New generation MP3 music format released

Thomson, one of the MP3 format development companies, said it has developed a new generation MP3 format called MP3HD .

Thomson has designed the website for these two new formats ( All4MP3.com and MP3HD.com ), and revealed that the experimental encoder it provides will enable users to create quality MP3HD files. 16-bit, and .WAV files encoded 44.1-KHz. Thomson also provides Windows WinAmp MP3HD plug-in to playback the files.

A special feature of the new MP3HD format is that the sound quality is not degraded. The MP3 format still suffers from this situation because people have to apply algorithms to reduce the size of the file. Then, some audio content will be lost, disrupting the integrity of the original sound.

The biggest advantage of MP3HD is that it is backward compatible with the current MP3 format. This capability makes MP3HD more accessible to today's unabated sound market, which has FLAC, HD-AAC and Windows Media's own format.

'MP3HD is actually a .mp3 file with additional information stored in the id3 tag, including data such as musician's name, song title, etc. So if the music player does not yet support this format, they still it's a simple mp3 file , 'Thomson said.

According to the company, the new format supports bitrate of about 500-900Kbit / s. A 4-minute rock song encoded at 876Kbit / s will be equivalent to 26MB, while other songs encoded at 786 Kbits / s or 605 Kbits / s will be 23.5MB or 18MB in size. .

However, the other problem here is that Thomson's new codecs are not free. The company collected 75 cents per PC software decoder, and about $ 2.5 to $ 5 per codec. The hardware decoding fee will be $ 1.25 for a hardware codec. This is regarded as Thomson's royalty fee. Currently the company has not announced which manufacturer will buy this decoder.