The new version 5.0 (official release dated Dec 24, 2002) of the JetAudio player/encoder is able to play and produce mp3PRO files with its input and output plugins that come with the complete package (~15 MB). I did not bother to download it because of its size, but for other users this software might be very interesting, because it's completely freeware and capable of almost every audio format I know, including RealAudio (maybe even without the need to install RealPlayer first like with Winamp, but I'm only guessing this).

If someone decides to test it, please tell me if all constant and variable bitrates can be used with the mp3PRO format. That would be the first freeware application which is able to do this and could even change my mind about bloated apps... Here's the link again:

http://www.jetaudio.com/products/jetaudio/index.html

No MPC support?

I remember this player being pretty good back in the old days. Haven't used it since version 4 so i will give this a try... maybe we should all e-mail them to add mpc support!

Jet Audio has problem in mp3 decoder quality. It cut the frequency above 16kHz off. I used to use it because of its completeness. You can watch movie as well. Its equalizer not really good though it is 20 bands.

What was the last version you used? Because they seem to have fixed various bugs in the past time, also related to MP3 decoding, look here:

http://www.jetaudio.com/products/jetaudio/...nfo_50beta.html

jetAudio Beta 4:

< Updated items of jetAudio 5.0 Beta 3 >

Fixed Bug

- jetAudio
1. Speed Function error.
2. Last Track name problem in CD Ripping.
3. CRC Problem in old mp3 file.
4. Always On top Ploblem in Default Skin.
5. Problem When Right mouse Click button..
6. play list window positioning problem.
7. Problem in Ogg Decoging Engine(some ogg file does not play or make noise).
8. Problem in CD Recording (Disc-at-once somtimes not working with CD-R Media).
9. Problem in Quick Track with DISK mode play.
10. Problem in CD-Rip window
11. Problem in MP3 Decoging Engine(some mp3 file does not play or make noise)
12. Some RM File Does not play.
13. Streamming problem. (ex: mms://)

- jetCast
1. Problem in Microphone sound distortion with Reverb sound effect
2. Communication problem with jetCast directory server
3. jetCast Problem in windows98
4. Crossfade Problem

New Features

- jetAudio

1. Timer in Recording function.
2. Added Function for Mouse Wheel
3. Alpha Blending support for main window(Only windows2000 windows Xp)
4. Various MP3 decoder
- Float32bit, Float 64bit, Fixed point 32bit decoding Engine
- jetAudio 4.X Decoder
5. Various OGG decoder
- Float32bit, Float64bit Decoding Engine
6. Support Sound Effects and Spectrum for WMV, ASF, MPG, AVI File Format
7. Advanced TAG Editing
- ID3V2 Editing
- OGG, APE, WMA TAG Editing
- Lyric / Picture insert in TAG
8. Auto Update album when Folder is changed (Monitoring)
9. Store Information Viewer position and Status
10. Support mp3PRO File Format

- jetCast
1. Added Information for Broadcasting Station
- Age, Ment ot not , Schedule Configuration etc...
2. Advanced Configuration

The older bugfixes are also mentioned on this page.

Yes, please... I also couldn't find out if it will run on Win95 and what the minimum system requirements are (probably quite high), but it seems to work at least with Win98 and newer Windows versions.



As far as I've understood the passage on the overview page (under "structure"), they are completely open to user suggestions and/or extensions, even providing a SDK for this purpose. This could also be useful for a MPEG-2 AAC support, although JetAudio already seems to able to play MPEG-4 AAC files because of the "QuickTime MP4" format.

Look there: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....=ST&f=24&t=5233

I think closing the topic is very anti-competitive but if they do provide a sdk, would case or frank have a go?

I know - that's the reason I got interested in this player, so your posting wasn't useless at all...

[/QUOTE]What was the last version you used? Because they seem to have fixed various bugs in the past time, also related to MP3 decoding, look here:[QUOTE]

Has anybody tried this new Jetaudio yet? The mp3 decoder engine seems still the same like previous version, it has 32bit even (64-bit?) I have version 4.95. moreover in the changes log, there is no list of the change of mp3 decoder quality. In V4.95, there is also floating point 64-bit, but the freq cut off still there. There is no reason for throw away high frequency in such high bit(64-bit)...

I don't want to download such a big program without knowing its quality yet. Anyway, if they have fixed this problem, definitely I will love this program out of it can't play mpc.

Jet-Audio 5.xx has two decoders. 1) Fraunhofer Decoder->The best there is and 2) Jet-Audio 4.xx Decoder->my favourite. I really loved their 4.xx version. I still haven't tried 5.xx and the developers claim that 5.xx uses less system resources when compared to 4.xx. The audio quality has always been superior.

How do you know that the MP3 decoder would "throw away high frequencies", by judging the spectrum analyzer graph of a test file or by some other method? Did they mention this as a known problem or did you just read it somewhere else maybe?

Try to play file (mp3) in jetaudio and set the output to .wav then try to see its spectrum using cool edit or sth else. Try in the highest quality possible 64-bit, because lower bit really bad (missing a lot of freq) not only in high freq.

