Is there a faststart equivalent for MP3 files? - audio

I plan to serve MP3 files on the web using an audio element. I heard that when serving video files, it's best to encode with the faststart flag. Is there an equivalent for MP3 files? Sorry if it's a stupid question, I'm a beginner and want to make sure I use the optimal settings because my files are often large (5 MB). Thank you!

Faststart only applies to mp4.

Related

How can I apply audio compression to an MP4 file?

I am using moviepy to generate MP4 files from sets of shorter clips, each with their own audio. The problem is that the resulting MP4 often has a very high dynamic range from one clip to the next and I would like to apply audio compression to make it easier on the ears. In Google I can only find results about audio information compression, but not about audio compression from the audio engineering perspective.
I would like to know if there is some way of doing this with moviepy, or with some other library. I have no issue with invoking (non interactive) command line utilities either.
Thank you.

How to merge several audio files using Libav API?

Currently, I am implementing a new feature of my software using the Libav API. This is the requirement: to merge a list of audio files (MP3 and WAV) and create a unique
audio file (MP3) as output. Note: The challenge is not about concatenating files, but merging them. When the output sound is played, all the input audio content must sound at the same time, as when you merge several files in a video editor.
I was researching about Libav audio streams, and I am just guessing that my requirement is related to the "channels" concept, I mean, that there is possible to include several audios in the stream, using one channel per audio or something like that. I was hoping to find more information about this topic, but FFmpeg/Libav documentation is actually scarce.
Right now, I am able to merge several audio streams to a video stream successfully and I can create a playable MP4 file. My problem is that players like MPlayer/VLC only reproduce the first audio stream with the video, the other two audio streams are ignored.
I was looking at the set of examples included in the FFmpeg source code, but there is nothing specifically related to my requirement, so I would appreciate any
source code reference or algorithm explanation about how to merge several audio files into one using libav. Thanks.
Update:
The ffmpeg command to merge several audio files requires de filter flag "amix", like in this example:
ffmpeg -i 1.mp3 -i 2.mp3 -i 3.mp3 -filter_complex amix=inputs=3:duration=first result.mp3
All the syntax related to this option is described in the FFmpeg Documentation
Checking the FFmpeg source code, it seems the amix feature implementation is included in the file af_amix.c
I am not 100% sure, but it seems the general algorithm is described in the function:
static int activate(AVFilterContext *ctx)
Do you know how to merge several audio files using command line ffmpeg? It would help you if you first understand how to do it with the ffmpeg command then reverse engineer how it achieves it. It's all about how to constrct a filtergraph and pass data through it.
As for examples, check out examples/filter_audio.c and examples/filtering_audio.c
This C example gets two WAV audio files and merges them to generate a new WAV file using ffmpeg-4.4 API. Tip: The key of the process is to use these filters: abuffer, amix and abuffersink.
https://github.com/xtingray/audio_mixer/
Although it doesn't support MP3 format as the output, it gives you the basics to understand how to implement your own requirements. I hope it can be handy for anyone looking for references about this specific topic.

Include simple sound in iphone app

I searched many questions - but no one seems to be giving simplest, most uniform approach, hence please do not close as duplicate.
My requirement is simple: I have quiz app.
I want to include:
background music that plays continually - probably more than one
audio.
I need occassional sounds played at specific events - they
are very short in duration. Maybe 4-5 in number.
What sound format do I use? [aac etc]
How do I produce it? (optionally, get it from internet, if free)
What is the best approach to incorporate it? [audioplayback, openal etc)
Forgive me if this is quite stupid, but I am going very generic here and can't seem to find it.
Thanks for the help!
For sound format, use AAC or uncompressed 16-bit little endian in a CAF container (avoid mp3 since it's difficult to make it loop cleanly). You can convert using the command line tool 'afconvert':
Compressed:
afconvert -f caff -d aac sourcefile.wav destfile.caf
Uncompressed 16-bit:
afconvert -f caff -d LEI16 sourcefile.wav destfile.caf
For production, either record it yourself (using an audio program such as Audacity), get a professional to do it, or buy royalty free sounds/music.
To incorporate it, use AVAudioPlayer for music and OpenAL for sounds. OpenAL is difficult to use and doesn't decode compressed audio on its own, so you may want to use an audio library such as https://github.com/kstenerud/ObjectAL-for-iPhone

FFMPEG and MP3. How decode

How to decode mp3 audio using ffmpeg (using the API)? If not complicated - example code?
PS I went to open the file, find the audio channels. then I do not understand what to do ...
It's nice to go all the way through the tutorials but this part of the tutorial deals with decoding audio (although I am currently having a problem with it as avcodec_decode_audio3() is the updated version of avcodec_decode_audio2()).
Hope it helps,
Infinitifizz

What is the algorithm to convert an mp3 file to a wav file?

What is the algorithm to convert an mp3 file to a wav file?
It's non-trivial to say the least. You could get an overview of the algorithm here:
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.26.5956&rep=rep1&type=pdf
But I would suggest using a library for your programming needs, for example:
http://www.ffmpeg.org/
As for the mp3 file, I can offer you mpg123 .net wrapper that is extremely easy to use - you will get the sample for reading the mp3, extracting PCM information from it (this is main part of WAV file - PCM data for the sound).
Please, go here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mpg123net/
and download sample code from here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mpg123net/files/
Ping me if you need more info/help on the subject.
As aac files are concerned, there is faad project here:
http://www.audiocoding.com/faad2.html
that enables you to do the same with the aac file. If you need .net wrapper, I'm about to put it on sourceforge also.

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