BLADEENC 1 November 25th, 2001 MP3 User's Manual bladeenc LGPL'd MP3 encoder bladeenc OPTION WAV-FILE bladeenc is a free, cross-platform, console-based MP3 encoder, based on the ISO reference code. It is mostly intended for high quality encoding in high bitrates. bladeenc is a console application that takes its parameters from the commandline. Any number of WAV/AIFF-files can be specified on the commandline and you can even use wildcards to specify more than one file at the same time. Long filenames are supported when entering them on the commandline, but if they include space-characters you will have to enclose the with quotation-marks ( " ). Switches can be entered on the commandline together with the filenames. In earlier versions of BladeEnc it didn't matter where you put the switches since they always affected all files anyway, but from BladeEnc 0.80 this has changed in order to give you more flexibility. You can get a list of all valid arguments by running BladeEnc without any commandline arguments. A summary of the options supported by bladeenc is included below. -[bitrate], -br [bitrate] Defines the bitrate for the MP3-file. Higher bitrates gives better quality, but also bigger files. Most people prefer to generate 128 kBit MP3s. Please note that it's the total bitrate that is specified, so if you're generating a stereo MP3-file at 128 kBit you get 64 kBit for left channel and 64 kBit for the right channel. The default setting is 128 kBit for stereo files and 64 kBit for mono files. Allowed bitrates are: 32, 40, 48, 56, 64, 80, 96, 112, 128, 160, 192, 224, 256 and 320. -concat Concatenates the output generated from this file to the last mp3 generated, thus making one mp3 file from two or more sample files. This option also automatically enables -nogap. -crc Adds checksum data to each frame in the MP3 file. The checksum data is useful for error-correction when streaming the MP3 in realtime over internet (as done by internet radio stations). It lowers the quality of the sound slightly since the checksum data also needs to fit in the specified bitrate and is not needed for normal use. -del, -delete The WAV-file is automatically deleted after having been encoded. Be careful with this switch because the WAV-file is deleted even if the encoding process failed (for example due to insufficient drive space). -dm, -mono Downmixes stereo input files to mono before they are compressed, thus generating mono MP3 files. This switch does nothing if the input file already is mono. -lm, -leftmono Takes only the left channel of the input file and encodes it into a mono MP3. If the input file is mono it will be compressed as it is. -rm, -rightmono Takes only the right channel of the input file and encodes it into a mono MP3. If the input file is mono it will be compressed as it is. -swap Swaps the left and right channels of stereo input files before encoding them. -p, -private Sets the private-flag in the MP3-file, specifying that this is a private MP3. As far as I know there is no program that treats private MP3's differently from normal ones so it is practically useless. Setting this flag doesn't affect the encoding time, file size or quality in any way, so set it if it makes you happy. -c, -copyright Sets the copyright-flag in the MP3-file, specifying that this is a copyrighted MP3. As far as I know there is no program that treats copyrighted MP3's differently from normal ones so it is practically useless. Setting this flag doesn't affect the encoding time, file size or quality in any way, so set it if it makes you happy. -copy This switch clears the MP3 file's original-flag that is set by default from version 0.50 of bladeenc. Setting this flag doesn't affect the encoding time, file size or quality in any way, so set it if it makes you happy. -quiet Prevents bladeenc from doing any screen output, except for error messages. This is mostly useful if you want to run bladeenc as a background process on UNIX systems. The screen output takes nearly no time at all, so you won't even save 1% by disabling screen output. This switch is global only. -q, -quit Makes bladeenc quit automatically when all files have been encoded. Normally bladeenc waits for someone to press RETURN before quitting. This switch is global only. -outdir=PATH Specifies an output path for the encoded files. Normally the MP3 files ends up in the same directory as their corresponding WAV-files resides in, but using this switch you can get them to end up wherever you like. This switch is global only. -prio=SETTING Changes the task priority of bladeenc. Valid settings are HIGHEST, HIGHER, NORMAL, LOWER, LOWEST and IDLE. bladeenc is by default set to LOWEST priority which basically means that BladeEnc functions fine in the background without disturbing or slowing down any other program. Linux/Unix users can also specify prio in the normal unix range of -20 to +20.This switch is global only. This setting is not available in all ports. -rawfreq=FREQUENCY Specifies the frequency for raw samples in hertz. Default is 44100. -rawbits=SAMPLEBITS Specifies the number of bits for each sample in a raw sample file. Allowed values are 8 and 16. Default is 16. -rawmono Specifies that raw samples are mono, not stereo. -rawstereo Specifies that raw samples are stereo, not mono. This is default, so you won't have to use this switch unless you want to override a global -rawmono switch. -rawsigned Specifies that raw samples are signed, i.e. contains values in the range -32768 to +32767 (16-bit samples) or -128 to +127 (8-bit samples). This is default, so you won't have to use this switch unless you want to override a global -rawunsigned switch. -rawunsigned Specifies that raw samples are unsigned, i.e. contains values in the range 0 to 65535 (16-bit samples) or 0 to 255 (8-bit samples). -rawbyteorder=LITTLE|BIG Specifies the byteorder of raw samples. LITTLE gives LITTLE_ENDIAN (Intel x86 style) and BIG gives BIG_ENDIAN (Motorola style). Default is whatever is the native byteorder for your system, so hopefully you won't have to use this switch. -rawchannels=1|2 Specifies the number of channels in a raw sample. -rawchannels=1 gives the same result as -rawmono and -rawchannels=2 give the same result as -rawstereo. Default is 2. -nocfg Ignore whatever is specified in the config file. This switch is global only. -refresh=1+ This switch is not supported anymore. It became superfluous due to internal changes. bladeenc still understands (but ignores) it for compatibility reasons. -progress=0-8 Specifies which of the 7 available progress indicators to use or turns the progress indicator off if set to 0. The default progress indicator is number 1. Changing the progress indicator doesn't affect the encoding in any way it just lets you configure the look of bladeenc a little bit according to your own taste: Percentage and ETA shown for file and batch (default). Long bar for file progress. Long bar for batch progress. Short bars for file and batch progress. Samples done/total for file and batch. ETA shown for file and batch. Seconds of MP3 generated from file (default for RAW samples). Alternative long bar for file progress. Doesn't rewind the cursor so it produces less output and works well when redirecting program output to a file. If a RAW sample is included in the batch you automatically gets progress indicator 7 for technical reasons. This switch is global only. -nogap Specifies that there should be no audiable gap between this and the next sample if they are played after each other. Useful when encoding records where the tracks blend into each other, but can cause unwanted side effects otherwise. Please see the section "Gapless encoding" below for more information. -sort Sorts the specified input files according to filename before encoding them. Useful when using the -nogap switch combined with wildcards since it's critical that the tracks are encoded in the right order when doing gapless encoding. This switch is global only. ~/.bladeencrc The default settings of bladeenc can be changed in the configuration file. The config file contains the same kind of switches as you enter on the commandline, separated by one or more spaces, tabs or newlines. Anything placed after a '#' until the end of the line is believed to be a comment and is ignored. The switches in the configuration file are simply appended to the beginning of the commandline before it is parsed. Anything typed on the commandline has higher priority than what is in the configuration file, so the default settings can easily be overriden from the commandline. If the -nocfg switch is entered on the commandline the configuration file will be ignored. The -nocfg switch is not allowed in the configuration file. Please report bugs to the author. lame(1), grip(1), l3enc(1) This program is documented in greater detail on the projects homepage: http://bladeenc.mp3.no/ Tord Jansson tord.jansson@swipnet.se This man-page was written by Jan Schaumann jschauma@netmeister.org as part of "The Missing Man Pages Project".