FREE ESSAY ON MP3'S

MP3'S

As we are approaching the 21st century communications is becoming a vital key in business
and home computing. As a result we are constantly inventing new ways in order to make
communications easier for the user to access in our daily lives. Therefore the
information superhighway has sparred awareness in home technology or lack of home
technology. 
The abbreviation MP3 stands for MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group) layer 3, which is a
standard format for storing compressed music. An MP3 file is an audio file that has been
compressed (anywhere from 1/5th to 1/17th of its original size) without any noticeable
loss in sound quality. That means a great sounding file, in a package small enough that
it can be downloaded and/or stored on your PC (MP3 files can be identified by their file
extension, .mp3.). The basic idea is that music digitized at CD quality has information
that can be suppressed with little or no quality loss, as perceived by most people.
Thanks to this and some mathematics, it is possible to compress a digitized track to
about 8 percent of its original size, or a compression ratio of 12:1. This means that,
while a regular music CD can contain about one hour of music (74 minutes, actually), a
similar CD used to store mp3 files can contain almost 12 hours of music. 
MP3 is used particularly for music distribution over the Internet, but is also used for
other purposes such as real-time digital audio transmissions over ISDN (used by
reporters). How is it possible to do this you ask? Well, I won't get into the technical
details, but basically the MP3 encoder removes the parts of the sound not audible to the
human ear. This means that MP3 is a 'loss' type of compression (comparable to JPEG in the
graphics area). This means that what comes out from your CD or Wave file is NOT the same
thing that comes out of the MP3 that has been created from the CD/Wav. The sound data
that has been lost will not be returned if the MP3 is decoded back to WAV. However, CDs
and .wav files are troublesome when the Internet gets involved. Songs or sound files in
.wav form can take up a lot of memory, depending on the length of the recording. 
If you make a five-second, low quality happy birthday! .wav message using the Sound
Recorder program mentioned above, it will probably take up just 20 or 30 KB of memory -
small enough to attach to an e-mail message and send it off to your mom. But a
three-minute, CD-quality song in .wav form will take up 30 MB (that's M, as in Megabytes)
of memory. A file that size not only occupies more space than most programs on your
computer, but would take over six hours to upload and send it as an email attachment to
your mom using a normal modem. That's if your e-mail account even lets you send an
attachment that big! 
This is where mp3 comes in. Certain programs such as MusicMatch can compress sound files
to the much smaller .mp3 format. MusicMatch and other programs can uncompress .mp3 files
and play them back through your PC's speakers without sacrificing audio quality. The
program is designed so that you don't have to really think about
compressing/uncompressing computer files, it's just a matter of pressing record or play
on the screen! Another way to look at mp3s: Imagine squeezing a foam ball and putting it
in your pocket - that's what compressing (or recording) a song into an mp3 file is like.
Taking the ball out of your pocket and letting it pop back into its original form is the
equivalent of uncompressing (or playing) an mp3 file. A typical 3-minute long, CD-quality
song in mp3 format takes up about 3 MB of space. 
Bibliography
As we are approaching the 21st century communications is becoming a vital key in business
and home computing. As a result we are constantly inventing new ways in order to make
communications easier for the user to access in our daily lives. Therefore the
information superhighway has sparred awareness in home technology or lack of home
technology. 
The abbreviation MP3 stands for MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group) layer 3, which is a
standard format for storing compressed music. An MP3 file is an audio file that has been
compressed (anywhere from 1/5th to 1/17th of its original size) without any noticeable
loss in sound quality. That means a great sounding file, in a package small enough that
it can be downloaded and/or stored on your PC (MP3 files can be identified by their file
extension, .mp3.). The basic idea is that music digitized at CD quality has information
that can be suppressed with little or no quality loss, as perceived by most people.
Thanks to this and some mathematics, it is possible to compress a digitized track to
about 8 percent of its original size, or a compression ratio of 12:1. This means that,
while a regular music CD can contain about one hour of music (74 minutes, actually), a
similar CD used to store mp3 files can contain almost 12 hours of music. 
MP3 is used particularly for music distribution over the Internet, but is also used for
other purposes such as real-time digital audio transmissions over ISDN (used by
reporters). How is it possible to do this you ask? Well, I won't get into the technical
details, but basically the MP3 encoder removes the parts of the sound not audible to the
human ear. This means that MP3 is a 'loss' type of compression (comparable to JPEG in the
graphics area). This means that what comes out from your CD or Wave file is NOT the same
thing that comes out of the MP3 that has been created from the CD/Wav. The sound data
that has been lost will not be returned if the MP3 is decoded back to WAV. However, CDs
and .wav files are troublesome when the Internet gets involved. Songs or sound files in
.wav form can take up a lot of memory, depending on the length of the recording. 
If you make a five-second, low quality happy birthday! .wav message using the Sound
Recorder program mentioned above, it will probably take up just 20 or 30 KB of memory -
small enough to attach to an e-mail message and send it off to your mom. But a
three-minute, CD-quality song in .wav form will take up 30 MB (that's M, as in Megabytes)
of memory. A file that size not only occupies more space than most programs on your
computer, but would take over six hours to upload and send it as an email attachment to
your mom using a normal modem. That's if your e-mail account even lets you send an
attachment that big! 
This is where mp3 comes in. Certain programs such as MusicMatch can compress sound files
to the much smaller .mp3 format. MusicMatch and other programs can uncompress .mp3 files
and play them back through your PC's speakers without sacrificing audio quality. The
program is designed so that you don't have to really think about
compressing/uncompressing computer files, it's just a matter of pressing record or play
on the screen! Another way to look at mp3s: Imagine squeezing a foam ball and putting it
in your pocket - that's what compressing (or recording) a song into an mp3 file is like.
Taking the ball out of your pocket and letting it pop back into its original form is the
equivalent of uncompressing (or playing) an mp3 file. A typical 3-minute long, CD-quality
song in mp3 format takes up about 3 MB of space.