Ive heard a lot of talk about MP3. What is it and how does it work?
MP3 is short for “MPEG Audio Layer 3.” It is a file format for compressing and storing digital audio files. MP3 gives you near CD-quality sound and requires roughly 1MB (megabyte) for every minute of sound. Normal music CDs, on the other hand, require about 11MB for every minute. This means that a single song in MP3 format usually only takes up between 3 to 5MB of space. MP3 files are based on how the human brain perceives sound. Not all of the sound we hear is perceived by the brain. For example, most people can’t hear sounds above 16 kHz, so the encoder strips out any sounds above a preset threshold level. By taking away the sounds you can’t hear, the encoder creates a file that sounds almost the same but is dramatically smaller. An MP3 file can also contain information about itself in a “tag.” Tags can contain things like the artist’s name, the album name, the song’s lyrics, the genre and more. Controversy has resulted from this technology, however, as some record companies and musi
