DBpoweramp
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- The correct title of this article is dBpoweramp. The initial letter is shown capitalized due to technical restrictions.
dBpoweramp is a collection of fully-integrated audio software from Illustrate, written by Spoon.
There are two main dBpoweramp products that Illustrate has released, with many additional add-ons available for download as well as a couple other related pieces of software.
- dBpoweramp Audio Player (dAP)
- dBpoweramp Music Converter (dMC)
dMC is integrated into dAP, but neither depends on the other and each can function without the other's help.
Both are fully compatible with Windows 98/ME NT4/2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista and Linux (using WINE).
Contents |
[edit] Products
[edit] dBpoweramp Audio Player (dAP)
dBpoweramp Audio Player was created as a means to promote dMC(dBpoweramp Music Converter), although it has grown quite a bit since.
It's based on a music collection that is being randomly played, and at any moment you can Enqueue any number of songs after the currently playing one. dAP Also features freeform skins, gapless playback, an auto equalizer, previously-played songs list, most played list, newest list and uses minimal system resources.
[edit] dBpoweramp Music Converter (dMC)
The dBpoweramp series originally started with the Music Converter (often called a Swiss army knife of Audio), a program designed to convert any audio file into any format.
dMC features include:
- Rip digitally record audio CDs (with CD Ripper and AccurateRip[1] support)
- Convert audio files with elegant simplicity. mp3, mp4, m4a, Windows Media Audio (WMA), Ogg Vorbis, AAC, Monkeys Audio, FLAC, Apple Lossless (ALAC)
- Windows Integration popup info tips, audio properties, columns, edit ID-Tags
- DSP Effects such as Volume Normalize, or Graphic EQ
dMC is now available in three versions[2]; Free, PowerPack & mp3 License, and Reference[3]. The Reference version was introduced on Feb 1, 2007 with the release of R12. R12 introduces Exact Audio Copy inspired Secure Ripping of CDs. From the dBpoweramp website:
dBpoweramp throws away the rule book and achieves the impossible!, not just secure, but the Securest[4], and the Fastest[5] at the same time. Illustrate are proud to be the designers behind AccurateRip, helping people around the world verify their rips with certainty.
In testing [6]dBpoweramp has outperformed Exact Audio Copy (EAC)[7] which has long been a standard in securely ripping CDs.
With the release of R12 dBpoweramp also added optional All Media Guide lookups for metadata retrieval, including album art.
[edit] Codecs
All codecs are written for the program so there can't be any errors in importing codecs from other programs. The dBpowerAMP products come already equipped with the mp3 and wav codecs. With the appropriate codecs installed, dBpowerAMP can automatically recognize, play and manipulate the following extensions:
aa, aac, aiff, aifc, ape, asf, au, bwf, cda, fla, flac, m4a, mdz, mod, mp+, mp2, mp3, mp4, mpa, mpc, mpg, mpga, mpp, mpx, nvf, ofr, ogg, ra, ram, rm, s3m, s3z, sap, shn, snd, spx, voc, vqf, vtm, vtx, wav, wave, wma, wmv, wv, wvc, xm, and xmz.
Note: With the release of dMC r12, many codec formats have not been added yet. The most popular codecs are being released first, with all former codecs being supported by r12 eventually.
In addition any command line external codec can be configured for use with dMC. Also, many Winamp codecs can be used to allow dMC to decode other, non-supported files when used with the dMC Winamp Input Decoder codec.
This is not a definitive list; you can check Codec Central for official updates.
[edit] Development
Current betas:
- dAP release 3 beta 6
- Updated Codecs for r12, including
- MP4/M4A Codec
- AAC Codec
- DirectShow Decoder
- Multi-Encoder Codec
- Digital Signal Processing effects
- FLAC 1.1.4
- Lancer aoTuV SSE2-enhanced Ogg Vorbis encoder
- Real Audio Helix and mp3 encoder
Illustrate's products are always in development in one form or another. dAP has many bugfixes in its release 3 beta 6. This version is regarded as perfectly stable and is the recommended version to use. It is still beta due to the developer (Spoon) still wanting work done on it before making it a final release.
Codecs are normally updated when new versions come out, but normally a final non-beta version of the codec must be released before an update for dMC is released. Also, new codecs for dBpowerAMP are beta tested before being fully released.
For all beta versions, the dBpoweramp forums have a beta section. Normally, anyone is allowed to beta test all Illustrate products.
[edit] See also
List of audio conversion software
