MP3 Physical Limits?

[BassBomb]

Is there a limit to how long a MP3 file can be? Besides the obvious size limitations it may impose.

I have 3 mp3's which span ~4 hours. They are just split up to allow for better mobility across CD's/USB Drives

Is it possible to combine them?

 

[nova2]

i'm not aware of any filesize limit for the mp3 format.

for free, you can combine them using audacity (google it) or goldwave
try audacity first.

the only thing that could limit you is the filesystem, so if you run fat32, you will be limited to 4gb per file.

 

[0roo0roo]

4 hours doesn't sound long enough to trigger any limits.
any cutting or combining is going to involve reencoding though, and thats lossy.

 

[BassBomb]

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
4 hours doesn't sound long enough to trigger any limits.
any cutting or combining is going to involve reencoding though, and thats lossy.

Theres no way to combine them without loss?

At most the file may become ~500mb combined, I use NTFS anyways

 

[nova2]

you could use a lossless codec like FLAC, if you cant accept any quality loss at all
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Lossless_Audio_Codec

but if you dont notice any difference in quality after recompressing as mp3 again then maybe you wont care.

 

[BassBomb]

Well I already have mp3's

Was hoping more of combining them keeping the same quality the three files have (which are all the same bitrate)

 

[Jeff7]

You might be able to do an ugly splice of them by using copy /b.

I don't remember the syntax anymore.

copy file1.mp3 /b file2.mp3 /b file3.mp3 /b bigfile.mp3 /b


That might do it.
That will simply mash all the files together one after another. You should probably strip out any ID3 tags beforehand though.
I don't know what Winamp, or your MP3 player might do with it. It might work fine, it might crash, it might only read the first portion of it, I don't know.


I see Audacity frequently recommended here; it's a freeware audio editor. It might be able to splice the files together properly, without re-encoding them.

 

[benzylic]

The only limitations on mp3s is the filename limit isn't it? Something like 40 characters long?

 

[0roo0roo]

Originally posted by: Jeff7
You might be able to do an ugly splice of them by using copy /b.

I don't remember the syntax anymore.

copy file1.mp3 /b file2.mp3 /b file3.mp3 /b bigfile.mp3 /b


That might do it.
That will simply mash all the files together one after another. You should probably strip out any ID3 tags beforehand though.
I don't know what Winamp, or your MP3 player might do with it. It might work fine, it might crash, it might only read the first portion of it, I don't know.


I see Audacity frequently recommended here; it's a freeware audio editor. It might be able to splice the files together properly, without re-encoding them.

yea might work, or might cause audio corruption at connection points.

"


Theres no way to combine them without loss? "

not that i know of. such is the lousiness of lossy mp3. the lossless would work, at the cost of massive space waste..keeping lossy audio quality in lossless bitrate

 

[Phynaz]

Just use mp3 splitter.

No need to re-encode, no quality loss, just a joined mp3.