Syntrillium Software- Technical FAQ


  Cool Edit MPEG Layer III support
 
Cool Edit and Cool Edit Pro support MPEG Layer III compression indirectly through MS NetShow or any other distribution of the ACM Codec for MP3 compression. Using this, you can save wave files with MP3 compression. Note that you won't be able to open/save raw (*.mp3) files via this tool. This tool will only create and load Wave (*.wav) files with MP3 compression. If you need to open or save as raw MP3, see our beta filters.

To acquire a free (limited to 56 kbps) MPEG 3 codec from Microsoft, download the MS Netshow real-Time Encoder, Content Creation Tools, Tools and Client SDK. The file name is "nstools.exe". This is the part that has the MPEG Layer III encoder. Please note that Windows Media Player's MPEG filter is not an ACM filter and Cool Edit can NOT use it to write or read MPEG files. You must have an ACM Codec MPEG filer for Cool Edit to be able to read and write MPEG files.

Install this, or any other codec, on your system and restart Windows to activate all the new filters. You will now be able to encode at the quality levels allowed by your new codec.
You can confirm the existence of MPEG Layer III on your machine by following the steps below.

    Windows 95:

  1. My computer
  2. Control Panel
  3. Multimedia
  4. Advanced
  5. Audio Compression Codecs
  6. Fraunhofer IIS MPEG Layer-3 codec
    Windows 98/NT 4.0:

  1. My computer
  2. Control Panel
  3. Multimedia
  4. Devices
  5. Audio Compression Codecs
  6. Fraunhofer IIS MPEG Layer-3 codec

Now, your Cool Edit application is able to Save your wave files with MPEG Layer III compression. Follow the instructions below to do so:

  1. Run Cool Edit (pro)
  2. Open file.
  3. File
  4. Save as
  5. ACM Waveform (*.wav)
  6. Click on Options
  7. Select MPEG Layer-3 for Format.
  8. Click on Ok and save the file.
You can open the file you just created like any other wave file. There is no special option menu for you to go through to open wave files with MPEG compression. Simply select File > Open to open your wave file.


Note1:
Cool Edit and Cool Edit Pro support any MPEG Layer-3 ACM CODEC, including the one that is distributed for free with Microsoft's Netshow (as described above). Some users have noted that the Netshow CODEC is limited to a sampling frequency of 22,000 Hz. In order to get a higher sampling rate in the Layer-3 files, you will need to purchase the professional version of the CODEC from a company such as Opticom .


Note2:
We have placed a BETA copy of MPEG Layer III Decoder on our website for you to download and use. Please keep in mind that this is a beta copy and it may not work on all MPEG files. If you have an MPEG Layer 3 codec on your system, you can save audio as RAW Mpeg .mp3 file. You do this by selecting the "ACM Waveform" format, clicking on the option button and choosing MPEG for the format. Then check the box to "Write as RAW data". We have not set a release date for this beta copy. Please do NOT ask us when it will be released. For your information, this filter is based on the code from "maplay" version 1.2. Full source code for this filter can be found at http://support.syntrillium.com/mpeg.htm



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