Principle of mp3 and file format analysis. Part4


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Principle of mp3 and file format analysis. Part4

MP3

The three bytes starting at 1397H are 54 41 47, which store the “TAG” character, indicating that this file has ID3 V1.0 information.

MP3

The 30 bytes starting at 139AH store the name of the song, the first 4 bytes that are not 00 are 54 45 53 54, which means “TEST”;
the 4 bytes starting at 13F4H are 04 19 14 03 and the year of storage is “04/25/2003” ”;
the last byte is 4E, which represents the music category, and the code name is 78, that is, “Rock&Roll”; the
other bytes are all 00, and no information is stored.

4 Conclusions
As an important multimedia data type, people are always looking for more efficient compression methods and new sound file formats. In the MP3 file, the MDCT transform is used, which is a quasi-optimal transform with a simple structure and easy programming, which avoids the problem that the optimal transform (KL) is difficult to solve for the eigenvalues ​​and eigenvectors of the covariance. matrix.

Through the analysis of the MP3 file format, it is not difficult to find its shortcomings. Each frame of an MP3 file has the same 4-byte frame header, which requires some space overhead for an MP3 file with a large number of frames. ID3 stores the music description information. The proprietary, copyright, and other information in the frame header is also description information. The music description information is a bit messy.

In any case, the development of MP3 is unstoppable. MP3 has become a recognized sound data format. MP3 is becoming a hot spot in the field of multimedia information processing along with JPEG images and PDF documents.


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Principle of mp3 and file format analysis. Part 3

Principle of mp3 and file format analysis. Part 3

Mp3tag

The ID3 standard MP3 frame header does not consider storing complex information such as song title, author, album name, year, etc., except some simple music description information such as privacy, copyright and original, which are very necessary in MP3 applications.

mp3 tag

 

 

In 1996, in the “Studio 3” project, FricKemp proposed to add description information for storing songs at the end of the MP3 file and formed the ID3 standard. Until now, ID3 V1.0, V1.1, V2 .0, V2, .3 and V2.4 standards have been formulated. The higher the version, the richer and more detailed the relevant information is recorded.
The ID3 V1.0 standard is not complete and the information stored is too small to store lyrics, album covers, images, etc. V2.0 is a fairly complete standard, but it brings difficulties in writing software, although there are many people in favor of this format, very few are actually implemented in software. The vast majority of MP3s still use the ID3 V1.0 standard. This standard uses the last 128 bytes at the end of the MP3 file to store ID3 information. See Table 3 for instructions on using these 128 bytes.
Table 3 Final ID3 V1.0 File Description
length in
byte (byte) Description
1-3 3 Stores the “TAG” character, which indicates the ID3 V1.0 standard, followed by the song information.
4-33 30 Song name
34-63 30 Author
64-93 30 Album name
94-97 4 Year
98-127 30 Notes
128 1 MP3 music category, a total of 147 types.

3.3 File example
Open a file called test.mp3 in VC++ with the following content:
000000 FF FB 52 8C 00 00 01 49 09 C5 05 24 60 00 2A C1
000010 19 40 A6 00 00 05 96 41 34 18 20 80 08 26 48 29
000020 83 04 00 01 61 41 40 50 04 00 C1 2 41 50 64

0000d0 Fe FF FB 52 80 01 EE 90 65 6E 02 30
0000E0 32 0C CD CD CD CD 46 16 41 89 B8 408 89 300 408
0000F0 33 B7 00 00 01 02 FF FF FF F4 E1 2F FF FF FF FF
……
0001A0 DF FF FF FF FB 52 8C 12 00 E 01 FE 90 58 6E 09 A0 02
000150 8513 B0 AC 45 F6 19 61 26 26
0001C0 05 AC B4 20 28 94 FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF

001390 7F FF FF FF FD 4E 00 54 41 47 54 45 53 54 00 00
0013A0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
001400
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
001410 00 00 00 00 00 00 4E
File length is 1416H (5.142K), frame header is: FF FB 52 8C, converted to binary:
11111111 11111011
01010010
10001100T

