Best Workout Music

A few more hours of work yielded support for LAME MP3 encoder in Repacer. In addition to adding the option to use this encoder in Repacer (which is considered to be the best MP3 encoder), it also enables saving your converted workout songs in the MP3 format on Windows Vista (as the original MP3 encoder that came with Windows Media Player was removed in Windows Vista due to patent issues). In order to enable this option on your system you need to download and install the software below.

http://www.elecard.com/ftp/pub/directshow/lame_dshow.zip

Standard disclaimer: Note that the above software installs an mp3 encoder functionality on your system, which in many countries is covered by patents and requires paying license fees to the patent holder. I’m not sure whether this applies to private use though…

New versions of BeatScanner and Repacer have been released that address problems running these programs on Windows Vista systems.

If you are running Windows Vista and wish to install BeatScanner, please download the latest version (1.41)
from here.

If you want to install Repacer on windows Vista, just download the latest version from here . Note that on Windows Vista, there is no option in Repacer to save the converted files in the mp3 format. This is because the built in operating system mp3 encoding seems to have been removed in Windows Vista. I’m still looking for a workaround, but in the meantime if you have to save your files as mp3, one option is to save them as WAV files with Repacer and then convert them to MP3 files using a a utility that converts WAV to MP3 files (there are many low cost utilities that do this - just make sure that utility works on Windows Vista before purchasing it…)

A version of BeatScanner will soon be released that solves the problem where the music BPM could not be detected in Windows Vista. This version will also solve the problematic uploads of workout music and workout playlists.

As for Repacer, it is still aimed only at Windows XP and lower versions of Windows. If you absolutely require Repacer for Windows Vista, there is a solution but it requires installing additional software on your PC. Please send an email if you wish to get Repacer for a Windows Vista system

Work for BeatScanner Pro has begun. Try and guess what it will be capable of

It looks like Repacer and BeatScanner have some problems when installed on Windows Vista. After investigating this issue, it has become apparent that Microsoft had changed the way media files formats (among them MP3) are handled and this will require making some code modifications in both Repacer and BeatScanner so that they can work with Windows Vista. This will probably take several weeks to complete.

 The issue with people having problems submitting their playlists with BeatScanner still persists - this seems to be an issue with the hosting company. Within the next couple of weeks I will try to find an alternative location to submit the workout playlists to in order to solve this problem.

 Sorry for the inconvenience…

Its been a while - other issues required attention, but I’m back on track now.

I’d like to send my thanks to all those who have used BeatScanner to submit the information on the beats per minute of the songs they scanned, and special thanks to those who also created workout playlists and submitted them. The database is gradually growing larger and will benefit all in the near future when it is integrated with the existing song database.

One more thing that is planned to be released within a few weeks is BeatScanner Pro - I’ll soon announce the list of new features it will support.

Apparently the Repacer software and this site have been mentioned on the WSJ on Tuesday in an article titled “Finding Good Workout Music”

Two things surprised me the past couple of days. The first is that the human comment authentication does not filter out all the spam comments. That’s really interesting - either the crap peddlers hire people to type in their “comments” or they make use of smart OCR software that can detect the digits that need to be entered. Interesting - I’ll play around a bit more to see if I can tighten the spam openings…

The second thing is regarding the BeatScanner version 1.4 freeware that now can be downloaded from my site. This last version contains a special bonus where you only need to submit information for 100 music files that have been scanned and create 3 workout play lists and you can immediately get a personal registration code for the Repacer product (Repacer can convert the beat of any music file you have to the rate of your workout and costs $24.95 to register). The reason I added this bonus was to expedite the growth of the workout music database and thought many people would jump at the offer. To my surprise people just continued purchasing Repacer and as of yet, not one person has submitted enough information that would get them a free registration code (which really isn’t much, considering most people have over 100 titles of audio files on their disk).

I have some theories regarding why this is so - one is that this bonus simply isn’t stated clear enough, another is that people are wary of submitting anything (although all that is sent is the beats per minute information of the music files - not the files themselves) - whatever the reason, I’ll continue with this bonus until it sinks in since this database will really help anyone interested in workout music and I intend to make it completely available to anyone who wishes to have access to it.

Well, BeatScanner 1.4 is finally out. This version, as promised, focuses on improving the accuracy of the automatic BPM detection so that you can have more confidence that the beat that was detected matches the workout pace you intended. There are some additional improvements such as the ability to play the tracks while you are sorting out your play list to make it easier to find the right “flow” for your workout.

There’s another bonus I’ve bundled with this version and that is the option to get a free registration code for Repacer (which is currently sold for $24.95). The songs and workout play lists database has been building up over the last few weeks but I wanted to give it a real boost before I make it openly available for everyone to enjoy. To that effect I’ve added this incentive - so make use of it while its available (This bonus will be available for at least until May) .

The amount of spam I’ve been receiving on this blog is more than I ever imagined would arrive - although by the amount of spam mail I receive it shouldn’t come as a surprise. I’ve always wondered, why do they bother ? Obviously because someone is making money out of it, but seriously - does anybody actually read that crap ? Are there actually people who still believe that you can easily make Millions of dollars by corresponding with a Nigerian official ? or that you have been fortunate enough to have an email that won $250M in the email Lotto ?

The blog spam is more oriented to showing you how to get all the pills you need to be the manliest man in the neighborhood, or the best porn sites, but wouldn’t someone interested in that stuff look for it in a place that has more credibility than a sleazy link in a non related blog ? Perhaps its just the law of large numbers - you eventually catch enough fish if you throw a net that is large enough.

Anyway - I’ve had enough of these blog spams so I set up a captcha verification to make sure a human is entering the comment. Its the easiest installation for a captcha plugin for WordPress that I’ve seen. If you want to use it in your own blog you can download it here .

This should be an exciting release. Anyone who has already downloaded version 1.3 should within two weeks start checking the News tab available on BeatScanner. To get an idea on some of the planned features are, take a look at the BeatScanner quick manual section.

There was a small problem with the BeatScanner setup - it has been fixed now. In addition the formal page for BeatScanner download is now here.

Note - as this is a Beta release, there still might be a few bugs - I’ve tested it as widely as possible but its impossible to check every scenario. If you should find any problem with this version, please describe it either here or send it to me at support@optimistec.com