Monkey's Audio
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| Monkey’s Audio | |
|---|---|
| Developed by | Matthew T. Ashland |
| Latest release | 4.01b2 / 17 February 2006 |
| Genre | Audio compression Encoder |
| License | Monkey’s Audio Source Code License Agreement |
| Website | http://monkeysaudio.com |
Monkey’s Audio is a file format for audio data compression. Being a lossless compression format, Monkey’s Audio does not remove information from the audio stream, as lossy compression formats such as MP3, AAC, and Vorbis do.
Like other methods of compression, the main advantage of using Monkey’s Audio lies in a reduction of bandwidth and/or a reduction in storage requirements. A digital recording (such as a CD) encoded to Monkey’s Audio format can later be decompressed into an identical copy of the original audio data. Like the Apple Lossless format, files encoded to Monkey’s Audio are typically reduced to about half of the original size.[1]
Monkey’s Audio is a proprietary software, it is often too slow to decode on portable audio devices, and it has limited/problematic support on software platforms other than Windows. There are alternatives that provide the user with more freedom and official support for more platforms, such as the FLAC and ALAC formats.
Monkey’s Audio files use the filename extension .ape for audio and .apl for track metadata info.
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[edit] Comparisons
Monkey’s Audio generally achieves compression rates which are slightly better than FLAC and significantly better than Shorten. (Shorten is an older format that is no longer being developed.) Both encoding and decoding are generally slightly slower than both FLAC and Shorten, and the decoder is problematic to implement on portable digital audio players. It suffers from relatively slow seeking, depending on the compression level chosen.[citation needed]
Monkey’s Audio is not free software or open source, but has a peculiarly ambiguous license. Most Linux distributions and other operating systems that rely on only free software could not include it[2] and the software ecosystem around Monkey’s Audio is less varied than that of other, more freely licensed lossless compressors such as FLAC. Since FLAC is pre-installed with most Linux distributions, FLAC is typically preferred by users running that operating system. The older Shorten format has been used for many years in the live taping community. Sites such as etree typically still use Shorten, though some are beginning to move to FLAC.
Since Monkey’s Audio is a lossless compression method, it is not readily comparable with lossy compression methods such as MP3, Ogg Vorbis and AAC. The two different types of formats have different aims. The aim of lossless compression is to preserve an exact reproduction of the original file in as small a space as possible. The aim of lossy codecs is to discard sound data to fit the user's amount of file space (or bit rate) specified by the user while retaining as much quality as possible. Lossless audio formats therefore tend to be significantly larger than lossy formats. A typical Monkey’s Audio file will be approximately 3-5 times larger than a lower-quality 192kb/sec bitrate MP3 lossy audio file.
[edit] Supported platforms
Officially, Monkey’s Audio is only available for the Microsoft Windows platform, though discussion on the Monkey’s Audio website hinted at future support for Linux and Mac OS. A developer using the moniker SuperMMX released an unofficial port in early 2005, which also includes plugins to allow playback using the audio players XMMS and Beep Media Player. This port was originally developed for Linux but, since version 3.99 update 4 build 4, it has included support for Mac OS X as well as Linux on the PowerPC and SPARC architectures.
However, while the license text claims to permit using the official Monkey's Audio codec in GPL projects, several Linux distribution maintainers have found the license to be contradictory. It does not permit redistribution nor modification, and thus cannot be considered open source or free software.[2][3][4][5]
Cross platform Java based decoder/encoder/player - JMAC is also available. It supports Monkey’s Audio format up to version 3.99.
Mac OS X has an open source project, MAX!, which will aid in re-encoding of any Monkey's Audio files and maintain all metadata tags.
On hardware platforms, the open source jukebox firmware project Rockbox supports playback of Monkey's Audio on most of its supported targets, but most targets lack sufficient CPU power to play back the codec in real time on all but the lowest compression settings.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Monkey's Audio official comparison
- ^ a b Gentoo Bug 94477 - new ebuild: media-sound/mac (linux ported version of monkey's audio converter)
- ^ Francesco Poli (2008-03-11). k3b monkey audio plugin. Debian legal mailing list.
- ^ Ben Finney (2007-09-06). Monkey's Audio License Agreement. Debian legal mailing list.
- ^ Michael Sebastian (2007-06-25). Ubuntu bug entry about Monkey's audio inclusion.
[edit] External links
- Monkey's Audio – official website
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