LAME
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| LAME | |
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| Developer: | The LAME development team |
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| Latest release: | 3.97 / September 2006 |
| Preview release: | 3.98a11 / 4.0a14 / January 2007 |
| OS: | Cross-platform |
| Use: | Codec |
| License: | GNU Lesser General Public License |
| Website: | http://lame.sourceforge.net/ |
LAME is an MPEG-1 audio layer 3 (MP3) encoder. The name LAME is a recursive acronym for LAME Ain't an MP3 Encoder, reflecting LAME's early history when it was not yet a complete encoder in itself.
As of 2004, the consensus is that LAME produces the highest-quality MP3 files for bitrates greater or equal to 128 kbit/s. In a public listening test early in 2004, LAME MP3 files were the best 128 kbit/s MP3 files compared to the uncompressed original audio. [1]
Released under the GNU Lesser General Public License, LAME is free software.
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[edit] History and development
At one time, LAME was simply a set of patches against the separately distributed ISO demonstration source, hence the claim that it "ain't an encoder". The ISO code had a restrictive license but was available without charge. In May 2000, the LAME project reimplemented the last of the ISO source code, and thus LAME was then a totally new implementation — compiling recent versions of LAME no longer requires the ISO source code. As recent LAME releases are no longer a patch against ISO encoder code, LAME is now itself an MP3 encoder and the LAME acronym has become a misnomer.
[edit] Legal issues
LAME, as any MP3 encoder, is claimed to implement some processes covered by some patents filed by Fraunhofer.
LAME developers state that since their code is only released in source form, it should only be considered as a description of an MP3 encoder, and thus does not infringe any patent by itself when released as source code only [2]. At the same time, they advise obtaining a patents license [3] before including a compiled version of the encoder into a product.
The LAME software is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL). In November, 2005 there were reports that the Extended Copy Protection software included on some SONY Compact Discs includes portions of the LAME library without complying with the terms of the LGPL.
[edit] LAME-compatible software
[edit] Linux and Compatible Operating Systems
- Grip, a front-end for use with GNOME
- KAudioCreator, part of the KDE desktop.
- K3b, KDE's CD-R and DVD authoring software can rip audio CDs as well
[edit] Microsoft Windows
- RazorLame (formerly RazorBlade), a Microsoft Windows front-end user interface for the commandline LAME Encoder executable.
- Lamedrop, easy to use front-end in Windows, similar to oggdrop
- winLAME
- ALL2LAME, A minimalist frontend for LAME that allows piping from commandline decoders of other formats, such as FLAC and Monkey's Audio.
- CDex, Windows CD audio extractor
- Exact Audio Copy (EAC), Windows audio grabber for CD-ROM drives
- Audiograbber
- foobar2000, an audio player that supports transcoding to LAME
- Burrrn, a simple Cdrdao-based gapless audio CD burning utility that uses LAME in decoding mode to maximize audio quality.
- JRiver Media Center, A Media Player/Manager which supports transcoding to LAME
[edit] Apple Macintosh
- iTunes-LAME, a front end that integrates LAME with iTunes on Mac OS X.
- Max is a Macintosh audio extractor with LAME MP3 capabilities.
- BarbaBatch is an audio file format converter using LAME for mp3 encoding.
[edit] Cross Platform
- jRipper, a Java-based frontend for LAME which includes Windows and Linux binaries.
- Audacity, an audio recording, editing and transforming program, available for Windows, Linux, BSD, and Macintosh.
- Stickloader is another Java-based Lame frontend allowing files to be encoded easily via drag-and-drop.
