HydrogenAudio

Hydrogenaudio Forum => Validated News => Topic started by: Yaztromo on 2004-04-29 18:50:26

Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: Yaztromo on 2004-04-29 18:50:26
Available here: http://www.monkeysaudio.com/download.html (http://www.monkeysaudio.com/download.html)

Version 3.99 (April 29, 2004)

1. Changed: Decoding engine better at handling corrupt streams / loss of internet connection while playing.
2. Changed: Simplified assembly code building for 3rd party developers.
3. NEW: Improved entropy coder for increased compression.
4. Changed: Removed RKAU support. (since it is no longer commonly used)
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: guruboolez on 2004-04-29 19:16:33
Strange. I've deleted the previous version af Monkey, installed the 3.99F one, and the encoder (MAC.exe) is still the 3.98 beta one (date= 30/05/2003). The GUI is the 3.99 version, but the encoder isn't.
Could someone confirm this?
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: harashin on 2004-04-29 19:19:48
Quote
Strange. I've deleted the previous version af Monkey, installed the 3.99F one, and the encoder (MAC.exe) is still the 3.98 beta one (date= 30/05/2003). The GUI is the 3.99 version, but the encoder isn't.
Could someone confirm this?

It's shown as 3.98 here, too.
Code: [Select]
D:\programs\Monkey's Audio>mac
--- Monkey's Audio Console Front End (v 3.98) (c) Matthew T. Ashland ---
Proper Usage: [EXE] [Input File] [Output File] [Mode]

Edit:shown as 3.97
(http://cyberquebec.ca/harashin/mac.png)
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: Yaztromo on 2004-04-29 19:26:27
I can confirm that my installation of 3.99 is has 3.98 of MAC.exe.

I have just created an ape file with the GUI in insane mode. Foobar 0.7.7b will not play this "ape: undefined". Does foobar not play 3.98 files, or are these 3.99 files?
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: guruboolez on 2004-04-29 19:42:27
I could confirm this.
Encoded with the CLI component of foobar2000, the ape files are OK, shown as 3.98 in metadata.
But encoded through the new GUI, the files are unplayable with fb2k 0.81, but are labeled 3.99.

Weird...
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: rjamorim on 2004-04-29 19:47:11
http://www.monkeysaudio.com/cgi-bin/YaBB/Y...&num=1083260164 (http://www.monkeysaudio.com/cgi-bin/YaBB/YaBB.cgi?board=general&action=display&num=1083260164)

Quote
MAC.exe didn't get updated.  I'll do that within a few days.

Like I said -- it's been a while and I'm rusty
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: harashin on 2004-04-29 19:50:13
I noticed MACDll.dll in system32 is updated to 3.99 while its frontend isn't.

Edit: I meant its console frontend.
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: philaphonic on 2004-04-29 19:53:22
i surely enjoy .flac.
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: rjamorim on 2004-04-29 19:56:53
Quote
i surely enjoy .flac.

What a wonderful insight into your personal preferences! THANK-YOU!
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: Digga on 2004-04-29 19:58:30
Quote
i surely enjoy .flac.

I like choclate.

anyway, let's hope the updated release will be up and about soon.

[span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%']edit: lol, Roberto beat me to it ;-)[/span]
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: p0wder on 2004-04-29 20:17:41
Is Monkey's Audio open source now?  I saw this on the homepage.

Quote
Freely available source code, simple SDK and non-restrictive licensing - other developers can easily use Monkey's Audio in their own programs -- and there are no evil restrictive licensing agreements
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: rjamorim on 2004-04-29 20:19:46
Quote
Is Monkey's Audio open source now?

It's been for more than two years
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: Case on 2004-04-29 20:20:22
3.99 versions:
Console frontend : http://www.saunalahti.fi/cse/temp/MAC.zip (http://www.saunalahti.fi/cse/temp/MAC.zip)
foobar decoder: http://www.saunalahti.fi/cse/temp/foo_ape.zip (http://www.saunalahti.fi/cse/temp/foo_ape.zip)
foobar encoder: http://www.saunalahti.fi/cse/temp/foo_monkey.zip (http://www.saunalahti.fi/cse/temp/foo_monkey.zip)
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: p0wder on 2004-04-29 20:25:41
Quote
Quote
Is Monkey's Audio open source now?

It's been for more than two years

Haha I was afraid of that.  My bad.
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: Yaztromo on 2004-04-29 20:43:45
Wow that was fast Case, thanks.

Decoder seems to work fine on 3.99 files here. On insane files there is a long pause before playback starts, but I'm attributing that to the nature of insane apes.
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: DAvenger on 2004-04-29 20:49:57
We'll be updating the DirectShow filter shortly 
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: B on 2004-04-29 21:01:29
Thanks Case! Good to have you back. 
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: SoNiX on 2004-04-29 21:06:59
Quote
Quote
i surely enjoy .flac.

