Comment 37 for bug 35112

It looks like the "vbrfix" program available through Synaptic fixes this
issue - that is, after processing an MP3 file with vbrfix, the track time
is correctly reported.

From the description in synaptic:

   Unfortunately, the problem is that many MP3 MP3 decoders estimate the
   time of a MP3 file based on the first bitrate they find and the
   filesize. This means that the "prediction" used by such decoders is
   wildly wrong with VBR encoded files and, as a result, you can get
   fairly random times.

[...]

   A VBR null frame is placed at the beginning of the file to tell the MP3
   player information about the song length and indexing through the song.

   The problem arises because some poor encoders don't produce this null
   frame or do so incorrectly and this is what Vbrfix attempts to fix.

So, this is actually 2 or 3 different issues that could be independently
addressed:

a) fixing the encoder to correctly produce that null frame

b) enhancing the mp3 library that rhythmbox relies upon to be more robust
somehow.

c) provide an option to vbrfix files that seem broken from within
Rhythmbox, to repair older rips?

  Brian