mp3 Software Guide

Advanced Streaming Format is Microsoft’s own digital audio/video container format and is part of the Windows media framework. It can store compressed audio and video content that can be played back using a media player equipped with the proper codec. This extensible file format is designed to keep coordinated multimedia data and supports advanced multimedia capabilities that include extensible media types, component download, and scaleable media. Windows Media Video (WMV) and Windows Media Audio (WMA) are the most common files found in an ASF file and can use the ASF extension. These files can also include the metadata for the audio/video file similar to ID3 tags for MP3 files.

Most file conversion programs resists doing their business on protected music that may be encoded with DRM but with this software, it becomes easy as pie. DRM is actually software that is programmed along with the song tracks that tells your desktop or encoder that it cannot be copied without the proper software, they can be done legally for personal use, ready for transfer to your favorite media player or other media enabled devices. Most mobiles and smartphones have the ability to support media in the MP3 format yet they must be encoded with a proper balance between sound quality and file size. Most mobile devices support the MP3 audio file format along with many other popular ones that are used by proprietary players and gadgets. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the many file conversion utilities around to get those tunes converted to the best formats that can be used on just about anything that can play digital media. Capable of converting audio files to Windows and even Mac supported players, it can convert to the many formats that may be required by the many media players out on the market. Loaded with several popular codecs, it can handle and convert to and from just about any format so you get to playing your tunes on your gadget or mobile device. Read the rest of this entry »

A free windows media file converter, many see it as one of the easiest to use though quite primal in appearance, it is free anyway. It has the ability to convert into many of the most popular audio file formats that can handle batch conversion to and from supported audio formats. As stated, like many free converters and software in general, it is quite free so simplicity is the norm and not too many fancy menus and other features can be found. It gets the job done, plain and simple no fuss no mess. Read the rest of this entry »

The software is an collection of very useful tools for audio media fans, a player, ripper and recorder that can do just about anything as long as it’s with audio files. You can convert media formats form onto to another allowing upload and use on popular media devices out on the market to date. Have your favorite CD and want to take it with you, then convert the audio tracks into digital ones that can be uploaded and played on your digital player. Want to streamline your media library, convert larger audio files into simpler MP3, one of the formats that has the best compression ratios compared to other file formats. Read the rest of this entry »

Open source mp3 software Songbird is hoping to displace Apple’s widely successful iTunes from its lofty perch above the MP3 software pyramid. Here’s some excerpts from the news article:

Start-up company Pioneers of the Inevitable released an early test version of their open-source Songbird music software on Wednesday, with which they ultimately hope to undermine the dominance of Apple’s iTunes.

The small company is hoping to create “the Firefox of MP3″, a reference to the open-source Web browser that has eaten into Microsoft’s Internet Explorer market share.

Songbird is indeed built on some of the same open-source technologies as the Firefox Web browser, and hopes to tap into the community of independent developers that has helped add features to Firefox.

Here is the original article.

The software is touted to be one of the best recording software around according the the thousands of downloads on CNET. Used by bedroom dj’s and professionals alike, the software allows full control and mixing of digital music allowing you to control each and every aspect of the music mixing. Using an innovative BeatBlock engine the song stay on beat all the time each and every time, making it faster than traditional mixing techniques we have been used to in the many disco’s and dance studios from all over. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’ve always had trouble converting MP3s to different type of formats then the newest software, called Nidesoft MP3 converter will help you a lot:

With this professional software, you could put the video and audio files to iPod, PSP, Zune,MP4 players, etc.. It works as Total Video to Music Converter and Audio Converter. Nidesoft MP3 Converter could also work as common MP3 Encoder, which helps to Encode WAV to MP3 format with high speed and adjustable quality. On the other hand it could Decode MP3 or other music files to WAV format so you could burn it on CD disc.

Features of Nidesoft MP3 Converter
1. Nidesoft MP3 Converter is equipped with a user-friendly interface and an easy-to-use style, bringing convenience to users.
2. Supported input media formats: MOV, WMV, FLV, MPEG-4, MPG, RM, RMVB, AVI, DivX, XviD, VOB, ASF, DV, 3GP, M1V and M2V.
3. Supported output audio formats: MP3, WAV, OGG, AMR, MP2, AAC, M4V etc.
4. Support all popular players: support iPod, Zune, iPhone, Apple TV, PSP, PS3, Xbox 360, Archos, Sandisk, iRiver, Creative Zen, PMP, MP4/MP3 Player, Smart Phone, Pocket PC, PDA, Mobile Phone, etc.
5. Users could preview the video and listen to the music before convert.
6. It even provide several video profiles include video to iPod, video to MP4, etc.
7. Free online and e-mail technical support, provide the best and quick service for you.

For more details go here.

Image Source: quadropolis.us

Moving Picture Experts Group Audio Layer 3 Uniform Resource Locator or MP3 URL or simply M3U is a simple computer file format. Its main purpose is to store multimedia playlists. It first came out as an implementation in Winamp. It was then that the following applications supported its use up to this day. An M3U file is just a plain text file that contains the location of each media files saved in a play list. It then tells the media player what song to play when and which file will follow. The locations can be absolute or relative path names. M3U is also commonly used for creating a play list which contains data that points to a stream in the Web. In that way, the M3U provides an easier way of accessing that stream.

Image source: www.winamp.downloaden.ws
First things first, make sure you’ve downloaded and installed Winamp, the Flac with library support plug-in for Winamp, and iTunes, all of which are free.
There are two steps in converting your .flac files to .mp3. The first is to decode the .flac’s into .wav files. After that’s done, you’ll encode the .wav files into .mp3’s.

Steps in decoding .flac files with Winamp
1. Open Winamp and select Options and then Preferences… (note: if you’re using the “classic version” skin, open the Winamp Preferences by clicking the Control and p keys on your keyboard)

2. Select Output from the Plug-ins section of the left window, and then select Nullsoft Disk Writer. Click Configure.

3. Click the Directory: button so you can choose a location to save the .wav files

4. Navigate to the folder you want to save the .wav files in. I usually save them in the same folder as the .flac files.

5. Click OK to return to the Preferences window, and then Close to return to Winamp. Now select File -> Play file… and navigate to the folder with your .flac files. Select all of the .flac files by single-clicking the first file, holding down the Shift key on your keyboard, and then single-clicking the last file. When all of the files are selected, click Open

6. Press the Play button. Winamp will now decode the .flac files and turn them into .wav files. It typically takes about 20 seconds to convert a 5 minute song, but this depends on how “fast” your PC is.
Once Winamp is done decoding the files, make sure to set the Plug-ins -> Output back to DirectSound output, or the next time you try to play a file using Winamp, it will decode that file instead.
Check to make sure all of the .wav files were created.