Audio-Text Synchronization inside MP3 files: A new approach and its implementation

The large usage of multimedia portable devices has contributed to rapidly increase the demand for multimedia entertainment services. In this paper we focus on the karaoke service: several systems have been proposed but they are too difficult to be directly used over audio devices. Conversely, in this paper we propose a very simple approach to provide a karaoke-like service over any audio device that can play out mp3 files. Our approach is essentially new, as no additional files, beyond the mp3 file, are necessary. A simple description language has been designed to characterize audio-text timing synchronizations, which are transparently stored inside the mp3 file. The effectiveness of our approach is proved through a developed java mp3 player. The simplicity of our approach along with java portability allow a straightforward use of our player over any OS and over any audio device that supports java applications.