I have used Winamp 2 and 3. I am presently using the QCD player with great results. But I'll try anything once. I installed the beta version of Jet Audio 5. BLOATWARE! I realize that this is just a beta, but c'mon! Also, Jet Audio kept crashing on my otherwise stable Win 2K machine. I promptly un-installed it.

I still reccomend Winamp 2.81 or QCD for something a bit different. Cheers!

--Dave

Well, it's bound to happen, so I'll volunteer. (I need to boost my post count anyway. ) For alternative players, one should check out Foobar2000. Minimal memory usage. Minimal processor usage. It's not flashy... it unobtrusivly plays music.

Do one thing and do it well.

I downloaded JetAudio 5.0 Basic (16MB)
Is this the beta version? At first I thought it was kinda cool, but it
appears to be using 18 MB RAM when it runs!
I like the ability to tweak the speed and pitch, but it could have more
funny presets, besides "robot". I haven't tried encoding yet,
although I see no reason to give it a try, besides mp3pro, that is...

I downloaded the 15MB pack. Mp3pro playback is fine (VBR and CBR). But I can't convert anything in mp3pro : only vorbis, monkey, wma and real. Not mp3 And :
· Vorbis configuration is useless (only steps, and -q0 and -q5 are missing )
· Real : old codec
· wma9, but no VBR, 2-pass, lossless or "pro" mode. Nothing above 128 kbps.

Nice player, but encoding tools are very limited.



EDIT : funny thing, JetAudio vorbis configuration is biased :

Encode anything at « 128 kbps », and you will have :

length : 1:48
average bitrate : 90 kbps
file size : 1,224,463 bytes
nominal bitrate : 104 kbps
channels : 2
sampling rate: 44100 Hz
serial number: 0
version : 0
<span style='color:green'>vendor :
JetAudio 20020717 http://www.jetaudio.com </span>

JetAudio table is :

80 kbps => 65 kbps
96 kbps => 78 kbps
128 kbps => 104 kbps
192 kbps => 160 kbps
256 kbps => 201 kbps
320 kbps => 300 kbps
450 kbps => 499 kbps

Nice philosophy... Are these new values an approximation of mp3 quality ? 104 kbps with vorbis is equal to 128 with lame or fhg ? What can we expect now : Audiocatalyst 3.0 with vorbis support, and « 128 kbps = -q 0 »

Thanks for the correction of the download size, I must have mixed something up. Well, good to know that at least the mp3PRO playback works... do they use the Winamp input plugin from Coding Technologies maybe? I wonder how they want to encode mp3PRO files for free, because even the Gracenote SDK plus license only allows free mp3PRO playback, as far as I know.

By the way, the admin of http://www.mp3pro.com also reported the same difficulties with mp3PRO encoding, so there must be something wrong here, either a bug in the release version or the JetAudio website claiming to support this. Nevertheless it's a good idea in my opinion to enable several input formats for a conversion to different output formats, even APE, WMA9 and MP3 (although there seems to be a bug with that option, too, if you're correct). So the only important input formats still missing are MPC and FLAC, as it seems.

Did you already test the playback of MP4 files produced with Nero or PsyTEL (when converted to MPEG-4) maybe? And what about playing RealAudio streams without a RealPlayer being installed? This could be a strong argument for installing JetAudio instead, although it is indeed very big compared to Winamp 2.x. or even Foobar.

Was this release stable on your OS so far, by the way? The bitrate weirdness you reported seems to show that there are still some bugs in this version, perhaps someone should report them so they can be sorted out... or maybe the developer is reading HA already, who knows?

Addendum:

This news page on the JetAudio site says that version 5.0 from Dec 24 was the official release already and that Beta 4 came out on Nov 14, 2002. This also means that the changelog from the Beta page I mentioned earlier in this thread hasn't been updated by them yet. I also can't change the subject of this thread by myself, so I'm sorry for any misunderstandings that might arise from this:

http://www.jetaudio.com/news/index.html

Geez, I've never ever edited a posting so often, must be the "Restalkohol" I guess... JetAudio has an own support forum with some debates going on about the official release:

http://www.jetaudio.com/jetcast_directory/...anguage=english

My version of JetAduio 5 is the final version (I downloaded it yesterday).

And mp3 [edit : sorry, I meant output]



Tried to play an mp4 file (Ahead) :

Can't find QuickTime engine.
Please install QuickTime to play QuickTime files.
You can download QT from http://www.quicktime.com

aac files (PsyTEL) are not played at all.



I tried streaming by drag and drop,doesn't work.Tried the new real format (ext *.rmj) : doesn't work. Tried encrypted atrac3 from Sonic Stage and OpenMG : doesn't work too, even with the directshow filter (WMP can play them).


16MB...

With no current MPC support I'd say it would be a waste of a download, a big, slow download.

The mystery about the MP3 output plugin is solved when you click on the "online store" button on their website.

http://www.jetaudio.com/onlinestore/index.html

So JetAudio is not completely freeware if you want to convert a source file to MP3. This is probably the answer to the lacking mp3PRO support, too...

