VBRFix for Mac OS X

This was originally a port of Will Wap's commandline VBRFix program for Mac OS X, from back in the PPC and OS X Jaguar days. (His site is no longer around, and I'm not sure where to contact him these days.)

I had a number of MP3s that were broken in iTunes, and was using the Windows version of VBRFix to correct them. After Will released the commandline code for Linux, I decided to compile it on my Mac to see if I could avoid having to boot up Virtual PC.

The code compiled and ran without errors, but the files themselves were still broken/not playing properly. After a brief email exchange with Will, comparing test files and doing some binary diffs, we figured it out: PPC (Big-endian) vs. x86 (small-endian) byte structure! Here's a sample pair of screen shots to illustrate: notice after the XING header start, the values to describe the bitrate are swapped.

Windows/x86:

x86 VBR endian picture

Mac/PPC:

PPC VBR endian picture

For now, if you're having trouble with corrupted MP3s and are on a Mac, try MP3 Validator by Christian Zuckschwerdt.

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