Copyright: Sound Limit Help
Citation: Copyright (c)1998 by EASTern DIGITAL Inc.


Version 2.5  for Windows 95, Windows 98 & NT

Copyright ©1998 by EASTern DiGiTAL Inc.

http://members.xoom.com/easternd

What is Sound Limit

Sound Limit is a high performance program that converts (encodes) new or existing audio files into MPEG files.

For example you can:

-	Convert an existing .WAV file into an MPEG audio file then play it with WinAMP.

-	Convert an existing .MP3 file into an WAV audio file.

-	Encode Audio tracks directly from CD-Audio.

-	Create MPEG-1 audio streams - including MPEG-2 layer 1 audio.

-	Create MPEG files for quick downloading over the Internet or an intranet.

Sound Limit Features:

-	It runs on Windows 95 / 98 & Windows NT 4.x.

-	You can encode directly from CD-Audio, you don’t need a CD-Grabber anymore!

-	Supports input .WAV files, 44KHz, Mono, Stereo, 16bit.

-	You can very easy compress a file, with the Sound Limit Wizard.

-	Supports output compressions from 32Kbs to 320Kbs, Layer 1, 2 & Layer 3.

-	Decoding of MPEG files is also supported.

-	High-Speed Encoding while maintaining the Highest Quality possible of the original .WAV file.

See also

How to use Sound Limit…    What’s NEW! in this version…

PLEASE REPORT ANY PROBLEMS TO:.

E-Mail: slimit@edc.dnttm.ro

Phone/Voice/FAX: +40-(0)56-192091

You can download the latest version from http://members.xoom.com/easternd/products/slimit


Order
Order Form

NEW:

You can now register online:

All major credit cards accepted

at

http://members.xoom.com/easternd/products/slimit

Ordering:  Please read anything from this topic!!, then print this order Form, fill the fields and put it in a letter with the money  and send it via registered mail, so we must sign for it when we will receive it (ONLY IF THE AMOUNT IS UNDER $100!), and send it to:

Eastern DIGITAL

P.O. BOX 1140

1900 Timisoara 14

ROMANIA

It seems that this is the only effective way of registering outside Romania, it takes approx. 2 weeks until we receive the letter, and 2-3 days until we send you the registered version.

IMPORTANT NOTE!!: Please DON’T send International Money Orders or Checks, because they cost too much to be processed, if you can’t send cash, only checks then please add $10 to each check or money order.

Payment must be in US dollars drawn on a US bank.

Sound Limit is shipped via E-Mail as an attached file, CD-ROM or  3.5 inch disks only.

For a price in ROL (Romanian LEU), please call!. 056-192091

(without disk, sent by E-Mail) Sound Limit   _____  copies at $30 each = ______

(with disk) Sound Limit   _____  copies at $40 each = ______

(on CD-ROM) Sound Limit + (bonus)  _____  copies at $50 each = ______

Name:___________________________Date:__________

Company:__________________________________________

         Address:__________________________________________

City, State, Zip:__________________________________________

Country:__________________________________________

Day Phone:___________________Evening:________________

E-Mail address (required!!):__________________________________________

How did you heard about Sound Limit?__________________________________________

Comments:

To print this order form, click on Print Topic in the File pull-down menu.

NOTE:  For orders above $100 please send us an E-Mail and we will send you more information about our bank account where to pay.

Please write anything with uppercase letters, especially the address and the e-mail address!!

By registering this version of Sound Limit you will get free upgrades until version 3.0, including version 3.0

CD-ROM registrations will receive Virtual CD Player as a bonus.

For OEM Vendors, we have a special offer, E-Mail us for more information, only orders above 50 licenses!

Any questions about the status of the shipment of an order, refunds, registration options, product details, technical support, volume discounts, dealer pricing, site licenses, etc., must be directed to P.O. BOX 1140, 1900 Timisoara 14, ROMANIA or by E-Mail to slimit@edc.dnttm.ro on Internet, Fax to 40-(0)56-192091.


License
Copyright / License & Warranty

License Agreement

You should carefully read the following terms and conditions before using this software.  Unless you have a different license agreement signed by Eastern Digital, Inc. your use of this software indicates your acceptance of this license agreement and warranty.

For information on distributing the shareware evaluation version of Sound Limit see the section titled Shareware License.