By the way, if they decided to take the Gracenote offer (because of the free mp3PRO decoder), they also could have used a FhG MP3 codec and license for free as long as they don't take money for JetAudio. So I don't quite understand what's going on there, because LAME would be another alternative for MP3 encodings of course.



OK, then they rely on an installed QuickTime 6 version which should have been mentioned on their website, too. And again, FAAD2 would be the better alternative...



Thank you very much for testing, I hope the administrator of their web forum will answer to this thread somehow, either here or there.

As I have been away for some time, I feel a little left behind with the latest audio compression technology. Can someone please answer the following questions for me

1. whats so good about mp3PRO?
2. I get the feeling its better that mp3Standard but, is it better than aac/mp4, ogg, or mpc?
3. does jet audio allow you to convert rm / ram files to other formats?

thanx

In my opinion it's one of the best formats right now for low bitrates around 64 kbps. Perhaps you've already read my former descriptions concerning the c't listening back then, so I don't have to repeat them again. Here's a new link referring to the EBU listening test from 2002 where mp3PRO and aacPlus were compared to other formats:

http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/021206/049434.html

Keep in mind that there is no official test report from the EBU yet and that this description mentions the quality of mp3PRO at 64 kbps, while aacPlus was the winner at 48 kbps (see Coding Technologies news site or http://www.ebu.ch/trev_291-dietz.pdf on this issue.)



It's only better at low bitrates than MP3, but not at higher ones normally used for archiving CDs etc., because the SBR method rather disturbs at these bitrate levels than it would help. So there is a border where it no longer makes sense to use SBR and better use the standard codec (MP3 or AAC). Probably the MPEG working group is in the process right now to find out where this border lies, because they decided to implement SBR as a core part of the MPEG-4 standard which means that AAC has to take over from aacPlus within this standard at some point, maybe around 64 or 80 kbps.



The answer to this question only depends on your main purpose for any compression format and your sensitivity to certain artifacts, so I can't answer this for you.



I don't know, but judging from their website it should be able to do this, because RealAudio is even mentioned as a possible target format for converting from several input formats. So the other way round should be even easier...

Where did aacPlus come from. I think I have been away for too long.

please supply link so I can download aacPlus encoder and decoder.

So, mp3PRO is 1 of the best for bitrates around 64Kbps! aacPlus is best for bitrates around 48 kbps! However, mp3 is better at high bitrates.

does this also apply to aac and aacPlus i.e. aacPlus is better than aac at low bitrates but aac is better than aacPlus at high bitrates?

Are any of them better than ogg at low bitrates. Im asking this because the last time a was here (which was a few months ago) ogg was best at lowbit rates

Hey - the line starts behind me!

It comes from Coding Technologies.



There is no publically available version, because this MPEG-4 extension hasn't been standardized by the committee yet. This will happen in May 2003 according to their time schedule. Nevertheless important hardware manufactures are already signing contracts with Coding Technologies for a future hardware implementation of aacPlus:

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/021212/120071_1.html



Yes, that's why I mentioned this "border line" between both formats where plain AAC will sound better than aacPlus.



It depends on who you ask: I've stopped considering Vorbis to be an alternative for low bitrates since the c't test, but others will tell you that it's the greatest thing on earth (and beyond). So there's no other chance than to do some own comparisons if you really wanna know this for yourself and your preferences in music etc. Perhaps the GUI you developed back then would serve you well for this purpose.

By the way, besides my favorite codec in that test (FhG AAC, not available publically) I also liked WMA9 at 64 kbps, even a little bit more than mp3PRO. So perhaps you should also compare this format to others, if you are considering to encode anything at these low bitrates.

The upgrade to the retail version of Jet-Audio 4.xx was released recently. You can encode to MP3 and MP3Pro only if you've bought the retail version of jetAudio 4.xx and upgraded it. By the way, jetAudio has been my favourite player for quite some time now. If you compare jetAudio 5.0 to winamp3, then jetAudio is a gift from heaven. winamp3 is the most sc@#w*d-up player I've ever come across in my life. It hogs up resources like mad and takes an eternity to load on my machine. Anyway, jetAudio's installation package is big since it also bundles M$ Media codecs along with the actual program. Considering what it can do, IMHO, it's not that bad. I still like it.

At bit rates of 64 kbps and less, AAC+ is definitely better than Vorbis (or anything else) - but you will have to trust on my word until AAC+SBR encoders start to appear in end-user software

So does the "Basic" version of JetAudio v5 convert to mp3 or mp3Pro as it stands?

Or do you have to buy an upgrade to do this?

The JetAudio site is not clear about this.

No, not yet, because the release of the MP3/mp3PRO extension from Jan 8, 2003 is only for the older v4.x. Probably they will come out with an extension for v5.0 soon, but it will cost some money (nobody knows how much at the moment, though).

Thanks. So basically it does not do what it says on the packet unless you spend more money. To date they cannot say how much or when this will happen. Shame on JetAudio.