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Thomson Releases MP3 Surround

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the bouncing-around-the-room dept.

Anonymous Howard writes "Thomson has released MP3 Surround, a new MP3 codec. They claim that MP3 Surround supports high-quality multi-channel sound at bit rates comparable to those currently used to encode stereo MP3 material, resulting in files half the size of common compressed surround formats while maintaining backwards compatibility. Wasn't MP3 Pro supposed to be a great new MP3 codec, but never took off? I wonder if this is going to go the same route. Does anyone have a technical view of MP3 Surround? Does it have potential?"

3 of 283 comments (clear)

  1. MPEG4 (DiVX, Xvid) with surround sound? by Linuxathome · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So does that mean I can re-encode my dvds to DiVX with surround sound? Or does that already do it now and I don't know it? Please don't mod me down, it's an earnest question.

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    Linux at home
  2. CDs are stereo, this won't catch on for awhile by j1m+5n0w · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Since most audio files are ripped from stereo CDs, I suppose surround-sound MP3s aren't really all that useful for most people.

    I do have one quatrophonic record lying around somewhere, but since I don't have a record player, or a sound card with a four channel input, it's kind of hard to rip it to a surround sound audio format.

    Hopefully, whatever technology people are using for >2 channel audio eventually trickles down to the masses. Maybe itunes or whoever will start selling surround audio files, if they don't already.

  3. No, really, why not OGG? by FrYGuY101 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Especially since OGG Vorbis can support 255 independant channels...

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