1. Evaluation and Registration:

This is not free software.  You are hereby licensed to use this software for evaluation purposes without charge for a period of 30 days.  If you use this software after the 30 day evaluation period a registration fee of $30 is required.  Payments must be in US dollars drawn on a US bank, and should be sent to Eastern Digital Inc., P.O. BOX 1140, Timisoara 1900, ROMANIA. Credit card ordering and quantity discounts are available, as described in the section Ordering Information/Order Form.  When payment is received you will be sent a registered copy of the latest version of Sound Limit.

Unregistered use of Sound Limit after the 14-day evaluation period is in violation of Romanian, U.S. and international Copyright laws and will be prosecuted to the maximum extent possible under the law!

2. Distribution

Provided that you verify that you are distributing the Shareware Version (select Help from the Sound Limit Dialog bar or About to check) you are hereby licensed to make as many copies of the Shareware version of this software and documentation as you wish; give exact copies of the original Shareware  version to anyone; and distribute the Shareware version of the software and documentation in its unmodified form via electronic means.  There is no charge for any of the above.   You are specifically prohibited from charging, or requesting donations, for any such copies, however made; and from distributing the software and/or documentation with other products (commercial or otherwise) without prior written permission.

3. Registered Version

   One registered copy of Sound Limit may either be used by many persons but only one installed copy at a time!

You may access the registered version of Sound Limit through a network, provided that you have obtained individual licenses for the software covering all workstations that will access the software through the network.  For instance, if 8 different workstations will access Sound Limit on the network, each workstation must have its own Sound Limit license, regardless of whether they use Sound Limit at different times or concurrently.

4. Disclaimer of Warranty

THIS SOFTWARE AND THE ACCOMPANYING FILES ARE SOLD "AS IS" AND WITHOUT WARRANTIES AS TO PERFORMANCE OF MERCHANTABILITY OR ANY OTHER WARRANTIES WHETHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED. Because of the various hardware and software environments into which Sound Limit may be put, NO WARRANTY OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE IS OFFERED.

Good data processing procedure dictates that any program be thoroughly tested with non-critical data before relying on it.  The user must assume the entire risk of using the program.  ANY LIABILITY OF THE SELLER WILL BE LIMITED EXCLUSIVELY TO PRODUCT REPLACEMENT OR REFUND OF PURCHASE PRICE.

Versiunea in limba Romana


Romanian License Agreement
Drepturi de autor / Contract cu utilizatorul / Garantie

Contract cu utilizatorul

Inainte de a utiliza acest program va trebui sa cititi cu atentie urmatoarele conditii si termeni. In caz ca nu aveti o alta intelegere semnata de Eastern Digital SRL, folosirea de catre dvs a acestui program implica acceptarea de catre dvs a acestui contract.

Evaluare si Inregistrare

Acest program nu este gratuit. Aveti dreptul sa folositi versiunea neinregistrata a acestui program pentru o perioada de 30 zile in scopul evaluarii lui. Daca continuati folosirea acestui program dupa perioada de evaluare este necesar sa platiti o taxa de inregistrare. Pentru mai multe informatii asupra pretului si a metodelor de plata va rugam sunati la 056-192091 de luni pina vineri intre orele 9 si 1630.

Dupa ce veti efectua plata veti primi versiunea inregistrata a progarmului Sound Limit.

Folosirea versiunii neinregistrate a programului Sound Limit dupa perioada de evaluare contravine legilor nationale si internationale.

Distribuitie

Este permisa distribiuirea versiunii neinregistrate a programului Sound Limit, fara a se percepe nici un fel de taxe de catre Eastern Digital SRL, atita timp cit se distribuie copii exacte ale versiunii originale. Se interzice obtinerea de profit din distributia acestor copii.

Versiunea Inregistrata

O copie inregistrata a progamului Sound Limit poate fi utilizata de una sau mai multe persoane dar pe un singur calculator.

Daca folositi acest program intr-o retea trebuie sa obineti licente individuale pentru fiecare statie de lucru care va accesa programul prin retea. De exemplu daca 8 statii diferite vor folosi Sound Limit aveti nevoie de 8 licente indiferent daca utilizatorii vor accesa programul in acelasi timp sau pe rind.

Garantie

Acest program si fisierele insotitoare sint vindute ‘asa cum sint’ fara a se garanta anumite performante.  Din cauza numarului mare de configuratii hardware/software in care acest program va fi instalat nu se garanteaza functionarea lui. Procedura corecta de utilizare a oricarui program dicteaza testarea intensiva a acestuia in medii fara date si informatii critice inainte de a avea incredere in calitatea si performantele acestuia. Utilizatorul va trebui sa-si asume intregul risc al folosirii acestui program.


