Skip to main content ↑ ↓

Notice

Please note that most of the software linked on this forum is likely to be safe to use. If you are unsure, feel free to ask in the relevant topics, or send a private message to an administrator or moderator. To help curb the problems of false positives, or in the event that you do find actual malware, you can contribute through the article linked here.
Topic: ATRAC3 (Sony MDLP) ACM codec. (Read 20917 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

ATRAC3 (Sony MDLP) ACM codec.

[deleted]

ATRAC3 (Sony MDLP) ACM codec.

Reply #1 –
Quote
Originally posted by TrNSZ
Just in case someone missed it when there was some discussion in the past, a Windows ACM codec is available for Sony ATRAC3, also known as MDLP or MiniDisc Long Play. The codec includes support for encoding 66kbps, 105kbps, and 132kbps streams.


How doas that work with Sony having intellectual property rights on that audio compression standard?

Why would anyone release such a codec to the public?

Christian

ATRAC3 (Sony MDLP) ACM codec.

Reply #2 –
[deleted]

ATRAC3 (Sony MDLP) ACM codec.

Reply #3 –
Small correction - both AAC and MP3 >are< open standars - everybody could get standard description from local ISO office.

What you probably mean is the patent stuff - these codecs are covered by many patents, but almost all codecs are, too (except Vorbis reference implementation)

ATRAC3 (Sony MDLP) ACM codec.

Reply #4 –
Does Vorbis have _no_ patent issues at all? I keep hearing the odd rumour here or there that, purely by accident of course, it does break certain audio encoding patents (because some methods that are patented are trivial & necessary to almost all encoders?)

I know nothing about this... (so tell me to shut up if im talking out my arse) but what is the official word on this at present....(just out of my own interest)

Cheers,
-Nic

ps
Please ignore if this has been taken up elsewhere & i have just been too lazy to find it....

ATRAC3 (Sony MDLP) ACM codec.

Reply #5 –
as far as i know the actrac3 codec that you have posted is not the same as the codec that is used on minidiscs

it's a codec from sony for secure internet music distribution, the names only sound equal
maybe parts of the minidisc codec are used, but they are not identical

i don't remember where i read this though

ATRAC3 (Sony MDLP) ACM codec.

Reply #6 –
Old ATRAC (used in MiniDisc devices) is rather old coding standard, working on nearly 300 kbits/s. ATRAC3 is low bitrate codec, with lower quality than ATRAC.

ATRAC3 (Sony MDLP) ACM codec.

Reply #7 –
I believe ATRAC3 is used in minidiscs, it's so called MDLP (Minidisc Long Play codec), like TrNSZ explained in his first message, and it's not very old.

Then there's ATRAC 3 (notice the space) which is a high bitrate but quite old codec. I'm not sure what's the latest high bitrate Atrac version, but there exists at least ATRAC 7.

So the naming is very confusing...

[edit]
ah, Ivan above was quicker than me.
Juha Laaksonheimo

ATRAC3 (Sony MDLP) ACM codec.

Reply #8 –
[deleted]

ATRAC3 (Sony MDLP) ACM codec.

Reply #9 –
I noticed there's up to ATRAC6 already. Any of these available as standalone software codecs? I also saw the ATRAC3 ACM codec is basically an unofficial version not made by Sony. Who are the people responsible for this codec though and where would they release new versions? (the codec didn't just come out of nothing did it..)

ATRAC3 (Sony MDLP) ACM codec.

Reply #10 –
[deleted]

ATRAC3 (Sony MDLP) ACM codec.

Reply #11 –
a real jukebox has ATRAC3 encoding option, with 132Kbps, so it matches one of the two Sony ATRAC3 recording rates. Does anyone know if this *is* Sony ATRAC3, or it just uses sony algorithm but the headers etc are not compatible?

If someone can create ATRAC3 track on PC, and then copy it from PC to MD player (I'm not sure if NetMD allows it), this will be almost as flexible as non-MD formats (that is, MP3, AAC, etc).

ATRAC3 (Sony MDLP) ACM codec.

Reply #12 –
[deleted]

ATRAC3 (Sony MDLP) ACM codec.

Reply #13 –
Ah, so basically there are only 2 ATRAC codecs, ATRAC(-1) and ATRAC3 and the ATRAC 1-6 represent the revisions to ATRAC(-1). Have any revisions to ATRAC3 been made?

"Sony used to have some player available that they would use to distribute ATRAC3 encoded content, and this codec was derived from that."

I see, but who are the people responsible for this ACM codec?

ATRAC3 (Sony MDLP) ACM codec.

Reply #14 –
[deleted]

ATRAC3 (Sony MDLP) ACM codec.

Reply #15 –
[deleted]

ATRAC3 (Sony MDLP) ACM codec.

Reply #16 –
Quote
Most likely, it originates from Sony Asia:
Well yeah, but that's just the decoder. Is the ATRAC3 encoder a hack of the ACM codec provided by Sony?

Quote
To my knowledge, there has only been one implementation of ATRAC3 released, and about ten different implementations of the ~300kbps ATRAC codec.
10? You mean there were other revisions besides the 6 you already mentioned?

Damn, this is confusing.

ATRAC3 (Sony MDLP) ACM codec.

Reply #17 –
[deleted]

ATRAC3 (Sony MDLP) ACM codec.

Reply #18 –
Yeah, there also seems to be a bit indistinct whether there is Sharp Atrac v7, but it seems that the mix up was born when Sharp talked about seventh generation Atrac..(?)
Juha Laaksonheimo

ATRAC3 (Sony MDLP) ACM codec.

Reply #19 –
[deleted]

ATRAC3 (Sony MDLP) ACM codec.

Reply #20 –
Thanks for the answers, TrN. If you (or anyone else) is up for a comparison, can you do a listening test between the following samples:

[removed]

They're compressed WAVs by the way - you'll need to have the ATRAC3 ACM codec installed to do proper testing. Please tell me which sounds best to you, I'll give the answers sometime later.

ATRAC3 (Sony MDLP) ACM codec.

Reply #21 –
[deleted]

ATRAC3 (Sony MDLP) ACM codec.

Reply #22 –
Thanks a lot for the results!

It was a test to see which codec would be best (at this time) for use in AVIs (when bitrate should be low). Samples 1 and 3 were first resampled to 32 kHz with SSRC HP, then dynamically lowpassed at 14 kHz (with the same start-end values as Lame uses for 32 kHz) with GoldWave, using steepness 20. Sample 2 was lowpassed only (with the start-end values Lame uses for 44.1 kHz).

Sample 1 is Lame 3.89a7 with commandline --resample 32 -m j --abr 103 --nspsytune --ns-bass -8 --athtype 0 --athlower -2 -q 3 -t

Sample 2 is ATRAC3 105 kbps stereo (44.1 kHz - didn't accept 32 kHz input)

Sample 3 is the Radium hacked FhG Pro MP3 96 kbps, 32 kHz, stereo

Conclusion is clearly that Lame is best, but it's odd you found Sample 3 to use a too agressive lowpass, as all were lowpassed at the same value. Maybe FhG uses an internal lowpass at low bitrates below 14 kHz..

Personally, I found Sample 2 the worst - the castanets all sounded like they "rolled over" in each other. Was really horrible before I added the lowpass.

ATRAC3 (Sony MDLP) ACM codec.

Reply #23 –
[deleted]

ATRAC3 (Sony MDLP) ACM codec.

Reply #24 –
You think ATRAC3 at 132 kbps would beat MP3 at 128? Maybe we should do a new test between Lame and ATRAC3 at those bitrates. Can use a higher lowpass then too, so we can see which reproduces fidelity better.