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Description of the main audio formats

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Description of the main audio formats

In the world of music there are a large number of music formats, their modifications and versions, created by the giants of the music industry and small companies that have received public recognition in the electronic world.

Various physical methods have been developed to store audio data for these purposes, such as vinyl records, magnetic tape, CD, DAT, MD (minidisc), DVD, or converting music scores to music (MIDI), in the same way that they have many different computing methods emerged. audio data storage – digital: OGG, Mp3, Flac, Wav formats.

It is impossible to consider and discuss all audio formats, codecs, their advantages and disadvantages, so in my article I will try to tell you about the most popular audio file extensions that you find.

Why can’t we use any universal audio file encoding format? Because implementing multiple functions requires a different format. For example: to play CDs in a CD-ROM drive, to record music or sound effects in video games, to record a movie track or video clip, to play on mobile phones or to transfer files over the Internet, in addition, there are various operating systems that are the most widely used in the world … These include: Amiga, Macintosh, NEXT, and Windows PC.

Also, the work of a dj, sound engineer, cj, video engineer, or a simple music lover is quite different in nature. This may require that your audio data be saved in your own way. For example, the audio of a CD must be saved using 16 bits and a sampling frequency of 44.1 kHz. However, to download sound over the Internet, we’d better use a different bit depth and sample rate, as each minute of 16-bit, 44-kilohertz audio takes up about 10MB, i.e. an average track of 5 minutes will be 50 meters, too much data for the average user. This article provides an overview of the most popular music formats.

AA (Audible Audio Book File) is a proprietary format developed by Audible. It is used to record audiobooks sold through the Audible and iTunes services. It is possible to reduce or accelerate the speed of listening to files: digital tone, the ability to leave bookmarks when listening to audio books, file protection, when delivering sound recordings over the Internet.

AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) is an audio file format with less quality loss when encoding than MP3 in the same sizes. Lossless music encoding of original quality using the ALAC profile. AAC is a family of MPEG4 audio coding algorithms. Unlike the hybrid mp3 filter bank, AAC uses MDST (Modified Cosine Transform) technology, which means that the listener gets better sound quality than MP3 encoding with the same or lower bit rate. Possible AAC file extensions: [.m4a], [.m4b], [.m4p].

Additionally, AAC is a wideband audio coding algorithm that uses two basic coding principles to dramatically reduce the amount of data required to transmit high-quality digital audio. This format is one of the highest quality, uses lossy compression, compatible with most modern equipment, including notebooks.

For 2009, it is much less common than MP3 and other workarounds. AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) was originally created as a successor to MP3 with improved encoding quality. The AAC format, officially known as ISO / IEC 13818-7, was released in 1997 as the new seventh part of the MPEG-2 family. There is also the AAC format known as MPEG-4 Part 3.

Benefits of AAC over MP3:

– up to 48 audio channels;

– high coding efficiency with constant and variable bit rate;

– sampling frequencies from 8 Hz to 96 kHz (MP3: 8 Hz – 48 kHz);

– More flexible set stereo mode.

ADX is a proprietary ADICM-based lossy compression and storage format developed by CRI Middleware specifically for use in video games. The most characteristic feature is the ability to repeat the sound recording, which makes using the format convenient to use as background music in various games that support this media container. It is compatible with many SEGA Dreamcast games, some PlayStation 2 games and GameCube.

Unlike MP3, it does not use the psychoacoustic model of reducing the volume of sound data (reducing its complexity). Instead, the ADPCM model uses a prediction function relative error data record to store samples.

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Sound under pressure

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Audio File Formats

Computer sound has long since emerged from that embryonic state, when it was only present for the show, unable to compete with specialized equipment. Today, many sound cards, even middle class, are far above their rivals in the face of not so mediocre hi-fi. Recently, there are also fewer and fewer problems with acoustics; At such a rate, in a few years, the entire breeding road will finally turn into a true hi-hi. But in addition to the path, there is also a file format, in the choice of which, due to ignorance, users are often really limited. The purpose of this article is to get rid of these limitations.

Audio File Formats

Gone are the days when it was impossible to distinguish a violin from a cello in computer acoustics, but the saying “CD Quality – MP3 128 kbps” has remained, and for some it is not so archaic. Meanwhile, the most common formats are Wav (also known as CDA) or MP3. However, uncompressed PCM (Wav and CDA) has too large a file size and MP3 is compressed with loss of quality. But there are alternatives and more than one. Let’s take a look at the most popular and high-quality formats / codecs.

