this: lame

LAME is an open source application used to encode audio into the MP3 file format. The name LAME is a recursive acronym for LAME Ain't an MP3 Encoder, reflecting LAME's early history when it was not actually an encoder, but merely a set of patches against the freely available ISO demonstration source code.

Name

At one time, LAME was simply a set of patches against the separately distributed ISO demonstration source, hence the claim that it "is not an encoder". The ISO code had a restrictive license but was available without charge.

In May 2000, the LAME project reimplemented the last of the ISO source code, and thus LAME was then a totally new implementation — compiling recent versions of LAME no longer requires the ISO source code.

As recent LAME releases are no longer a patch against ISO encoder code, LAME is now itself an MP3 encoder; the LAME acronym has become a misnomer.

History and development

LAME development started around mid-1998. Mike Cheng started it as a set of modifications against the "8Hz-MP3" encoder sources, creating LAME 1.0. After some quality concerns raised by others, he decided to start again from scratch based on the "dist10" MPEG reference software sources. His goal was only to speed up the dist10 sources, and leave its quality untouched. That branch (a patch against the reference sources) became Lame 2.0. The project quickly became a team project. Mike Cheng eventually left leadership and started working on tooLAME (an MP2 encoder).

Mark Taylor then started pursuing increased quality in addition to better speed, and released version 3.0 featuring gpsycho, a new psychoacoustic model he developed. This marked the beginning of the development toward quality.

A few key improvements, in chronological order:

• May 1999: a new psychoacoustic model (gpsycho) is released along with LAME 3.0
• June 1999: The first variable bitrate implementation is released. Soon after this, LAME also became able to target lower sampling frequencies from MPEG-2
• November 1999: LAME switches from a GPL license to an LGPL license, allowing it to be used within closed-source applications.
• May 2000: the last pieces of the original ISO demonstration code are removed. LAME is not a patch anymore, but a full encoder.
• December 2003: substantial improvement to default settings, along with improved speed. LAME no longer requires user to use complicated parameters to produce good results
• May 2007: default variable bitrate encoding speed is vastly improved

Patents and legal issues

Like all MP3 encoders, LAME implements some technology covered by patents owned by the Fraunhofer Society and other entities. The developers of LAME do not license themselves the technology described by these patents. Distributing compiled binaries of LAME, its libraries, or programs which are derivative works of LAME in countries which recognize those patents, may be considered infringing on the relevant patents.