Mpxplay is a 32-bit console audio player for
MS-DOS
MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few o ...
and Windows. It supports a wide range of audio codecs, playlists, as well as containers for video formats. The MS-DOS version uses a 32-bit
DOS extender
A DOS extender is a computer software program running under DOS that enables software to run in a protected mode environment even though the host operating system is only capable of operating in real mode.
DOS extenders were initially developed ...
(
DOS/32 Advanced DOS Extender being the most up-to-date version compatible).
Features
Mpxplay supports many features unique to it among DOS/console media players. These include:
* Native (DOS) support of many modern sound cards and sound chipsets
* Commander-style directory, file and playlist handling
* Multichannel support at AAC, AC3, DTS, FLAC and Vorbis inputs, and Win32/DirectSound, WAV-file outputs
* Real-time DSP functions (volume control, surround, speed, tone control and
crossfade)
*
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, ...
(
UTF-8
UTF-8 is a variable-length character encoding used for electronic communication. Defined by the Unicode Standard, the name is derived from ''Unicode'' (or ''Universal Coded Character Set'') ''Transformation Format 8-bit''.
UTF-8 is capable of e ...
,
UTF-16
UTF-16 (16-bit Unicode Transformation Format) is a character encoding capable of encoding all 1,112,064 valid code points of Unicode (in fact this number of code points is dictated by the design of UTF-16). The encoding is variable-length, as cod ...
) ID3tag/APETag and playlist handling (reading and writing)
* Using of external DLLs, like audio decoders and encoders (DOS/4G and Win32 versions of Mpxplay)
*
FTP client (remote directory browsing and direct playing from FTP servers)
*
LCD screen support (DOS only)
* Support for reading and displaying
long filenames
Long filename (LFN) support is Microsoft's backward-compatible extension of the 8.3 filename (short filename) naming scheme used in DOS. Long filenames can be more descriptive, including longer filename extensions such as .jpeg, .tiff, .htm ...
under DOS using
DOSLFN
* Built-in TCP/IP stack with HTTP support for playing Internet radio streams
Formats
Native support for audio includes:
*
AAC
*
AC3
*
ALAC
*
APE
*
FLAC
FLAC (; Free Lossless Audio Codec) is an audio coding format for lossless compression of digital audio, developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation, and is also the name of the free software project producing the FLAC tools, the reference softwa ...
*
MP2/
MP3
MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...
*
MPC
*
Vorbis
Vorbis is a free and open-source software project headed by the Xiph.Org Foundation. The project produces an audio coding format and software reference encoder/decoder ( codec) for lossy audio compression. Vorbis is most commonly used in con ...
*
WMA
*
WV
*
AIF
*
WAV/W64
* Audio CD playing and ripping (CDW)
Audio streams from these containers are supported as well:
*
AVI
Avi is a given name, usually masculine, often a diminutive of Avram, Avraham, etc. It is sometimes feminine and a diminutive of the Hebrew spelling of Abigail.
People with the given name include:
* Avi (born 1937), Newbery award-winning Americ ...
*
ASF
*
FLV
Flash Video is a container file format used to deliver digital video content (e.g., TV shows, movies, etc.) over the Internet using Adobe Flash Player version 6 and newer. Flash Video content may also be embedded within SWF files. There are ...
*
MKV
*
MP4/
MOV
*
MPG/VOB
*
OGG and
TS containers.
With plugins it plays:
*
DTS
*
MOD
*
Opus
''Opus'' (pl. ''opera'') is a Latin word meaning "work". Italian equivalents are ''opera'' (singular) and ''opere'' (pl.).
Opus or OPUS may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Music
* Opus number, (abbr. Op.) specifying order of (usually) publicatio ...
*
SPX
Playlist support includes:
*
M3U
* M3U8
*
PLS
*
FPL
*
CUE
* MXU
System requirements
Mpxplay on DOS requires a ~100 MHz
i486
The Intel 486, officially named i486 and also known as 80486, is a microprocessor. It is a higher-performance follow-up to the Intel 386. The i486 was introduced in 1989. It represents the fourth generation of binary compatible CPUs following the ...
