On Sat, 2003-08-09 at 03:30, Joe Emenaker wrote: > Craig Tinson wrote: > > >Can anyone come up with a theory on how to "convert an mp3 into a > >number"? > > > Well, whatever you're going to use it for, it has probably already been > done, or it's not going to work out like you hope. Let me touch on all > of the possible things I can think of: > > First, either you want to convert a wav into a number that is possible > to convert back into the original wav, or you want to convert a wav into > a number that is *not* possible to convert back into the original wav > but still the number is unique to that wav (ie, a hash value). > > If you're after the first one, a reversible conversion, then I figure > you're hoping to either: > 1 - Compress or somehow make the storage more efficient by messing > with the number. In that case, forget it. It's not gonna happen. > or, > 2 - Somehow get around P2P copyright violations (ie, "But your honor, > I was just sharing really, really, REALLY big numbers. You can't put me > in jail for sharing *numbers*".). In that case, forget it. This tactic > will go absolutely nowhere. > > If you're after some hash value... some way of uniquely refering to a > sound without actually having to store the whole sound, then you're > probably after something called an "audio fingerprint". Go to > www.musicbrainz.org and read about TRM's. I don't know if I'm the only one, but has anyone thought that perhaps the OP wanted to do this 'just because'? Personally, I think it would be quite 'cool' to be able to convert a stream of audio into a stream of integers corresponding to the waveform of the original source. Not to compress it, not to convert it back, and not to get a unique value. Just to do it. But then, that's just me. I can't pretend to know what the OP truly had in mind. :) -- Alex Malinovich Support Free Software, delete your Windows partition TODAY! Encrypted mail preferred. You can get my public key from any of the pgp.net keyservers. Key ID: A6D24837
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