

  What LAME is:
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  LAME is a command-line program which encodes digital audio into
  the lossy compression format known as "mp3".  See the standard
  documentation supplied with it for more details.



  Installation:
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  Just copy the LAME binary into your library directory.  This is
  usually: !Boot.library.
  Also ensure the 'Next' slot in the task manager is at least 1800K.



  Requirements:
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  LAME needs around 1.8MB of memory free to run.  Or more to
  be on the safe side.
  The ARM7500FE version is intended for Riscstations and the
  StrongARM binary is for StrongARM RiscPCs.  The StrongARM
  version will not work on ARM 710 and older, as it uses
  StrongARM-only 64-bit multiplies, but it would be rather
  uselessly slow on such a machine anyway.



  License:
  ~~~~~~~~
  LAME and its components and also the mpg123 and libsndfile
  libraries it uses are all covered by the GNU public license.
  This is supplied in the RISC OS release in the "docs"
  subdirectory of the zip file.



  Other recommended software:
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  Useful free software to use in conjunction with LAME:

  - MP3Enc - by Justin Fletcher -
        Desktop front-end for various mp3 encoders.
          Supports LAME.

  - AudioFS 2 - by Jonathan Hunt - Filing system for audio CDs.
        Works nicely with LAME.  I use it all the time.

  - AMPlayer - by Thomas Olsson, Robin Watts and Justin Fletcher -
        A very nice, fully featured mp3 playback system.

  - SoundCon - by Rick Hudson -
        Sound sample conversion utility which might help with audio
          formats commonly found on RISC OS.



  Known bugs/problems with RISC OS LAME:
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  - Resampling is working properly once more.  It may be a little
      slower now though.

  Report any additional bugs to <mech@toth.org.uk> if you like.

  NB: LAME requires lots of memory.  If you're finding LAME crashes
      when run, please do ensure you've given it plenty.



  To do:
  ~~~~~~

  - LAME seems flawless to me at the moment.  Complain to me please.



  Useful LAME CLI usage examples:
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  - Default usage:
      "lame <infile> <outfile>"

  - To encode raw CD data as a minimum quality mp3 (no psy-model)
    (Faster than the first release of Shine!)
      "lame -b 128 -r -m s -q 9 <infile> <outfile>"

  - To encode raw CD data as a variable bitrate mp3 at
    maximum quality with joint stereo and error protection:
      "lame -v -V 0 -q 0 -r -m j -p <infile> <outfile>"
        (WARNING: Slooooow!)

  - To decode an mp3 and convert to a WAV file:
      "lame --mp3input --decode <infile> <outfile>"

  - Ultra-fast, ultra-low-quality, pretty useless, mono encoding:
      "lame -b 32 -r -m m -a -q 9 --resample 44100 --disptime 10 <infile> <outfile>"

  - For more information read the docs or type:
      "lame --longhelp" at the command line



  Contacting me:
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  My email address is:  mech@toth.org.uk  and I may even reply
  eventually, if I notice I have new mail amongst the spam.