First, let’s divide all codecs into two groups based on compression: lossless and lossy. The former operate on the principle of filing cabinets, for example RAR: a file compressed in this way loses weight by up to 50%, and the entire original is reproduced during playback, before compression. Lossy compression algorithms exclude “unnecessary” information from the original signal and then compress it, which is why the original signal cannot be fully restored; JPEG compression is an example. Now in more detail.

At a loss

MP3

Perhaps, as with the most popular ones, let’s start with MP3, also known as MPEG-1 layer 3. We compress test snippets with lame, the highest quality of all MP3 codecs. In the snippet with the classics, we see that there is no upper cutoff frequency as such, that’s great! However, in the most “powerful” (noisy) places, the upper part (from 18 kHz) is consumed. Such dynamics processing is quite strange for hearing and auditory logic, but for a computer it is easy to explain: just as the overall signal density increases, it grows almost throughout the entire range and therefore one more channel is required. wide to pass all the flow. But since the channel is fixed (we compress in CBR, with a constant bit rate, 320 kbps), for normal encoding of the mids and bass, you need to reduce the treble. A snippet with modern music is practically indistinguishable from the original, just a small cut in the frequencies for which real high fidelity is needed, in which you will definitely not remember the MP3, in addition to the frequency response, there are still many characteristics spoiled by compression. Compressed file size: classic – 6.11 MB, modern music – 6.11 MB.

WMA 9

The format promoted by Bill Gates is not yet popular: firstly, it supports DRM (copy protection), and secondly, of all the lossy codecs considered here, it provides the weakest sound quality. With almost the same dimensions as with other formats, making a hard cut at the top above 20 kHz, as well as cutting the top based on the overall level (similar in effect to Dolby noise suppressors) is not very good in our opinion. Compressed at 320 kbps, WMA 9 (non-professional). Compressed file size: classic – 6.14 MB, modern music – 6.12 MB.

OGG Vorbis

Open source codec with good sound quality and safely taking second place. It has a floating cutoff frequency (but within reasonable limits) of the order of 20 kHz. It is true that in this case we set the bit rate at 350 kbps … It has one more drawback: longer encoding time. Compressed file size: classic – 6.70 MB, modern music – 6.65 MB.

The winner of this nomination is the one with the closest sonogram to the wav file sonogram. Therefore, MP3 is still the winner. However, it should be noted that the codec is different, and even those that work according to the same algorithm. For example, the same MP3 is lame, there is Fraunhofer and Xing, the latter being the fastest, but also with the most terrible sound quality (the cutoff is 16 kHz).

No loss of quality, no loss

FLAC (Lossless Audio Compressor)

One of the most popular formats for lossless audio compression is the FLAC codec. The main advantages of this audio codec are its constant updating and, of course, multiplatform: FLAC is ported to many platforms.

About audio formats

About audio formats

audio formats

Installations
Installation first. There is no perfect format. Different types of audio require different approaches.

Audio Formats

Second installation. It is impossible to do something good with poor quality.

Third installation. There are three approaches to comparing quality: the discriminating edge (heavyweights), the comforting edge (consumer audio), and the intelligibility edge.

Fourth installation. Disputes in a weight category are useless and are called “holivars”. The arguments in different weight classes are meaningless: “heavy is heavier than light” and “light is lighter than heavy.” Disputes (especially between heavyweights) can only take place with the support of the “blind method”.

A brief introduction
Bit rate is one of the most important metrics for measuring digital audio recordings. It is measured in kilobits per second (for short: kbps, just kilobits, kbps, kbps, kbps, etc.).

On the fingers: answer the question “how much memory occupies a second of audio”.

All kinds of transformations are already underway: there are eight bits in a byte, 1024 bits in a kilobit, 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, and we arrive at the following empirical data:

bit rate 1400 = 1 hour takes 615 megabytes on disk
320 bitrate = 1 hour takes 141 megabytes on disk
bit rate 192 = 1 hour takes 84 megabytes on disk
bit rate 24 = 1 hour takes 11 megabytes on disk
Naturally, we all want to use disk space sparingly. This is where the format war begins. 11 MB is sixty times cheaper than 615 MB. Megabytes is the cost of storing audio recordings.

The price of storage can also be expressed in bills, dividing the cost of the disk by its capacity. For an archive of audio recordings, the storage price is far from being as critical as for an archive of video recordings.

Furthermore, the storage price can be conditionally expressed in man-hours, if the playback device has a much smaller capacity than your general archive of audio recordings. It takes time to regularly download new tracks to the device.

The storage price can also be expressed in square meters of work area. 500 audio CDs will take up a lot of space and require furniture solutions, but a small external hard drive fits in your pocket.

