MP3 playback is slow - bizarre!

[iamthewalrus]

Recently purchased a dealer owned, 13k mile, 2019 Q70S. This is my 3rd Infiniti (2005 Q45 & 2008 M45x), so very familiar with the car.
Finally got around to burning an MP3 disc. The disc has about 180 songs on it, and pretty much used on all the space on the CD.
I started playing it on shuffle, and every 4th or 5th song plays back super-slow. Like half-speed or slower.
I took note of 2 songs that did that. Played the MP3's on my PC and they were fine. Played the disc on another car and they were fine.
I tried playing the same songs again after ejecting and re-inserting the disc and they still play slow. I haven't tried a regular CD yet.
Anybody ever have or hear of a similar issue?

[Ilya]

Do the 2019's still have that stupid music box thing where it tries to rip CD's to the hard drive? Or does it only do it for audio CD's and not MP3's? That's the only thing I could think of here...otherwise you might wanna take it to the dealer considering it's a 2019 and still under warranty.

[iamthewalrus]

No music box om the 2019, my 2008 M45x had that

[ibc]

Strange. I wonder if it's due to the CD itself. Does it happen to other MP3 CDROMs too?
Instead of CD, have you tried to burn a DVD loaded with nothing but MP3 files? I burned a dual-layer DVD with a whopping 8.5 GB of MP3 music and it works great. I use the car's DVD setting, often with random playback. No hiccups, no delays.

[iamthewalrus]

Update: Played an audio CD today and it worked fine. Also, burned another MP3 CD very similar to one that gave me problems - that is - about 180 songs and pretty much filled up the disc and so far, all ~12 or so songs played perfectly.
ibc: question for you - I put a concert DVD in the player and it didn't seem happy with it. Kept telling me the DVD would play when the car was not moving (or something like that), and it wouldn't play even though the car was in park and the ignition was on ACC (not running).
What year/model is your Infiniti?

[ibc]

Mine is a 2011 M56x. Yup, the DVD won't play a video disc if the car isn't parked. But my DVD is not a video disc. The car does indeed play a DVD disc that contains nothing but MP3/M4A audio files, without any such restrictions and even while travelling at any road speeds. The HU top line still says "DVD" mode, but it plays music just as if it was a giant CDROM because there's no video on it. I burned nothing but music audio (MP3, M4A) files onto the dual-layer DVD disc, and I didn't bother to create any folders on the disc, just put all music files into the root folder. I shortened a few long filenames, but that was it. A store-bought DVD has both a video transport stream and an audio transport stream. It seems that the absence of those transport streams make an audio-only DVD disc work exactly like a big MP3 CD. Yay!

[mazz]

I remember when playing DVD back in the day u needed the parking brake on as well as in park
there was a work around mentioned many time here ten years ago that fooled the car into thinking it was not moving so u could play DVD

[Ilya]

I remember when playing DVD back in the day u needed the parking brake on as well as in park
there was a work around mentioned many time here ten years ago that fooled the car into thinking it was not moving so u could play DVD

Yes you need the parking brake engaged and yes there is something called a 'NavHack' which then allows this functionality to work even when the car is in motion. It should be in the FAQ's in my signature.

[ibc]

For the record, my stock M56 plays DVD MP3 discs without any hack, even while driving. But only if the DVD was burned as if it was an ordinary MP3 CD (without any videos). I have no Navhack. No Navhack is needed, unless it's for watching videos while driving.

[emm3seven]

On the original “half speed” topic, I’d hypothesize that the MP3 decoder is misreading/choking on certain bit rates or other nuances of the MP3 encoding. I’d compare the codec details of songs that work with songs that don’t, using a tool like MediaInfo.

[Ilya]

On the original “half speed” topic, I’d hypothesize that the MP3 decoder is misreading/choking on certain bit rates or other nuances of the MP3 encoding. I’d compare the codec details of songs that work with songs that don’t, using a tool like MediaInfo.

