Download it from:
http://www.monkeysaudio.com/files/MAC_398a1_F.exe (http://www.monkeysaudio.com/files/MAC_398a1_F.exe)
New GUI:
http://www.monkeysaudio.com/files/MAC_398a1_GUI.rar (http://www.monkeysaudio.com/files/MAC_398a1_GUI.rar)
History:1. Changed: Now natively using APE tag version 2 tagging. (updated spec for better streaming and international support)
2. Changed: Using smaller frame sizes with Fast, Normal, and High for faster, smoother seeking.
3. NEW: Added built-in MD5 checking, for super secure, super fast file verification. (requires new alpha GUI for now)
4. Changed: Using a new and improved file header format.
5. NEW: Added "Insane" mode for when compression is all that matters. (may get better in a future version)
7. Changed: Converted everything to Unicode for full international support.
GUI news:- full Unicode support
- few or no dependencies
- multi-thread friendly -- can process multiple files at once
- XML based external plugin architecture
- lots of bugs and unfinished stuff
A quick naive question: is there already a compile (or compile-ready source) for linux/x86 ?
sounds nice indeed, although I have doubts about that new insane compression mode... decompression time might drop below realtime with my 1.7 Ghz machine
And while MD5 is nice for verification, the file is still lost when there is a small defect.
A quick naive question: is there already a compile (or compile-ready source) for linux/x86 ?
I suppose you can compile yourself from the sources (http://monkeysaudio.com/files/MAC_SDK_398a1.zip).
And for foobar2000 users here's (http://www.saunalahti.fi/cse/foobar2000/foo_ape.zip) decoder that can play files encoded with new version.
I just tested the new insane mode on an album. And it didn't offer better compression on any of the files.
Though it of course could be better for other files I'd be suprised if it will be noticeable with any file.
A quick decoding speed test:
old "extra high": speed 18.90x
new "insane": speed 7.53x
A quick naive question: is there already a compile (or compile-ready source) for linux/x86 ?
I suppose you can compile yourself from the sources (http://monkeysaudio.com/files/MAC_SDK_398a1.zip).
The bad thing is still lack of any plugins. What's the use of command line encoder/decoder when you can't play apes and view tags in xmms or some other nice player.
A quick naive question: is there already a compile (or compile-ready source) for linux/x86 ?
I suppose you can compile yourself from the sources (http://monkeysaudio.com/files/MAC_SDK_398a1.zip).
The bad thing is still lack of any plugins. What's the use of command line encoder/decoder when you can't play apes and view tags in xmms or some other nice player.
it was release yesterday and it's an alpha version. What did you expect?
I was reffering more to monkey's audio in general than just the latest version. I'm just surprised nobody wrote an xmms plugin so far.
A quick naive question: is there already a compile (or compile-ready source) for linux/x86 ?
I suppose you can compile yourself from the sources (http://monkeysaudio.com/files/MAC_SDK_398a1.zip).
The bad thing is still lack of any plugins. What's the use of command line encoder/decoder when you can't play apes and view tags in xmms or some other nice player.
That's one of the reasons why I'm about to switch to FLAC.
The new insane option is really slow... but as long as it's lossless and provides small file sizes I'm satisfied
The new insane option is really slow... but as long as it's lossless and provides small file sizes I'm satisfied
The difference from "extra" to "insane" is so small it's not even funny.
even extra high makes smaller files than before. nevertheless i'll wait for the stable version and use 3.97 with extra high. both, extra high and insane are to slow in winamp :/
I was stoked about the insane mode, but my results:
v3.97
Wave: 501 MB
Ape Extra High: 280 MB
Compression Time - 11 Minutes
v3.98a1
Wave: 501 MB
Ape Insane: 280 MB
Compression Time: 30 Minutes
Same compression, took three times longer.
You can't compare these two modes just with one music file. Some music compress beter (classical for example, with silent pasages), some bad (very loud rock/metal music). Test insane mode with differet types of music and then see results.
Also as Matt (author of monkey's audio) said this mode will be tuned in future...
On the other hand...
The new GUI is pretty nice so far. It was easy to configure all my favorite settings for OGG, MPC, APE and LAME. And the Win9x Unicode compatibility means I can actually use it. Very cool indeed!
A quick decoding speed test:
old "extra high": speed 18.90x
new "insane": speed 7.53x
Even using the "extra-high"-mode isn´t worth to do. It takes simply much too much time to en- and decode, while shortening the filesize compared to "high" only up to 1 or 2 percents.
For normal users "high"-mode should be the best compromise between speed and file-size.
Preliminary results:
3 24-bit wav files: 118mb
extra high 39.7: 75 mb
insane 3.98: 76.5 mb
3 16-bit wav files: 80mb
extra high 3.97: 46.6 mb
insane 3.98: 46.2 mb
all wave files self-produced music.
cpu usage was hard to gauge because fb2k seemed to be influenced by other programs I had opened and fluctuated anywhere from 0% to 45%. Insane does seem about 0.5x the decoding speed of extra high though. Encoding speed is ALOT slower.