Principle of mp3 and file format analysis. Part 2

Principle of mp3 and file format analysis. Part 2

mp3

MP3 uses perceptual audio coding (Perceptual Audio Coding) this distortion algorithm.

mp3

The frequency range of sound perceived by the human ear is 20 Hz to 20 kHz. MP3 cuts out a lot of redundant signals and irrelevant signals. The encoder transforms the original sound into the frequency domain through a mixed filter bank and uses a psychoacoustic model. to estimate that it may be only The perceived noise level is quantized and converted to Huffman coding to form an MP3 bit stream. The decoder is much simpler, its task is to extract the sound signal from the encoded spectral line components through inverse quantization and inverse transformation. The MP3 encoding and decoding process is shown in Figure 1.
2.4 Modified Discrete Cosine Transform The cosine transform
Modified Discrete CT (MDCT) refers to converting a time-domain data set to frequency-domain data in order to know the changes in the time domain. MDCT is an enhancement of the DCT algorithm. The first fast algorithm is fast Fourier transform (FFT), but FFT has complex operations, MDCT are real operations, easy to program.
When compressing audio data, first divide the original sound data into fixed blocks, and then perform direct MDCT (direct MDCT) to convert the value of each block into MDCT 512 coefficients. The 512 coefficients are restored to the original sound data, and The original before and after sound data is inconsistent because redundant and irrelevant data is removed during the compression process. The FMDCT transformation formula is:
k=0, 1,
.
n0=(N/2+1)/2, X(n) is the time domain value, X(k) is the frequency domain value. If N takes 1024 points, it becomes 512 frequency domain values.
The IMDCT transformation formula is:

n=0, 1, …, N-1
MDCT itself does not compress data, it simply maps the signal to another domain, and quantization compresses the data. When bit allocation is done on the quantized transformed samples, the entire quantized block must be considered the smallest, which is called lossy compression.
3 File Format Analysis
MP3 MP3 file data is made up of multiple frames, and the frame is the smallest unit of the MP3 file. Each frame, in turn, consists of a frame header, additional information, and sound data. The playback time of each frame is 0.026 seconds and its duration varies with the bit rate. Some MP3 files have extra bytes at the end that contain description information for non-audio data.

Principle of mp3 and file format analysis.

Principle of mp3 and file format analysis.

