Fraunhofer MP3 Surround Encoder

[EfaustuS9]

The developers of the mp3 format (fraunhofer institute) have released a new surround mp3 encoder and I figured it just may interest a few here.

The Article:
http://www.techspot.com/story16434.html

The Encoder:
http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/amm/download/mp3surround/index.html

[deeder7001]

it sucks that i don't have a PIII.

[gaekwad2]

http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=201012&highlight
http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=200954&highlight

Originally posted by Erwin_D
Of cource I tried to play the surround MP3's. They do work in Fraunhofer's player. But after listening to those awfull songs and playing around with the mixer, I can say I am really not impressed :(

Playing all channels sounds OK, and you do get a sense of surround. But cut out one channel, and the whole illusion is lost. It is even worse playing a single channel.

The whole technology seems to be based on a frequency matrix, where a standard stereo stream is distributed to the 5 (or more) channels by deviding it by specific frequency bands. Singling out one channel reveals this all too well. NONE of the channels carries an entire frequency band. You'll hear only those frequencies associated with a particular instrument.

This also would explain the 'backward compatibility', since the basis is always a stereo signal. The closest technology it resembles is Dolby Surround Pro-Logic, which is also based on creating a surround effect from a stereo signal.

So this is not real surround by any means. This will make the technology unusable for encoding movies, ie. DIVX with MP3 Surround is out of the question.

So, my advice: Don't bother...

[peaceofcake]

Don't most 5.1 soundcards, speakers, and recievers have upmixing?

[nybergh]

Sigh... this looks like bullshit.
It's called, it's called.... Dolby Surround Encoded LAME Files

That's compatible and standard-respecting. This looks even more pathetic than mp3pro back in 2002.
check out http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/amm/download/mp3surround/downloadpage.html
OMG they have a winamp-plugin :igor:.

[mikm]

Originally posted by mistergecko
Don't most 5.1 soundcards, speakers, and recievers have upmixing? Of course. MP3-surround has a seperate audio stream for every channel.