What a wonderful insight into your personal preferences! THANK-YOU!

@rjamorim: Zero tolerance style.
Hehehehehehehe 
How about encoding time compared to others lossless codecs?
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: rjamorim on 2004-04-29 21:13:02
Quote
@rjamorim: Zero tolerance style.

He asked for it :B

Quote
How about encoding time compared to others lossless codecs?


Let's wait until Hans Heijden or Speek update their comparisions.
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: Digga on 2004-04-29 21:16:23
Quote
How about encoding time compared to others lossless codecs?

http://flac.sourceforge.net/comparison.html (http://flac.sourceforge.net/comparison.html)

http://www.monkeysaudio.com/comparison.html (http://www.monkeysaudio.com/comparison.html) (waaay outdated)
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: WaldoMonster on 2004-04-29 21:20:30
He Case,
Nice to see you back 
And thanks for the files.
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: rjamorim on 2004-04-29 21:20:35
Quote
http://flac.sourceforge.net/comparison.html (http://flac.sourceforge.net/comparison.html)

http://www.monkeysaudio.com/comparison.html (http://www.monkeysaudio.com/comparison.html) (waaay outdated)

Flac isn't up-to-date either.

As far as I can see, so far no comparision is featuring Monkey's Audio 3.99.
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: Digga on 2004-04-29 21:24:23
Quote
Flac isn't up-to-date either.
As far as I can see, so far no comparision is featuring Monkey's Audio 3.99

I know, but the flac page is at least more up to date than ape's... missed Speeks comparison though.
I thought SoNiX's question was more of a general nature, and not so much pointed at the brand new release...
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: Yaztromo on 2004-04-29 21:42:51
Just a quick test of 3.99. Sorry, I didn't have time to compare to another encoder (e.g. FLAC)

System
------
Athlon XP 2400 at 2055mhz, 137mhz FSB (274mhz)
768mb PC2100 RAM
80Gb Barracuda IV Ultra DMA mode 5
Windows XP
Monkeys Audio GUI 3.99.

Encoding results
----------------
Album: AC/DC - If You Want Blood You've Got It (Metal)
Original WAV's: 534.9mb
Insane - 380.42mb, 7:55 encode time, 6:40 decode time
Extra High - 381.20mb, 2:19 encode time, 2:31 decode time
High - 382.42mb, 1:20 encode time, 1:33 decode time
Normal - 383.03mb, 1:12 encode time, 1:26 decode time
Fast - 386.54mb, 0:55 encode time, 1:08 decode time

Note: Insane files won't play gaplessly with Foobar2000. There are long pauses before the start of each track.
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: HansHeijden on 2004-04-29 21:45:09
Yes things are beginning to pile up, things to update (am I missing anything?):
Monkey's: 3.97 -> 3.99
OptimFROG: 4.506 -> 4.509
Shorten: 3.5.1 -> 3.5.2 (bugfix only)
RAR: 3.11 -> 3.30 (dunno if improved)
TTA: 2.0 -> 3.0
Apple lossless
RealAudio lossless
WavPack 4.0 stable would be nice too, say, tomorrow? 

Give me a few days, meanwhile Speek is always faster with updating!

Edit: Thanks Yaztromo, insane mode appears similar to 3.98 alpha 1 results, see here (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=2&t=9887&).
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: guruboolez on 2004-04-29 21:57:04
I just have some lossless albums on my notebooks, encoded with 3.98 at -c2000 (= normal). A fresh encoding with 3.99F shows slight improvements in bitrate. Here are the results for three discs :

Code: [Select]
3.98 : 293 Mo (308 005 231 octets)
3.99 : 292 Mo (306 521 639 octets)

3.98 : 222 Mo (233 703 319 octets)
3.99 : 221 Mo (232 513 063 octets)

3.98 : 214 Mo (224 505 884 octets)
3.99 : 213 Mo (224 184 296 octets)


Note that all these discs are classical music (Vivaldi & Haydn Concertos and contempory chamber music for the last one), and average bitrate is generally more friendly than with other kind of music (~41% on average - tested on > 300 CD).

Seems to be worth to upgrade, though I didn't test encoding and decoding speed.
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: WaldoMonster on 2004-04-29 22:06:23
I have tested 7 files with maximum compression.

