Talk:MP3/Archive 4

Role of AT&T (Bell Labs) in the development of MP3?
The role of AT&T/Lucent/Bell Labs in the development of MP3 is missing in the article. According to this source (dated 2007-02-16),
 * AT&T Corp. and Fraunhofer agreed in 1989 to develop MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 technology, now called MP3. Scientists from AT&T's Bell Labs collaborated with Fraunhofer before AT&T spun off the unit in 1996. Bell Labs became Lucent Technologies Inc., which Alcatel SA acquired last year.

Another source (dated 2007-02-23) informs:
 * What was Alcatel-Lucent's role in developing MP3?
 * The MP3 technology was developed in large part by people with Germany's Fraunhofer and AT&T's Bell Labs, which became part of Lucent when it was spun off in 1996. Alcatel and Lucent merged last year, becoming Alcatel-Lucent.

-- HYC 05:38, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I have edited parts of the article, added references to Bell Labs work, as well as mentioned Thomson-Brandt, who is to be credited with the window-switching understanding, in parts of the article.

I am unfamiliar, to date, with the actual process involved in editing Wikipedia, so please forgive me if I do not note some particular standard of notation, etc. Woodinville (talk) 23:09, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

I did some more cleaning up in the history and "suzanne vega" area. Pointed to Fletcher's work that Zwicker built on, removed some personal point of view, and tried to sort out some grammar. Woodinville (talk) 21:12, 24 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm thinking about moving a bit of the history section from this article into the audio compression article ? Any suggestion/opposition? --Gabriel Bouvigne (talk) 22:06, 24 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Not particularly. It would be good if the present article remains balanced, but the section has perhaps grown a bit much. (looks at the article) My goodness, that article needs an exposition on perceptual vs. source coding, as well, doesn't it?  Just, if you will, try to keep the coverage here evenhanded, unlike its history up to last week.--Woodinville (talk) 08:36, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I just found that we have a page about perceptual audio coding. So my idea would be:
 * have explanations about perceptual vs source coding within the audio compression article
 * Transfer most of the psy-coding history from the mp3 article into the perceptual audio coding article, and extend it to cover the early PXFM and OCF, Musicam, PAC/EPAC, AAC and the likes, so we could have a central place to clearly show the timeline and contributions
 * Link the various existing coding schemes articles (mp2, mp3, aac, ac3,...) to the perceptual audio coding article.

This way we could perhaps finally end up with something really informative. (of course, this will probably require some time)--Gabriel Bouvigne (talk) 15:33, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Development of MP3; role of OCF and ASPEC
The statement in paragraph 1 of the Development section: "Modern lossy bit compression technologies, including MPEG, MP3, etc, are based on the early work of Prof Oscar Bonello of the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina." is erroneous. The psychoacoustic masking codec was first proposed by Manfred R. Schroeder et al. in the Journal of the Acoustic Society of America, Vol. 66. pp. 1647-1652, "Optimizing Digital Speech Coding by Exploiting Masking Properties of the Human Ear", in 1979.

Paragraph 4 states "In 1991, there were two proposals available:", but neglects to mention the other proposal, ASPEC.

In general the development of MP3 was via the progression OCF(1988)->ASPEC(1991)->MP3(1994), with a small contribution from Musicam. This progression is distorted or not present at all in the article. The article overemphasizes the contribution of Musicam. MP3 is essentially a transform coder derived from ASPEC and OCF. Musicam was a subband coder. The only contribution of Musicam to MP3 was the division of OCF into two transform-coded subbands.

Without objection I will edit the article accordingly. William spurlin 18:51, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Fraunhofer's contributions
FHG certainly deserves a lot of credit for popularizing MP3 as well as major technological contribtions, but this article is repeatedly revised to steal professional and technical credit from AT&T Bell Labs (Johnston), Thomson-Brandt (Spille, Schroder), and CNET (Mahieux).

