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Topic: Help - my mp3 files won't play on VDJ, but will on PCDJRed

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New to this forum - would appreciate your wisdom. I have used PCJD RED 5.1v in the past on another computer besides my own. I DJ approx 25-35 weekends a year..mostly wedding receptions and am anxious to set up my own equipment for virtual DJing. One of the companies that I represent has offered to provide me with a DJ software of my choice. So far, I have demoed several softwares and VDJ is my favorite thus far. Many (6000) of the mp3 files that make up the bulk of my playlist were converted to mp3s dating back to1997 through 2007. Their bit rates range from 128 to 320 kbps. I just purchased a new laptop computer so I can manage my own music and pursue my own gigs. It is not the ideal computer for this purpose, however, I beleive it will do the job. It is a Toshiba Satelligte A215 - AMD (tm) 64 x 2 mobile tech - 1.90 GHz - 1918 MB - 32 bit Op Sys (Vista) with an internal Realtech High Definition Audio card. There is an external hard drive that maintains my music library which is 500GB. I also purchased a Numark DMX01 24 bit digital mixer with USB connectivity.

The company that I represent is willing to invest in a software for my use - my choice. I downloaded VDJ trial version to test. The mp3 files from the company\'s playlist will not play on VDJ. The files that I have downloaded on my own through Limewire, Napster and other sources will wityh no issues. The 6000 songs from the playlist won't. When any of those songs are cued up and played on VDJ, sound comes through the speakers all chopped up and garbled. As a test, I installed PCJDRED 5.1 on my lap top to see if the playlist files would play...and they did with no issue. So what the heck is going on! I have tried to get help from several sources without any answers or suggestions. As another test, I downloaded the most rescent version of PCDJ Dex. The playlist mp3 files won\'t play on it either...same results. If I can get these files to play on VDJ, I would buy it in a second.

It is my hope that someone can suggest a solution. Possibly it is all about the setting of the software, however I don't have the knowledge to get past that.
 
Posted Sun 17 Feb 08 @ 2:24 pm

Are you trying to play a RED playlist in VDJ?

If so, you need to convert it to VDJ format, as the RED playlist wont work (have different logics than vdj)

 
It sounds to me like the PCDJ encryption system.

PCDJ Red can be set to encrypt all the MP3s so that they cannot be played on another system.

Once they've been encrypted, that's it. There's no way to decrypt as that would defeat the object of the security.

If the 6000 files that belong to the company have been encrypted by them on PCDJ Red then you won't be able to use them on another system.
 

What?!! that sucks...

doesnt PCDJ have some sort of way to uncrypt them, if you are going to leave their system ?

Sounds like a DRM system from hell :) lol
 
Sometimes crackers are more "legal" than software houses...
 
Don't know if this applies, but;

I ran into an MP3 that wouldn't play (guessing it may've been encrypted). Being kindda desperate, I ran it through a converter software (dBpoweramp) and reconverted to MP3 again (MP3 to MP3).
The mp3 then played without problems.
 
It sounded like encryption and I still suffer from that with some older files.

You don't want to load one of those beyoches with the mains up btw, you'll have people running for cover.
 
Thanks for the replies:

I think checking out the possibliity of converting mp3 to mp3 sounds viable and will let you know what I find.

In response the the question about PCDJ Playlist:
It is not an actual playlist created by PCDJ. My bad for giving it that reference. It is just a folder of music (library) that has been converted from one type of music platform to mp3s. I do not know what converter was used for that purpose. My experience in using PCDJ routinely, using various folders filled with mp3 files, has proven that they are all read by PCDJ. The odd thing is that only the mp3s in the folder containing 6000 of the company's main library of songs gives trouble with playing on other softwares outside of PCDJ. If there were an encryption of some sort, I would have thought that the other mp3 files in other folders would also not play in softwares other than PCDJ. This is not the case. They happen to play just fine. Just an observation - the file names that offer the problem appear with underscores seperating artist and title - i.e. - (Eages,The_GetOverIt.mp3) . I do not know if this is significant in any way.

Also, I am still trying to understand the significance of a song with 128kbps versus a song with 320kbps.
 
128 is pretty shitty quality as 320 is pretty good.Thge 320 will be bigger files though.I rip all my music is wav to avoid any quality issue because 500 gig hd goes for about 126 dollars canadian which is pretty cheap, they also load faster in the vdj players.
 
mp3jrick wrote :
It sounded like encryption and I still suffer from that with some older files.

You don't want to load one of those beyoches with the mains up btw, you'll have people running for cover.

Good point there, can be nasty :)
 
If you obtained some of this library from someone who used the encryption, then there is your reason for the partial group or folder that is that way.
I never used this myself, but if I remember it was part of the program's options.
Today I will check with them and find out if there are options.

As far as the underscore, these are called "separators" and are markers for computers to know where a field of information changes such as title artist.
Rippers have options for you to chose but the standard is a dash (-) instead of an underscore.
This can be changed with a tagging utility such as mp3 tag and rename available on the internet and takes seconds and does batches.
 
Confirmed, this is a Red feature and only Reflex will decode these files.
They won't even work in PCDJ's other software.
Jorgen stikes again...lol

You are going to acquire new copy or re ripp your files.

Sorry for the bad news
 
Bitrate, is a term used to describe the amount of bits per second used to store the the audio
information being encoded or decoded from a digital audio file, in our case, an MP3 song.

Bitrates are generally measured in kilobits per second (kbps), and you will usually see bitrates
of 128kbps, 160 kbps, 192 kbps, 256 kbps, 320 kbps, etc.

It is usually argued that 128 kbps is near CD quality, but most people will encode their songs at
higher rates, usually 192 kbps or higher. There also appears to be a point of diminishing
returns, where going higher, does not necessarily result in better sounding MP3 music files.

Most disc jockeys for example, will encode their songs to a bitrate of 192 kbps, as this is
usually the minimum that they find acceptable to their audience, and yet going higher, say to
256 or 320, does not make a noticeable difference in quality, yet the file sizes increase quite a
bit.

For years, many people sharing their files over the internet using Napster, Kazaa, Morpheus,
etc., used 128 kbps. But, more and more these days, you are finding people ripping and
encoding to the higher 160 or 192 kbps bitrate.

Some examples of file sizes produced by differing bitrates are shown below, this is for a song
with the length of 3 minutes 48 seconds, called Have A Nice Day, by Bon Jovi:

WAV file size : 39,386 KB
MP3 128kbps : 3,574 KB
MP3 192kbps : 5,360 KB
MP3 320kbps : 8,933 KB

As you can see, there is a substantial increase in file size as we progress to higher bitrates for
the encoded file. Many people can tell the difference between a file encoded at 128 vs. 192, but
few can tell the difference between those encoded at 192 vs. 320. Hence, the point about
diminishing returns.

HERE IS THE LINK:
http://mp3music.starpost.net/mp3bitrates.html
 
Or how about using a program like GOLDWAVE to do a batch SAVE AS command?
 
Diamond G wrote :
Don't know if this applies, but;

I ran into an MP3 that wouldn't play (guessing it may've been encrypted). Being kindda desperate, I ran it through a converter software (dBpoweramp) and reconverted to MP3 again (MP3 to MP3).
The mp3 then played without problems.


OGM.............simple fix
 
5 years later ?
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