What's the Quicktime bug Qlab 2 doesn't like?

[ What; *me*; have an upcoming show again? ]

Does anyone know what bug in Quicktime Qlab 2 is complaining about, and why iTunes has no problem playing the same hourlong mp3 and why that bug still exists in 10.10.2, and things like that?

QLab 2 uses Quicktime to decode MP3 files. The way Quicktime works, it doesn't like variable bit rate MP3's, it'll render short files just fine, but longer one's it can't quite figure out when the thing ends and truncates the file. It's a bug native to quicktime, Simple fix is to just use .wav, .aac, etc. Literally use anything other than MP3. QLab 3 has fixed this by using CoreAudio as opposed to Quicktime. It's the same reason why when you try to preview longer vbr files you get strange length times when you know there is an hour or two in them.

But just use .wav files, it'll work right the first time. Use Audacity or even iTunes to convert the files into a format QLab likes

Yes, but it means that both my work music and my preshow music are seven or eight hundred megabytes, and this is not a single use machine. I'm a little pressed for space. I guess I'll... is it specifically VBR? Would CBR mp3's work? Will an older QuickTime not have this bug?

Jay Ashworth said:

Yes, but it means that both my work music and my preshow music are seven or eight hundred megabytes, and this is not a single use machine. I'm a little pressed for space. I guess I'll... is it specifically VBR? Would CBR mp3's work? Will an older QuickTime not have this bug?

Click to expand...

Pretty sure you can use other compressed formats without experiencing the bug. You could try AAC. If you really need the disk space and can't afford a fast external drive, then AAC should work.

The other thing is that you're using more processor to decode compressed formats versus uncompressed, so there's a trade-off either way between disc space and processing performance. If your multi-use machine is multi-use because it runs other production elements at the same time as audio, then it could make sense to do all possible to squeeze .wavs in and free up processor for video or whatever.

No, during a show, QLABs the only thing running.

Jay Ashworth said:

Yes, but it means that both my work music and my preshow music are seven or eight hundred megabytes, and this is not a single use machine. I'm a little pressed for space. I guess I'll... is it specifically VBR? Would CBR mp3's work? Will an older QuickTime not have this bug?

Click to expand...

Just convert it to .wav, it's a whole lot better than using .mp3 for a handful of reasons. If you need more space, external drives are cheap enough these days.