I downloaded what I thought was an audio .rar file but what it contained is a Winamp playlist file and a bunch of . mpc files for the music. I don't know how to get them to play with anything other than Winamp or add them to my media library. I followed a link in the .rar file to a website that had listings for decoders and encoders but no info on how to get them to work. I installed the plugin for Winamp they had and that is how I got it to play there but the decoder app that they had seems to do nothing. Can anyone tell me how to encode them to mp3 or wma files?

These are musepack files -- smaller than mp3's with the same quality or better quality at the same size.

http://www.cdfreaks.com/software/Bur.../Musepack.html

Thanks a lot. I appreciate it.

There's also a winamp plugin at rarewares.org

Official Musepack / MPC homepage

If you're trying to install The Nero plugin for 5.5 (must be 5.5.9.0 or above), the "..." is Program Files

Newest version... if you mean 6.6, maybe they changed it again?
You WERE looking in the "Common Files" area, and not the main program directory?

If all else fails, search for same known Nero DLLs like:
aacenc32.dll
VqfEncLib.dll

That should find wherever it's keeping the Audio plugins!

I D/L the file, but where do I put it? no wise cracks please..... ;< )

Extract or copy the file to here...

Nero V6.6

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Ahead\AudioPlugins

Nero V5

C:Program Files\Ahead\Nero

hi there. MPC is the competition to Mp3. Named MP+ also, says that was better results then mp3... i don't know, still testing. try here or here to see if that helps.

Cheers

It's not really competition to MP3. Musepack is actually based on mp2 and is a purely subband codec.

Try:http://www.canudo.net/derelict/freempc/

I registered just to post the fact that mpc files are oh I don't know, twice as big as mp3's?

Yea, this is a gay format..

What a stupid comment.

MPC (Musepack) is a lossy (as opposed to lossless) audio compression format, somewhat like MP3. It's basically a format that has been 'tuned' particularly for audio 'transparency' compared to the original audio at decent bitrates, in other words it's main intended use is offering near perfect audio reproduction in a lossy format. Compared to lossless compression, file sizes are very small and yet you can get near perfect reproduction of the original audio. Different audio compression formats are better for different purposes, for example .MPC would be a poor choice for low bitrate purposes, for that there are other compression formats that are designed more towards low bitrates at the cost of some quality at small file sizes such as .WMA, .OGG, .AAC. But .MPC can do a better job at equal bitrates vs. most other formats in the bitrate range of around 150-200kbps. Not many formats can claim nearly perfect copies of the original audio at those bitrates, many formats cannot even match MPC regardless of how high of a bitrate is used as most are not designed for audio transparency but rather they are tuned for 'good' quality at low bitrates instead. I've been using .MPC for 4 years or so for a large amount of the music on my computer, and, short of using very space-consuming lossless compression, I have yet to find a better format when it comes to creating near-perfect copies. There are some other formats that come close or may match it at this point, .ogg is another very good format for one. MPC is not a format for everyone though, as support is basically nonexistant other than playback on a computer.

Ya, sounds great, except for the fact that .mpc are not compatible with mp3 players; which to most is a lot more significant than saving a couple mb's on their HDD.

Wrong. iPod (with RockBox firmware) can play MPCs. And its quality is good enough that you can convert to MP3 and it still doesn't sound too bad.

If you want to play these files in windows media player (or similar), you need to download the following plug-in:

http://files.musepack.net/windows/pl...PC_1.0.0.4.exe

But who actually uses Windows Media Player anyway?

Just use a proper player like foobar2000 or WinAMP...

Not me.

I do use Windows Media Player Classic though and that codec works perfectly with these MPC files.

I find winamp to be very lethargic.

Weird... why wont my winamp play em then? hmmm....

Look for a Musepack input-plugin.

My theory is enough with file formats i've listened to these Flac, Mpc, Ape and so and so forth to me and my experience they are just the same as mp3 just something that others get people to believe is better quality to save space or they think if they are larger files they are better quality..More for the anal music collector...


just my thoughts
Joe

Well, flac and ape are lossless. They just maintain the quality but reduce size. You may want to compress and decompress the wave file and compare it to the original afterwards.
AFA lossy formats go, well, I'll never use them.

Yeah. Not many people use FLAC and APE for actual listening. Typically they’re used for archival.

A lossless copy of a CD track will be bit-identical to the CD track but smaller and you can tag it.

It is impossible to be bit-identical but yet smaller. Just think about it and you have to agree.

Yes. What I mean is when you decode the lossless file, the result will be bit-identical to the original WAV.

But since I don’t know the length of the OP’s attention span, I try to put things in as few words as possible.