FHG was not the sole inventor, nor does it deserve sole credit. Brandenburg, as already documented, was working at AT&T BELL LABS with/for Johnston at the time of creation of the standard, and was travelling on an AT&T Budget, along with Johnston, who also played a primary part in creation of the algorithm, as documented in the published psychoacoustic models. This is hardly a sole FHG activity. Please in the future, do not steal credit and slight people professionally. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Woodinville (talk • contribs) 23:29, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Bonello contributions factually inaccurate
I am unaware of any contribution in the electrical engineering, broadcasting or acoustical literature by Oscar Bonello. In particular the claim that "the world's first bit compression system" was developed by Oscar Bonello is absurdly at variance with the actual devlopment of such systems as vocoders and adaptive differential pulse code modulation. Unless the author of the Bonello section can factually document his/her claims, I propose its removal. William spurlin 01:12, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

The only reference I can find to this claim on the internet is this link to a company that Bonello apparantly started back in the day. http://www.solidynepro.com/indexahtmlp_Hist-ENG,t.htm 85.24.231.191 11:29, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Let me add here that solidyne.com.ar (Oscar Manuel Bonello and Leonardo Bonello) is also (or mainly) a spammer. See whois and web page of enviodemails.com and alsolnet.com. Those pages offer "email marketing" and target owners of harvested email addresses. You here might want to check your spam folder for Argentinian spam especially advertising streaming audio to get a proof. I suggest to remove all parts of pages in Wikipedia mentioning him and/or his company. Apparently, judging from other comments here, it looks he's a phony anyway. Claiming he invented things discussed above without claiming a patent then. That's ridiculous. Ankman 04:29, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

This is painfully inaccurate. I'm sure a good detective could find bit compression dating back to the 1950s, but United States Patent 4117470, filed Oct 8th, 1976 predated Bonello by over a decade. GPS systems could be said to use bit compression and they were designed in the late 1960s. I will remove this entry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.113.109.220 (talk) 05:13, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

You could also cite Johnston, J. D. and Goodman, D. J., “Multipurpose hardware for digital coding of audio signal,” Proc. NTC77, 1977. which cites work done in 1975 summer and 1976 summer, culimating in flexible hardware doing ADPCM (or APCM) at rates from 2 bits at 8kHz to 12 bits at 37 kHz (the odd number due to the speed of the A to D). The higher rates were certainly music compression, indeed, although of an extremely primitive kind. Woodinville (talk) 23:52, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I see this claim about Bonello is back. Johnston gave a talk in 1988 at the Mohonk Conference, Krasner and Krahe are both earlier than that, and Manfred Schroeder et al comes from publication in 1979. Given that, claiming priority with a 1989 publication (arriving after the JSAC articles nearly everyone on the planet who did this stuff) is simply nonsense. Woodinville (talk) 21:15, 1 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Asked OscarJuan for clarifications --Gabriel Bouvigne (talk) 13:30, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Enough is enough here. Bonello is cited as 1989 here, but as 1987 on the audio data compression page. Both 1989 and 1987 are completely uncited, and I can't find anyone off-line who knows a single thing about this work. It's time for this to either appear in fully supported, testable, verifiable form, or for it to be regarded as vandalism. What's more, the priority claim back to 1983 is no more supported than the priority claims of anyone else before publication, and the maturity of the algorithms in the JSAC paper makes it clear that lots of people were working on this in 1983. The claims here are inconsistant and completely unsupported. Barring full support, they should go away. Compare this to the AT&T claims, for instance, that are absolutely supported by both patent and publication, ditto for OCF, etc. Woodinville (talk) 22:58, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I have reverted the latest attempt at "Bonello Contributions". Nobody but Oscar Juan seems to knwo about them in a fashion that can be tested and verified. He claims "the first" when an entire book full of fully developed algorithms is published a year before his own claim. This is unuspportable. Woodinville (talk) 23:08, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Why Bonello is considered the inventor of bit compression technology ?
In first place I will analyze the unfortunately comment of Mr Spurling: I am unaware of any contribution in the electrical engineering, broadcasting or acoustical literature by Oscar Bonello Yes, I know that some persons do not known about Aristotle and his work, maybe never enjoy the Beethoven 9 Symphony or never read to Proust. Probably he do not read in Spanish or German. Probably he do not read ASA or AES Journals, etc. But the very estrange situation is that placing my name at Google he will found valuable information and hundreds of citations. With 25 years of teaching at the University of Buenos Aires (4 Nobel Prize, 180 years activity) I have 150 published papers and are Fellow of the Audio Engineering Society, New York Please see my CV at: http://www.solidynepro.com/documentos/Bonello-English%20CV.doc

