Hello,
In the supported API list, it says that currently *.ogg and *.wav formats are supported. Is it planned to add mp3 support in the future or is this a limitation of WP8 ?
No plans. At least not for Windows Phone 8.0 built apps (ie: *.xap application files). This is because the WP8 operating system does not provide any audio decoders for us to use (ie: Microsoft’s Media Foundation is not available) and including an MP3 audio decoder in Corona would require us (and perhaps you; it’s not clear) to pay royalties per installation of the app, which is not something we want any involvement in.
Also note that you owe royalties if you distribute MP3 files too, even if you’re decoding them via the operating system. At least this is true in the USA. Have a look at the details here…
I dumped mp3 a long time ago for the reasons mentioned above.
For music, I use m4a for Apple and ogg for Android which will also work with Windows Phone.
For sound effects I use wav on all platforms.
I use Audacity to encode these formats, which is a very nice cross platform audio editor.
Thanks for sharing this Ingemar.
Ideally, we should add support for ogg on iOS too to make it easier to go cross-platform. That’s really the best cross-platform audio format from licensing/royalties standpoint. m4a/aac is a nice option on iOS because you’ll get faster hardware accelerated audio decoding, but you should restrict its usage to Apple’s platforms. I say this because on the Android platform, while the newest Google sanctioned devices (ie: Nexus devices) support aac, there is no guarantee that other Android devices will support it because the manufacturer might choose not to play royalties for decoding that audio format to keep the cost of the device low. Makes things a bit complicated. But I think Ingemar’s approach is the best in my opinion.
Thanks for the info guys.
If Corona would support *.ogg files in iOS it would be great, making it a lot easier to manage/mantain the code base, instead of having multiple version of files.
If it helps you any, you can check if you’re running on WP8 at runtime in Lua by doing the following…
if (system.getInfo("platformName") == "WinPhone") then -- Load an ogg file instead. endYou can use the new “exclude” feature as explained here:
http://coronalabs.com/blog/2014/07/10/new-feature-excluding-files-from-builds
You can also implement a more advanced project structure as I’ve explained here (scroll down for my comment):
No plans. At least not for Windows Phone 8.0 built apps (ie: *.xap application files). This is because the WP8 operating system does not provide any audio decoders for us to use (ie: Microsoft’s Media Foundation is not available) and including an MP3 audio decoder in Corona would require us (and perhaps you; it’s not clear) to pay royalties per installation of the app, which is not something we want any involvement in.
Also note that you owe royalties if you distribute MP3 files too, even if you’re decoding them via the operating system. At least this is true in the USA. Have a look at the details here…
I dumped mp3 a long time ago for the reasons mentioned above.
For music, I use m4a for Apple and ogg for Android which will also work with Windows Phone.
For sound effects I use wav on all platforms.
I use Audacity to encode these formats, which is a very nice cross platform audio editor.
Thanks for sharing this Ingemar.
Ideally, we should add support for ogg on iOS too to make it easier to go cross-platform. That’s really the best cross-platform audio format from licensing/royalties standpoint. m4a/aac is a nice option on iOS because you’ll get faster hardware accelerated audio decoding, but you should restrict its usage to Apple’s platforms. I say this because on the Android platform, while the newest Google sanctioned devices (ie: Nexus devices) support aac, there is no guarantee that other Android devices will support it because the manufacturer might choose not to play royalties for decoding that audio format to keep the cost of the device low. Makes things a bit complicated. But I think Ingemar’s approach is the best in my opinion.
Thanks for the info guys.
If Corona would support *.ogg files in iOS it would be great, making it a lot easier to manage/mantain the code base, instead of having multiple version of files.
If it helps you any, you can check if you’re running on WP8 at runtime in Lua by doing the following…
if (system.getInfo("platformName") == "WinPhone") then -- Load an ogg file instead. endYou can use the new “exclude” feature as explained here:
http://coronalabs.com/blog/2014/07/10/new-feature-excluding-files-from-builds
You can also implement a more advanced project structure as I’ve explained here (scroll down for my comment):