Principle of mp3 and file format analysis

Principle of mp3 and file format analysis

Principle of mp3 and file format analysis

1. Introduction
With the rapid development of file compression technology, MP3 has become the most popular music format today. High-quality music spreads rapidly around the world with the arrangement of 0 and 1, which shakes people’s hearts. What is MP3? The full name of MP3 is MPEG Audio Layer 3, which is an efficient computer audio coding scheme. It converts audio files into smaller files with an .MP3 extension with a higher compression ratio, basically maintaining the sound quality of the original file. MP3 is part of the ISO/MPEG standard, which describes audio compression using a high-performance perceptual coding scheme. This standard has been continuously updated to meet the pursuit of “high quality and low quality”, and has now formed MPEG Layer 1, Layer 2, Layer 3 three audio encoding and decoding schemes. MPEG Layer 3 compression ratio can reach 1:10 to 1:12, 1M of MP3 file can be played for 1 minute and 1 minute of CD-quality WAV file (44100Hz, 16bit, dual channel, 60 seconds) occupies 10M space, so Calculated, the playing time of a 650M MP3 disc should be more than 10 hours, and the playing time of a CD of the same capacity is about 70 minutes. The advantage of MP3 is that the CD is incomparable.
2 Analysis of the principle of MP3
2.1 audio standard
MPEG MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group) is a group of dynamic picture experts under ISO, the MPEG standard which makes it widely used in various multimedia. The MPEG standards include audio and video standards, of which the audio standards have been established as MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-2 AAC, and MPEG-4.
The MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 standards use the same family of audio codecs: Layer 1, 2, 3. A new feature of MPEG-2 is the use of low sample rate expansion to reduce the data stream, and another feature is multichannel expansion, which increases the number of main channels to 5. The MPEG-2 AAC (MPEG-2 Advanced Audio Coding) standard was released by Fraunhofer IIS and AT&T in 1997 to significantly reduce data traffic. The MDCT (Modified Discrete Cosine Transform) algorithm adopted by MPEG-2 AAC has a sampling frequency between 8KHz and 96KHz, the number of channels can be between 1-48.
The three layers of MPEG Audio Layer 1, 2, and 3 use the same filter bank, bitstream structure, and header information, and the sampling frequency is 32KHz, 44.1KHz, or 48KHz. Layer 1 is designed for DCC (Digital Compact Cassette) compressed digital tape, the data rate is 384kbps, Layer 2 has made a compromise between complexity and performance, and the data rate is reduced to 256kbps-192 kbps. Layer 3 is designed for low data traffic from the start, and the data traffic is 128Kbps-112Kbps. Layer 3 adds MDCT transformation to make its frequency resolution 18 times that of layer 2. Layer 3 also uses average information similar to MPEG video. Entropy Encoding reduces redundant information. The vast majority of MP3s use the MPEG-1 standard.
2.2 Purpose of audio compression
The MP3 format began in the mid-1980s, when the Fraunhofer Institute in Erlangen, Germany, dedicated itself to encoding high-quality, low-data-rate sound. Let’s look at an example: you want to sample a song you like that is about 4 minutes long, store it on a disk, sample it in CD-quality WAV format, at a sample rate of 44.1 kHz, that is, receive a value of 44100 per second, stereo, each sampled data is 16 bits (2 bytes), so the space this song occupies is:
44100 x 2 channels x 2 bytes x 60 seconds x 4 minutes = 40.4 MB
If you download this song from the Internet, assuming the transmission speed is 56 kbps, the download time is:
40.4x106x8/56x103x60=96 minutes
Even a 1M broadband network requires more than 5 minutes, it can be seen that audio compression is particularly important to reduce audio data storage space.
2.3 Encoding and decoding
MP3 MP3 audio compression consists of two parts: encoding and decoding. Encoding converts the data in a WAV file into a highly compressed bitstream, and decoding takes the bitstream and reconstructs it into a WAV file.

THE MOST COMMON FORMATS FOR MUSIC AND OTHER AUDIO FILES AND HOW THEY ARE RELATED TO EACH OTHER PART 2

THE MOST COMMON FORMATS FOR MUSIC AND OTHER AUDIO FILES AND HOW THEY ARE RELATED TO EACH OTHER PART 2

mUSIC fORMATS

AUDIO CONVERTER

Music Formats

With an audio converter the situation is even simpler. Programs of this type are specially designed to convert between audio formats quickly, without explicit user intervention. Unlike audio editors, converters, we can say, use batch mode, that is, they allow you to convert MP3 files in a single operation, for example, not a single copy, and make several pieces at once. Depending on the app’s function, there may be dozens or hundreds.

Audiobooks in MP3 format

Once again, the operation of such a package is simple. Just select the source material (usually it can be a completely different file type) and install the final format. Then press a special button to start the process, the output user gets all files of a certain type. Your save usually occurs in the folder set in the app’s default settings, but the save location can of course be changed by yourself. By the way, the same applies to basis functions, which will be used during the transformation. However, any program initially provides the user with a specific set of criteria to use with a specific type of audio file. They can also change.

The beauty of these apps is that they have a complete process that will automate as much as possible and do all the required processes without much time. However, if we use a music or audio editor, comparing them in terms of improving the same sound quality especially cannot be dispersed here.

MUSICAL ARRANGEMENT
This is another type of software, most of which have built-in editors for MP3, WAV, etc. In this sense, they work on a similar principle to audiorekatorami, but their abilities are slightly broader.

Convert to MP3 format

First of all, it deals with the fact that the entire composition can consist of fragments of different types (MP3, MIDI, WAV, OGG, VST-library or DX-tool, etc. D.). After recording all sound tracks, for example mixing and mastering with virtual synthesizers or prescription parties, the resulting files can be saved in the desired format. Mostly it is an MP3 or WAV, or the program’s project file. In some applications, there is also a recording function to disk. Do you want an audio CD? No problem! In addition to the audio editor, it may take a few minutes to perform the necessary operations and get the tracks on the output disc in CDA format.