(or faster) CPU for
real-time
Real-time or real time describes various operations in computing or other processes that must guarantee response times within a specified time (deadline), usually a relatively short time. A real-time process is generally one that happens in defined ...
playback (the exact value depends mostly on the format of the file being played), 4-8
MiB
The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit ...
RAM, and
MS-DOS
MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few o ...
5.00+ or equivalent (
FreeDOS
FreeDOS (formerly Free-DOS and PD-DOS) is a free software operating system for IBM PC compatible computers. It intends to provide a complete MS-DOS-compatible environment for running legacy software and supporting embedded systems.
FreeDOS can ...
,
DR-DOS
DR-DOS (written as DR DOS, without a hyphen, in versions up to and including 6.0) is a disk operating system for IBM PC compatibles. Upon its introduction in 1988, it was the first DOS attempting to be compatible with IBM PC DOS and MS- ...
).
Sound card support
Mpxplay supports sound cards using one of two methods:
natively or through
emulation. Native support is achieved by having
drivers in Mpxplay that are capable of writing to the sound card directly. When native support is used more of the sound cards features are available such as the ability to use 32-bit sound.
Cards that are currently supported for native access are:
*
Sound Blaster Live and Live 24
*
Sound Blaster Audigy
Sound Blaster Audigy is a product line of sound cards from Creative Technology. The flagship model of the Audigy family used the EMU10K2 audio DSP, an improved version of the SB-Live's EMU10K1, while the value/SE editions were built with a les ...
1, 2, 4, and LS
* SB Ensoniq (SB PCI 16/64/128)
* CMI 8338 and 8738
*
Intel ICH
*
Intel HDA
* VIA 686,8233, and 8235
Cards supported through emulation typically need a TSR
driver wrapper
A driver wrapper is a Wrapper function, subroutine in a software library that functions as an adapter pattern, adapter between an operating system and a driver, such as a device driver, that was not designed for that operating system. It can enable ...
, a program that translates the codes for one type of sound card to the one actually in the machine. This can be used to gain the ability to use a sound card that typically is not well supported by the majority of DOS applications. As DOS needs drivers to be programmed into each application in which they are used, it can be useful to run a sound card that is nearly universally supported by most applications with sound support:
SoundBlaster 16.
Mpxplay can use this technique to support the following sound cards:
*
ESS
*
Gravis Ultrasound
*
Sound Blaster 16
The Sound Blaster 16 is a series of sound cards by Creative Technology. They are add-on boards for PCs with an ISA or PCI slot.
Sound Blaster 16
Sound Blaster 16 (June 1992), the successor to the Sound Blaster Pro, introduced CD-quality dig ...
*
Sound Blaster Pro
Sound Blaster is a family of sound cards designed by Singaporean technology company Creative Technology (known in the US as Creative Labs). Sound Blaster sound cards were the de facto standard for consumer audio on the IBM PC compatible system pl ...
*
Windows Sound System
The Win32 version of Mpxplay is a multi-threaded console application with the following sound outputs:
*
DirectSound
DirectSound is a deprecated software component of the Microsoft DirectX library for the Windows operating system, superseded by XAudio2. It provides a low-latency interface to sound card drivers written for Windows 95 through Windows XP and can ha ...
(DirectX v3 or higher)
* Wave Mapper (all Win versions)
See also
*
Mplayer
MPlayer is a free and open-source media player software application. It is available for Linux, OS X and Microsoft Windows. Versions for OS/2, Syllable, AmigaOS, MorphOS and AROS Research Operating System are also available. A port for DOS using ...
- Video and audio player, also has DOS version
*
Dosamp - Very old DOS audio player
*
Comparison of audio player software
The following comparison of audio players compares general and technical information for a number of software media player programs. For the purpose of this comparison, "audio players" are defined as any media player explicitly designed to play ...
External links
Mediaplayers at DR-DOS Wiki- more info on MPXPLAY and other DOS audio and video players, more screenshots
{{Media player (application software)
DOS media players