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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?"

18 of 283 comments (clear)

  1. MP3 is dead, right? by YetAnotherName · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm sure I read that on Slashdot before. AAC and OggVorbis have pummeled it into oblivion. Netcraft must've confirmed it, right?

    Are my Slashdot stories flowing into each other again?

    1. Re:MP3 is dead, right? by bryan986 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Dont advertise links for your referals, slashdot is not the place for that

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  2. It could be used in games. by Knetzar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    To me this codec seems more useful for programmers of games and multimedia applications then for home users.

    1. Re:It could be used in games. by batkiwi · · Score: 4, Informative

      Usually a game sound is mono, and the sound engine renders it's position using some 3d sound API. Except for a cutscene, you'd never use a surround encoded sound.

      While you could "cheat" using this and have, say, 16 mp3s of a gunshot from 16 radials around the listener, I still don't see it as being that helpful.

  3. Screw Potential! by way2trivial · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I wanna know- does it have DRM?

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  4. 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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    1. Re:MPEG4 (DiVX, Xvid) with surround sound? by Jherek+Carnelian · · Score: 4, Informative

      Typically the video is re-encoded and stereo audio gets turned into mp3 or ogg.

      If the audio track is multichannel, it is usually just preserved in the original encoding. AC3 (Dolby Digital) is usually either 384Kbps or 448Kbps on the DVD and DTS is usually 768Kbps with the rare 1.5Mbps track.

      Ogg vorbis does have provision for multichannel sound, up to (I think) 255 channels. I have not looked for over a year, but none of the encoders or decoders supported more than 2-channel ogg back then.

  5. in canada by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    mp3's surround you!

  6. Surround by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Is it possible that most people simply don't have surround sound on their at their computers, or just listen to MP3s using MP3-players thus rendering this codec obsolete for most?

  7. Oh Joy. by ackthpt · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I haven't even ripped the shrinkwrap of my new sound card (top o' the line as of 5 AM, today) and it's time to look for replacements.

    But... what music is in surround? Probably that long hair stuff conducted by some symphony orchestra. Certainly not The Beatles ... unless yetanother version of remastered classics come out.

    Screw it. I'll just go downtown and listen to some live music.

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  8. Re:No by Zeal17 · · Score: 5, Informative

    It won't replace current mp3s. It will only be a method of compressing 5.1 channel surround sound files. It will only be useful for ripping DVD audio, or attaching it to DVD movies that have been compressed with divx or something.

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  9. Realistically... the average Joe doesn't care by PornMaster · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Regular people" won't pay anything extra for this... they'll only use it if it's done automatically for them. Perhaps it'll get thrown in with BluRay/HD-DVD on players, and then maybe it'll get phased in, but during that kind of a format change, you're not going to get Bob McCracken going to best buy looking for a progressive scan DVD player and looking for "MP3 Surround" on the spec sheet.

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  10. Re:Once again.... by evilviper · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Plus if its not backwards compatible it wont be adopted. Just accept it already.

    What evidence do you have of this? MPEG-4 sure isn't backwards compatible. AAC/WMA isn't backwards compatible, yet all of them are catching on.

    i dont think its ever going to take over the market in the near future

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  11. 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.

  12. MP3 should be left alone by ChiralSoftware · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Why are they bothering with this? All the other standards that came after MP3 (AAC/Quicktime, Ogg, WMA) learned from MP3 and improved on it significantly. What's the issue with backward compatibility? Every player out there now can already play better formats.

    This is like trying to "improve" a car that's 30 years old when instead you could just have a modern car that doesn't need to be improved. Might be a fun hobby, but doesn't make sense as business idea.

  13. Dolby Pro Logic anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    I've ripped a few music/concert DVD-Videos, downmixed to 2-channel Dolby Pro Logic--same thing you get on a 'surround sound' TV program--then encoded as MP3 and saved it in my collection. It works well enough for me. (A program called HeadAC3he will do it. Google it.) It's not real surround sound, but it sounds pretty decent on a surround sound setup. Also sounds cool on headphones.

    I have no need for a special codec whose special features aren't supported by any of my hardware or software.

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

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

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  15. mp3pro is for dialup users by iamacat · · Score: 4, Informative

    The point is to recover high frequencies stripped of by low bit rate (64kbps) MP3 encoding, based on existing low frequencies and some hints on what is missing. The result is that you can listen to music radio over a 56K line. It's not great, but it will not hurt your ears. Musicmatch radio took a good advantage of this format.

    But at higher bit rate high frequences are already encoded and do not have to be recovered. Given that you are not going to encode surround sound at 64kbps, MP3Pro and MP3 surround will never be used together.