If we talk about the benefits of this type of application, it is obvious that only a few formats of the same union, and then saving or exporting to some of the most common are its greatest advantages. Also, you need to pay attention to the fact that the very overlay effect or change of any track parameters happens in real time, that is, the result will not necessarily wait; can be heard immediately by turning some knobs, for example. , or another option. Of course, this is only a small part of what packages are capable of.

HOW SHOULD I USE IT?
Finally, we come to the question of choosing the software to use with the MP3 format, or any other sound to record to. As is clear, normal listening to music or audiobooks is enough and a humble player (software or “iron”), or more commonly a DVD player.

Converting files to other formats, so to speak, in a hurry, is the perfect audio converter. However, if the output needs to achieve crystal clear sound quality, or even convert one file type to another, it is indispensable without powerful dedicated software. Of course, this requires ordering more, and without any experience, time to get the same high-quality MP3 files as the first time and you can’t get. However, with at least some in-depth study from audio editors, let alone professional music studios, the results will exceed everyone’s expectations.

THE MOST COMMON FORMATS FOR MUSIC AND OTHER AUDIO FILES, AND HOW THEY ARE RELATED TO EACH OTHER

THE MOST COMMON FORMATS FOR MUSIC AND OTHER AUDIO FILES, AND HOW THEY ARE RELATED TO EACH OTHER

Music Formats

 

And for the direct competitors of the universal MP3 format, they can count on a lot today.

Music Formats

Due to continuing inconsistencies in home storage of the WAV format, it was eventually discontinued. But for professional studios, he says, the basics of the job. Especially when recording live vocals or instruments. Just convert the recorded material from WAV to MP3 at the final stage.

music format

However, music can be represented in some other popular formats nowadays. For example, many times (especially the Internet) they use these data types like OGG, AIFF, AMR, etc. But the real competitor of MP3 has become the newest and best audio FLAC etc. Of course, for MP3 you can convert all parameters to the maximum, but the playback quality of FLAC represents much higher. Also, it is a single file and the separation occurs directly on the track due to the player or startup software. In other words, listeners see each track individually, but can switch between playback tracks. For the MP3 format, this also seems possible to merge multiple tracks through it, thus creating a single file. But here it is in this version fast switching between tracks will not be possible (normal fast forward should be used, that’s all).

However, not everything is bad. The fact that music or audiobooks are all popular formats today allows them to be easily converted, even keeping the original parameters of the audio material. Based on this, and for sound processing and conversion and audio editors, almost all programs call converters. Any program of this type (MP3 editor or converter) detects the original and final type of audio files, is unambiguous and can produce direct and reverse transformations. Let’s explain this specific example.

WAVE THEORY AUDIO EDITOR FOR MP3 FILES
Many types of software are used in audio processing today. First, look at the narrow application of so-called audio editors. The most prominent representatives of these can be called giants Sony Audio Forge, Sintrillium Cool Editing Pro, which was later acquired by Adobe and renamed Audition, Acoustica Mixcraft, ACID Pro and many others.

mp3 editor

The principle on which they operate is that, for convenience, all MP3 audio programs have a typical waveform, as originally used for WAV files. This method determines the appearance and opportunity enough to edit any type of conventional audio material in WAV format. Other than that, the fact that you can do basic copy, cut, paste, etc. E., it’s just a matter of getting the frequency characteristics and bitrate changes, not to mention using a lot of extra effects that plug into VSTs via DirectX or a generic host bridge studio thing.

In its simplest form, the conversion can be done using the standard file menu, which contains the line “Save As…” (Save As…) or the export function present in MP3 format. Thus, all the process is reduced to just the final selection of the format (MP3 here as an example) and activation of the recording mode. In this case the conversion will be done automatically saving the current configuration parameters and the frequency characteristics. I don’t like the original version? ?Nothing is easier than changing the format to MP3, pre-specified with higher settings. However, one thing needs to be considered here: if the raw material is of such poor quality that special remediation or even professional tools will not work for audio it is necessary to use Repairs here, the intervention of various filters, etc. D. For the layman, it will cause great difficulties.

