Monkeys Audio is a lossless codec, meaning no audio quality is lost whilst compressing (unlike lossy codecs such as mp3 which throw audio data away), audio compressed to a lossless codec will be decoded identical to the source, think of it as zip for audio. All lossless codecs compress around 2:1 or 4:1 at best, a 3 minute audio track will be around 18 MB.
Supported by this Codec
- Encoding: Yes [.ape]
- Multi-processor Encoding: Yes (with dBpoweramp reference)
- Decoding: Yes [.ape]
- ID Tag Reading: Yes [Id3v1, APETagv1, APETagv2]
- ID Tag Writing: Yes [APETagv2 (default), APETagv1]
- Unicode Tagging: Yes
- Supports Album Art: Yes
- Gapless Encoding & Decoding: Yes
- Explorer Audio Popup Information: Yes
- Explorer Columns: Yes
- Unicode Filenames: Yes
Compression Options
Being a lossless codec there are not many options to set
when compressing to Monkeys Audio:
Compression affects how much effort goes into compressing the audio, all compression modes decode identical, the higher modes compress to smaller file sizes, but will require more CPU time to compress and decompress. Fast requires the least compression time, whilst Insane the most.
Codec Background
Invented by Matt T Ashland (J River employee), one of the more efficient lossless codecs with excellent compression rates. APETags were created especially for Monkeys Audio.
More Details: http://www.monkeysaudio.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_Audio
Command Line
dBpoweramp Reference allows compressions from the command-line, commands specific to this codec:
-c="1000" Fast
-c="2000" Normal
-c="3000" High
-c="4000" Extra High
-c="5000" Insane
-v Verify compressed audio
Example: "c:\program files\illustrate\dBpoweramp\coreconverter.exe" -infile="c:\afile.wav" -outfile="c:\outfile.ape" -convert_to="Monkeys Audio" -c="3000" -v
Terminology
Encoding: compress and write an audio file,
Decoding: uncompress, or read an audio file,
ID Tags: meta data such as artist & album are embedded inside the audio file,
Lossless: compression without audio quality loss,
Lossy: audio quality is sacrificed (how much depends on bitrate and codec used) to achieve smaller files,
Gapless: allows the decoder to decode audio stream without gaps (silence),
Explorer Audio Popup: a dBpoweramp function, hold the mouse over a supported audio file and details contained are displayed,
Multi-processor Encoding: for dual processor, or multi core processors multiple files can be compressed at once fully using both (or more) CPUs.
Command Line: text interface, where commands are typed (start >> run >> cmd to get to the command line)