Some of the above mentioned authors have a confusion between the concept of theoretical work and the concept of "realization"; give birth to a new technology. By example mathematician Euler in 1750 works creating algorithms for a rocket that fly to space. Fourier and Laplace works with mathematical approaches to this type of problems. A lot of people helps to create the scientific bases of a machine that goes outside the earth gravity... All wonderful, but none of them were able to flight... But a reduced group of American people in 1969 reaches the moon surface... Of course it was the work of a team (Newton and Euler included), but the space era starts in 1969 and not when Euler found his algorithms.

The confusion is between delivering a paper or fill a patent, and on the other hand, create a new technology that works and serves the human been.

Studies about masking of bands started in 1924. Although Dr Helmholtz at his 1885 publication demonstrates to know this ear property (only explained  after 1960)  Then, the previous work of the foundation of a science is very important... but this do not means that the real thing will start working. (Remember all the airplanes designed by the genius of Leonardo da Vinci; but... Leonardo was not the inventor of the aviation, the Wright Brothers did it.

Bit compression technology is very similar. A lot of people works with this idea (If we include Dr Helmholtz, since 1885). But one thing is to create the theoretical bases and a different thing is to create the final working device; the invention.

Our developing team in Argentina had 3 challenges 1) Develop a bit compression algorithm // 2) Create an audio car that cab perform in real time de coder and decoder of the audio streaming // 3) Develop the automation software that ran at the early IBM PC XT machine in order to produce high quality audio signals Since our university de no have founds to support this project, we use a private support with  two conditions:  a)	To get a bit compression system of FM audio quality running on a PC, with reliable operation and ready for commercialization. b)	All the research and developing must be done in secret, no papers, no patents, because the sponsor wishes to be the first one to start this technology

We was carefully to have a perfect documentation to avoid any doubts in the future. First presentation in Argentina at the Secretary of Communication in front of 150 engineers. Presentation at the NAB Radio Show in 1990 (All American radio technician were there ! (Do you need more proof ?) Then, news at newspapers, magazines, Advertising at the AES Journal, Canadian, Spain, France, magazines. Installation in radio stations (KIKO AM in San Francisco, California was the world first in 1990. Installations in Radio France, Radio Finland at Oulu, and lot of radio stations around the world.

All is perfectly documented. Of course I am glad to give more information at oscar@solidyne.com.ar and newspapers copy, advertising, client list, etc  and contact IEEE engineers that known in deep this technology. Please note we are NO presenting an idea or algorithm We are NOT presenting audibility curves We are not presenting block diagrams or circuits... We present a real working device, Like the Wright Brothers, Like Graham Bell, Like the Edison lamp... —Preceding unsigned comment added by OscarJuan (talk • contribs) 04:03, 16 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Oscar Bonello considered the inventor of "bit compression technology"? I'm sorry, but isn't this a bit too broad? Anyhow, if you are the recognized inventor of bit compression, then for sure someone else will mention it within the relevant articles, and so there is no need to add yourself this section about you, isn't it? --Gabriel Bouvigne (talk) 22:53, 16 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Gabiel: I agree with you (sometimes it happens...) that it sounds "oversized" I made several corrections to focus on the real practical invention (the concept of "The first working device" using bit compression) Please read it. I am open to change the text in order to get a description that shows exactly what we have done and at the same time have full agreement with the MP3 society opinions

PS: Is unfair your comment about "someone else will mention it " You know my CV and know several national Prizes we have about it... Of course "invention" is a difficult task (today 150 years later there are a lot of telephone inventors in France, Germany, England, Italy, Russia, etc) (Oscar Bonello, March 16)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by OscarJuan (talk • contribs) 00:33, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that it's time that Oscar Juan stops stealing credit from others. Krasner had a working realtime device that was published. Brandenburg had OCF in real-time form, just to mention two examples.

