Winter 1996. The phenomena of Layer-3 encoding of WAV files was spreading like a flu epidemic. It seemed like every man and their brother was encoding files for their personal digital archives. However, the means of encoding was crude and tedious. Opening a Dos prompt and punching in a sequence of several parameters became, for some, unneccessary work in yet another year of the "point-and-click" generation. In late November, a simple program entitled Visual Encoder was written which could encode a file through a couple "points" and a "click". The following January, its counterpart Visual Decoder was conceived. In time, each program developed new capabilities such as batch-encoding, in-line MP3 tagging, and auto-deletion of source data. MP3 conversion would never be the same.

January 1998. Introducing Visual Encoder and Decoder, a merger destined to happen.

• Destination selection. Choose where output files will end up.
• Specify where Dos windows will open: on the desktop or minimized to the start bar.
• Long filename support. Never worry about "longfi~1.wav" again.
• Batch conversion. Encode or decode multiple files without user intervention in a single session.
• Inline MP3 tagging. Encode and tag your MP3 files automatically in one sweep!
• Automatic delete of WAV files after encoding. Go to sleep with a gigabyte of WAV files and wake up to 100 MB of MP3's. Oh, and don't worry, it's just optional.
• Compatibility with Denial WAV2MP3 Encoder for superior 32-bit encoding.

• Full version

  • /INSTALL/ - main installation package including SETUP.EXE and all necessary companion modules

  • VEDHELP.HTML - program documentation in HTML format

  • FILE_ID.DIZ - standard issue .diz file

• EXE-only upgrade

  • VED.EXE - solo executable

  • VEDHELP.HTML - program documentation in HTML format

  • FILE_ID.DIZ - standard issue .diz file

• Setting up
  • The most important part of setting up is setting the EXE files of the encoder and decoder files. Typically, they are called L3ENC.EXE and L3DEC.EXE. Also, it may be WAV2MP3.EXE if you have the encoder program from Denial.

• Destinations
  • Both the Encoder and Decoder applets can have unique Destination folders where the resulting MP3 or WAV will end up. Press the "Browse..." button or select the Destination option from the menubar to set these locations.

• Encoding and Batch Encoding
  • Use the file selector to choose a folder containing WAV files to encode. Use shift-click on the files list to select multiple files to encode if necessary. Also, if you would like to have the program tag the new MP3 files with information, right-click a file to be encoded and choose Properties. Press Encode and watch the Dos-box pop into action. In a matter of time, you'll have a fresh batch of MP3's encoded and already tagged.

• Decoding and Batch Encoding
  • This is much like the encoding routine. Use the file selector to choose a folder containing MP3s to decode. Use shift-click on the files list to select multiple files if necessary. Press Decode and watch the Dos-box pop into action. In a matter of time, you'll have a fresh batch of MP3's encoded and already tagged.

• Miscellany
  • You can batch encode and batch decode sets of files at the same time. Just keep in mind that running both processes slow each other down, but if you got the time, the option is there for you, so make use of it.

1. The hundreds of users. Without you all, I would have little purpose to continue this program! I hope that even though it is freeware, you will be generous enough to register this useful product.

2. #MPEG3. The Internet chatroom Where everything started. Without this channel, I wouldn't have had the great exposure to get this program off the ground.

3. My folks. For forking the $ for the development platform of this program.

4. The other supporters. Through kind words of encouragement, monetary donations, or providing mirror locations for my software. The icing on the cake belongs to you.