It’s been a busy start into 2011 for me. Here are the things that are new at media.io:

Extended Version

media.io now has an Extended Version (formerly pro accounts) that lets you convert multiple files and also upload larger files (500 MB right now, up from 250 MB). For now, the price is only 1 €. Access to the Extended Version is valid for 24 h.

Bug Fixes

Since the last update, the following problems were corrected:

• Some browsers send full file paths. Paths are now removed.
• Question marks in file names were not removed. Question marks in file names that might have been caused by downloading files are now removed.
• Advertising performance improvements. Google’s AdSense product has traditionally been slow and getting slower almost by the minute. With two little tricks, I was able to reduce the bandwidth of AdSense by about 50 %, leading to faster loading pages.
• Many mobile browser bugfixes. Many modifications to the mobile audio conversion page and the home page ensure that even low-end mobile browsers can now use media.io.
• More debugging data for me. While this will not impact visitors, better logging helps me better understand what formats work well and which ones don’t. This has also been reflected in the privacy policy
• Underscores in file names were not removed. Occasionally, people try to convert audio files that end on “_,” such as “foo.mp3_” These underscores are now removed.

New Audio Formats

media.io now supports wave files which are simple WAV files with a different file name.

media.io has had several updates over the last two weeks, here’s

what’s new

• media.io moved to a new Server. media.io is now on a much more powerful server than before. This should help a lot with uptime and availability.
• I solved a potential bug when multiple files had been uploaded.
• I incorporated some changes from a user test.
• Support for Musepack. Now you can convert Musepack files (ending on .mpc) at media.io.
• Support for Real Media and Real Audio. In addition to Musepack, you can now convert .rm to mp3 and all the other formats, as well as converting .ra files.
• Mobile browser support. I admit I haven’t really tested this but you should be able to use media.io from your iPhone, iPod or similar devices. Older mobile browsers, like IEMobile and Opera Mobile probably don’t work.
• Distributing files from a CDN. To make media.io load faster, I’m using Rackspace’s Cloud Files CDN.

That’s it for today. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me.

media.io will soon support mobile phones and other small devices. Not
all of them (especially not IEMobile on the Windows Mobile based HTC
Trion here), but a majority of newer devices. Soon, users of Android and
iPhone devices will be able to convert audio online at media.io.

I’ve published a new version of media.io today that has several new features.

New Features

• You can send anyone a link to download a file you’ve converted. Many people suggested I add this. The download link is valid for 30 minutes.
• After downloading your converted audio files, you can start over. This way, files you have already downloaded will not show up again. Again, I’ve been asked to do this.
• You can see which file extensions are supported, in addition to the maximum file size. This was something that might have annoyed one or two people so I implemented it.
• There are now buttons to link to media.io If you have a site and would like to promote media.io, I’ve prepared some banners for you. Enjoy.

GUI Changes

In addition to these new features, I have implemented one or two subtle changes to the GUI. It’s now all white, as well as having Verdana as the body font which I find more legible than Arial. As usual, you will find screenshots of media.io “before” and “after” below.

Bug Fix

One thing I’m very excited about is a seemingly tiny problem I found a while ago and that I solved the same day. Fixing this bug has decreased audio conversion error rates by absolute 2.76 %, relative 38.48 %. For five lines of code changes, this is awesome.

As always, I hope you enjoy converting MP3 to WAV online and all the other file formats at media.io.

I have published an updated version of media.io.

What’s new?

• Support for download links. Sometimes, people have tried to use download accelerators – which media.io doesn’t support. Now, if the “Download” button doesn’t work for you, download the file by using “Save link target as…”
• Improved “File-not-found” page. I still need to put in a lot of work on making media.io more robust though.
• Increased upload limit to 250 MB. That’s right, you can now upload and convert audio online with files up to 250 MB large.
• Some layout work. I did run ClickTale on media.io for a while and the things I’ve learned have now been changed. As always, there are “before” and “after” screenshots below.
• Warning screen for WebKit users. WebKit-based browsers (Chrome, Safari, Midori…) aren’t supported yet due to a bug in WebKit. If you use a WebKit-based browser, there is a warning now.

As always, let me know if you have questions or would like to request an audio format.

Bugs, bugs, bugs

Software bugs are annoying so I fixed some more.

• Repeatedly uploading files would not work in Internet Explorer. This was a caching issue.
• Don’t log file names during download. Nobody seemed to care about this bug but it was easy to fix for the next version of media.io.

Time for tests!

It’s no secret I love testing. I’m a bad designer and a bad copywriter, but I don’t have to be good because I can let my users tell me what they like. In the next days, I’ll start another multivariate test that should answer some of my questions regarding button and help text placement.

Survey

I would like to find out how you use media.io and I have created a short survey. If you have 30 seconds, please take the survey. Thank you!

New upload layout

I mentioned that people are occasionally uploading files but never converting them. In response to that, I’ve completely redesigned the file upload. You can see it in the screenshot below. Soon, when you convert audio at media.io, it’ll be painfully obvious how much data you’ve already uploaded.

media.io doesn’t support any and all file types yet. Whenever someone tries to upload something media.io doesn’t know yet, I can find out what it was. That’s good for everyone because I can concentrate on audio formats most people want. Here’s the list so far:

• 13 wma
• 1 rm
• 1 ram
• 1 ogx
• 1 mpeg
• 1 flv
• 1 flac

As you see, many people want to convert WMA – Microsoft’s audio format – to other formats. Understood :-) It’s coming soon

One week after launching media.io, I’m already expanding the list of audio formats
supported by media.io

Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) will be the next format that you can convert audio files from.

All MPEG-4 profiles will be supported, including MPEG-4, MPEG-2 MAIN, LOW, LTP, LD, LC, SBR, PS and ER object type AAC files (thanks to FAAD2). Encoding to AAC will come a little bit later. For audio file conversion to AAC, I’m torn between FAAC and the Nero AAC Encoder. If you have a preference, please post a suggestion, thanks!