PlusV was the open source alternative to MP3pro . The encoder split wav files in two, the low frequencies were encoded with a standard MP3 encoder (in this case, LAME) and the high frequencies were very efficiently encoded into a special "+V" format.

The encoded .m3v files carried both frequency ranges, and a special decoder would decode both at playback time. A standard MP3 decoder can decode only the low frequencies, seriously impacting quality.

Besides the official PlusV tools, I am also hosting here some additional ones developed by "gameplaya15143": an interleaver to merge mp3 + pv streams, and a modified plusv.exe with fixes and extra functionality.

Unfortunately PlusV met with even less success than MP3pro, and ended up being quickly abandoned by its developers. You can still check their web page though, using the Internet Archive; and read the specification in this PDF document hosted by Gabriel Bouvigne.

Thanks to Zachary Jelesoff for sending me these files and reminding me of the existence of PlusV.


Date: 2001-12-17
Version: 1.10
Interface: Command line
Platform: Win32
Download: plusv110-win32bin.zip - 372kB

Date: 2001-11-17
Version: 0.1
Interface: Winamp plugin
Platform: Win32
Download: in_plusv.exe - 85kB

Date: 2001-12-17
Version: 1.10
Interface: -
Platform: Source code
Download: plusv-1.10-source.tar.gz - 72kB

Date: 2006-05-08
Version: GP mod
Interface: Command line
Platform: Win32
Download: plusv-tools-GP.zip - 210kB