Audio Briefs
Staff -- TWICE, 6/24/2002
mp3PRO Makes Headway
San Diego— MusicMatch began offering the first media player with integrated mp3PRO encoding and decoding. MusicMatch JukeBox 7.2, at $19.99, also offers other enhancements, including album art tagging to add cover art to new mp3PRO files as they're being ripped from a CD. MusicMatch's Radio MX streaming subscription service also uses mp3PRO. Mp3PRO offers almost double the storage capacity of MP3, extends upper frequency response, and is forward- and backward-compatible with MP3 players. It delivers near-CD 128kbps MP3 performance at a 64kbps data rate.Content encoded in mp3PRO can be played back in a traditional MP3 player but without the quality enhancement. Also, mp3PRO decoders will be able to decode standard MP3.
DirecTV Expands 5.1 Use
San Francisco — Satellite-TV provider DirecTv expanded its lineup of Dolby Digital 5.1 channels to more than 20, having recently added the multichannel audio format to standard- and high-definition premium movie channels, Dolby Labs said. The DD lineup consists of 11 premium movie channels, the HDNet channel for a portion of its programming, and 10 pay-per-view movie channels and a special-event channel for which 5.1 programming scheduled on an ad hoc basis, Dolby said.
