Mp3PRO

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The correct title of this article is mp3PRO. The initial letter is shown capitalized due to technical restrictions.

mp3PRO is an audio compression algorithm (or codec) that combines the MP3 audio format with spectral band replication compression methods. It claims to achieve transparency at lower bitrates than MP3, resulting in a file nearly half the size of standard MP3. RCA was the only company to offer portable players compatible with mp3PRO, but they have dropped support for the format.

[edit] Compatibility

Any mp3 player can play mp3PRO files but they will be played at half the intended sample rate. To play mp3PRO files with the full sample rate in Windows, users are required to install additional software. This additional software can be a player such as "Thomson Demo mp3PRO Player" or a plug-in for an existing audio player. Some other software products such as "Musicmatch Jukebox" ship with full mp3PRO support. CD recording software such as Nero Burning ROM includes mp3PRO support as well. On the Macintosh, the now-discontinued shareware Audion supports both real-time encoding and decoding of MP3PRO. At the time of this writing there does not seem to be a Native Linux mp3PRO player. It has been reported that some have had success running Winamp with the mp3PRO plug-in using Wine, and also there have been reports of users successfully running the "Thomson Demo mp3PRO Player" under Linux using Wine. Limitations with getting a functional Linux player are largely due to RCA not releasing the mp3PRO source code, even after discontinuing support for the format.

There is a plugin for Linux XMMS-Player available at http://all4mp3.com.