WELCOME TO SOUND MANAGER 3.1
The Sound Manager 3.1 software consists of
- the Sound Manager system software extension
- a new version of the Sound Control Panel
- a technical note explaining some of the new features
Available since the introduction of the Macintosh II in 1987, the Sound
Manager is Apple's digital audio software solution that allows any
application to play and record sounds using the built-in sound hardware
found on Macintosh computers. Sound Manager 3.0, released in 1993, added
support for 16-bit CD-quality audio, redirection of sound to third-party
hardware cards, and plug-in audio compression/decompression software
(codecs).
Sound Manager 3.1 adds two new audio codecs, significant performance
increases on the Power Macintosh line of computers, better integration
with QuickTime, and asynchronous alert sounds. It is completely backwards
compatible with previous versions of the Sound Manager.
INSTALLING SOUND MANAGER 3.1
To install Sound Manager 3.1:
1. If you received a floppy disk labeled "Sound Manager", insert it into
your computer and open it. If you downloaded Sound Manager 3.1
electronically, make sure the Sound Manager files you downloaded are
visible.
2. Drag the Sound Manager and Sound control panel icons from the Sound
Manager disk onto your System Folder icon (not into the open folder).
3. Click OK in the dialog box that appears.
4. Restart your Macintosh.
NEW FEATURES OF SOUND MANAGER 3.1
1.) New audio codecs
The Sound Manager previously supported only MACE audio compression at
ratios of 3:1 and 6:1. Sound Manager 3.1 adds two new compression
formats: IMA and uLaw.
The IMA 4:1 audio compression format is based on a standard proposed by
the Interactive Multimedia Association, and is used to compress 16-bit
sound with a ratio of 4:1. It is particularly good at compressing
CD-quality music and is fully integrated into QuickTime.
The uLaw 2:1 format (pronounced "mu-law") is an international standard
for compressing voice-quality audio (typically 16-bit, 8 kHz speech) with
a ratio of 2:1. It is often used in telephony applications, and also on
the Internet as the encoding format for ".au" sound files.
2.) Better performance on Power Macintosh
Sound Manager 3.1 is much faster on Power Macintosh computers --in many
cases 4-7 times more efficient than previous versions. This means that
your application can do more while sound is playing or recording. Sound
Manager 3.1 is also more robust: many bugs have been fixed and a number
of commonly requested features have been added. Refer to the Technical
Note for more information.
3.) Improved integration with QuickTime
QuickTime 2.1 uses the new audio codecs included in Sound Manager 3.1 to
allow compressed audio capture in the IMA and uLaw formats and compressed
audio export from a movie to an AIFF file. QuickTime 2.1 will also use
Sound Manager 3.1 to directly import common audio file formats such as
".wav" and ".au".
4.) Support for asynchronous alert sounds
The Sound Manager previously tied up your Macintosh while playing an
alert sound, forcing you to wait until the sound was done playing before
you could continue. Sound Manager 3.1 removes this limitation by playing
alert sounds asynchronously, so alert dialogs and other interface
elements can continue processing while the alert sound is playing.
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