Be MPEG Audio tools v 0.1beta
=============================
Waleed Kadous
Ideas to Code Software
waleed@cse.unsw.edu.au

What are they?
--------------

The Be MPEG Audio Tools are two simple programs for MPEG-1 audio layer
I and II encoding and decoding under BeOS. It basically consists 
of two programs:

* maplay for BeOS. This is a port of Tobias Bading's unix mpeg audio
playing tool. 

* musicin: This is a port of the MPEG audio encoder available from
the IUMA sound archives. It will encode from AIFF or RAW files. 

What level of completion are they?
----------------------------------

Both tools are to be considered beta. Please see the section on "bugs"
for known bugs. 

How much do they cost?
----------------------

They are free. maplay is distributed under the GNU Public License and 
musicin is compiled from freely available code. The source for my port
of maplay is available from http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~waleed/be/

How well do they perform?
-------------------------

Both programs are quick ports to hold us over until I or someone else 
can do a better job. Even so, I find they are useful.

maplay can play a Layer-II audio stream back at approximately 1/4 
to 1/3 of CPU on a BeBox 133 MHz in real time. 

musicin encodes to Layer-II in approximately 7-10 times real time. Hence
to compress a 3-minute song takes about 20-30 minutes to encode on a BeBox
133 MHz. 

Your mileage may vary. 

What are the known bugs and missing features?
---------------------------------------------

* Both programs are shell-only.

* maplay occasionally "clicks" when the machine is heavily loaded with
  other processes. 

* musicin does not make use of multithreading. 

What features do you plan to add?
---------------------------------

IF (big if) I get requests for these improvements and suggestions
for other improvements, I'll add the following; but only *if* I get
e-mail requests for them. 

* Fix bugs. 

* MPEG Layer-III decoding (layer-III encoding is a bit trickier). 

* Add GUI.

* Implement a BSoundFile derived class for loading MPEG audio files.

My e-mail address (if you have suggestions, ideas, bug reports, etc) 
is waleed@cse.unsw.edu.au.

Where do I get it from?
-----------------------

You can get the main package from BeWare (http://www.be.com) or from
my Web page (http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~waleed/be). The source for
the maplay program can be found at my Web page.

What other places are there on the Web?
---------------------------------------

MPEG standards:         http://www.mpeg.org
Maplay source (non-Be): ftp://ftp.iuma.com/audio_utils/mpeg_players/Workstations/     
Musicin source:         ftp://ftp.iuma.com/audio_utils/converters/source/
MPEG Audio files:       http://www.iuma.com


Thanks
------

The Creator for giving me the ability to do this. 
Tobias Bading for the maplay source.
Jon Watte for his suggestions. 
Paul wong for his ideas on synchronisation.