MPEG-1 Audio Layer III HD more commonly known and advertised by its abbreviation mp3HD is an audio compression

codec A codec is a device or computer program that encodes or decodes a data stream or signal. ''Codec'' is a portmanteau of coder/decoder. In electronic communications, an endec is a device that acts as both an encoder and a decoder on a signal or ...

developed by

Technicolor Technicolor is a series of Color motion picture film, color motion picture processes, the first version dating back to 1916, and followed by improved versions over several decades. Definitive Technicolor movies using three black and white films ...

formerly known as Thomson. It achieves

lossless data compression Lossless compression is a class of data compression that allows the original data to be perfectly reconstructed from the compressed data with no loss of information. Lossless compression is possible because most real-world data exhibits statistic ...

, and is backwards compatible with the

MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...

format by storing two data streams in one file. As of April 2013, the MP3HD website, specification and encoder software are no longer available, and promotion of the format appears to have been abandoned.

Development

mp3HD was released in March 2009 as a lossless competitor to the already popular FLAC,

Apple Lossless The Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC), also known as Apple Lossless, or Apple Lossless Encoder (ALE), is an audio coding format, and its reference audio codec implementation, developed by Apple Inc. for lossless data compression of digital music ...

, and WavPack. In theory, the format provides a convenient container in the form of a single file, which includes the standard lossy stream playable on any mp3-capable device and the lossless data which is stored in the ID3v2 tag. To play the lossless data, the user needs a compatible mp3HD player with decoder - otherwise, only the lossy data will be played. Also, being a compression method, files produced by the algorithm are substantially smaller than the uncompressed source files, though they are roughly comparable to other similar lossless formats. The format is still in development with Technicolor releasing tools for consumers who are into the format. Sites are saying that it can be the one that achieves mainstream adoption, due to the advantage that the mp3 brand is well known. Since 2009 Technicolor has updated the format and encoding tools to make it more efficient, while also adding a plugin for

Winamp Winamp is a media player for Microsoft Windows originally developed by Justin Frankel and Dmitry Boldyrev by their company Nullsoft, which they later sold to AOL in 1999 for $80 million. It was then acquired by Radionomy in 2014. Sinc ...

(Windows only), a

DirectShow DirectShow (sometimes abbreviated as DS or DShow), codename Quartz, is a multimedia framework and API produced by Microsoft for software developers to perform various operations with media files or streams. It is the replacement for Microsoft's ea ...

filter for

Windows Media Player Windows Media Player (WMP) is the first media player (application software), media player and media library application that was developed by Microsoft for playing sound reproduction, audio, video and viewing images on personal computers runnin ...

, and a mp3HD converter. On October 7, 2010, Topspin, a music distributor became the first retailer to start offering mp3HD files, stating that now their customers can have lossless audio without leaving the mp3 format. Technicolor are also saying that the agreement is very important for the growth of the format. Starting June 19, 2011 Technicolor and 10 ambassadors and Sound Souvenirs are doing a marketing campaign where they will transform 10 songs into mp3HD. People get to vote for 100 songs from their top charts which ends July 21 and the top 10 get to be mp3HD files.

Encoding

So far, the only available mp3HD encoder is the Technicolor toolkit which contains a command-line encoder and decoder. This can be used with the

Exact Audio Copy Exact Audio Copy (EAC) is a CD ripping program for Microsoft Windows. The program has been developed by Andre Wiethoff since 1998. Wiethoff's motivation for creating the program was that other such software only performed jitter correction whil ...

to rip CDs into WAVE files and then automatically convert them to mp3HD files. Another method, only available for

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ser ...

is the mp3HD Converter, which converts already uncompressed WAVE files to mp3HD and can also decompress them back to WAVE files. Currently mp3HD supports CD audio (PCM) at 44.1 and 48 kHz sampling rates at 16 bit/sample. Nero Burning Rom also supports converting to mp3HD with Nero Recode.

Audio quality

The lossless mp3HD stream allows for 100% bit-exact replication of CD-quality audio tracks. Average bitrates vary between to depending on genre, similar to other lossless codecs. The lossy stream uses the same bit rates as a normal mp3 file and the lossy portion can even use VBR or CBR depending on the user's preference for compression and quality.

Pros and cons

Pros *Exact replica of a CD *Lossy/lossless hybrid *Size is about the same compared to other lossless formats *Backwards compatible with standard MP3 players *retains .mp3 file extension *Embedded mp3 track and the mp3HD file share the same

ID3 ID3 is a metadata container most often used in conjunction with the MP3 audio file format. It allows information such as the title, artist, album, track number, and other information about the file to be stored in the file itself. There are tw ...

metadata *Popularity of the mp3 brand Cons *Not very widespread *Lack of support *Bigger than standard mp3 *No quality boost if player only supports standard mp3 *The lossless part is stored in an

ID3v2 ID3 is a metadata container most often used in conjunction with the MP3 audio file format. It allows information such as the title, artist, album, track number, and other information about the file to be stored in the file itself. There are two ...

tag. *Size of

tags is limited to by specifications; as a result, lossless part of an mp3hd file can't be larger than . *Editing certain information in the ID3v2 tag can sometimes result in losing the lossless data stored in the tag, making the mp3HD file a standard MP3.

Products that support mp3HD

Hardware *Samsung IceTouch (YP-H1), Samsung announced that they will be releasing the first mp3 player capable of playing mp3HD lossless part of the format at CES 2010. They were supposed to be released sometime in 2010, but as of April 8, 2011 nothing has been released. *Samsung YP-Z3 is the world first mp3 player released to support mp3HD (released end of August 2011) *Samsung YP-R2 (released in November 2011) Software *Winamp w/ plugin (Windows only) *Windows Media Player w/ direct show filter *mp3/HD/surround/SX player (Windows and Mac)

Alternative technologies

Lossless * FLAC *

WavPack WavPack is a free and open-source lossless audio compression format and application implementing the format. It is unique in the way that it supports hybrid audio compression alongside normal compression which is similar to how FLAC works. It ...

* TTA *

References

{{Reflist

External links

Technical specificationDownload
Audio codecs Digital audio Lossless audio codecs MP3 MPEG Technicolor SA