1: 10 CC - The wall street shuffle.wav
2: 10,000 Maniacs - Noahs dove.wav
3: 3 Doors down - When I'm gone.wav
4: Abba - Dancing queen.wav
5: Air - Cherry blossom girl.wav
6: Bob Marley - Is this love.wav
7: DJ Food - Strange taste.wav



Code: [Select]
        APE 3.97              APE 3.99     
WAV    time      Kbit/s      time      Kbit/s
------------------------------------------------
1       0:20      795         0:21     789
2       0:23      919         0:24     914
3       0:22      921         0:24     916
4       0:20      937         0:21     932
5       0:19      909         0:21     901
6       0:20      855         0:23     855
7       0:09      754         0:10     749
------------------------------------------------
100%   62.50%                62.13%
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: rjamorim on 2004-04-29 22:09:41
Quote
WavPack 4.0 stable would be nice too, say, tomorrow? 

Or maybe a Release Candidate the day after tomorrow..
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: Mac on 2004-04-29 22:43:53
Heh, I gave the new version a quick test on ~25 random tunes:

Code: [Select]
3.97 -extra high 57.81% - 481.1s to decode
3.99 -extra high 57.43% - 540.9s to decode
3.99 -insane 57.42% . . . 1 week to decode


So that's about 6mb saved for each gb of ape's by moving to the new extra high, but is that worth the 12% higher decode time?

It'd be interesting to know what -insane does at the moment.  I know it's experimental still, but it saved about 300kb in a gig of waves and adds 3s to seek times
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: Mac on 2004-04-29 22:58:41
Has anybody else tried playing 3.97 files with the 3.99 Winamp plugin?  I get a noticable skip between tracks which is fixed by reinstalling 3.97 and it's version of the Winamp plugin..

Just to clarify, this is playing 3.97 -extra high files, not the new insane files which suffer megalag..  hmmz.. 
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: Hyperion on 2004-04-30 00:03:44
Quote
Thanks Case! Good to have you back. 

   
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: p0wder on 2004-04-30 00:44:01
I frequently get checksum errors when seeking quickly through ape files at normal compression and above.  Fast compression doesn't seem to have this problem though.

Quote
ERROR (foo_ape) : invalid checksum


Is this a known problem?
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: jtclipper on 2004-04-30 10:20:52
Still no pipe support for mac.exe, pitty.

edit:
oh one more thing, why is the decoding so terribly slow ?
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: bubba on 2004-04-30 21:08:22
Quote
Available here: http://www.monkeysaudio.com/download.html (http://www.monkeysaudio.com/download.html)

Version 3.99 (April 29, 2004)

1. Changed: Decoding engine better at handling corrupt streams / loss of internet connection while playing.
2. Changed: Simplified assembly code building for 3rd party developers.
3. NEW: Improved entropy coder for increased compression.
4. Changed: Removed RKAU support. (since it is no longer commonly used)

hmm.... i coundn't get it work, it just says "i/o error" everytime i try to start the compression...
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: bawjaws on 2004-05-01 13:26:18
Quote
Is Monkey's Audio open source now?  I saw this on the homepage.

Quote
Freely available source code, simple SDK and non-restrictive licensing - other developers can easily use Monkey's Audio in their own programs -- and there are no evil restrictive licensing agreements

Short answer: no

The following was moved to off-topic the last time this came up:

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....=17&t=17485&st= (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=17&t=17485&st=)
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: eagleray on 2004-05-01 15:11:41
Offhand comments:

It seems a bit strange to call this a point release (point .02 actually) when the new encoder breaks the old decoder.

Thank you Case for those quick foobar updates.  Perhaps you have not completely lost interest, or you just like Monkey's a bunch.

It would be nice if the mac dll could be obtained without downloading and installing the entire 3 mb package.
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: rjamorim on 2004-05-01 16:58:21
Quote
Short answer: no

The following was moved to off-topic the last time this came up:

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....=17&t=17485&st= (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=17&t=17485&st=)

I disagree. And I agree with Garf's point on this subject. It IS open source, considering the sources are... open!
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: HansHeijden on 2004-05-01 17:06:03
Update on my website, including Monkey's 3.99, see the www link below.
Using Monkey's interface for now, because the 3.99 mac.exe is still missing.

Apple and Real lossless still to do.

Please comment on missing/broken links, errors, or whatever I may have overlooked!
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: Digga on 2004-05-01 21:05:41
Quote
Update on my website, including Monkey's 3.99, see the www link below.

for all those who don't see a link below      ...
look here. (http://web.inter.nl.net/users/hvdh/lossless/lossless.htm)

comments:
you might want to define what the %-values on the y-axis stand for (though it's pretty obious, but still...)
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: HansHeijden on 2004-05-01 22:05:59
Done, added that X/Y-axis talk on the main page. Not in the graphs, don't want to waste space over there!
Also Apple lossless has just been added, and indeed its compression is close to FLAC.
I ditched BONK for that, but under "ALL (old)" the previous graphs are kept for comparison.