If there is a different price, then the question of quality arises: then we assume that the lowest bitrate has the lowest quality. So we come to the main question: where is the limit of reason, where is the ideal “price / quality” ratio.

The most approximate division of audio formats in descending order of average bitrate:

uncompressed audio
lossless compression
lossy compression

Uncompressed audio is the pure signal without conversion, “as is”, the equivalent of WAV or audio CD. Classic parameters: 1411 kbps, 44100 kHz sample rate, 16-bit audio.

Codec is an abbreviation of the words (KO der and DEC oder). An encoder is a program that packages a pure audio signal in the desired special format. A decoder is a program that converts a special format into a pure audio signal. In modern English, the two terms were transformed a bit: below code and below code, which corresponds to the direct Russian counterparts for coding and racing coding. And do not confuse encryption and encryption: these are two very different processes, although externally there is a lot of similarity.

For an ordinary person, only a player that can work with this format is required (that is, it has a decoder). The “encoder” itself is only required to “create” such files.

Lossless compression – Typically used for collectible audio material. It is generally believed that this format can be converted exactly to Audio CD.

Better is this compression:

Save disk space by about half
The file format assumes the storage of additional information (artist, album, track number, track name, etc.)
The compression formats themselves differ:

format openness and compression algorithms
player support
overhead encoding, decoding costs
compression ratio
The overhead costs are negligible for the average person and the compression ratio of the codecs differs slightly. Main actors: FLAC, APE, WAVPACK, ALAC.

Lossy Compression – Provides a much higher compression ratio by discarding unimportant audio details. The smaller the size of the file we are trying to compress, the more details we will need to discard. In addition to the disappearing details, technical artifacts also appear.

The 4 most popular audio formats

Each audio file format has its individual strengths and weaknesses. Find out which one is best for certain tasks or situations; This will save you time and avoid unnecessary mistakes. Next, we will look at the five most common types of audio files and some of their distinctive characteristics and differences.

Audio Formats

1. The M4A audio file format

M4A is a file extension for an audio file in the mpeg-4 format. This is a compressed audio file format used in modern environments. The reason for this is the higher quality standards that result from the use of cloud storage and more local hard drive space on modern computers. Especially for users who have to listen to pronounced sounds in audio files, the high quality of M4A ensures that the format remains relevant compared to other common file types.

Audio format

.M4A files are compressed audio formats used in Apple iTunes.
Music download software, such as Apple iTunes, uses the M4A format instead of MP3 because it is smaller and of higher quality. There are limitations in terms of compatibility, as many software programs cannot recognize the M4A format. This makes it ideal for a single selected user type.

2. The FLAC audio file format

The abbreviation FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec, which aptly describes files in the FLAC audio format. These are audio files that have been compressed and are smaller than the original file. The sophisticated file type is rarely used as an audio format. Because although it has its advantages, it often requires special downloads to make it work.

If you also consider that audio files are often streamed, this can be associated with considerable inconvenience for any new user receiving such a file.

A .FLAC file is a lossless audio format.

The most important aspect of FLAC is that lossless compression saves size and makes it easy to publish an audio file while maintaining the original quality. Compared to the original audio file, the .flac file requires only sixty percent of storage space. This saves a lot of hard drive space and time to upload and download.

3. The MP3 audio file format

The .mp3 file extension indicates audio files that use the MPEG-Audio Layer 3 format. The most important feature of MP3 files is their compression, which saves valuable storage space while maintaining the sound quality of the original almost flawless. Compression makes the MP3 audio format extremely popular with all portable audio players, especially the Apple iPod.

Due to its high quality and small file size, the .MP3 format also keeps up with newer types of audio files.
Today’s digital landscape is indispensable without MP3, as it is compatible with almost any device that can read types of audio files. Due to its compact size, the MP3 file format is especially suitable for exchanging a large number of audio files. It also works well for websites that host audio files. The popularity of the MP3 format relies heavily on its overall sound quality. Although this is not the highest quality level, MP3 offers enough other advantages to outweigh it.

4. The MP4 audio file format

The MP4 audio format is often mistakenly viewed as an evolution of the MP3 file. But that is a fallacy. Both types of audio files are fundamentally different; the supposed similarities result only from their names, not from their functionality. So, among other things, you should be aware that .mp4 files are sometimes called video files, not audio files. This is not an error because, in fact, the format refers to both audio and video files.

There are many differences between the .MP4 and .MP3 file formats.
The .mp4 audio file type is a full multimedia file extension that can contain audio, video, and other media. In MP4 format, the data is stored in the file, not in the code. This must be taken into account as MP4 files require different codecs to artificially implement the code so that it can be read.