You are welcome to assert that you were one of the contributors. You are not, however, in any fashion, "the first", and your claiming so is unacceptable. Please adjust your claims immediately. You are demonstrably, provably not the first. OCF alone refutes your claim by any evidence available to me.

Furthermore, it is purely disingenious to appear authoritive by citing the standard psychoacoustic works that we all use in our daily work. What's more, it would be good of you to cite the basic work on masking that was demonstrated by Fletcher, et al, although certainly not in the modern understanding, the applicability of equal loudness curves, how they interact with "Weber's Law" and the like. You may well have contributed, but you are NOT the only and sole inventor, sir, and you are stealing credit from a wide variety of other individuals when you claim otherwise. Correct your claims. Woodinville (talk) 01:17, 17 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Considering that Bonello's Audicom/ECMA system is based on psychoacoustic masking, in the same way as MPEG audio, but without MPEG audio being based in any way on ECMA, and also considering that ECMA was not the first psychoacoustic lossy encoding scheme, that means that ECMA may be part of the same familly as MPEG audio, but is clearly not an ancestor. Thus, it should not be claimed to be such an ancestor, but rather should be acknowledge to be the first radio automation device using those techniques.
 * That means that it should be placed within the "Audio compression (data)" and/or "Broadcast automation" articles, and is irrelevant to the mp3 article. Please note that it is already properly described within those articles, and thus should be removed from the mp3 article. --Gabriel Bouvigne (talk) 11:28, 17 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Bonello's reply to Mr Woodinville and Mr Bouvigne

a) The works of Kramer, Brandemburg and others are not "practical devices" Only valuable Lab experiences, without further applications in real life and the everyday work. Then we can not consider it "inventions" The same way Leonardo did nice drawings of flying machines, but he is not considered the "inventor" of the airplane. b) We agree to limit claims and to move the long part to Broadcast Automation. Then, we did a short two lines text with very limited claims. I hope you agree with it. c) Gabriel do not like references to the acousticians that develops the principles of the ear masking. Then, who reads the MP3 article believes that all starts with a small group of people involved at the MPG Project. I think that you do not change the History and recognize the early contributors. If you will, please place the names at the beginning of the MP3 article. If not, is not bad that Bonello remembers them.    c) As I told you earlier, Gabriel, since "MP3" is not only a technical expression because usually the people associates the name with "sound from a PC" I understand that is correct to have a small mention (now very short) to the first PC working system used now up to this days, Best regards- OscarJuan —Preceding unsigned comment added by OscarJuan (talk • contribs) 20:27, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

COMMENTS ABOUT Woodinville, Gabriel and OscarJuan discussion

Bonello is rigth when he said that he is the inventor of the first working bit-compression device. I assist at the first Audicom presentation in NAB 1990, Atlanta, USA and at that moment nobody at the world is able to offer somtehing similar About the Woodinville unfortunately comment to profesor Bonello of "disingenious" I feel this is unfair and agressive (please remember,sir, we are not dancers at a cabaret...) I think that is correct to recognize the people who advance the science knolewdge. From what we know, the Bonellos's work was based in Richard Ehmer masking curves, not at the Schroeder analytical approximation used in MP3 (that do not fit exact with the real ear masking curves, as you can easily see comparing both) In my personal opinion the MP3 page gives false information when starts the technology at 1979. Then I undestand that you do not agree that Bonello gives the name of the true precursors. I encourage you correcting the false impression that "all was done by a group of a few good guys starting in 1979..."

