XP displays wrong bit rates
 

For some reason i don't understand, Windows XP has decided to suddenly display the wrong bit rates for audio/video files. I see things like '578kbps', when it should be 320 or less, right? Anyone know what to do to fix this?

What Vga Card used?

Windows has a very very bad time calculating the bit rates of VBR audio/video files. I remember hearing there was a way to fix this (with dBpoweramp), but I never have used that program.

It could be a VBR error, but what format are you using? Lossless files at 578Kbps is entirely believable.

It's happening now on two different computers {my laptop (XP home) and desktop (XP pro)}., so I don't think it's the VGA card? I have noticed it seems to happen when I move files from one hard drive to another. I've scanned with AVG for viruses/spyware and the systems are supposedly clean. When I play the mp3 files in Winamp, it shows the VBR rates varying from 128-320, as expected. When I right-click and view the properties of the file, I see very high bitrates for everything. Also, if I look in a folder of mp3's and add the column for bit rate, it also displays too high.

I'd feel better if I knew the files weren't becoming corrupt and that it's just XP misbehaving. It's weird that I've had many of these files for years and just in the last month both computers starting miscalculating bitrates. That's what made me worry it was a virus.

Quick, buy a new VGA card or your files will be lost forever!

Actually, XP can't display bitrates for VBR encoded audio/video files properly. This is a known fact. Your files are perfectly fine.

Whew! Thank you for reassuring me! :-)