Difference between revisions of "Macintosh Audio Compression/Expansion"

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(Added info about open source decoder.)
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Visitors are encouraged not to use this codec, for several reasons:
 
Visitors are encouraged not to use this codec, for several reasons:
 
* There are better alternatives quality-wise (ADPCM, WavPack lossy, psychoacoustic codecs)
 
* There are better alternatives quality-wise (ADPCM, WavPack lossy, psychoacoustic codecs)
* Proprietary codec - E.G, on Windows platform, it can only be played in QuickTime
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* Proprietary codec - E.G, on Windows platform, it can only be ancoded and played in QuickTime
 
* Won't work on bit depths other than 8bit.
 
* Won't work on bit depths other than 8bit.
  
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* [http://www.quicktime.com QuickTime] plays and encodes MACE streams.
 
* [http://www.quicktime.com QuickTime] plays and encodes MACE streams.
* [http://www.mplayerhq.hu/~michael/ffmpeg-doxy/mace_8c-source.html Reverse engineered MACE decoder] by Laszlo Torok
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* [http://www.mplayerhq.hu/~michael/ffmpeg-doxy/mace_8c-source.html Reverse engineered MACE decoder sources] by Laszlo Torok

Revision as of 23:37, 29 July 2005

MACE (Macintosh Audio Compression/Expansion) is a lossy, proprietary compression scheme developed by Apple Computer for their Macintosh line of computers.

Technically, it's very similar to how ADPCM works.

It offers two compression modes: 6:1 (1/6th of the original file size, 235kbps) and 3:1 (1/3rd of the original file size, 470kbps). Quality is relatively poor. It only works on 8bit streams.

Visitors are encouraged not to use this codec, for several reasons:

  • There are better alternatives quality-wise (ADPCM, WavPack lossy, psychoacoustic codecs)
  • Proprietary codec - E.G, on Windows platform, it can only be ancoded and played in QuickTime
  • Won't work on bit depths other than 8bit.


External Links