We are incredibly fortunate to have partnered with Proteron (the makers of EasyMP3) to provide full-service MP3 creation capabilities to UltraPlayer users. On its own, EasyMP3 can be used to record from CDs or WAV files directly from Windows Explorer. With UltraPlayer, you get an awesome player and encoding your MP3s is only a right-click away. EasyMP3 is fast, efficient, and very easy-to-use. The encoding is available "on-demand", so it doesn't eat your system resources (the way the Jukeboxes do) when you're just playing music.

We have included a mini-FAQ here to answer questions that UltraPlayer users might have about using EasyMP3. For more information about EasyMP3, visit Proteron's EasyMP3 product page.

I don't see an option in my UltraPlayer to "Encode to MP3". I want to record now, how can I do it?
All you need to do is download the free, trial-version of the EasyMP3 software and the newest version of UltraPlayer. After you have installed these, when you right-click on a CD track or WAV file in UltraPlayer's playlist, you will have an option to "Encode to MP3". How easy is that?

How can I encode multiple songs at the same time from my UltraPlayer playlist?
To encode multiple CD tracks and/or WAV files at the same time:

1. Highlight all of the CD tracks (or WAV files) in your playlist that you would like to record to MP3 format. To highlight multiple MP3 files in the playlist, highlight one, hold down the Shift key on your keyboard, and then click on the last song in the group that you want to record. All of the songs in the group will now be highlighted. To be more selective, you can highlight several songs all over your playlist by holding down the Control (Ctrl) key on your keyboard as you highlight the songs.
2. Now, right-click on one of the highlighted songs and select "Encode to MP3".
3. The EasyMP3 Control Panel will open and you can select the MP3 settings and default destination directory. When you have chosen your settings, press OK.
4. A progress box will open... when the box goes away, your MP3 files have been created.
5. All of the new MP3 files will be saved to the directory that you select for the first one. By default, the new MP3 files will either be named using information obtained from CDDB, or will have the name of the CD track. For example, if there is no CDDB information for your CD, the third track on your CD will be encoded as "Track03.mp3".

I am trying to record from a mixed-mode CD, and EasyMP3 gives me an error when it is done recording. What's going on?
Due to the difficulty that Windows has reading the audio from mixed-mode (Blue Book) CDs, sometimes things get a little funky. All you need to do to get the CD tracks to record properly is set the "Default Destination Directory" in the EasyMP3 Control Panel. This way, EasyMP3 will know precisely where to put your MP3 files.

I have signed up for a CDDB account, and when I insert a CD, CDDB opens to get the information. However, the song titles and artist information do not show up in the UltraPlayer playlist. Why not?
Currently, UltraPlayer does not include any support for file information for audio CDs (we hope to have a solution for this implemented soon). EasyMP3 does support the new CDDB2 database, so it will get the CD information for you and use it when you encode the tracks to MP3. In UltraPlayer, you will still see the tracks listed by number.

Why isn't EasyMP3 free?
Well, the demo version allows you to encode 20 tracks and places a small "Encoded by EasyMP3" message at the beginning. To be able to encode an unlimited number of tracks and remove the message, you will need to purchase the full version of EasyMP3 for $19.95. Proteron has to charge for EasyMP3 because they must pay a fee for every copy of their software that is downloaded to the folks who hold the patent on MP3 encoding. The holders of the patents on MP3 decoding technology (like that used by UltraPlayer) don't charge unless we charge for the software. That's business for ya'.