Mp3HD

Did You Know?

• The lossy portion of an mp3HD file could use VBR or CBR depending on user preference.
• Average bitrates for the lossless stream varied between 500 kbit/s and 900 kbit/s depending on genre.

Development

mp3HD was released in March 2009 as a lossless competitor to FLAC, Apple Lossless, and WavPack. It stored a standard lossy stream playable on any MP3-capable device, with the lossless data held in the ID3v2 tag. Compatible players could decode the lossless portion; otherwise only the lossy stream played. Technicolor later updated the format and encoding tools, adding a Winamp plugin, a DirectShow filter for Windows Media Player, and an mp3HD converter. By April 2013, the mp3HD website, specification, and encoder software were no longer available.

Encoding

If you wanted to encode mp3HD files, your main option was the Technicolor toolkit, a command-line program that handled both encoding and decoding. It could work with Exact Audio Copy to rip CDs to WAVE files and then automatically convert those to mp3HD. The mp3HD Converter was another tool that could turn WAVEs into mp3HD or decompress them back. The format supported standard CD audio at 44.1 and 48 kHz with 16-bit samples. Nero Burning ROM also offered mp3HD conversion through its Nero Recode feature.

Pros and cons

Pros included exact CD replication, a lossy/lossless hybrid, file sizes comparable to other lossless formats, backwards compatibility with standard MP3 players, retention of the .mp3 file extension, and the popularity of the MP3 brand. Cons included lack of widespread support; the codec was Windows-centric with limited software support on Mac and Linux. Files were much larger than standard MP3 and larger than most pure lossless formats with widespread support. No quality improvement occurred if the player only supported standard MP3. The lossless portion was stored in an ID3v2 tag, whose specification limits tag size to 256 MB, so the lossless data could not exceed that. Editing the ID3v2 tag could inadvertently delete the lossless data, turning the file into a standard MP3. Some software unaware of the lossless data would read the tag and incorrectly display the song's runtime, because the ID3 tagging format was never part of the MPEG Audio specification and using the tag for arbitrary data is undefined. The ease of data loss and undefined nature made the concept ill-suited, described as a gross hack that worked only by luck or with specialized software. As of 2023, most platforms play FLAC, which is always lossless.

Products that support mp3HD

Hardware included the Samsung IceTouch (YP-H1) announced at CES 2010 but never released, the Samsung YP-Z3 (released end of August 2011), and the Samsung YP-R2 (released November 2011). Software support included Winamp with a plugin (Windows only), Windows Media Player with a DirectShow filter, and the mp3/HD/surround/SX player (Windows and Mac).