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<title>About the LAME encoder</title>
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<li><a href="index.html">Index page</a></li>
<li><a href="about.html">About LAME</a></li>
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<h2 class="hilight">About LAME</h2>
</div>
<p>
LAME development started around mid-1998. Mike Cheng started it as a patch
against the 8hz-MP3 encoder sources. After some quality concerns raised by
others, he decided to start from scratch based on the dist10 sources. His
goal was only to speed up the dist10 sources, and leave its quality untouched.
That branch (a patch against the reference sources) became Lame 2.0, and not
until Lame 3.81 (May 2000) the latest remainings of dist10 code were removed,
making LAME no more only a patch.
</p>
<p>
The project quickly became a team project. Mike Cheng eventually left
leadership and started working on tooLame, an MP2 encoder. Mark Taylor became
leader and started pursuing increased quality in addition to better speed. He
can be considered the initiator of the LAME project in its current form. He
released version 3.0 featuring gpsycho, a new psychoacoustic model he
developed.
</p>
<p>
In early 2003 Mark left project leadership, and since then the project has
been lead through the cooperation of the active developers (currently 4
individuals).
</p>
<p>
Today, LAME is considered the best MP3 encoder at mid-high bitrates and at
VBR<a href="#note1"><sup>1</sup></a>, mostly thanks to the dedicated work of its developers and the open
source licensing model that allowed the project to tap into engineering
resources from all around the world. Both quality and speed improvements are
still happening, probably making LAME the only MP3 encoder still being
actively developed.
</p>
<h3>LAME features:</h3>
<ul>
<li>
Supports MPEG1, MPEG2 and MPEG2.5<a href="#note2"><sup>2</sup></a> layer III encoding.
</li>
<li>
Encodes in CBR (constant bitrate) and in two types of variable bitrate, VBR and ABR<a
href="#note3"><sup>3</sup></a>, as well as freeformat.
</li>
<li>
Supports mono and stereo signals. Stereo signals are encoded by default with
an advanced algorithm<a href="#note4"><sup>4</sup></a> to maximize the quality.
</li>
<li>
Tuned default parameters for optimum encoding.
</li>
<li>
Fast. Encodes to -V 2 at 17 times realtime on a P4 2.8Ghz.
</li>
<li>
Uses an advanced psycho acoustic and noise shaping model improved during years.
</li>
<li>
Developed under the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl.html">LGPL</a>
GNU license
</li>
</ul>
<div id="notes">
<ol>
<li><a name="note1"></a> See the results of <a href="http://listening-tests.hydrogenaudio.org/sebastian/">
several blind tests</a> conducted by hydrogenaudio members.
</li>
<li><a name="note2"></a> MPEG1 sample rates are 32Khz, 44.1Khz and 48Khz.
<br/>
MPEG2 sample rates are 16Khz, 22.05Khz and 24Khz.
<br/>
MPEG 2.5 does not exist as a standard. It is an extension from
<a href="http://www.fraunhofer.de/">fraunhofer</a> that added the possibility
to encode in 8Khz, 11,025Khz and 12Khz.
</li>
<li><a name="note3"></a> See <a href="vbr.html">Variable Bit Rate</a> and
<a href="abr.html">Average Bit Rate (ABR)</a>.
</li>
<li><a name="note4"></a> The stereo encoding of LAME automatically switches between
Mid-Side and simple-stereo to maximize the available bits while preserving the
quality. More info in <a href="ms_stereo.html">Mid/Side Stereo</a>
</li>
</ol>
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