This is a smart idea.

[iamthewalrus]

Thanks for the great info - right now the car is at the dealer and getting a new unit installed today. Fingers crossed!

[iamthewalrus]

The bizarre-ness continues. Brand new unit installed in the same car, and it had the same issue. The service tech was flabbergasted and had no idea and suggested I call Infiniti Consumer Affairs. He's also going to talk to his service advisor and call me tomorrow. They had no other 2019 Q70's at the dealership, so I left him the disc for him to try it out when one comes in. I did burn another disc that had the same behavior, so will run Mediainfo on a few bad songs and post here. Ironically, I found a bunch of old MP3 disc cd's in my M45, and played one the songs that played slow on the new disc and it played just fine. So, at least I have some that work. FYI, all songs are ripped at 192Mhz

[iamthewalrus]

So, below are 6 songs from an MP3 I burned in the same manner as the first one. Using MediaArea, I analyzed the whole disc, then played songs at random. The first 3 are bad, the bottom 3 are good. 2 of the bad songs are on the same album as 2 of the good ones. I don't see any differences between any of the songs. And that sucks....

BAD

General
CompleteName : E:\\102.07 - Talk to Him.mp3
Format/String : MPEG Audio
FileSize/String : 5.18 MiB
Duration/String : 3 min 45 s
OverallBitRate_Mode/String : Constant
OverallBitRate/String : 192 kb/s
Album : Some Fantastic Place
Album/Performer : Squeeze
Part/Position : 1
Track : Talk to Him
Track/Position : 7
Performer : Squeeze
Composer : Chris Difford/Glenn Tilbrook
Genre : New Wave
Recorded_Date : 1993
Cover : Yes
Cover_Type : Cover (front)
Cover_Mime : image/png
Audio
Format/String : MPEG Audio
Format_Version : Version 1
Format_Profile : Layer 3
Format_Settings : Joint stereo
Duration/String : 3 min 45 s
BitRate_Mode/String : Constant
BitRate/String : 192 kb/s
Channel(s)/String : 2 channels
SamplingRate/String : 44.1 kHz
FrameRate/String : 38.281 FPS (1152 SPF)
Compression_Mode/String : Lossy
StreamSize/String : 5.17 MiB (100%)

CompleteName : E:\\68.04 - Misadventure.mp3
Format/String : MPEG Audio
FileSize/String : 4.03 MiB
Duration/String : 2 min 55 s
OverallBitRate_Mode/String : Constant
OverallBitRate/String : 192 kb/s
Album : Argybargy
Album/Performer : Squeeze
Part/Position : 1
Track : Misadventure
Track/Position : 4
Performer : Squeeze
Composer : Chris Difford/Glenn Tilbrook
Genre : New Wave
Recorded_Date : 1980
Cover : Yes
Cover_Type : Cover (front)
Cover_Mime : image/png
Audio
Format/String : MPEG Audio
Format_Version : Version 1
Format_Profile : Layer 3
Format_Settings : Joint stereo
Duration/String : 2 min 55 s
BitRate_Mode/String : Constant
BitRate/String : 192 kb/s
Channel(s)/String : 2 channels
SamplingRate/String : 44.1 kHz
FrameRate/String : 38.281 FPS (1152 SPF)
Compression_Mode/String : Lossy
StreamSize/String : 4.01 MiB (100%)

General
CompleteName : E:\\96.02 - Someone Else's Heart.mp3
Format/String : MPEG Audio
FileSize/String : 4.13 MiB
Duration/String : 3 min 0 s
OverallBitRate_Mode/String : Constant
OverallBitRate/String : 192 kb/s
Album : East Side Story
Album/Performer : Squeeze
Part/Position : 1
Track : Someone Else's Heart
Track/Position : 2
Performer : Squeeze
Composer : Chris Difford/Glenn Tilbrook
Genre : New Wave
Recorded_Date : 1981
Cover : Yes
Cover_Type : Cover (front)
Cover_Mime : image/png
Audio
Format/String : MPEG Audio
Format_Version : Version 1
Format_Profile : Layer 3
Format_Settings : Joint stereo
Duration/String : 3 min 0 s
BitRate_Mode/String : Constant
BitRate/String : 192 kb/s
Channel(s)/String : 2 channels
SamplingRate/String : 44.1 kHz
FrameRate/String : 38.281 FPS (1152 SPF)
Compression_Mode/String : Lossy
StreamSize/String : 4.12 MiB (100%)