As is clear, there is absolutely no difference between the audiobooks we are dealing with: MP3, music or just recorded voice or noise. By the way, audiobooks are supposed to have a much lower sound quality by default. This is understandable, since the file has to take up minimal space and, in general, the perceived sound characteristics of speech are not that important. Finally, is this a professional recording of a particular set of albums?

However, if you use some standard operations, even without specific knowledge, it’s fine to achieve good results, especially since there are such built-in templates, based on any application for specific operations. Of course, it will be very difficult for the first time to achieve a perfect sound, but if you study the plan and understand how it works, it will work like clockwork, and as a result, it will take a lot of time.

Most important audio formats

Most important audio formats

MP3

MPEG Audio Layer III
-Compressed digital format with loss.
-Its compression size: 11 to 1
-Compresses the audio using a lossy algorithm to obtain a smaller size, decoding the signal, allowing less bits to be consumed, which translates into less weight and less quality.
-Extension: .MP3
-Good compatibility. Can be played on almost all audio players
-Easily distributable online
-Better quality-space ratio
-Loss of the original sound, implies a decrease in quality throughout the format
-Supports two channels
-Distortion in frequency bands where the brightness and sparkle (5000hz-20000hz) are located.
-Increase in the bass and subwoofer frequencies (250hz – 40hz) due to the dynamic compression of the sound that causes a different equalization from the original recording.
-present patterns between tracks

AAC

Advanced Audio Coding
– Lossy compressed digital format
-It is an audio compression system developed by the Fraunhoffer Institute, AT&T, Sony and Dolby Laboratories.
– It is an audio broadband coding algorithm with higher performance than MP3.
-Extension: .m4a, .m4b, .m4p, .m4v, .m4r, .3gp, .mp4, .aac
-Play files from the hard disk of a computer with a quality that can be similar to the CD using significantly less space than an mp3.
-This system increases the quality of the mp3.
-Loss of original sound
-Subject to patent

WAV

Waveform audio format
-Uncompressed digital format.
– Windows own format
– Used to store sounds on PC, supports mono and stereo files at various resolutions and sampling rates
– Extension is .wav
-High sound quality
-Provides faithful listening to the audio
-It works in Windows applications and in common equipment with a CD player.

– Includes support for almost all current audio codecs
– Compatible to convert into various formats by means of the appropriate software.Example switching from Wav to Mp3
-It takes up a lot of disk space
-Poor quality-space ratio
-Difficult to distribute online due to the weight of the file
-Allows to capture in the same file up to 6 hours

FLAC

Free Lossless Audio Codec
– Lossless compressed format

-Extension: .flac
-Higher quality in high fidelity equipment
-Information is continuous between separate tracks
-It does not delete information from the original content
-It is an open source format.
-Code and decode quickly
-It takes up a lot of disk space
-It is not supported by all portable players

AIFF

Audio Interchange File Format
-Uncompressed format without loss.
– Format typical of native applications of Mac OS X for example iTunes
-Extension: .aiff or .aif.
-High sound quality
-Requires large storage space

OGG VORBIS

-Compressed format loss
– Stream-oriented container, which means that
can be written and read in one step, making it suitable
for streaming on the internet.
– Free software version to MP3 and AAC.
– Intended to allow maximum encoder flexibility
Extension: .ogg
-It is free, open and not patented
-Similar to MP3
-Good value for space
-Improved same-size MP3 quality.
-It is not supported by all players
-Loss of original sound

WMA

Windows Media Audio
– Lossy audio compression format, although there is a more recent lossless development
-Windows version to compress audio
-Extension: .wma
-Ideal for real-time streaming
-Reduce size of large files
– Inclusion of support in Windows Media Player
-Lower quality
-It takes space
Real Audio
-Media player with various functions and Internet connection tools
Example: listening to music and watching videos hosted on the Internet (streaming), and creating and playing extensive playlists.

