We Review, Software | SoundPix Plus
Written by: JP

If you need to send an image with sound you usually have to send two files.  An MP3 file for sound and an image file. SoundPix Plus allows you to send sound and jpeg image as one file.  Once the file arrives, a user needs to get the free plug-in to hear the sound associated with the image. You can either use SoundPix Plus to record a sound or import a file in .wav, .mp3 or .au format.  

I was not able to achieve the same sound quality as the examples. But, the given examples have a ground hum and my efforts just have a bit of crackle. Even with music, the quality is good. The program has its own compression.  I added a 2.5MB mp3 to a 540KB jpeg image, and it became a 2.89MB file instead of the 3.09MB sum of the two files. For large sound files the SoundPix
program alerts you "This process can take several minutes on large
files."   My 2.53 Gigahertz CPU [I'm bragging] converted the 2.89 MB
mp3 file in 20 seconds.

The image must be a jpeg file.  After adding the sound file, it can be viewed by any graphic viewer that supports jpeg.  The SoundPix images have the annotation, "This picture has sound. To listen, download and install the FREE plugin at www.soundpix.com."  It is easy to get the plug-in.  But, you have to re-boot your computer after the install for the plug-in to take effect. Be alert that this action makes Internet Explorer the default viewer for all your jpeg files. 

SoundPix Plus does allow some simple editing of the jpeg file. You can flip, rotate, crop, resize and add captions.  Any editing of the image file must be made before adding the sound file. Else, you can corrupt the sound portion of the file.
   
There is also a feature to allow you to make a slide show with sound.  Be aware, this makes for a huge file! Also, the sound is intended to be specific to each image.  You cannot have one song play while all the images view. (Technically though, I suppose you could. If you separate the song into separate clips, and attach to each image.)

While you could put a SoundPix file onto a web page, it would  be a big file because of the sound.  For a user to access a sound file on the web requires a lot of bandwidth.  The free webspace offered by Tripod and Geocities have limits to bandwidth.  If the limit is exceeded, your site is off for a day.  Even email has limitations. Many email providers only allow files of 2-5 megabytes.

More than just a toy, this can have practical applications if you are in contact often with others who use sound and images. You could have images of cars and how they sound, images of singers and how they sing, birds and how they sound etc.  You can buy SoundPix Plus at www.soundpix.com where it can be downloaded.

TRY IT! 
The following is a sample of what SoundPix can do. Sound clip and image is of local singer Lori Ann Day. Used with permission.