mp3HD Announced - Push Traktor Support

Finally there's hope! If this really works well performance wise, would be great if we could push it to NI, especially for Beatport.

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Paris, France – March 19, 2009 - Thomson (Euronext 18453; NYSE: TMS), worldwide leader of services to the content creators, today introduces mp3HD, the latest addition to the mp3 family.

The new mp3HD format allows mathematically lossless compression of audio material while preserving backward compatibility to the mp3 standard.

Content creators, the music industry and end users are now able to enjoy the ultimate audio quality experience with the same ease of use as the mp3 format. Users and content owners can organize their music library with the simplicity that they are used to with mp3 files. With the mp3HD format, the music industry can engage in user-friendly distribution of lossless music and audio files. The added file size required for lossless compression no longer being a limiting factor thanks to the continuous increase in Internet bandwidth capacity and file storage size.

"Over the past years, most of the music download services have adopted mp3 as their format of choice. By introducing this new mp3HD format, Thomson enables users and content providers to enjoy ultimate audio quality while preserving the convenience of the mp3 format," said Rocky Caldwell, General Manager, mp3 and Audio Licensing for Thomson.

mp3 is the most famous and recognizable digital audio and music file format. It was co-developed by Thomson and the Fraunhofer Institute IIS. The mp3 format is one of the major assets of Thomson’s portfolio of licenses with over 600 licensees.

mp3HD files are mp3-compliant files that include additional side information, which, together with the mp3 portion of the file, can be decoded by an mp3HD-capable decoder. Standard mp3 players can simply play the mp3 portion of the file.

By visiting the websites www.all4mp3.com or www.mp3HD.com, users can download free mp3HD utilities, such as a command line encoder to create their own content and play it back with the Winamp plug-in.

The evaluation encoder enables the creation of mp3HD files out of stereo material in wav form at 16 bit precision and 44.1Khz. It is available for both Linux and Windows platforms. The mp3HD Winamp plug-in for Windows is capable playing back the lossless files as a bit-exact replica of the original. Professionals can find all information and license mp3HD from Thomson at www.mp3licensing.com.

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Thats kinda cool i wonder how the compression compares to other versions other similar encoders in the resulting filesize.

This is from the beatportal article I read the other day.

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We here at Beatport have been investigating mp3HD technology since the beta period and have been evaluating whether it would be possible to sell mp3HDs in the future. Lossless quality files have of course been available on Beatport for years as wavs.

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http://www.beatportal.com/feed/item/...s-good-as-cds/

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Originally Posted by BentoSan

Thats kinda cool i wonder how the compression compares to other versions other similar encoders in the resulting filesize.

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From: http://crave.cnet.co.uk/digitalmusic...9301678,00.htm

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A 6 minute 22 second mp3HD file (Pink Floyd's Money), using default settings, gave us a 48MB file -- just 5MB larger than a file ripped in FLAC, level 8.
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(Although we should point out to audiophiles that the hybrid files are smaller than the combined size of a FLAC and 320Kbps MP3, although are less efficient to encode than FLAC.)

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It's well worth it imo. Negligible filesize difference, maximum compatibility. Hope the processing requirements aren't high.
Regarding all naysaying in the article above, they know nothing!

I'm not thrilled by mp3HD, only bigger files compared to flac. all I want it flac as a replacement for 320k mp3, I guess it will not happen.

Thing is, this way you'd only need to sell one single format and that's it. People will have to deal with the filesize, it's not an issue today anyway.