From:	 Joe Drew <hoserhead@woot.net>
To:	 lwn@lwn.net, editors@newsforge.com, editors@linuxtoday.com
Subject: mpg321 0.2.0 released
Date:	 23 Sep 2001 14:47:04 -0400

Version 0.2.0 of the Free drop-in replacement for mpg123, mpg321, has
been released.

Highlights of this release include:
* A much better algorithm for detecting the length and number of frames
  in a given mp3 file. This should increase startup time for people 
  using the verbose (-v) mode.
* An implementation of the 'remote control' (-R) functionality of
  mpg123. This gives frontends a known, reliable interface to use when
  using mpg321 or mpg123 as a backend for playing MP3 files. It also
  allows seeking within and pausing of files.
* A new compile-time configure flag for setting the default output
  device (--with-default-audio=). This allows people who want to use
  esd or alsa, for example, to do so without using the -o flag.
* Porting to the new libao 0.8.0 interface, which allows aRts output
  as well.
* Other bug-fixes and enhancements.

This and previous versions of mpg321 can be downloaded from

http://people.debian.org/~drew/

(A Sourceforge project is in the works.)

This release marks one of the final requirements for frontend use; that
is, the "Remote Control" feature. However, there are a few minor bugs
that have already been identified and fixed, and there will certainly be
more latent. Please use this version of mpg321 just as you would mpg123,
so that any new bugs introduced in this version can be shaken out.

Debian packages of version 0.2.0 have already been uploaded, and will be
included in the debian unstable ("sid") archive shortly. Red Hat users
are encouraged to contribute spec files and RPMs of mpg321. Please note
that version 0.1.5 of mpg321 is already included in the Red Hat 7.2 beta
("Roswell").

mpg321 still lacks a few features that mpg123 has; namely
* ID3 tag support
* Extremely robust and well-tested networking support
* Very low resource usage/high-speed decoding and downsampling

The first two items are being targetted for version 0.3.0. The last can
be helped by further optimizing MAD, in particular. Any and all
contributions are welcome.

About mpg321:
mpg321 was created to alleviate the dependency many people had on the
non-free command-line mp3 player mpg123. It allowed many front-ends to
mpg123 to move to the official Debian archive, rather than being
relegated to the 'contrib' section. 
mpg321 is based on the MAD MPEG decoder library by Rob Leslie
<rob@mars.org>. In particular, this means that mpg321 uses only integer
instructions to decode mp3 files, which is a huge win on any processor
which lacks a floating point unit (FPU) like the ARM. It also means that
mpg321 has very high output quality, since MAD is a Full Layer III
ISO/IEC 11172-3 audio decoder, as defined by the standard. See
http://www.mars.org/home/rob/proj/mpeg/ for more information.
mpg321 uses the libao audio library, developed mainly for the Ogg Vorbis
project, for output, which allows it (unlike mpg123) to switch output at
runtime. libao natively supports ESD, ALSA, aRts, and OSS output, among
others. See the mpg321 manual page for more details. 

-- 
Joe Drew <hoserhead@woot.net> <drew@debian.org>

Please encrypt email sent to me.