Did some testing on this and it turns out that:
-The player in MM reports whatever the plugin reports
-The properties displayed in MM are most accurate
-Explorer doesn't correctly display the kbps for Lame-encoded files

-Rusty

Summit3907,

Thanks for the report. I've confirmed that whereas tracks reported with other encoders usually _don't_ report bitrate in Explorer, those encoded with MM @ VBR (haven't tested with other bitrates yet) always report incorrectly in explorer.

-Rusty

I wasn't trying to come across as a smartarse. Reading your first post sounds to me like your reporting a windows fault.

It really is Windows Explorer problem, it doesn't show reliable values there. It seems to show bitrate of the first frame in mp3 file, which can be pretty much anything for VBR files. MM writes Xing header for VBR files, it's used by all music applications, but Explorer probably ignores it.

Jiri

well, i highly doubt it is a windows problem. all other mp3's that i have encoded through lame show up fine in explorer. i suspect that there is a tag that is not being populated correctly by mm or that is defaulted to 320. if it was a windows problem, then the field would probably be blank, not a constant value.

If it's a windows problem, whats the expected outcome from posting it in this forum

hi,

when i convert a song to mp3, the bitrate that windows explorer reports is incorrect - it always states that it is 320 kbps regardless of the conversion setting. this can be seen by hovering the mouse over the mp3 file, or right clicking and choosing properties in explorer. when the converted file is loaded back into mm's library, it does show the correct bit rate, and when playing it in wmp, it also shows the correct rate. it is just that the explorer setting is wrong.

settings for conversion: mp3, vbr quality 30%.

thanks,
kevin

ps - this happened with 2.2.2 as well, so it might not be related to 2.3 beta