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Music
AIFF
is short for
A
udio
I
nterchange
F
ile
F
ormat, an audio format that was
developed by Apple Computer and is the standard audio format for Macintosh
computers. AIFF use a
.AIF
or
.IEF
extension.
M3U
is a playlist format and is the default playlist format of WinAMP and most
other media player software. It allows multiple files to be queued in a program
in a specific format.
MP3
is the file extension for MPEG-1, audio layer 3. Layer 3 is one of three
coding schemes (layer 1, layer 2 and layer 3) for the compression of audio
signals. Layer 3 removes the redundant and irrelevant parts of a sound signal,
which the human ear does not hear. It uses Modified Discrete Cosine Transform
to implement a filter bank, increasing the frequency resolution 18 times higher
than that of layer 2.
OGG
or OGG Vorbis is an open source audio compression format. The name
OGG is derived from term in a network game and Vorbis from a character in a
novel.
OGG is used for mid to high quality (8kHz-48.0kHz, 16+ bit, polyphonic)
audio and music at fixed and variable bitrates from 16 to 128 kbps/channel.
PLS
is a proprietary playlist format used for playing Shoutcast and other audio
streams.
WAV
is the file extension for PC sound files and was developed by Microsoft
and IBM. WAV sound files end with a .wav extension and are compatible with
Windows applications supporting audio.
WMA
is short for Windows Media Audio and is an audio format that was created
by Microsoft. It is similar to MP3, although WMA can compress at a higher rate
than MP3.
Glossary (continued)