Roberto miller (talk) 16:40, 22 March 2008 (UTC) Roberto Miller Roberto miller (talk) 16:40, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

First, it is incorrect to argue that Schroeder analytical approximation has anythign to do with masking curves, it is an approximation of the shape of a cochlear filter bank. On this statement alone, we can discount the comments from Miller. Certainly the authors were well aware of this approximation, and well aware at the time that it was not a "masking curve". Second, the dismissal of OCF, etc, by previous comments above is likewise improper, and the nonsense about "only valuable lab experiences" is simply atrocious. Many people other than Bonello had lots of valuable lab experience and lab experience that is the basis from which all of the above work, Bonellos and others, comes about. The entire subject is based on LABRATORY EXPERIENCE. The AT&T contributions, for instance, date back from Fletcher right through the authors of the MP3 standard. Calling those "valuable lab experience not real life" is quite inaccurate. It is completely impossible to know what some others have in the way of "valuable lab experience not real life", therefore making such claims is both offensive and unjustified. Science is testable, verifiable, and repeatable. Lab experience is a way to test, verify and repeat, therefore dismissing it is inappropriate. It is not acceptable to continue to claim priority with untestable claims, and it is likewise inappropriate to dismiss the acknowleged work in the field as "not real life". Finally, I've pointed to Fletcher, a pioneer in auditory research that much of Zwicker's early work was based on, and others have pointed out a variety of other psychoacoustic results, so the claim that they are unacknowleged, along with the profuse name dropping from Oscar Juan, is just absurd. Woodinville (talk) 05:53, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

ABOUT LAB EXPERIENCES

Mr Woodinville insist in not understand the difference between a "Lab experience" and a technical invention. Very far of my idea is dismissing a lab experience, as Mr Woodinville believes. I know the importance of Lab experiences because I teached 25 years Theory of Sound and Psychoacoustics at the University of Buenos Aires. My name is associated with the Bonello's Criteria for natural modes in room acoustics (please see BONELLO CRITERIA - Págs. 56 - 58 of the book Handbook for Sound Engineers - Glen Ballou (Howard Sams) - USA or THE BONELLO CRITERIA - Págs. 110-112 of book: Acoustic Techniques - Alton Everest (TAB Books) - USA) This worldwide used  acoustic criteria born in "lab experiences"  Then please accept that we agree with you that "Science is testable, verifiable, and repeatable. Lab experience is a way to test, verify and repeat..."(sic) But you must understand that the "invention" is a different thing.. By example: a) Leonardo did nice drawings of flying machines, but he is not considered the "inventor" of the airplane;  b) Heron (Greek about 250 BC) created a "lab experience" to demonstrate how the steam can move a machine. But the Industrial Revolution needed the Watt invention to have true machines. c) The excellent Helmholtz analysis of the voiced sounds and the excellent lab experiences he creates (On the sensations of Tone) is the basis for telephone communication. But the telephone inventor was Graham Bell... Please note that Leonardo, Heron or  Helmholtz are not associated with the "invention" of Airplane, Steam Machine or Telephone. Please note that this is a fact and not a "improper, and the nonsense " as you stated. I hope this comments will help you to understand the difference between a lab experience and a real life invention. I do not (as you suppose) say to one thing is better than the other. My statement is only: there are different things !    About your comment "It is not acceptable to continue to claim priority with untestable claims" I can give you a lot of testable information if you wish (I did it with Gabriel) Please give your mail address. The mine is oscar@solidynepro.com  Regards OscarJuan (talk) 01:00, 27 March 2008 (UTC)OscarJuanOscarJuan (talk) 01:00, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Mr. Bonello, let us meet at NAB and discuss this in person. You are very wrong, and you are completely misrepresenting others' work.

71.231.2.119 (talk) 19:54, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I've looked around the show floor. I can't find Solidyne anywhere, and I still haven't any testable evidence of Mr. Bonello's priority for invention of audio coding, in fact, all of the available literature puts any number of people (Schroder et al, Krahe, Krasner) before him. The obfuscation about "what is invention" here is an argument that simply avoids the actual literature, patents, and other evidence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Woodinville (talk • contribs) 23:23, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Ok, let's get this straight. Bonello is not, repeat NOT the inventor of perceptual audio coding. All of the arguments above are simply a kind of offensive hand-waving that steals credit from others.