– Ideal for live streaming over the network due to its streming ability
– the coding allows adapting it to the user’s reception capacity depending on their internet connection speed.
-Can be used in different operating systems (Windows, Linux, Mac OS)
– Ability to transfer files to other multimedia devices
-Reduction in file sizes

-Incompatibility with some browsers
-High RAM consumption

APE

– Lossless compressed format
-Extension: .ape
-Save space
-High quality
-Better file compression rate
-It is not compatible with most players.
-Slow to compress and decompress files

What audio formats are there? All you need to know

 

FLAC, WAV, AIFF, DSD … these are just some of the initials that you can find when you are looking for a digital format. They are also accompanied by technical data such as sample rates and bit depth. So many terms can leave you more misplaced than a chicken at a dance. And it is that unless you are an expert in digital sound, the process to choose the audio format that best suits your needs can be a mess. But if they explain it to you, the topic is relatively simple. That is why at Culturasonora we have prepared a complete guide for you on the different audio formats most used. This will prevent any acronym from taking you on the dark side.

What are Bit Depth and Sample Rate?

These two concepts are basic. To understand how audio formats work you need to know what Bit Depth and Sample Rate are. These are two measures that indicate the quality of a digital audio file. We are going to try to summarize it so that you keep the general idea

samplerate

When you read the specifications of the audio formats you come across a couple of figures. For example: 32-bit / 192kHz or 24-bit / 96kHz. These numbers indicate the bit depth and the sample rate. These references tell us how much information the different formats transmit and the quality of the sound. For example, the audio we hear on a regular CD, or on a Spotify stream, is 16bit / 44.1kHz. Samples are always measured in Hertz (or hertz) and bit depth in Bits.

Softwares or hardwares usually do not work with a continuous flow of information, but usually use pieces, samples or samples to effectively manage the data that is transmitted. The sample rate is the number of samples per second that are obtained from a recording. The higher the number of times a device plays samples, the higher the sound quality. Each of these extracts or samples has a certain amount of information, which is the bit depth, or bit depth.

So that you understand it better we are going to make a somewhat beastly analogy, which is not entirely true, but that will help you get the sense of all this. Which is what interests us. If you control a bit of photography and image you will get it right away: the sample rate would be something similar to the frames or frames per second of a video, and the bit rate would be similar to the pixels of a photograph. The higher the bit depth number, the more information each sample will have. The more pixels an image has, the higher resolution each frame of a video will have. The more frames per second a movie has, the better definition. In short: the higher the number of the Bit Depth and the Sample Rate, the higher the quality of the audio file. Heard cooking?

Audio formats: MP3 vs WAV vs AIFF

What is the MP3 format?

If you’re interested in getting some audio fidelity and decent sound from your files, you’ll want to avoid this format. Why? Because basically an MP3 is a file that sacrifices audio quality to minimize size. They weigh very little for any device to read. The negative? Compressing these files provides poor, almost lifeless sound. Today, hardly anyone uses this format seriously. Even its creators recently ended the license by declaring it dead. But surely from time to time you come across a zombie file with this format.

What is WAV format?

WAVs (Waveform Audio File Format) are just as common but better for anyone who wants a decent audio format. They are higher resolution files than MP3s. A WAV is an audio piece that is encoded with something known as Pulse Code Modulation (PCM), a medium that encodes analog audio pieces and converts them to digital so they can have the Sample rate and Bit Depth of the that we have already talked about previously.

What is the AIFF format?

The AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format) audio format is very similar to WAV in that it also uses PCM to encode analog audio pieces and present them in digital format. This format was born as a response from Apple to Microsoft’s WAV, and at the beginning it could only work on MAC computers. Currently AIFF and WAV are more or less interchangeable.
In summary…
To close this topic, we will tell you that if you have a file in WAV or AIFF audio formats, you will hear a piece of sound of good quality. Normally these formats are used in files that we reproduce through our services, such as the iTunes music library. We will not see them in online streaming services, which tend to use special types of files.