Hi,
I had EncSpot on my harddisk for a while now without using it. Now I had the idea to sort the tons of mp3s I downloaded in the last years and to start out by deleting all the files EncSpot marks red.
I wonder what you guys think of EncSpot - is that a good idea? And by the way: is there a website I could read to get more knowledge about "Blocks", "Joint Stereo Frames", "Reservoir" etc.? I see all those parameters in EncSpot but don´t know how to interprete.
Last question: how many frames does EncSpot need to read for a good prediction on which encoder was used? Is the default of 1000 frames enough?
Thanks
Campari
Originally posted by campari212
Last question: how many frames does EncSpot need to read for a good prediction on which encoder was used? Is the default of 1000 frames enough?
I would say it should be enough to guess the encoder correctly! I prefer to set a higher value (about 1500) to get more precise results on the average bitrate and so on!
btw: if you have EncSpot on your harddisk for some time, R U using the 2.0 version already?
No disrespect, but I think EncSpot is somewhat overrated. When it first came out, it was amazing. Very useful, and I ran it on just about all my MP3s. Now, the author's greed has brought him to release some "pro" version which, despite claims, has not been updated in ages and in some regards is less accurate than version 1.0.
</RANT>
My advice would be: use it, but with a pinch of salt. And not all "red" MP3s are necessarily bad - that is user-configurable anyway. I'd rather trust my ears when deciding whether to delete an MP3. But then again, I am not the type who removes all of his Xing encoded MP3s just because Xing is inferior to other codecs. Inferior maybe, but still good enough for a casual listen!
I find that, as a fledgeling audiophile, EncSpot was the perfect tool to show me which of my files were really bad, so I could listen to each of them and decide whether to keep or trash, rather than listening to my entire collection.
Maybe not perfect but Encspot is a very useful tool. For instance it is very accurate for excluding xing joint stereo files. It also seems very accurate with blade files.
You can scan the files even if partially downloaded. Helps max your bandwidth.
I don't know how such a programme could always be accurate unless every encoder embedded a flag of some sort.
Now, the author's greed has brought him to release some "pro"
Hardly, have you spent 1000's of hours in giving something free to the community? So what if he has two versions, one free and a pro version? he has web fees to pay, domain names, etc. I for one know how when something gets a lot of downloads you can be lumped with 4000 USD in bandwidth fees per year alone. There is no such thing as free.
Just for the record I don't personally know the encspot guy...
If you want to see real greed, type www.encspot.com (http://www.encspot.com)
I agree...getting payed for your hard work and your services to thousands of users is very logical and understandable. After all the guy behind Encspot doesn't limit down to "either you get this or nothing" your choices, since you can always try the free and still very useful version.
We should show some appreciation to someone's efforts...givng something for free is great, but not all are obliged (morally or not) to do that and we certainly shouldn't treat them as some greedy personalities...