Monkey Protocol (.APE)

[tosim]

Are there currently any plans of adding the Monkey (*.ape) codecs to VLC? Thank you.

[dionoea]

Not that i know.

[tosim]

Thank you for the reply. I noticed your "handle" of "Developer"-could you possibly talk the others into adding it? Either way, thanks again.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

No, we won't include it in VLC since their licence is not GPL-compatible...

[Mimiru]

Monkey's Audio Source Code License Agreement

License Agreement

1. The Monkey's Audio SDK and source code can be freely used to add APE format playback, encoding, or tagging support to any product, free or commercial. Use of the code for proprietary efforts that don't support the official APE format require written consent of the author.

2. Monkey's Audio source can be included in GPL and open-source software, although Monkey's Audio itself will not be subjected to external licensing requirements or other viral source restrictions.

3. Code changes and improvements must be contributed back to the Monkey's Audio project free from restrictions or royalties for the sake of the common good, unless exempted by express written consent of the author.

4. Any source code, ideas, or libraries used must be plainly acknowledged in the software using the code.

5. Although the software has been tested thoroughly, the author is in no way responsible for damages due to bugs or misuse.

6. If you do not completely agree with all of the previous stipulations, you must cease using this source code and remove it from your storage device.

[tosim]

Mimiru-Thank you. You saved me doing the cut and paste. Just in case, here's the pertinent part again:
2. Monkey's Audio source can be included in GPL and open-source software, although Monkey's Audio itself will not be subjected to external licensing requirements or other viral source restrictions.
Again-thank you.

[Mimiru]

You're welcome,

It seems that it wasn't like that before ..... they have recently changed the licence. That's why I thought it would be useful to put here the ultimate version

[dionoea]

I somehow doubt that this license is GPL compatible. Statement 2 itselft seems contradictary.

[Mimiru]

well it depends on how you define GPL compatible .......

If GPL compatible = GPL licenced so yes it's not compatible .....

I think that the guy precised this just because it's not GPL and he put this just to point out that it can be used with GPLed projects no ?

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Use of the code for proprietary efforts that don't support the official APE format require written consent of the author.

This is not GPL compatible. This has been discussed over and over... Here and on the Monkey's Audio Forum, or on wikipedia.

Please stop the discussion here.

[Mimiru]

Lol

just to understand :

It's the case that someone can take the source, make it proprietary, and support the ape format ? (and so he don't need the conscent of the ape programers)

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

I don't know.
Someone made a LGPL library of Monkey's Audio. But this lib is not legal, I am afraid.

[forart.it]

For those who are interested in, seems a light GPL (plain C) decoder has been written by Dave Chapman for Rockbox project:

Details
This patch implements a Monkey's Audio (.ape files) decoder for Rockbox.

The decoder itself (libdemac) was written from scratch by me and is licensed under the GNU GPL. The exception is the majority of rangecoding.h, which is (C) 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 Michael Schindler and is also licensed under the GPL. See that source file for full details.

The decoder only handles modern variants (v3.97 and later) of Monkey's Audio (the format has gone through lots of incompatible changes during its life).

Some links:
FS#7256 - Monkey's Audio (.ape file) codec based on libdemac
libavcodec/apedec.c

Hope that helps !

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Development versions should read APE files.

[TheEye]

Running windows version 0.8.6d, which I downloaded recently at the request of my boss. He was VERY frustrated to find that his brand new Windows XP Pro x64 computer did not come with a DVD codec. I assured him that there was software that came with his DVD burner that contained a codec with 'trial' software that would allow him to watch DVDs. Of course... he did not know where this disc was. So after googling, he came up with VLC players and has since been spreading the joy of codec free listening/viewing. He even insisted I install it on his new eeepc... which seems to work beautifully!

So here I am using it, ready to give up my all time standard Winamp which I stuck with EVEN after it was bought up by a company who software I would never consider installing on my machine, at least until then...

However this morning I went to play an APE file from my vast mp3/lossless collection and ran into my first stubling block... IT DID NOT PLAY, even though it seemed to try... I got nothing from it.

Is there a way to tell what APE file version you have? Could be related the file being created with an early version of APE?!

I tried a FLAC file and they play nicely... GREAT JOB on the software!

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Only nightly build can read APE.

[amyrlin]

Only nightly build can read APE.

Is this still true?

Thanks devs for being so helpful on the forums!

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

No, .ape is supported since a long time now.

[laryk]

No, .ape is supported since a long time now.

Unfortunately, I have no luck with my .ape music.
VLC 1.1.11 does not play them at all, no error messages.

Do I need to install any external decodecs/filters?

[VLC_help]

Open Tools -> Messages (set Verbosity to 2), and then try. The message dialog will complain.

[laryk]

Open Tools -> Messages (set Verbosity to 2), and then try. The message dialog will complain.

Thank you for your help.
I have changed verbosity level to 2, start my music and receive a lot of messages:
"main warning: PTS is out of range (xxxxxxx), dropping buffer"

where xxxxxx is 3513229245, 3513136365 etc. numbers.


Merry Christmas!

[VLC_help]

No debug or error messages before those?

[laryk]

No debug or error messages before those?

Sorry, the full debug log:

Code: Select all

main debug: control type=1 main debug: Stream buffering done (0 ms in 0 ms) main debug: Decoder buffering done in 0 ms main debug: waiting decoder fifos to empty main warning: PTS is out of range (3744904285), dropping buffer main warning: PTS is out of range (3744811406), dropping buffer

and lot of "out of range messages" after.

Sometimes

Code: Select all

main debug: waiting decoder fifos to empty

There are no error messages at all.

[VLC_help]

Is there some short sample file you could share to us?

[laryk]

Is there some short sample file you could share to us?

Unfortunately I have no idea how split .ape, so I shared the file in original size
https://rapidshare.com/files/3000297754 ... isc_3_.ape