Introduction to MP3

MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression.

This encoding format is used to create the MP3's small file, as a way to store a single segment of audio, commonly a song, such that the file can be easily organized and transferred between computers or other devices such as MP3 players.

MP3's use of a lossy compression algorithm is designed to greatly reduce the amount of data required to represent the audio recording and still sound like a faithful reproduction of the original uncompressed audio for most listeners, but is not considered High Fidelity audio by the elite connoisseur. An MP3 file that is created using the mid-range bitrate setting of 128 kbit/s will result in a file that is typically about 1/10th the size of the CD file created from the original audio source. An MP3 file can also be constructed at higher or lower bitrates, with higher or lower resulting quality.

MP3 is an audio-specific format. It was invented by a team of international engineers at Philips, CCETT (Centre commun d'études de télévision et télécommunications), IRT, AT&T-Bell Labs and Fraunhofer Society, and it became an ISO/IEC standard in 1991. The compression works by reducing accuracy of certain parts of sound that are deemed beyond the auditory resolution ability of most people. This method is commonly referred to as Perceptual Coding. [1]

It provides a representation of sound within a short term time/frequency analysis window, by using psychoacoustic models to discard or reduce precision of components less audible to human hearing, and recording the remaining information in an efficient manner. This is relatively similar to the principles used by, say, JPEG, an image compression format.