THOMSON mp3PRO

THOMSON mp3PRO Decoder Plug-in for Winamp 
(Also Media Monkey)


1) Introduction
---------------

The THOMSON mp3PRO Decoder Plug-in adds support for fully enhanced
Playback of mp3PRO-encoded digital audio to Nullsoft Winamp v2.x

The new mp3PRO format offers significantly improved audio quality
over a wide range of bit rates, while remaining completely backwards
compatible with standard MPEG-2 Layer-3 Audio (aka "mp3").

For more information about the mp3PRO Digital Audio format,
availability of mp3PRO-enabled applications and products, including
demo software to encode your music in mp3PRO format, please visit
either

http://www.mp3PROzone.com
or

http://www.thomson-multimedia.com 

on the Internet

For information about licensing mp3PRO technology please visit

http://www.mp3licensing.com



2) Installation / Configuration
-------------------------------

The installation process copied the mp3PRO Decoder to your Winamp's
plug-in directory, which makes it show up in Winamp's preferences
panel as an input plug-in. If you had an older version installed
it has been replaced by this version. This plug-in supports local and
streaming HTTP playback of both mp3PRO and plain mp3 files, several
configuration options can be adjusted in the plug-in's settings dialog
box.

Since the mp3PRO format is fully backwards compatible with
standard mp3, the mp3PRO-enhanced plug-in works as a replacement to
the mp3 decoder plug-in previously installed on your Winamp.

The mp3PRO plug-in can be enabled or disabled by checking/unchecking
the "Enable" checkbox control in the "General" decoder settings dialog
box tab (since one may needs to use the Nullsoft plug-in to explore
functionalities which the THOMSON mp3PRO Decoder does not offer).

For the mp3PRO Decoder plug-in to be actually used for playback, you might
have to disable the Nullsoft MPEG audio decoder plug-in by removing "mp3"
from its file extension list, or unchecking "mp3" ("Layer III" resp.)
support in its configuration dialog box, depending on the version at hand.
Please note that the mp3PRO Decoder plug-in is not intended to handle
MPEG Layer-1 and/or Layer-2 audio, so you might want to make sure that
your default MPEG decoder remains active for those formats.

The mp3PRO decoder's HTTP streaming options, including support for proxy
servers, can be configured in the settings dialog's "Streaming" tab.

If you want to uninstall this plugin, simply remove the file in_mp3PRO.dll
from your Winamp's plug-in directory.

3) System Requirements
----------------------

* 200MHz or faster IBM-compatible PC, equipped with a soundcard and
  running Windows XP, 9x, NT or 2000 (Windows XP or 2000, Pentium II or
  better CPU recommended).

* Nullsoft Winamp 2.x (the plugin was checked with 2.75, 2.76 and 2.78,
  other versions might work as well, but your mileage may vary).


4) About mp3PRO Digital Audio
-----------------------------

mp3PRO is the combination of standard mp3 audio and Coding Technologies'
Spectral Band Replication (SBR) enhancement technique, while being backwards
and forwards compatible. The new mp3PRO format offers significantly improved
audio quality over a wide range of bit rates.

Using advanced psychoacoustics techniques and music structure analysis,
mp3PRO creates files that are more compact than original mp3 files, with
great sound quality. You will be able to play all of your old mp3 files.
New mp3PRO files will play normally on old mp3 players, but without the
dramatic mp3PRO improvements. Of course, new mp3PRO files played with
this plug-in or any mp3PRO-enhanced application, will provide the optimal
listening experience.

The resulting performance of mp3PRO is significantly higher than that of
mp3. mp3PRO at 64 kbps performs better than mp3 at 96 kbps, offering a
convenient way to drastically improve the storage efficiency of portable
players. Products with full mp3PRO encoding functionality will allow a
broad variety of encoder configurations, including higher compression
(48 kbps and below for stereo) and higher bit rates offering enhanced
audio bandwidth (>= 20 kHz) and quality.

For streaming applications, mp3PRO will help to increase the audio bandwidth
of the compressed signal, giving it a substantial audio quality boost over
current streaming mp3 formats at the same bitrate. This means improvements
to every aspect of your digital music listening experience: faster download
times, higher audio quality streaming music, and increased storage capacity.


5) License / Terms of Use
-------------------------

The mp3PRO Decoder Plug-in is provided for your personal use within Winamp
only.

By installing this software on your computer you accept and agree to be
bound by the terms of the accompanying license agreement.

Copyright (c) 2002 Coding Technologies GmbH.



TIP :::

You can get MP3Pro DLL from here:::

http://www.mediamonkey.com/addons