Maker compresses a 2.9MB song by 1000x and prints it on paper as eight QR codes — 21KB song is two minutes long, requires a neural network for playback
The open-source codec Meta released in 2022 converts a waveform into discrete tokens that a matching decoder turns back into audio.
Maker Makestreme has printed a two-minute song onto a sheet of paper, splitting the 21KB file across eight QR codes arranged on a double-sided paper cassette. This reduction from a 2.9MB MP3 using Meta's EnCodec neural audio codec is 1,000 times smaller than the original file. The same 21KB file was transmitted between two ESP32 boards using LoRa radio, taking around 90 minutes per song.
Each QR code can store up to 3.3KB of binary data, with Makestreme hitting the practical limit at about 3KB. Conventional compression is unable to close the gap due to MP3's already lossy nature, where EnCodec excels. The eight QR codes each carry a 1-byte ID plus a chunk of the token stream, with four codes per side to mimic flipping a vinyl record.
The generator script uses the lowest error correction level to maximize density, leaving no redundancy. Damage to one code results in the loss of the entire song. The transmitter uses an ACK-and-retry protocol with 160-byte packets, adding 40-second pauses after every acknowledged packet. Playback requires EnCodec's exact 24 kHz decoder, as the paper-based song only survives as long as the neural network capable of decoding it.
Written by urgent.news from Tom's Hardware's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.