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	MPEG Audio Resources and Software

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MPEG Audio: for your ears!

This page contains technical resources for those interested in understanding the MPEG Audio format. The documents in the Overview section are not too technical. Other sections contain pointers to some very technical documents of great value for those who want to implement the standard.

Resources specific to MPEG Audio Layer 3 (MP3) have been moved to the new MP3 Page.

Resources specific to MPEG-2 Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) have been moved to the new AAC Page.

MPEG Audio Overview
MPEG Audio FAQs (Answers to Frequently Asked Questions)
MPEG Audio Resources
MPEG Audio Software (public-domain or free)
MPEG Audio Test Bitstreams

Cool Link of the Month: PocketMovies.net
A large catalogue of downloadable MPEG trailers and short movies

MPEG Audio Overview

More general MPEG overviews can be found on the MPEG Starting Points page.

Overviews specific to MPEG Audio Layer 3 can be found on the MP3 Page.

MPEG Audio Introduction David Renelt
This excellent introduction is part of David Renelt's interesting mpeg audio site.
Audio Compression Overview at Simon Fraser University
A good technical overview of psychoacoustics, MPEG Audio and other audio compression algorithms.
MPEG Technology at Philips
A technical overview of MPEG Audio.
MPEG Audio Introduction at Digigram
An overview of MPEG Audio.
MPEG-2 - The Compatible Surround Sound System at Philips
An overview of MPEG-2 Multichannel Audio.
A/54 Guide to the Use of the ATSC Digital Television Standard at ATSC
Look for the document called A/54. Section 6 of this large document is an introduction and overview of the subset of the MPEG-2 Audio standard used for HDTV.
Dolby AC-3: Multichannel Perceptual Coding at Dolby
An overview of Dolby AC-3 Audio Coding, part of the AC-3 Page.
Dolby AC-3 Audio Coding at Lucas-THX
An overview of Dolby AC-3 Audio Coding.
MPEG-4 Structured Audio at UC Berkeley
Site includes both software (sfront, an MP4-SA to C translator) and documentation (a draft of an online book about writing SAOL code, with the working title "The MP4-SA Book").
MPEG Audio and Sub-Band Coding Tutorial at Otolith
A good overview of MPEG Audio and Sub-Band Coding, the coding method used by MPEG Audio.
Digital Audio Compression (postscript) by Davis Pan
For those who want to really understand how MPEG Audio compression works.
A Tutorial on MPEG/Audio Compression by Davis Pan
Technical overview of MPEG Audio encoding process.
Coding of audio signals by Jari Yli-Hietanen
An overview of audio digital coding.
Audio Compression References by Scott Diamond
A good list of reference papers and books relating to audio compression (MPEG, MPEG-NBC and AC-3 compression).
MPEG-1 Audio Datenformate (in German) at Institut f�r Betriebs und Dialogsysteme
An overview of MPEG-1 Audio, part of a larger Multimedia-Datenformate document.
MPEG Phase 4 by Cedric Amand
An overview of MPEG-4 Audio Coding. If anyone knows where to find this document, please let us know

MPEG Audio FAQs (Answers to Frequently Asked Questions)

More general FAQs can be found on the MPEG Starting Points page.

FAQs specific to MPEG Audio Layer 3 can be found on the MP3 Page.

MPEG Audio FAQ Version 8 by the MPEG Audio Subgroup
Official MPEG Audio FAQ by the MPEG Committee.
Frequently Asked Questions about MPEG Audio Layer 3 by Fraunhofer Institut
Mostly about Layer 3, but covers also Layer 1 & 2 and "MPEG 2.5".
MPEG-1 Audio Facts and Info at Fayetteville-Manlius School District
A short overview of MPEG-1 Audio in the form of a FAQ.
MPEG-1 Audio Questions and Answers by Luigi Filippini
This FAQ is part of the Moving Picture Expert Group Information Page.
Frequently Asked Questions about MPEG-2 Multichannel Audio at Philips
Note: Philips page omits to mention that MPEG-2 Multichannel Audio is only one of the MPEG-2 Audio formats. MPEG-2 has another format called AAC (Advanced Audio Coding, formerly known as NBC for Non-Backward Compatible audio), and MPEG acknowledges the use of Dolby AC-3 on DVD disks.
Dolby Surround AC-3: Questions And Answers at Dolby

MPEG Audio Resources

Resources specific to MPEG Audio Layer 3 can be found on the MP3 Page.

