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Topic: Monkey's Audio 4.11 available, released January 20, 2013 (Read 46292 times) previous topic - next topic
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Monkey's Audio 4.11 available, released January 20, 2013

Reply #25
Quote
Changed: Removed support for old Monkey's Audio 3.92 and earlier files (it hasn't been possible to make these files for over ten years -- use an old copy of Monkey's Audio to convert these files to the latest format if you have any).
This is significant for my own person- and possibly others- but 3.97 and later has been prevalent for long enough that (I suppose) it was inevitable.



If you feed it an outdated file does it give you a message what to do, or just reject it silently?

Either way my take home message is to search my drives for ape files and convert to flac while I still can.  Until now I considered them functionally equivalent as archives give or take a bit of compression or CPU efficiency.

Monkey's Audio 4.11 available, released January 20, 2013

Reply #26
I can't look on this with any favor. I have many hundreds of hours of work into  "restoring" old LPs, somewhere around 600 albums, all backed up in the 3.92 version. How hard would it have been to include decompression of the older format? Yes, the 3.92 version of MA still runs on 64 bit Win7, but backup is for recovering from disaster ten years from now, when who knows what current programs will run.

All these backups could be converted to the newer version, going through multiple steps involving manual intervention. That would require a large amount of time and effort, one album at a time, most likely. If it were to be done, it would be much more reasonable to convert to FLAC, which hasn't deliberately included such a defect, as far as I know, instead of a newer version of a poorly supported product. This would still require a lot of effort.


Monkey's Audio 4.11 available, released January 20, 2013

Reply #28
As a long time Monkey's audio user I don't like the idea of dropping support for older versions either.  However, it was really simple to get foobar to show me the versions of my APE files and then convert them to a newer version.

Monkey's Audio 4.11 available, released January 20, 2013

Reply #29
It’s good that Matt’s considering the issue. I’ll quote the post in case anyone might not click through otherwise:
Quote
The latest APE SDK had this change:
Changed: Removed support for old Monkey's Audio 3.92 and earlier files (it hasn't been possible to make these files for over ten years -- use an old copy of Monkey's Audio to convert these files to the latest format if you have any).

I made the change to make porting Monkey's Audio to OSX easier.  My hope was that the legacy format support code would no longer be needed.

However, I just heard from Jim that several of his files are older than this and won't play.

My guess is that legacy support needs to be added back, at least for Windows.

However, before doing that I would like to understand the scope of issue a little better.  Would users with APE files show the 'Compression' column in Media Center, sort by it, and report the oldest version APE file you have?

Thanks for the help.

Monkey's Audio 4.11 available, released January 20, 2013

Reply #30
I don't know what Media Center is but I do know that I started with version 3.92 on Win98 in 2001 and have used it ever since.

Dropping the ability to convert to an older format probably doesn't matter but enticing someone into using your product, then cutting the legs out from under them by stranding years of work in a now inaccessible format, isn't good practice.

Monkey's Audio 4.11 available, released January 20, 2013

Reply #31
I don’t know how informative it’ll be for him to collect statistics on proportions of old files from whichever skewed subset of users happen to read that thread… I also don’t know why it apparently came as a surprise to him that someone had such files. I would see the options now to be reinstating support or not, rather than soliciting screenshots for whichever purpose, which doesn’t seem to have much potential use.

Monkey's Audio 4.11 available, released January 20, 2013

Reply #32
First off, let me say I am encouraged and admire the posts I will be quoting. Also, I will mention that I was such a fan of Monkey's Audio that it would fair to say I was fanatical (chalk it up to a good codec with a smart package with plugins for WinAmp CoolEdit/Audition and GUI front-end).

If you feed it an outdated file does it give you a message what to do, or just reject it silently?
I imagine it might say, "Unsupported version/format." This is what I encountered when using an old plug-in with a newer file. In my case, updating my plugin solved the issue. In this current context, downgrading the plug-in would be the solution.

I can't look on this with any favor. I have many hundreds of hours of work into  "restoring" old LPs, somewhere around 600 albums, all backed up in the 3.92 version. How hard would it have been to include decompression of the older format?
This is a mystery to me too. Although, I do recall the whole 'source code' issue seemed to exclude versions previous to 3.96 (correct/flame me if I am wrong on this one).

Related thread at JRiver forum: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=77850.0
This is interesting: people still using files from 3.60.  My oldest APE files are version 3.87. (UPDATE: Matt posted he plans to restore legacy support to Windows version, so this issue is not really a issue.)

As a long time Monkey's audio user I don't like the idea of dropping support for older versions either.  However, it was really simple to get foobar to show me the versions of my APE files and then convert them to a newer version.
Exactly. I know I can convert losslessly but I might not go from [APE -> APE] given the current situation. Again, I was such a major Monkey's Audio supporter in the past but I gave up using "one codec for all" a while ago. I will still use Monkey's Audio for reasons such as my familiarity with the codec and its plug-ins (Monkey's Audio is one of the few lossless codecs with on-the-fly DLL encoding in EAC), but its place overall in my archives has slipped. However, I also see this latest news only affecting the users who have files prior to 3.97.
"Something bothering you, Mister Spock?"

Monkey's Audio 4.11 available, released January 20, 2013

Reply #33
As I was updating my lossless comparison, I thought there might be people interested in the difference between MAC 4.10 and MAC 4.11. Well, seeing the results, I think it is safe to say there's no real difference in terms of speed or compression. These results is an average, but most differences differ from album to album, except the regression of decoding speed at -c1000, that is visible for most of the tested albums.

http://www.icer.nl/misc_stuff/MAC-4.11-results.pdf

For more information on the test method used, see this topic.
Music: sounds arranged such that they construct feelings.

Monkey's Audio 4.11 available, released January 20, 2013

Reply #34
I don't use MA anymore, but I do have some old files in the old format. They're buried in storage so I haven't tested them, but don't foobar2000 and dbPoweramp still support decoding the old formats?

Monkey's Audio 4.11 available, released January 20, 2013

Reply #35
Sounds like a ill conceived software release, don't most audio formats strive to expand their compatibility and user base? This is reducing likely future users by limiting CPU compatibility and alienating early adopters of the format

 

Monkey's Audio 4.11 available, released January 20, 2013

Reply #36
Monkey's Audio 4.12 available
URL: http://www.monkeysaudio.com/

Changes:
Quote
Version 4.12 (June 26, 2013)
Changed: Numerous fixes for OSX and 64-bit compatibility.
<name>madoka</name>