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c#mp3naudiopcmogg

Convert PCM to MP3/OGG

I need to convert a continuous stream of PCM, or encoded audio (ADPCM, uLaw, Opus), into MP3/OGG format so that it can be streamed to a browser (using html's audio tag). I have the "stream-mp3/ogg-using-audio-tag" part working, now I need to develop the conversion layer.

I have two questions:

  1. How can I convert PCM into MP3/OGG using NAudio and/or some other C# library/framework? I assume there is a code snippet or two in the NAudio demo app that may be doing this, but I haven't been able to find it.
  2. Do I have to convert the encoded data (ADPCM, uLaw, OPUS) into PCM (which I can) before I convert it into MP3/OGG, or can the MP3/OGG 'containers' accept the encoded data?

NOTE: I understand there my be licensing issues with MP3 so we are open to using OGG.

Thanks.

Solution

  • To answer your first question, to create MP3 or OGG you need an encoder. NAudio does not include an MP3 or an OGG encoder. All it does is give you ways to access encoders that are already installed on your computer (such as ACM or Media Foundation Transforms). However, with both MP3 and OGG you'll find that the easiest way is to find an unmanaged DLL or a command line utility and access that from .NET. The article I wrote which you linked to above includes a brief explanation of how you can use LAME.exe with stdin and stdout to convert PCM to MP3 on the fly.

    As for your second question, the answer is yes. Whenever you transcode, you first decode to PCM, then re-encode in the target codec. I think theoretically you can put audio encoded in any format into an OGG container, but in practice, audio in an OGG container is usually encoded with Vorbis. FLAC and OPUS may be options, but once again you'd need to find an application or library that can write the OGG container format for you, as I'm not aware of any fully managed OGG writers.