Official MPEG Audio Web Page at Universitaet Hannover
One of the best and most up-to-date source of information regarding MPEG Audio.
MPEG Audio headers guide by Predrag Supurovic (new)
A description of MPEG audio frame headers.
Configuring your Web Browser to Play MPEG Audio at MPEG.ORG
Also contains pointers that should help you find the right MPEG Audio player for your system.
About QuickTime 3 and MPEG by S.C. Rowat (new)
explanations - links - configuring - examples.
An Efficient ISO/MPEG-1 Layer II Encoder Using Parallel Processing Techniques by Luis F. Martinez
An interesting paper, submitted for a Master of Science in Music Engineering.
MPEG Audio at CCETT
MPEG Audio resources include players, encoders and audio files.
MPEG Empowered or I hate Dolby AC-3 by Philips
A website that advertise Philips's MPEG Multichannel Audio. Philips owns pattents covering the MPEG-2 Multichannel Audio technology, a format that competes with Dolby AC-3 for audio on DVD.
MPiG (Dolby vs. Philips audio war) by Espen Braathen
Wanna know why the DVD consortium decided to use different audio standards for PAL (Europe) and NTSC (USA/Japan) DVD discs ?
MPEG-2 Audio for DVD (PDF format) by Dolby
Dolby explains why AC-3 is better than MPEG-2 for audio on DVD. Also in Word format)
The Selection of Audio Coding Technologies for Digital Delivery Systems by Dolby
Comparison of MPEG-2 Audio and Dolby AC-3.
Some Advice for Choosing the Type of MPEG Audio Compression at Digigram
AC-3 Page at Dolby.
The AC-3 Specification at ATSC (MS Word file)
Audio codec quality comparison chart by Stefan Scheller
MPEG-1 Audio encoder and decoder hardware infos by Steve Krause
Audio and Music Applications for SGI at SGI
MPEG Audio Decoder Module at Villanova University
Internet MPEG Audio Archive at Phade Software

MPEG Audio Software (public-domain or free)

Software supporting MPEG Audio Layer 3 can be found on the MP3 Page.

Many sites with pointers to MPEG audio players are listed on our Audio Players Page.

Before copying or using the following softwares, please check their copyright and license informations.

MPEG for MATLAB by Fabien A.P. Petitcolas
Free (GPL). Currently only psychoacoustic model 1 for layer I.
MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 Audio reference software and data (with source code) at Universitaet Hannover
This is the reference software produced by the MPEG Committee as draft of the Technical Report (Part-5 of the MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 standards).
MPEG audio software (with source code) at MP3'Tech
Includes the ISO audio source code published by MPEG, MP3 source code published by Fraunhofer Institute, an AAC decoder by ZVI.
MPEG Audio at CCETT
MPEG Audio resources include players, encoders and audio files. Also:
MPEG-1 Audio Layer 1 & 2 decoder and verifier at CCETT
Tables used by MPEG-2 Audio encoder and decoder at CCETT
MPEG-2 Audio reference software and data (with source code) at VisibleLight
Old versions of the reference software produced by the MPEG Committee as draft of the Technical Report (Part-5 of the MPEG-2 standards).
MPEG-1 Audio Layer 1 & 2 encoder and decoder (with source code) at IUMA
mpegaudio, includes musicin and musicout (Layer 1 & 2 encoder and decoder).
MPEG-1 Audio Layer 1 & 2 player (maplay) (with C++ source code) at University of Passau
maplay is a fast Player (no graphic interface). Runs on several flavors of Unix and other platforms.
Philips free Real-time MPEG Audio Layer 2 software player for Win95 (MPEGPLAYER)
Wav2mp by John Schlichther
Wav2mp is a freeware Windows '95/NT .wav to MPEG Layer 1 & 2 .mp2 encoder.
winMPenc and winMPdec by Hanno Stock
winMPenc is a front end for wav2mp. winMPdec is a Windows front end for the CCETT MPEG decoder.
Cool Edit MPEG Filters (with source code) by Syntrillium
MPEG-1 Audio Layer 1 & 2 filters for the Cool Edit audio editor.
The SoX Page (audio format converter) by Lance Norskog
Useful tool but does not do MPEG Audio.
MPEG Audio Layer 1 & 2 decoder and encoder for Macintosh (MPEGAud) by George Warner M-Back v0.82 for Windows and mplay v1.2 for DOS.
MPEG Audio Layer 1 & 2 player and encoder for Power Macintosh by Oliver Dreer & Christoph Schaffhauser
MPEG Audio softwares at ZIPaudio.com

MPEG Audio Test Bitstreams

MPEG Audio Layer 3 test bitstreams can be found on the MP3 Page.

Test bitstreams are specially designed to help verify that an MPEG decoder works properly. Conformance bitstreams are the official test bitstreams provided by the MPEG committee.

MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 Audio conformance testing bitstreams at Universitaet Hannover
Look for the directory "compliance" under mpeg1 and mpeg2. Mirror at UC Berkeley.
MPEG-2 Layer 2 Multichannel conformance testing bitstreams at Philips
This is for the so-called Multichannel extension promoted by Philips. Go there to register and obtain a password.
MPEG-1 Audio conformance testing bitstreams at VisibleLight
MPEG-2 Audio conformance testing bitstreams at VisibleLight
MPEG-1 Audio Layer 2 Audio test bitstreams at Tektronix
MPEG-2 Audio Low Frequency test bitstreams at CCETT
MPEG-2 Audio Multichannel test bitstreams at CCETT
MPEG-2 Audio test bitstreams at Tektronix

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