Edit: BTW, yet again there is a link below  But seriously, is there a chance Digga can't see the PM/email/www buttons? Mods?
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: Digga on 2004-05-02 00:20:27
Quote
Edit: BTW, yet again there is a link below   But seriously, is there a chance Digga can't see the PM/email/www buttons? Mods?

hrm. it seems that a certain person... *someone in the audiece asks: 'is it Digga?', but is booed down immediately by the crowd* ...has indeed the ability to NOT see special types of buttons, which are deeply hidden in the board structure... 
I'm just realy used to hyperlinks and didn't look at these little buttons... my bad.

[span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%']edit: typos[/span]
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: madoka@ex-sounds on 2004-05-02 04:27:27
my result

original:
49,575,980 bytes (100 %)
2,116 kbps

3.99 extra high:
31,090,936 bytes (62.713 %)
1,328 kbps
comp. time (about): 10.5 sec.

3.99 insaine:
31,931,644 bytes (64.409 %)
1,363 kbps
comp. time (about): 35 sec.

why dose "insane" make bigger file than "extra high" ?
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: rjamorim on 2004-05-02 04:55:46
Quote
why dose "insane" make bigger file than "extra high" ?

Please keep in mind insane is an experimental mode.
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: madoka@ex-sounds on 2004-05-02 05:25:43
Quote
Please keep in mind insane is an experimental mode.


OK. i'll keep in mind. thanks.

add result at same sample (TOM WAITS in the neiborhood).

Quote
3.99 extra high:
31,090,936 bytes (62.713 %)
1,328 kbps
comp. time (about): 10.5 sec.


3.98 extra high:
31,168,364 bytes (62.869 %)
1,331 kbps
comp. time (about): 10.1 sec.

in this sample, 3.98 faster than 3.99, but 3.99 smaller than 3.98.

i wll use new 3.99 CUI version. many thanks for Case.
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: Yaztromo on 2004-05-02 09:13:38
Matt has updated 3.99 

Quote
Monkey's Audio 3.99 Update 1

Just updated the MAC 3.99 download.

It should have the new MAC.exe and also a MAC.dll and MAC.exe that work under Win9x. (keep in mind that MAC now requires Unicows.dll to be in the system directory on Win9x machines)

If other components don't work properly on Win9x, please let me know.

Thanks everyone.
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: Sebastian Mares on 2004-05-02 11:20:18
Can anyone tell me how to transcode my 3.97 files to 3.99 while preserving the tags?
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: kjoonlee on 2004-05-02 11:28:14
You can use foobar2000's foo_ape together with foo_monkey.
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: Sebastian Mares on 2004-05-02 14:59:45
Is it OK that the foobar2000 plugin produces slightly different files than the current 3.99 encoder? They both decode to the same WAV, though.

Edit: Sorry, the WAV files are not the same. I will compress a WAV with Monkey's Audio and decode it back. Anyway, as I said, when comparing the decoded WAVs from 3.97 with the ones from 3.99, they do not match.
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: Jan S. on 2004-05-02 15:15:25
Quote
Is it OK that the foobar2000 plugin produces slightly different files than the current 3.99 encoder? They both decode to the same WAV, though.

Tags?
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: kjoonlee on 2004-05-02 15:18:02
Quote
Edit: Sorry, the WAV files are not the same. I will compress a WAV with Monkey's Audio and decode it back. Anyway, as I said, when comparing the decoded WAVs from 3.97 with the ones from 3.99, they do not match.

What does foobar2000's "bit compare" tell you?
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: Sebastian Mares on 2004-05-02 15:31:16
OK, here are my results for "Pink Floyd - Hey You" (used the MAC GUI as decoder):

WAV -> APE 3.97 -> WAV = Pass
WAV -> APE 3.99 (MAC.EXE) -> WAV = Pass
WAV -> APE 3.99 (foobar2000) -> WAV = Error

Before running the conversion I have made sure that none of the files contained any tags (or ReplayGain information).

Edit: All files are good when decoded using the foobar2000 diskwriter. It seems that the MAC GUI has problems with the foobar2000 encoded APE file.
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: Peter on 2004-05-02 16:36:16
Foo_ape Case uploaded before was vulnerable to field name length exploit in maclib (http://www.monkeysaudio.com/cgi-bin/YaBB/YaBB.cgi?board=Developers&action=display&num=1083510033&start=0), please redownload (http://www.saunalahti.fi/cse/foobar2000/foo_ape.zip) it. Old foo_ape bundled with foobar2000 0.8.1 was patched against this already, so if you didn't update you have nothing to worry about (other than 3.99 files not working).
Alternatively, patched foo_ape is available here (http://foobar2000.org/temp/foo_ape.dll).
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: Sebastian Mares on 2004-05-02 17:31:27
Thanks for the quick answer, but that did not solve the problem. The MAC GUI still doesn't decode the APE correctly.