Options
Encoder Options

-	Method: Layer 1, 2 and 3 is the encoding method, the most used is layer 3, because it has the highest quality at low bit rates.

-	Psychoacoustic: The user can select either one of the two psychoacoustic models. Model I is a simple tonal and noise masking threshold generator, and Model II is a more sophisticated cochlear masking threshold generator. Model I is recommended for lower complexity applications whereas Model II gives better subjective quality at low bit rates. Model II can be sed only at Layer 3, and Model I at Layer 1 & 2.

-	Channels – Mono: Mono is a single channel of audio. Use the Mono setting with mono sources or when you need the lowest possible bit rates. The input file (WAV) must be mono

-	Channels – Joint Stereo: Joint Stereo shares certain bits between high frequency left and right channels. This improves compression efficiency at a slight loss of stereo separation. Lower frequencies are treated as normal stereo. Use Joint Stereo to obtain the best overall quality at mid-to-lower bit rates.

-	Channels – Stereo: Stereo includes two independent channels. The total bit rate remains constant, but the split between the channels can vary. The Encoder uses this flexibility to improve quality by allocating more bits to the channel with the more dynamic signal. Use the Stereo setting for best quality stereo audio at higher bit rates.

-	Channels – Dual Channel: Dual Channel includes two completely independent channels (left/right), each with half the total bit rate. Dual is generally used for multi-lingual audio programs.

-	Decoder De-emphasis: This option was included just to let the user modify anything possibe, this represents the decoding error correction, this is done by the MPEG Player / Decoder, not by Sound Limit. The option does not affect the output MPEG file, just the header of file.

-	Material is Copyrighted: Marks the header of the output MPEG file as a copyrighted file.

-	Material is Original: Marks the header of the output MPEG file as an original file.

-	Error Protection: Marks the header of the output MPEG file with the error protection bit, used by the Player / Decoder.

-	Private Bit: Marks the header of the output MPEG file as a private file.

-	High Quality / TURBO Speed: This affects the encoding speed and quality, with the High Quality option Sound Limit performs some sort of “sound anti-aliasing”, but it’s more slower than TURBO Speed. With the TURBO Speed option Sound Limit encodes up to twice faster, and the output quality of the sound, at higher than 128kb rates is almost the same as with the High Quality option.

Copyright ©1998 by EASTern DIGITAL Inc.


WHATSNEW
What’s NEW!
Sound Limit®

Version 2.5:

-	Completely new interface

-	Ability to compress and decompress in the same job

-	Ability to compress files with different options in the same job

-	Ability to compress and decompress files from/to different directories in the same job

-	Fixed some cd audio grabbing problems

-	Improved help file

0	Version 2.01:

-	Now you can grab from SCSI drives

-	CD-Grabbing works under Windows NT

-	Fixed some more bugs

0	Version 2.0:

-	Added a CD-Grabber, to let the user encode files directly from CD-Audio.

-	Added File Info ID3 Tag Support.

-	Corrected the NT bug, “cannot find path in registry!”

-	Corrected some bugs in the status display.

0	Version 1.5a:

-	Corrected a bug in the decoder (buffer overflow).

-	Corrected a bug in the path name, when compressing multiple files.

-	Added and changed some info in the Help file.

-	Updated the status display.

0	Version 1.5:

-	Added multiple files encoding support.

-	Optimized the speed, while maintaining the same quality.

-	Minor changes to interface, status display.

-	Corrected some minor bugs.

See also

How to use Sound Limit…    About Sound Limit

Copyright ©1999 by EASTern DIGITAL Inc.


CDGRAB
CD-Audio Grabber
Sound Limit®

In Sound Limit 2.0 we had included an option to let you encode audio files directly from CD-Audio, so you don’t need anymore a CD-Grabber program to grab the Audio tracks !, and you won’t need 1GB of harddisk space to encode a CD !

Select the CD-Audio button, then a dialog with all tracks found on CD will appear, after that you must select which tracks do you want to encode, and press the OK button, then continue with next button normally. Sound Limit will read track by track and ecnode it, when it will finish with one, it will delete the .WAV file.

If you want to save all the selected tracks to harddisk as WAV files, then press the Grab Now! button instead of the OK button.

Copyright ©1998 by EASTern DIGITAL Inc.