HOWEVER, you will all please note that I DO give Bonello credit for early broadcast automation. I see no objection to that, and I do see evidence that he was there very, very early in that cycle. Woodinville (talk) 19:46, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

New Comments about Oscar Bonello invention of the first working system based on Auditory Masking
Please note, if you have read this interesant discussion, that a big difference exists between teorethical ideas and its practical realization. You can find at JAES Journal (July-August 1992) an advertising about the world first bit compression device ready for use at radio stations. It includes the world first PC Audio card that uses the Auditory masking principle. This is the same principle uses by MPGEG, Atrac, MP3, etc At this moment the work of Bonello as a pioneer in this field is well know. For his work in this field the Audio Engineering Society, New York, gave him in 2007 the Fellowship Award. A prize that very few researchers have User: Albert-Kraft


 * I have reverted the recent re-addition of mention of Bonello's work. Again, it's not relevant, given that the preceding paragraph in the article already mentions hardware implementations in 1988.
 * And to equate Bonello's contribution to that of Bell to the telephone is totally ludicrous!  Oli Filth(talk 13:22, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Improving MP3 History
I add several contributions at MP3 History in order to understand better the applications of Auditory Masking and previous works. ---ErnestoVicente (talk) 00:15, 22 March 2009 (UTC)


 * As this has already been discussed in great detail above, and as you are clearly another sockpuppet/meatpuppet of RobertTanzi etc., I have reverted this on sight. Oli Filth(talk 00:32, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Going back too far
I think part of the reason we're getting so tied up with Bonello is because the Development section currently contains too much of MP3's prehistory. Do we really need to be heading down the road of mentioning every development in acoustic research and bit-compression technology that predates the formation of the MPEG working group? Plus, despite its plausibility, it seems like speculation to be implying a connection between MP3 and Schroeder, Krasner, et al. On top of that it seems inappropriate to be covering material that should already be covered in the history sections of articles on Musicam, MP2, and auditory masking. To go into any detail about those things here is just inviting more people to come along and add more peripheral details about MP3's cousins. I propose moving what content we can to other articles, and limiting the history of MP3 to just the history of MP3, referring the reader elsewhere for the history of MP3's antecedents. I will attempt to take this on myself in the near future, if no one else wants to do it. —mjb (talk) 23:34, 25 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Trimming is okay, and could fix the problem, but I like the idea of flashing back through the important players' previous activities to show how they got where they got. Binksternet (talk) 02:26, 3 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree that moving most of the history of predecessors into a dedicated article about history of audio coding would be a good idea. --Gabriel Bouvigne (talk) 06:53, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Merger Proposal
I am recommending the the article MP3 CD be merged into this article. The referenced article is really nothing more than a stub with filler, and doesn't seem to merit its own entry. Vulture19 (talk) 13:46, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

It should also be condensed: "you can also burn mp3's to cd's/dvd's to play in 'compatible' devices." should about cover it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.72.131.205 (talk) 08:35, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

No It should stay seperate —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.232.223.140 (talk) 14:35, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I also think it should be separate, with a section added about players. Madlobster (talk) 05:50, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I think it should be scrapped entirely. There is nothing notable about so-called “MP3 CDs” other than that some CD players support MP3 files. All an “MP3 CD” is is a data CD on which the data of interest is in MP3 format. Giving “MP3 CD” its own article, in my opinion, is akin to giving “game CD” its own article distinct from PC game or CD-ROM. — NRen2k5 (TALK), 01:20, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Merge or delete. The article is poorly sourced, and really doesn't offer any information. I would just merge a little bit of info about what an MP3 CD is, and leave it at that. 70.153.121.225 (talk) 21:30, 31 October 2009 (UTC)