7. Is there any difference in filesize between an identical MP3 on the external and internal drives? (you will need to display "properties" to see the exact size in bytes)

I assume that these MP3s were ripped from something else? if so, what software did you use?

@acidtone - yes it vista.
CPU: 2ghz Core 2 Duo
RAM: 1GB
Video: geforce 7900GS 256MB
Vista is running very smoothly. So good as XP did.

But as I see, I gave you absolutely wrong information. I'm sorry for that.

I bought the hard drive and then I installed vista on it, copied all the music on it and was thinking that the mp3 are playing OK from internal hard disk(they were OK - but with XP and WMP11).

@nihil

I copied a mp3 on my internal hard disk and tried to play it with WMP11 - the same effect as it was on the external hard drive.

Videos are plyaing OK - both from external and internal hard drive.

Winamp plays MP3s from both the internal and external drives without problem.

There is difference only with the size on disk property. On the internal hard drive it is always with few bytes bigger.

Ripped software? I used In...net.

:) It is funny, but so far I see there is no option to uninstall WMP on vista and install it again. :(

Hi there Dan~,

Thank's for all that, I think that I now see where the problem is :)

I do not think that it is Vista or WMP11, and I am pretty certain that it is not a hardware issue.

I believe that it is how you are getting your MP3 files onto the external drive. You say that they are slightly smaller which would imply that they were getting truncated................... however Winamp plays them OK on both drives, so that cannot be the answer.

That leaves codecs, file compression and the handling of the track start/finish?

Sorry I forgot to ask you to try one more thing:

Please copy an MP3 from your internal drive to your external drive then try to play it with WMP 11, also look at the filesize to make sure that it transferred at exactly the same size.

:)

Hi nihil!
You may not believe it, but I think that the problem has something to do with WMP11 under Vista.

I got my favorite DM CD here and I was listening to it - perfect sound.

OK, now I ripped it on my PC - and the same **** happens.

I just uninstalled all my codecs: k-lite media pack, but there is no change.

I also copied "A pain that I'm used to" :) to the external hard drive. There the "size on disk" property is again with few bytes bigger, but the "size" property is the same(I have no idea what is the difference).

Hi Dan~,

With the MP3 that you copied to the external drive, does it play that properly?

The size on disk is always larger that the raw file size as far as I can tell, because the file also has some housekeeping information attached to it.

Are you running a separate version of WMP 11 on your external drive? I think that you may have to?

I suspect one of two things, or a combination of them:

1. The codecs you are using are not for WMP 11 running under Vista.
2. The DRM is causing some sort of interference. If they work with Winamp, I would say that your ripping software may not suit WMP 11 and Vista.

Ideally you need to find someone who has WMP 11 running with Vista and find out which codecs and ripper they are using.............otherwise you will have to experiment :( A Google search may help?

I would also check that your ripping software is up to date, and supports WMP11 under Vista.

OK ripping DRM stuff is a grey area but I believe that it is considered "fair use" in most European countries, so long as you don't distribute it.

Hi nihil!
I think I found the bastard that is causing the problem.

Believe it or not - it is a driver problem.

As I installed vista several weeks ago - I was very pleased - my sound device was discovered and I could start to listen to music - however my laptop has a sub woofer and I couldn't use it with the Vista driver, so I updated the sound device with a driver provided from dell.

I just made a roll back driver and I'm listening to the 5th song without any noise in the mp3. I think everything is all right now.

Thank you for the help!

edit 10 minutes later :)): yes it is really driver problem. I'm reding dell forum and there are a lot of people with the same problem. (they get it only in WMP11)
here a link:
[link]http://www.dellcommunity.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=insp_audio&message.id=32179&query.id=58180#M32179[link]

nihil - size on disk is the nearest complete sector I think as most file systems can't cope with a sector holding two different files, the pointer information would take more space than just wasting the rest of the sector.