Forums Scripts & Popups SPlay fails to play MP3 file

I've tried using the splay command in a script recently. One of the users who loaded the script had an interesting failure that I have not been able to fix.

When the script issues the command :

splay some.mp3 1000

a high pitched noise is heard through the speakers of the host machine. mIRc gives no error message nor any reason why the sound is being played as a high pitched squeel.

The sounds sounds almost sped up, as if it has been sped up by about 10 times. The MP3 file is 1 minute long and the squeeling noise lasts for less than a second.

I've tried removing the 1000 position argument, but no matter what mp3 file the script tries to play, the same high pitched squeel is played.

A couple of differences are evident depending on the type of MP3 file played; an MP3 file with a high sample rate (48KHz) produces a longer squeel than the same length file with a low sample rate(8KHz), also, the longer the mp3, the longer the squeel; a 1 minute mp3 produces +/- 1 sec squeel and a 10 minute mp3 produces about 9 seconds of squeel.

I have no idea what's wrong, all I know is that the splay command seems to play Mp3s at a high speed.

I think that perhaps the MP3 codec installed on the host machine may somehow be faulty.

This is a known issue... and it has nothing to do with mIRC

mIRC sends a command to windows MCI to play the mp3 file. If you will try to play the same file with the mplayer (Not windows media player, but mplayer or mplayer2) you will get the same problem.

This problem usualy happens because of bad codec which is installed. I had the same problem because of the Nimo codecs pack. The problematic codec is the AC3 codec which is being installed. The AC3 filter for example doesn't cause that problem.

One way of solving this problem is to uninstall the bad codec. If you don't know which codec is actualy causing it, then there are 2 more options:
1) Convert all files to wav.... not the best idea, but it works.
2) Get FFDSHOW, install it, go to the audio configuration and change the codec which is being used for MP3 (It is most likely set to disabled), to one which is on the list of ffdshow (By choosing other than disabled, you tell ffdshow to play encode mp3 files).

This solved my problem at first... Then I just removed the bad codec and got a better ac3 codec which doesn't have the problem above.