			AltoMP3 Maker 2.1  Release Notes
			            Dec. 2000
		              Copyright(c) 2000, Thomas Yuan
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CONTENTS
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1. Introduction
2. What's New in version 2.1 ?
3. Update to version 2.1 
4. Technical Support

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1. Introduction
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AltoMP3 Maker is an extremely easy to use, powerful CD to MP3
converter. Its main features include:

Easy to setup because of using native CD extracting approach
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No ASPI manager is required when digitally reading music data from
CD, which makes AltoMP3 Maker is very easy to setup because most CD
ripping tools available today require ASPI manager preinstalled in
your PC.

CDDB2 enabled
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CDDB is the world biggest free online CD information, by which you
can get the CD album, artist,track titles and much more CD information
over Internet. You can also submit your favorite CD's information to
the CDDB server to share with other fans. Compared with CDDB1 services, 
CDDB2 provides much better recognition, a larger database (contains
the CDDB1 data PLUS all the CDDB2 data - together over 650,000 albums
and 8 million tracks), and merged album information (multiple TOCs are
automatically associated with all the album/artist/track information).

ID3V2 enabled
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Support both ID3V1 and the newest ID3V2 standard.

Tight Integration with Windows Explorer Shell
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You can extract CD tracks by right-clicking mouse button in the CD
folder or drag-drop without leaving Windows Explorer. 
To encode WAV to MP3 and decode MP3 to WAV can also be performed
with right-clicking or drag-and-drop menu in Windows Explorer.

Much more, you can edit ID3 tag information within Windows explorer by
opening the file property dialog. ID3 tag information can be displayed as
you put your mouse over the MP3 file name for a while.


Perfect output quality with high speed
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With its native CD extracting and auto synchronization technology, you
will almost never meet pops and clicks when extracting if the CD is not
damaged and the extracting process is not interrupted by other application.

Using LAME encoder as default MP3 encode engine
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LAME MP3 encode engine is a great freeware project, which encode music
data at a very high speed with perfect quality, VRB is supported. AltoMP3
Maker also integrates another high quality freeware MP3 encode engine named
BLADE encoder.

Easy to understand and intuitive interface
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With its easy to understand and intuitional user interface and tight
integration with Windows Explorer shell , AltoMP3 Maker is extremely easy to
use.

CD Audio playback
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With full CD Audio playback function,AltoMP3 Maker can also act as a 
CDDB2-Enabled CD player.

Other features
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Winamp playlist File(*.m3u) generation
Multiple CD drivers support 
Large scale CD-ROM devices support
Import disc info from and export to cdplayer.ini file

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2. What's New in version 2.1 ?
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* Support new ID3V2 standard.
* Integrated with  Windows file property sheet extension, ID3 tag can be edited without 
   leaving Windows explorer or opening any application
* Support file info tip, ID3 tag can be showed as putting the mouse over the MP3 file name
   for a while
* Support cdplayer.ini, disc info can be exported to or imported from it.
* Improve MP3 decoder compatibility

Version 2.0
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*  Add MP3 decoding function, you can burn your own CD from MP3 files with
    help of this function 
*  Add normalization function while extracting CD and decoding MP3 files, all
   output audio files can be normalized to the same volume level. 
*  Add normalizing WAV files function 
*  Improve the Windows explorer right-click and drag & drop function, now
   MP3-to-WAV and WAV-to-MP3 also can be done with a simple clicking without
   leaving Windows explorer 
*  Add CD track title upper case, lower case and capitalization functions 

 Version 1.21
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*  Change the program name to AltoMP3 Maker 
*  Add track size (raw audio data size in .MB) column in main window list 
*  Improve the LAME encoder options, lower bitrates and stereo mode can be selected 
*  Support XING's VBR header in output MP3 files 
*  Some bugs fixed 

 Version 1.20
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*  Window size can be changed, Window position and size are saved
*  Directory and filename auto generation according to user defined naming rule
*  CD Audio playback functions improved
*  Default MP3 player can be specified
*  Invalid filename characters can be automatically replaced
*  Ripping can continue  by skipping error sectors
*  Support one track CD
*  Priority of ripping and encoding thread can be set
*  All important CD information is saved in CD database file
*  CD artist and album can be written into MP3 ID3 tag automatically
*  Options dialog is reorganized 
*  Fixed GetDiskFreeSpaceEx  function failed bug in Windows 95 before OSR2 version

 Version 1.1
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*  CDDB2 Enabled, CDDB options added 
*  Tight Integration with Windows 9X/NT/2000 Explorer Shell
*  The text and background color can be customized, appearance options added 
*  Free disk space checking before extracting and encoding
*  Fixed problems when ejecting CD with multiple CD-ROM drivers installed
*  Fixed "Not enough storage to proceess the command" error with VXD helper driver
*  CD information is saved when ejecting CD
*  Some screen icons been changed, added taskbar icon.
*  New look with help file
*  Set desktop icon when installation


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3. Update to version 2.1
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If you install AltoMP3 Maker v2.0 in different directory of previous version,  and the
CD track list in the main window is disappeared. Please follow these steps to make it
work.

1) Delete the following registry entry by running "regedit" from Windows "Start->Run..." 
menu:
        HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\CDDB
2) Delete all *.fcs file located in the Windows temp directory and previous setup directory of
AltoMP3 Maker.

3) Restart AltoMP3 Maker.

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4. Technical Support
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AltoMP3 Maker is a shareware, and can be freely distributabled without any modification.
The registration fee is $19.95. For more information, please visit http://www.yuansoft.com
or contact us by sending email to support@yuansoft.com.

If ask for technical support or report bugs, please kindly tell us some information
about your CD-ROM types,windows version etc.

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