Regardless, its nice to see some development for MA. If Matt can squeeze a few more % out of insane I would personally use it regardless of the speed.
Another preliminary for my 7 albums (see also www link below):
% compression for: 3.97 extra high - 3.98a1 insane - Album abbreviation
42,22 - 41,74 - Titanic
45,11 - 44,89 - Gema
47,04 - 46,61 - Fleetwood
52,63 - 52,43 - Aphex
62,74 - 62,64 - Trance
64,06 - 63,67 - Platina
69,20 - 68,83 - Steve
54,72 - 54,40 - Average of all 7 albums.
Both compression and decompression speed was about 3.8...4.0 which is about 3 times slower as 3.97 extra high.
This makes insane comparable with optimfrog's 'extra' mode, both compression- and speedwize. I expected insane mode to blow away the competition, but it's not that bad either...
I'll wait with adding this to the graphs, since this is still alpha and things might change sooner now.
This makes insane comparable with optimfrog's 'extra' mode, both compression- and speedwize. I expected insane mode to blow away the competition, but it's not that bad either...
Well, that what you expected is nearly impossible. It's lossless compression and there's not much to do. IMHO lossless compression is reaching its all abilities.
Well, that what you expected is nearly impossible. It's lossless compression and there's not much to do. IMHO lossless compression is reaching its all abilities.
I agree.
And I'd say it is more important to implement an option of adding some redundant recovery data to files and multi OS support.
I know all that, but I just expected insane at least end up below the line: ape (extra high) - la (default).
I couldn't help but notice that the only way I can get 3.98a to encode is using the new GUI. Commandline keeps saying Iput File Not Found and old GUI reports I/O error every time. I suspect this is APE tag 2 related from running on Win9x. But I had to see if anyone noticed this prob too (Monkey's forum won't let me stay logged-in for some weird reason).
Same pbm. Win98SE + old GUI + new MAC.EXE = I/O error
Other problem :
I can't display FILE INFO on explorer, or with Winamp in_mac.exe. Nevertheless, winamp can read APEv2 tags created with foobar2000 : the informations are reported on the playlist, but not on the info box (which doesn't appear at all).
quruboolez wrote: I can't display FILE INFO on explorer, or with Winamp in_mac.exe. Nevertheless, winamp can read APEv2 tags created with foobar2000 : the informations are reported on the playlist, but not on the info box (which doesn't appear at all).
It's because winamp plugins and other stuff need to be recompiled with new SDK. Case updated his plugin for foobar2000 and everything works fine!
If someone is interested. New updated GUI is available:
- auto-verify on creation of all APE files works
- added hacky about box
- [delete] keyboard shortcut now works
- Make APL mode now works
- few other little things
http://www.monkeysaudio.com/files/MAC_398a1_GUI.rar (http://www.monkeysaudio.com/files/MAC_398a1_GUI.rar)
A quick naive question: is there already a compile (or compile-ready source) for linux/x86 ?
I suppose you can compile yourself from the sources (http://monkeysaudio.com/files/MAC_SDK_398a1.zip).
And for foobar2000 users here's (http://www.saunalahti.fi/cse/foobar2000/foo_ape.zip) decoder that can play files encoded with new version.
The source has much too much Windows specific code, so compiling under Linux is an illusion.
I send a modified source to Monkey, which corrects some of the problems. When I find these changes in the official
code, I will continue porting the code to Linux.
It is possible to port it completely to Linux, but I don't maintain a second source code tree.
I have a second source code tree for 3.96, and I don't do this again.
Both compression and decompression speed was about 3.8...4.0 which is about 3 times slower as 3.97 extra high.
This makes insane comparable with optimfrog's 'extra' mode, both compression- and speedwize. I expected insane mode to blow away the competition, but it's not that bad either...
I'll wait with adding this to the graphs, since this is still alpha and things might change sooner now.
Ca. 10...12% speedup of compression and decompression is possible for (current) Pentium 4 using SSE-2 instructions.
For next generation Pentium-4 (Prescott) I expect a speedup of nearly 50% by using SSE-2 instructions.
The source has much too much Windows specific code, so compiling under Linux is an illusion.
I send a modified source to Monkey, which corrects some of the problems. When I find these changes in the official
code, I will continue porting the code to Linux.
It is possible to port it completely to Linux, but I don't maintain a second source code tree.
I have a second source code tree for 3.96, and I don't do this again.
Frank, I understand your reasons very well. Anyway, there should be an official command-line version with most of the source files identical between win32 and linux.. Your linux efforts should have been merged - but maybe he just doesn't care about unix ?
In the meantime, how is your SV8 development going ?
Cheers
I've been trying out the MAC v3.98 a1. I am glad that it finally uses APEv2 tags now as default, but I'm not sure the unicode has been worked out. I was noticing as I was tagging a CD that MA will not display the information tag if the ape file has an â (or I imangine a non-english character) in the ape file name or its path. The tags appear fine in Tag Control but when I try to diplay the information in MA then no window appears that would normally appear if the file name/path had no special characters.
I'm running Win2k
If anyone can confirm/ or tell me what I'm doing that would be great
thanks