Term of the Moment
Data Cell
Redirected from: .mp3
Definition: MP3
(MPEG-1 Audio Layer III) The audio compression technology that revolutionized digital music (see "MP3 Shook Up the Industry" below). Derived from the audio sections of the MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 video specifications, MP3 compresses CD-quality sound by a factor of roughly 10, while retaining most of the original fidelity. See CD-DA.
Ripping/Importing
Converting a digital audio track from a music CD to the MP3 format (or other audio format) is called "ripping" or "importing," and this conversion function is built into Windows Media Player, iTunes, Apple Music app and other jukebox software.
Bit Rates Are Important
While 128 Kbps is considered the norm for MP3 files, MP3s can be ripped to bit rates up to 320 Kbps. The higher the rate, the better the sound and the larger the file. There are variations of MP3 and other widely used audio formats (see codec examples). See high-resolution audio, MP3 VBR and mp3PRO.
The Encoding Bit Rate
MP3 Shook Up the Industry
By the end of the 1990s, music fans discovered that a CD song title converted to MP3 still sounded pretty good, and smaller files meant faster downloading, especially over slow analog modems.
Developed in Germany
MP3 was developed in the late 1980s by the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany. Released in 1993, MP3 uses perceptual audio coding to compress the data by eliminating frequencies that would not normally be heard because they overlap and cancel each other. See ID3 tag, audioblog, podcast, iPod, AAC, codec examples, perceptual audio coding and cuckoo egg.
Proof of the Pudding
Ripping/Importing
Converting a digital audio track from a music CD to the MP3 format (or other audio format) is called "ripping" or "importing," and this conversion function is built into Windows Media Player, iTunes, Apple Music app and other jukebox software.
Bit Rates Are Important
While 128 Kbps is considered the norm for MP3 files, MP3s can be ripped to bit rates up to 320 Kbps. The higher the rate, the better the sound and the larger the file. There are variations of MP3 and other widely used audio formats (see codec examples). See high-resolution audio, MP3 VBR and mp3PRO.
This dialog box from Windows Media Player shows "Audio quality" set to 192 Kbps. The slider selects four encoding rates: 128, 192, 256 and 320.
By the end of the 1990s, music fans discovered that a CD song title converted to MP3 still sounded pretty good, and smaller files meant faster downloading, especially over slow analog modems.
Developed in Germany
MP3 was developed in the late 1980s by the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany. Released in 1993, MP3 uses perceptual audio coding to compress the data by eliminating frequencies that would not normally be heard because they overlap and cancel each other. See ID3 tag, audioblog, podcast, iPod, AAC, codec examples, perceptual audio coding and cuckoo egg.
These examples taken in a Mac show the original CD file sizes (AIFF) and resulting MP3 files. The CD was ripped to MP3 in iTunes at a recording rate of 160 Kbps, and the album was reduced from 344MB to 39MB. When a music CD is inserted into a Mac, the CD's files appear in Apple's AIFF format, which is the same uncompressed format as the CD (see AIFF, CD-DA and PCM).