Edit: It seems that the WAV created by the MAC GUI lacks a header.
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: Case on 2004-05-02 17:49:47
Sorry about the foo_monkey issue. I uploaded new version (http://www.saunalahti.fi/cse/foobar2000/foo_monkey.zip) that decodes correctly with Monkey's GUI and mac.exe.
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: Sebastian Mares on 2004-05-02 17:54:53
Yay, it works now!
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: Moguta on 2004-05-02 19:18:13
I was hoping for significant improvements, to make APE a more competitive alternative to FLAC.  What I've seen so far, the very slightly decreased filesize & slightly increased encode/decode time, doesn't impress me.

According to HansHeijden's graph (http://web.inter.nl.net/users/hvdh/lossless/lossless.htm), FLAC still decodes 2-5x more quickly than APE (12x if you include -insane), while the average difference in WAV compression between the recommended settings is a mere ~4%. 

To compare statistics more relevantly, on average a -5 FLAC is ~8% larger, but ~5x quicker to decode & ~2x quicker to encode than an Extra High APE.  Against a High APE, -5 FLAC is also ~7% larger, but ~3x quicker to decode & just a bit faster to encode.

For transcoding & playback purposes, FLAC still seems to remain relatively unchallenged.  =/
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: glauco on 2004-05-02 19:29:07
In the world of lossless codecs, 4%, 5% or 8% means A LOT of diference for many people.

That's the reason for LA to exist.
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: guruboolez on 2004-05-02 19:29:29
Quote
For transcoding & playback purposes, FLAC still seems to remain relatively unchallenged.  =/

I don't think that flac is advantaged on playback, at least on computer. Except in some rare cases (Pentium 75 or long DSP list, including SSRC in slow mode).
But for decoding purpose, flac is really nice (like wavpack -fast and the unbeatable shorten).
But flac have really poor ratio, and I'm not convinced that MAC have to be considered as a "flac challenger".
The two formats seems to have different purpose or priority.

[span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'](EDIT : spelling)[/span]
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: Sebastian Mares on 2004-05-02 20:27:52
IMHO, Monkey's Audio has a good ballance between compression ratio and speed.

I gave FLAC a try with "Pink Floyd - Hey You" and Monkey's Audio (extra high) converted the 48 MB file to 23 MB, while FLAC (8) reached only 29 MB. I cannot say that the encoding time differed a lot. It took about 7 seconds for MAC and 5 for FLAC on my Pentium 4 (3.06 GHz).

Edit: Spelling
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: Undesirable on 2004-05-02 22:21:48
Yes, speed means nothing to me, and I don't understand why it means anything to anyone else really. I do care a little about CPU usage during playback, but APE seems to be fine in this respect; around 4-8%, right in line with WAV. Optimfrog genarally gives me about 2-3 times the CPU usage of APE. I haven't even tried LA because of the Microsoft .NET requirement; there's no way I'm installing that "shizzle."

Anyway, I have a question: I found a plugin for Nero that allows you to burn APEs from CUE files, e.t.c. but it doesn't seem to be working with files encoded in v3.99 of Monkey's Audio. Here's the link:
http://neroplugins.cd-rw.org/ (http://neroplugins.cd-rw.org/)

Does anyone know if there'll be an update of this anytime soon, or know of another burning utility that supports CUE + v3.99 APE files directly?
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: Yaztromo on 2004-05-03 00:07:57
Quote
IMHO, Monkey's Audio has a good ballance between compression ratio and speed.

Seconded. I would love to use FLAC, but until FLAC significantly improves compression ratio's the choice is rather mute. I would lose a lot of drive space if I were to re-encode using FLAC, and on todays fast machines Monkey's is quick enough.
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: fresh540 on 2004-05-03 02:32:39
i'm having trouble converting from normal apes to mp3s via lame 3.96... tried it with an earlier version too, but it still didn't work...

it just crashes and gives me the xp send error dialog.  anyone else have this trouble?

mac will transcode to ogg just fine, and decompresses perfectly as well... btw, i'm using the mac gui on windows xp

edit: if i'm on the wrong topic, please let me know where to go
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: Tec9SD on 2004-05-03 10:58:55
Quote
Does anyone know if there'll be an update of this anytime soon, or know of another burning utility that supports CUE + v3.99 APE files directly?