HOWTUSE
How To Use Sound Limit

After starting Sound Limit the following screen will appear.

Click on a control in the following dialog to get help about its usage

See also

About Sound Limit…    What’s NEW! in this version…


Source Directory

Use the tree control to select the directory where your files are.


Source File

This list will display the files that are in the currently selected directory


Filter mask

Select a mask which will be used to filter the file names that are being displayed.(e.g. *.WAV)


Select audio tracks

This button will open a dialog box that will allow you to select the source CD drives and the tracks you want to grab and encode.

Check the tracks that you want to grab from the cd. To change a track name click on the desired track name and wait for the editing cursor to appear. The artist name, album name, music genre and album year will be written in ID3TAG format at the end of the compressed file. This info is useful when you playback the mpeg files with WinAmp.

Click ‘Grab now’ in order to convert selected tracks into WAV files. The WAV files will not be added to the ‘Selected files list’.

Choose OK to add the selected tracks to your file list. When the encoding process will begin this tracks will be grabbed from the cd  into a temporary WAV file and the compressed to MPEG format. After the compression the temporary files will be deleted.


Encode

Push this button to convert files from WAV to MPEG audio.This action will apply to all files added after this action.


Decode

Push this button to convert files from MPEG audio to WAV.This action will apply to all files added after this action.


Add Files

All the files selected in the source file list will be added to the list of files to be processed


Selected files list

Shows the files that you have currently selected for processing. The action is set in concordance with ENCODE and DECODE buttons. The default output directory and encoding options are used.


Remove

This will remove the selected file from the ‘Selected files list’


Clear

Will clear the ‘Selected files list’


Set default output dir

Will allow you to change the default output directory. All files that have not been assigned another output directory  will use this directory for output.


Output dir

Assign a custom output directory for the selected file in the ‘Selected files list’


Output file name

Type here an output name for the currently selected  file in the ‘Selected files list’


Encoding Options

Allows you to assign custom encoding options for the selected file or change the default compression options

-	Method: Layer 1, 2 and 3 is the encoding method, the most used is layer 3, because it has the highest quality at low bit rates.

-	Channels – Mono: Mono is a single channel of audio. Use the Mono setting with mono sources or when you need the lowest possible bit rates. The input file (WAV) must be mono

-	Channels – Joint Stereo: Joint Stereo shares certain bits between high frequency left and right channels. This improves compression efficiency at a slight loss of stereo separation. Lower frequencies are treated as normal stereo. Use Joint Stereo to obtain the best overall quality at mid-to-lower bit rates.

-	Channels – Stereo: Stereo includes two independent channels. The total bit rate remains constant, but the split between the channels can vary. The Encoder uses this flexibility to improve quality by allocating more bits to the channel with the more dynamic signal. Use the Stereo setting for best quality stereo audio at higher bit rates.

-	Channels – Dual Channel: Dual Channel includes two completely independent channels (left/right), each with half the total bit rate. Dual is generally used for multi-lingual audio programs.

-	Bitrate:The bitrate of the bitstream. That is how many bits are needed to encode 1 second of sound. Higher bitrates mean better quality but larger encode files. Recommended bitrates are 128Kbps for layer 3, 192 for layer 2 and 384 for layer 1.

-	High Quality / TURBO Speed: This affects the encoding speed and quality, with the High Quality option Sound Limit performs some sort of “sound antialiasing”, but it’s more slower than TURBO Speed. With the TURBO Speed option Sound Limit encodes up to twice faster, and the output quality of the sound, at higher than 128kb rates is almost the same as with the High Quality option.

Click OK to assign options to the currently selected file in the ‘Selected files list’.

Choose ‘Set default’  to assign options to all files that have not or will not been given custom options.


Next button

Will display this dialog box.

The list of the selected files is displayed for confirmation.

The default output directory and the default encoding options are displayed. Click on Save button to save the default options. This options (if saved) will be auto loaded when you will start Sound Limit.

Click Finish button to begin encoding or decoding. Click Back button to return to the first page if you are not satisfied with the settings or if you made a mistake.


Troubleshooting

CD grabbing problems:

If you are using Windows NT you have to install an ASPI manager for Windows NT.  For more information of how to do this contact the host adapter manufacturer. You will need ASPI manager even if you have an ATAPI drive.

Windows 95 and 98 have ASPI manager by default so you don’t need to install another.

If you have other problems please write to slimit@edc.dnttm.ro