February Macintosh Shareware

MPEG Layer-3 (MP3) files can convert your favourite audio CD tracks into a 4M to 5M file with minimal loss of quality. The MP3 formatÆs rise to popularity has allowed several excellent freeware encoders to go commercial, but you can still find affordable ones among the extensive range of shareware MP3 players and utilities. This month weÆll cast an eye over a few packages from the MP3 market that give you value for money.

In addition to the MP3 applications reviewed here, there are a couple that many people may -- perhaps unknowingly -- already have. AppleÆs QuickTime 4 player handles most MP3 formats, the notable exceptions being those created by SoundJam orthat use Variable Bit Rate (VBR) encoding. IomegaÆs package of Tools for Zip and Jaz drives includes RecordIt, a very capable MPEG Layer-2 encoder and player that creates files that can be read by many MP3 players.

By Steve Cooper

If you have access to the Internet you can connect to a CDDB and retrieve the title and track information for the audio CD that youÆre ripping with a single click. This information can then be incorporated into the name of each MP3 file you create or into its ID3 tag information; ID3 tags are fused into the MP3 files and displayed by MP3 players. It also has a quick link to sources of ready-made MP3 files on the Internet and a search facility for finding MP3 players.

MVPÆs player interface is attractive and functional, but lacks some of the features that MP3 users have come to expect and, like other QuickTime 4-based players, it wonÆt play SoundJam or VBR files. It doesnÆt have an equaliser and it doesnÆt support skins or a skin-like feature that lets you alter the look of the player interface. It does offer playlist re-ordering, and three advanced play modes: repeat, shuffle and intro. You can also use MVP as an audio CD player and as a QuickTime video player.

NetCD is free and very simple to use. Once youÆre connected to the Internet, click a button and NetCD will retrieve CDDB information for the CD that you have loaded in your drive. NetCD has a catalogue mode that allows you to feed CDs into your system continuously until you've built a local database of all your favourites.

The ID3 Add/Edit tool allows you to add or edit file title, album name, track, artist, genre and comments. Another utility, ID3 Remove, allows you to erase this information.

You can use ListFile to build a text file database of your MP3 collection to help you organise and locate your files more easily -- a great tool for those who exchange MP3 files regularly. Pcfy prepares your files for use on a PC by stripping resource forks, shortening your filenames and adding the .MP3 extension -- to restore a file to Mac format, simply apply Maximize.

Whether you work with MP3 files obtained from the Internet or exchange them with friends who use PCs, these utilities could prove essential.

mp3Voodoo allows you to create multiple MP3 databases called collections that can be as large or as small as you like. You can specify a size limit according to playing time (for example, 650M to fit on a CD-ROM). Within each collection you can specify any number of distinct reorderable playlists, all of which can be accessed instantly from a pop-up menu. Your playlists can be exported in Audion, Macast, Mplayer3 or SoundApp format.

Each database you create can be searched based on any one of the standard ID3 categories such as artist, title and genre. Another utility allows you to build playlists based on these criteria.

You can choose from variations on mp3Voodoo's pleasant, but not outstandingly impressive, interface. However, you can edit the colours and fonts used in the interface, and you can add cover pictures to each of your collections. Drag-and-drop capability contextual menus are implemented universally throughout the application.

DonÆt let this modest interface fool you; the Macast player engine is one of the best available, capable of handling almost every variation of the MP3 format including Variable Bit Rate (VBR) recordings. The playlist function is elegant in its simplicity: save a playlist by dragging it to the desktop; define your active playlist by dragging a group of files or an existing playlist to the player control strip (you can also drag individual audio CD tracks). In Macast Lite playlists aren't reorderable, but then you canÆt have everything for $US15. Registering the software gives you five additional skins and removes the 15-title limit imposed on each playlist in unregistered versions of the software.