Mausau, the author of the Nero Monkey's Audio plugin appears to have halted releases. The last plugin release was 12/13/03 and several versions behind with some builds (AAC for example).
foobar2000 (http://www.foobar2000.org/) with the Monkey's Audio decoder (foo_ape) (http://www.saunalahti.fi/~cse/foobar2000/foo_ape.zip) & Audio CD writer (http://www.foobar2000.org/components.html#foo_burninate) components will allow you to do so.

If you're not using foobar, the superb Burrrn (http://www.apehaus.com/burrrn/) by Gambit should, afaik.
Replace the (v. 3.97) MAC.exe within Program Files\Burrrn\ with the new MAC.exe from v.3.99.

Time to sleeep, tec
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: mahi on 2004-05-05 14:40:09
Quote
I frequently get checksum errors when seeking quickly through ape files at normal compression and above.  Fast compression doesn't seem to have this problem though.

Quote
ERROR (foo_ape) : invalid checksum

Is this a known problem?

Same problem here - sometimes even during playback. Quite annoying actually. There's nothing wrong with the file itself though.
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: Sebastian Mares on 2004-05-05 16:30:10
Seems that the Nero APE plugin is up-to-date now.
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: eagleray on 2004-05-05 16:47:09
My problem with this update is that the author chose to break the decoder for a point release with a small increase in compression performance.

Is speed important?  That depends.  Last night I ran a video reencoding job that took just over seven hours on a P4 2.6ghz machine.  Now if I wanted to transcode a bunch of archived albums that day, I would be out of luck.

A lot of the focus around here is on little things.  Sometimes too little.  Breaking the decoder is orders of magnitude more important than the improvement in compression demonstrated herein.
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: Jan S. on 2004-05-05 16:49:57
Why? You can still play old files with the new decoder. 1min to update. That's it.
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: eagleray on 2004-05-05 19:39:00
You can play old files with the new decoder, but not the other  way around.  One minute to update, but only if you know what the problem is and where to get the decoder.  Think about it this way, what if varios developers brought out a point upgrades of their MP3 encoders that broke all existing decoders?  Havoc would result.  Or, look at all the debate about Vorbis 2 and how it will break existing decoders. The exotic and obscure is the norm around here, I sometimes forget.
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: shnutils on 2004-05-05 22:41:46
Quote
Still no pipe support for mac.exe, pitty.

I haven't seen any response to this lamentation, so I thought I would mention that I've been maintaining a Windows version with pipe support for use with shntool, available here:  http://www.etree.org/shnutils/shntool/ (http://www.etree.org/shnutils/shntool/)

Beware, it's an ugly hack, but it works for me.
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: jcoalson on 2004-05-07 21:11:36
added 3.99 to the FLAC comparison

http://flac.sourceforge.net/comparison.html (http://flac.sourceforge.net/comparison.html)

apple lossless is there too.

Josh
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: blm07 on 2004-05-07 21:33:16
Ok I'm gonna use 3.99 High compression becuase the Nero plugin now works, and I really like the APE File Info. I like high becuase extra high and insanse save very little space, take longer, and use extra memory to play.
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: PigsOnTheWing on 2004-05-07 22:12:31
Quote
added 3.99 to the FLAC comparison

http://flac.sourceforge.net/comparison.html (http://flac.sourceforge.net/comparison.html)

apple lossless is there too.

Josh

It's interesting to note that in your test Apple Lossless is so close to FLAC (default) as to not make a difference--414.45 MB vs 413.46 MB--1 MB is certainly nothing to lose sleep over (especially after reading that Microsloth expects everyone to have 1 terabyte of storage to run Longshot--er--Longhorn in '07). This pretty much decides it for me. I had been waiting around until someone had a FLAC or Monkey's Audio solution for Mac OS X (I have both PCs and Macs in my home), but I don't see the point in continuing to wait. It may not have the best compression out there, but as far as I see it, Apple Lossless is the winner for cross-platform support. Nope, it won't work with Linux, but Windows XP and Mac OS X are all that I care about. Apple Lossless is streamable, iTunes runs on both my PCs and Macs (even automatically sharing songs across my network--regardless of whether the machines are running Windows or Mac OS X), I'm even able to play Apple Lossless files on my iPod. I've got ample tags, album covers, smart playlists, the nicest media library interface around...what's not to love? Well, there's no gapless playback right now...but hopefully it's coming. In the mean time, I'll get by with crossfades set to zero, which works fairly well for most transitions.

Regards,

Jay
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: valiaik on 2004-05-08 00:37:24
Quote
My problem with this update is that the author chose to break the decoder for a point release with a small increase in compression performance.

