LEECHMP3 documentation.

     Leechmp3 is a REXX program that grabs an audio cd and converts tracks
to mp3 format.
The grabbing and encoding are done simultaneously as soon as the first
track is grabbed.
LEECHMP3 starts 2 threads, one for grabbing and one for encoding which
communicate thru a rexx queue.
If you have a sound card, you will get informed thru it of evolution of the
process.

   LEECHMP3 is now able to connect to www.cddb.com
to retrieve song titles of the album you are grabbing.

   Required components:

     To use this package you'll need a grabber: LEECHMP3
uses LEECH that you can find on hobbes (http://hobbes.nmsu.edu) as
leech120.zip. Install this program as stated in its documentation.

   You will also need a MP3 encoder: LEECHMP3 uses
LAME that you can also find on HOBBES. The current version is lame386.zip.
Install it.

LEECHMP3 also requires rxsocks.dll to access CDDB.


     To install LEECHMP3, simply unzip it in a directory and have this directory
defined in the path environment variable of your config.sys file.
The best is probably to install the 3 components in the same directory since
LEECH and LAME also have to be known in the path so that LEECHMP3 can find
them.


     Leechmp3 accepts flags available for LEECH and for LAME.
     It also accepts flags for my new GETCDDB program.

   Here are some command line examples:

     If you want to convert all tracks of a CD at default Lame parameters, simply
type:
leechmp3

   if you only want tracks 1 and 3 at default lame parameters:
   leechmp3 t 1 3

    If you want them with a lower sample rate:
leechmp3 t 1 3 -b 40

If you convert the Jeff BUCKLEY's GRACE album
and want to retrieve song titles from the net:
leechmp3 (jeff buckley / grace

If you only want song 1 and 3:
leechmp3 t 1 3 (jeff buckley / grace

Note: getcddb parameters must be at the end of the command line
and, obviously, you must be connected to Internet!

     Note 2: To take advantage of CDDB access,
you must run LEECHMP3 on a HPFS disk, since
this will create long names for directories and tracks.


     Note 3: Don't be surprised: LEECHMP3 will not necessarilly take the tracks
in the album order. The tracks are first sorted so that the shorter one
is grabbed first. This allows the encoding process to start as soon as
possible, reduicing the total runtime.


     LEECHMP3 has been compiled using REXX2EXE that you can also find on HOBBES.
The source code is provided in case it could be usefull to anyone.

     The sounds you will hear have been produiced using the demo site of "ELAN
INFORMATIQUE" where they demonstrate their "PROVERBE" voice synthesizer.
Pointing your browser to: www.elan.fr you'll be able to produice your own
sound samples for example to increase the numbre of track numbers useable by
LEECHMP3 or to change the messages.

     If you have any problem or comment, feel free to contact me.
     My Email: msuch@free.fr