GOOD

General
CompleteName : E:\\5.12 - Annie Get Your Gun.mp3
Format/String : MPEG Audio
FileSize/String : 4.64 MiB
Duration/String : 3 min 22 s
OverallBitRate_Mode/String : Constant
OverallBitRate/String : 192 kb/s
Album : Singles 45's and Under
Album/Performer : Squeeze
Part/Position : 1
Track : Annie Get Your Gun
Track/Position : 12
Performer : Squeeze
Composer : Chris Difford/Glenn Tilbrook
Genre : Best Of
Recorded_Date : 1982
Cover : Yes
Cover_Type : Cover (front)
Cover_Mime : image/png
Audio
Format/String : MPEG Audio
Format_Version : Version 1
Format_Profile : Layer 3
Format_Settings : Joint stereo
Duration/String : 3 min 22 s
BitRate_Mode/String : Constant
BitRate/String : 192 kb/s
Channel(s)/String : 2 channels
SamplingRate/String : 44.1 kHz
FrameRate/String : 38.281 FPS (1152 SPF)
Compression_Mode/String : Lossy
StreamSize/String : 4.63 MiB (100%)

General
CompleteName : E:\\112.11 - There at the Top.mp3
Format/String : MPEG Audio
FileSize/String : 5.17 MiB
Duration/String : 3 min 45 s
OverallBitRate_Mode/String : Constant
OverallBitRate/String : 192 kb/s
Album : Argybargy
Album/Performer : Squeeze
Part/Position : 1
Track : There at the Top
Track/Position : 11
Performer : Squeeze
Composer : Chris Difford/Glenn Tilbrook
Genre : New Wave
Recorded_Date : 1980
Cover : Yes
Cover_Type : Cover (front)
Cover_Mime : image/png
Audio
Format/String : MPEG Audio
Format_Version : Version 1
Format_Profile : Layer 3
Format_Settings : Joint stereo
Duration/String : 3 min 45 s
BitRate_Mode/String : Constant
BitRate/String : 192 kb/s
Channel(s)/String : 2 channels
SamplingRate/String : 44.1 kHz
FrameRate/String : 38.281 FPS (1152 SPF)
Compression_Mode/String : Lossy
StreamSize/String : 5.16 MiB (100%)

General
CompleteName : E:\\46.06 - If I Didn't Love You.mp3
Format/String : MPEG Audio
FileSize/String : 5.77 MiB
Duration/String : 4 min 11 s
OverallBitRate_Mode/String : Constant
OverallBitRate/String : 192 kb/s
Album : Argybargy
Album/Performer : Squeeze
Part/Position : 1
Track : If I Didn't Love You
Track/Position : 6
Performer : Squeeze
Composer : Chris Difford/Glenn Tilbrook
Genre : New Wave
Recorded_Date : 1980
Cover : Yes
Cover_Type : Cover (front)
Cover_Mime : image/png
Audio
Format/String : MPEG Audio
Format_Version : Version 1
Format_Profile : Layer 3
Format_Settings : Joint stereo
Duration/String : 4 min 11 s
BitRate_Mode/String : Constant
BitRate/String : 192 kb/s
Channel(s)/String : 2 channels
SamplingRate/String : 44.1 kHz
FrameRate/String : 38.281 FPS (1152 SPF)
Compression_Mode/String : Lossy
StreamSize/String : 5.75 MiB (100%)