The new decoder (v3.99) seems to be decoding v3.97 streams fine, that's ok with me. I tested with Easy CD-DA Extractor, it now includes the latest Monkey.
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: Mr_Rabid_Teddybear on 2004-05-08 03:42:01
From my preliminary testing: It's not that different from .96 or .97 - .99 will produce a working gapless file at -c4000 ... anything above will be be buggy and (halfway) unplayable and anything below will be a waste of space unless your CPU is 10 yrs old ...
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: reardon on 2004-05-11 00:04:41
Quote
3.99 versions:
Console frontend : http://www.saunalahti.fi/cse/temp/MAC.zip (http://www.saunalahti.fi/cse/temp/MAC.zip)
foobar decoder: http://www.saunalahti.fi/cse/temp/foo_ape.zip (http://www.saunalahti.fi/cse/temp/foo_ape.zip)
foobar encoder: http://www.saunalahti.fi/cse/temp/foo_monkey.zip (http://www.saunalahti.fi/cse/temp/foo_monkey.zip)

Case: have these been updated for Update 2?  I'm still having Unicode problems on my end.

+Reardon
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: Case on 2004-05-11 05:39:50
Quote
Quote
3.99 versions:
Console frontend : http://www.saunalahti.fi/cse/temp/MAC.zip (http://www.saunalahti.fi/cse/temp/MAC.zip)
foobar decoder: http://www.saunalahti.fi/cse/temp/foo_ape.zip (http://www.saunalahti.fi/cse/temp/foo_ape.zip)
foobar encoder: http://www.saunalahti.fi/cse/temp/foo_monkey.zip (http://www.saunalahti.fi/cse/temp/foo_monkey.zip)

Case: have these been updated for Update 2?  I'm still having Unicode problems on my end.

+Reardon

MAC.exe has not been updated since the initial compile. It's limited to ANSI characters anyway due to the way it was written.
Foobar components are not affected by any Unicode bugs in Monkey's code since they use only I/O functions provided by the player.
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: Mr_Rabid_Teddybear on 2004-05-11 23:18:27
Ashland isn't the man that makes info too easily available. There's nothing on the front of home or download page (or in the distribution) that indicates that there's updates within the whole number releases. You'll have to go into the forums (http://www.monkeysaudio.com/cgi-bin/YaBB/YaBB.cgi) and piece it together. This is the changelog for the 3.99 release AFAIK sofar.... More updates might be forthcoming.... (?)

Quote
Monkey's Audio 3.99 Update 4 

1. Fixed: Decoder could erroneously report a CRC error on the last frame of some files.

(NOTE: SDK also updated)

Monkey's Audio 3.99 Update 3

1. Changed: Worked on making data types more standard / cross-platform friendly.
2. Changed: Switched code from tab-based to space based. (may still be some out-of-whack formatting)
3. Fixed: Building ID3 tags could cause a crash.
4. Fixed: APL builder treated the last part of a CUE time as a hundreth of a second instead of as a frame. (1 / 75 of a second)
5. Fixed: File Info dialog used by Winamp plugin wouldn't accept / save Unicode tag values properly.
6. Fixed: APL files could output noise or silence at the end of the file in some cases.

Monkey's Audio 3.99 Update 2

1. Fixed: Possible buffer overflow attack weakness in APE tagging code.
2. Fixed: MACDll.dll was not doing ANSI to Unicode conversions properly.
3. Changed: Added Unicode versions of interface wrappers to MACDll.dll.
4. Changed: Updated Winamp plugin to better handle Unicode.
5. Changed: Removed peak-level normalize from file and Winamp plugin. (newer players can do normalize / replay gain during playback)
6. Changed: Updated Cool Edit filter to 3.99.

Monkey's Audio 3.99 Update 1

1. Fixed: MACDll.dll wasn't working on Win9x / ME systems.
2. Changed: MAC.exe updated to 3.99.

Monkey's Audio 3.99

1. Changed: Decoding engine better at handling corrupt streams / loss of internet connection while playing.
2. Changed: Simplified assembly code building for 3rd party developers.
3. NEW: Improved entropy coder for increased compression.
4. Changed: Removed RKAU support. (since it is no longer commonly used)


Well, latest version of release always same places:

MAC 3.99F (http://www.monkeysaudio.com/files/MAC_399F.exe)

Monkey's Audio 3.99 SDK (with source code) (http://www.monkeysaudio.com/files/MAC_SDK_399.zip)
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: radfaraf on 2004-05-13 01:58:19
Quote
1. Changed: Decoding engine better at handling corrupt streams / loss of internet connection while playing.

