Nero has released “reference quality” encoding software said to be fully compatible with the latest MPEG-4 audio standards (LC-AAC, HE-AAC, HE-AAC v2), and is offering a free Windows version for noncommercial use. Additionally, the company says its licensable digital audio technology includes an optimized codec for devices running Linux, among other embedded OSes.

According to Nero, the new “3GPP-compatible” audio encoder's compression ratios can be selected on a file-by-file basis, from 2.5:1 for highest audio quality, to a maximum compression level that can squeeze the contents of up to 58 CDs into a single CD. An entire audio album can be saved in a single .mp4 file with advanced content management, including support for CD-audio index maps, embedded album art, and ReplayGain, the company says.

Additionally, the new MPEG-4 audio codec supports sampling rates from 8 to 96 kHz and bit rates to 320 kBit/s per channel with constant, average, variable, or double-pass coding modes, making it compatible with virtually any audio source, according to the company.

The Windows version of the codec runs from the command line without a graphical interface. It accepts .WAV files in PCM wave format as input and provides .MP4 files in MPEG-4/3GPP format as output, according to Nero. The command line also supports a variety of quality and bitrate values as parameters.

Nero Recode 2, a Windows CE decoder, accepts MPEG-4/3GPP files as input, and outputs a PCM wave stream compatibile with DirectX 9.0a or later, according to the company.

Nero Digital Audio for Windows is available as a free download, for noncommercial uses, here.

Commercial licensing is available for an “optimized decoding/playback solution” that supports devices running Linux on ARM, Intel XScale, TI OMAP, Freescale mx.21. The commercial version also supports Windows CE, Symbian, and other embedded processor OSes and architectures, according to the company.

 
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