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Topic: Writing your own mp3 decoder (Read 8973 times) previous topic - next topic
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Writing your own mp3 decoder

Not sure if this is the correct forum to ask about this.

How do you go about writing your own mp3 decoder ?

What are the resources that are out there for that ?

Can you please advise me on the starting points ?

Re: Writing your own mp3 decoder

Reply #1
LAME is both an encoder and decoder and the website says:
Quote
LAME is an educational tool to be used for learning about MP3 encoding.

Re: Writing your own mp3 decoder

Reply #2
Not sure if this is the correct forum to ask about this.

How do you go about writing your own mp3 decoder ?

What are the resources that are out there for that ?

Can you please advise me on the starting points ?
The MAD decoder was always highly rated and is open source. You will find it and a lot of useful info and links here:

MAD Decoder

Re: Writing your own mp3 decoder

Reply #3
Not sure if this is the correct forum to ask about this.

How do you go about writing your own mp3 decoder ?

What are the resources that are out there for that ?

Can you please advise me on the starting points ?
The MAD decoder was always highly rated and is open source. You will find it and a lot of useful info and links here:

MAD Decoder

Where are you getting information about the encoding standard itself ?

I tried getting the actual standard from ISO, but its really expensive. Where do I get information about MP3 itself ?

Re: Writing your own mp3 decoder

Reply #4
This is beyond my programming abilities but I assume both LAME and MAD are well documented.   These kind of "bigger projects" are also usually team efforts. 

Inside The MP3 CODEC has quite a bit of information, but probably not the nitty-gritty details you need.

MP3 Diags is another open source project that might be helpful.

Re: Writing your own mp3 decoder

Reply #5
I can only echo the above.

Re: Writing your own mp3 decoder

Reply #6
Can you please advise me on the starting points ?

When I was starting out I went to a university library and borrowed a book on mpeg compression.  Once I was more comfortable with the basics, I started reading source code of existing decoders, which made a lot more sense once I understood what they were doing.   


Re: Writing your own mp3 decoder

Reply #8
When I was starting out I went to a university library and borrowed a book on mpeg compression. 

Do you remember what book it was ? Can you please tell me the name ?


Re: Writing your own mp3 decoder

Reply #10
This is beyond my programming abilities but I assume both LAME and MAD are well documented.   These kind of "bigger projects" are also usually team efforts. 

Inside The MP3 CODEC has quite a bit of information, but probably not the nitty-gritty details you need.

MP3 Diags is another open source project that might be helpful.

Good starting point. I wish I could have got my hands on the standard.

Re: Writing your own mp3 decoder

Reply #11
Not sure if this is the correct forum to ask about this.

How do you go about writing your own mp3 decoder ?

What are the resources that are out there for that ?

Can you please advise me on the starting points ?

Great idea, did you manage to write it down?

Re: Writing your own mp3 decoder

Reply #12
I tried getting the actual standard from ISO, but its really expensive. Where do I get information about MP3 itself ?
I realise this is a long-dead topic, but just my passing comments...

Yes, obtaining official standards is expensive because they are expensive to produce.  The industry bodies with an interest invest a great deal into researching and coming to agreement on a technical standard, and they want to protect that investment.  Having a standard is intended to ensure interoperability and wide consumer adoption, and anybody wishing to join that club has to stump up the cost of entry.  This applies to all manner of standards, not just MP3.

Anyone not working to the official standard is just guessing.  If third-party encoders/decoders happen to work, it's by trial and error and no guarantees.
It's your privilege to disagree, but that doesn't make you right and me wrong.

Re: Writing your own mp3 decoder

Reply #13
Yes, obtaining official standards is expensive because they are expensive to produce.  [...]  This applies to all manner of standards, not just MP3.
Not really. All IETF standards are free, and they are pretty high quality. HTTP, FTP, TCP, UDP, IPv4, IPv6, DHCP, SMTP, IMAP, RTP and hundreds of others are all free. But yes, most standards organisations choose to charge money for viewing those documents.
Music: sounds arranged such that they construct feelings.

Re: Writing your own mp3 decoder

Reply #14
I tried getting the actual standard from ISO, but its really expensive. Where do I get information about MP3 itself ?
I realise this is a long-dead topic, but just my passing comments...

Yes, obtaining official standards is expensive because they are expensive to produce.  The industry bodies with an interest invest a great deal into researching and coming to agreement on a technical standard, and they want to protect that investment.  Having a standard is intended to ensure interoperability and wide consumer adoption, and anybody wishing to join that club has to stump up the cost of entry.  This applies to all manner of standards, not just MP3.

Anyone not working to the official standard is just guessing.  If third-party encoders/decoders happen to work, it's by trial and error and no guarantees.
You're right and it's good that industries work this way. This ensures progress.

Re: Writing your own mp3 decoder

Reply #15
By the way, today I read an article in the student magazine of my university, now there are several studies going on at the same time and maybe soon we will have a new format that will be easier to use.

Re: Writing your own mp3 decoder

Reply #16
By the way, today I read an article in the student magazine of my university, now there are several studies going on at the same time and maybe soon we will have a new format that will be easier to use.
What are you talking about? A new compressed audio format and someone about to write a press release claiming that "it is so much easier for you to play than MP3s" without even mentioning that none of the relevant playing applications are even considering to support it yet?