Wondering if anyone tested 3.99 on a corrupt .ape ? In the older version with foobar I would always get long several second screeching sounds on corrupt ones. Does it sound less annoying now ?  I'd test myself but I have all my previously corrupt apes replaced with good ones.
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: Tec9SD on 2004-05-17 19:34:01
For those interested,
DCoder has released a DirectShow decoder filter for Monkey's Audio v.3.99.
Win 9x-ME Unicode support (of course Unicode support under NT based OS's) and "Files are no longer restricted to .APE or .MAC".

Quote
CHANGES
------------------------------------------------
v0.9
-apl is now parsed by MAC Decoder
-added ApeTags (also parsed by MAC Decoder).
-MAC Decoder updated to v0.99u4

MonkeySource_v0.90.zip (http://www.dsp-worx.de/download.php?url=MonkeySource_v0.90.zip) Binary
Home: DS Monkey Audio - DirectShow Filesource Decoder Filter (http://www.dsp-worx.de/index.php?pg=projects&tid=18)

File attributes and listing for anyone who cares:See ya, tec
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: Tec9SD on 2004-06-17 05:57:42
For those interested, there is a new MACDll.dll/plug-in for Winamp & Cool Edit from Matt Ashland/Monkey. Thread is here (http://www.monkeysaudio.com/cgi-bin/YaBB/YaBB.cgi?board=general;action=display;num=1086145793).
Quote
Posted by: monkey Posted on: Jun 1st, 2004, 10:09pm
There's an updated MACDll.dll here:
http://www.monkeysaudio.com/files/MACDll_399t2.zip (http://www.monkeysaudio.com/files/MACDll_399t2.zip)

It works like the old MACDll for the Monkey's Audio front-end and EAC.

However, it is also the Winamp plugin and the Cool Edit filter.

It adds Media Library support to Winamp.  It eliminates a bunch of code and streamlines plugin updating.  It'll make it possible for the new GUI and plugins to leverage some of the same file info tools.

To use it in Winamp, rename it to in_APE.dll and place it in the Winamp plugins directory.

To use it in CoolEdit, rename it to APE.flt and place in in the CoolEdit plugins directory. (does it work in Adobe Audition ?)

Please let me know how it works for you.

Thanks
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: ogia on 2004-06-17 10:32:33
Quote
I frequently get checksum errors when seeking quickly through ape files at normal compression and above.  Fast compression doesn't seem to have this problem though.
QUOTE 
ERROR (foo_ape) : invalid checksum
Is this a known problem?

Same problem here - sometimes even during playback. Quite annoying actually. There's nothing wrong with the file itself though.


Quote
Monkey's Audio 3.99 Update 4 

1. Fixed: Decoder could erroneously report a CRC error on the last frame of some files.


I didn't see answer to these complains.
I've also encountered such invalid checksum error near the end of the song, but not often. The rest of the files from the same album (same encoding) are OK.
The file (song) version is 3.98 with Extra High compression.
I use latest version 0.8.2 from foobar2000.org and in_ape.dll from there.
However file plays fine with older 3.98 plugin.
Seems this is known (and fixed??) bug for Monkey's author, but not for Foobar2000.
But it crashes also in winamp with the above MACDll_399t2 plugin, hence the ??.
Checking ignore bitstream errors, as suggested by the crash message - solves the problem.
At the end -with this plugin 399t2, finally Winamp's library works with ape files reading their tags. Miracle 
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: Case on 2004-06-17 16:33:07
Quote
I've also encountered such invalid checksum error near the end of the song, but not often. The rest of the files from the same album (same encoding) are OK.
The file (song) version is 3.98 with Extra High compression.
I use latest version 0.8.2 from foobar2000.org

I think the file there is old. Could you try if this version (http://www.saunalahti.fi/cse/foobar2000/foo_ape.zip) solves the issue.
Title: Monkey's Audio 3.99 released
Post by: ogia on 2004-06-17 23:27:49
Hi Case,
This dll is indeed different from the one I use, but the problem persist.
I keep old version of foo_ape.dll (not in_ape.dll, it was mistake in my previous message) which is 114 688 bytes from 24.02.2004 and it should be based on 3.98 (foobar 0.8.2 doesn't list it in the components where version is shown). With it file plays without problem to the end. Both other version based on 3.99 - the new one you gave me and this one (http://foobar2000.org/foo_ape.zip), I downloaded today, give
Quote
ERROR (foo_ape) : invalid checksum
.
Strange, I checked (played) all 51 files from the same album (encoded with same settings), but no other have this issue.

Beside that, I want to use this chance to express my gratitude to you and of course Peter and other developers.
Now after years of waiting for working library in winamp, the irony is that I don't need it any more. Database functionality of Foobar is much superior. Kudos.