Scarecrow Man Posted July 15, 2005 Report Share Posted July 15, 2005 What is mp3PRO Technology?To improve the sound quality of mp3 at lower bit rates, Coding Technologies has developed an enhancement technology that gives back the sound the high frequency components. The technology is called "Spectral Band Replication" (SBR). SBR is a very efficient method to generate the high frequency components of an audio signal.More DetailsCombining mp3 with the SBR enhancement technology generates an audio signal with high bandwidth at low bit rates. mp3PRO, the resulting audio format is composed out of two components, the mp3 part for the low frequencies and the SBR or "PRO" part for the high frequencies. Since the "PRO" part requires only a few kbps, the format could be done in a way that it is still compatible with the original mp3 format. This fact allows existing mp3 players to play mp3PRO files. They simply ignore the PRO part. The only requirement is that they also have to support sampling rates of 16, 22.5 and 24 kHz along with 32, 44.1 and 48 kHz. While all (mp3 standard compliant) software players fulfil this requirement, not all portable and CD/DVD players do. To learn whether your mp3 player is capable to play mp3PRO files, please check with its manual or manufacturer. mp3PRO Zone Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarecrow Man Posted July 15, 2005 Author Report Share Posted July 15, 2005 Just tested this with my mp3 player (autobaby mp3/wma player) It DOES play the mp3pro format, BUT does not include the SBR, thus making it a regular mp3 with a low bitrate. You will have to wait until mp3PRO players are available. Check with your manufacturer to see if they support it.I'll stick to regular mp3's for now, but if you are using the decoder on a computer, this will make your mp3 collection less than half the size it is now. There is even a Winamp Plugin. I took a 4.3mb(192K) file and encoded it into mp3pro(64K) making it 2.1mb. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D4\/!d Posted July 16, 2005 Report Share Posted July 16, 2005 I'll stick to regular mp3's That's the best way forward, Scarecrow. I've been down the mp3pro route sometime back. It's not worth it. The sound quality is no better to my ears. There are very few mp3 players that support mp3pro. And with the cost of hard disk space being much cheaper now the smaller file size is no great bonus. In any case I think they have ceased developing mp3pro any more. Like you I have stuck with regular mp3s :P :P :P btw I do not use Winamp, I used to use MusicMatch, but now I can recommend musikCube Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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