Mp3, the winner

In the era of broadband connections, fiber optics and HD videos on YouTube, MP3 remains the reference format for audio files. We are now so used to listening to music in compressed formats, and often through poor quality playback systems, that it is difficult for us to remember what listening to music really means. The recent evolution from download to hit-and-run streaming has only made the situation worse by further devaluing the value of music. When was the last time you listened to a record from start to finish without interruption, spending those 30-40 minutes on “simple” listening activity?

Premise: This post is not a crusade against Spotify because I use it myself for new releases or to have some background music at work, it is not even an analog vs. digital (or vinyl vs. CD vs. MP3) post because on this topic en Much has already been said. My goal is to make you understand what you are missing, in qualitative terms, if you listen to music in compressed formats.

Sampling and theoretical aspects.

Audio recording on a computer or digital medium assumes that the signal passes through an analog> digital (AD) converter, so that the continuous electrical signal generated by microphones or musical instruments is transformed into a digital signal (series of 0 and 1) This process is called sampling. The final quality of the recording depends on several factors: converter quality, sample rate, and bit depth.

To make an easily understandable comparison: When shooting a movie, the “analog” reality perceived by our eye is stored in a movie that takes 24 frames per second. If we consider the standard of the audio CD (44.1 kHz, 16 bits), for every second of music 44100 pictures are taken from the computer to the continuous electrical signal. If with the sampling frequency we have simply established how many times in a second the waveform will be analyzed, with the bit depth we assign to each sample a numerical value: 2 ^ 16 = 65,536 possible values.

If you wonder how it got to 44,100, I refer you to the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem.

When we press the record button on our computer, through the PCM (pulse code modulation) sampling process described above, the files are saved in uncompressed WAV or AIFF format.

Lossless files and lossy files

PCM files take up a lot of space on our hard drives because, as we have seen, there is the data necessary to describe the analog waveform in as much detail as possible. Indicatively, a WAV or AIFF file as audio CD will occupy 10 MB for every minute of music.

To overcome this problem, remember that in the early 2000s storage space cost around $ 10 / GB, while today the price is around $ 0.03 / GB (source): Audio formats have been introduced that , through an algorithm encodes and decodes information, reduces the size of the file. These codecs fall into two categories: formats with lossless compression and formats with lossy compression.

As the name implies, lossless compression indicates a reduction in file weight (usually around 50%) without loss of information. Leaving the world of audio aside for a second, ZIP and RAR files are clear examples of this type of compression: at any time we can “unzip” such a file and have access to the original information again without this no way has changed.

The most common file formats are: FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) and ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec).

Lossy compression, on the other hand, implies that some of the original audio information is somehow removed to obtain a file that weighs even 90% less than the PCM.

By what criteria is information removed without “compromising” the original audio too much? Since our hearing is an imperfect instrument, codecs exploit two principles of psychoacoustics: the minimum threshold of audibility (the human ear does not perceive all frequencies in the range between 20Hz and 20kHZ equally) and masking (a weaker sound). is masked, making it inaudible, by a louder sound.)

Compression algorithms, however advanced, introduce a number of artifacts into audio files that, if played back in discrete quality audio systems, can be easily recognized or at least noticed even by an inexperienced ear. Several studies have shown that an untrained ear does not distinguish the difference between an uncompressed file and an MP3 with a bit rate equal to 256kb / s or more.

The most common lossy formats are: MP3, OGG Vorbis, AAC.

The victory of MP3

Since its introduction in the mid-1990s, MP3 has established itself as the industry-standard consumer format fueled by file-sharing through peer-to-peer channels, where, with slow connections, the heaviest file was the one it was downloaded, the longer it took to obtain it, and since the market introduction of MP3 players in which we tried to store as much music as possible and, therefore, we resorted to very compressed files.

In the transition from the era of downloading to that of small transmission files, they ensure smoother and smoother data transmission.

Despite, therefore, the evolution that has taken place in recent years in the speed of Internet connections and the reduction in the price of storage systems, only in recent years have services been created to buy files from High-quality online audio (HD tracks) or HD streaming services (Tidal).

Examples and audio files.

The main services we use to buy or listen to music use these compression levels (all information is taken from the official websites of each service at the time this publication was written).

Spotify: OGG Vorbis files at 96 kb / s (normal mobile quality), 160 kb / s (normal desktop and web player quality, high mobile quality), 320 kb / s (premium users: high desktop quality, very high quality mobile).
iTunes: By default, CDs are imported into 128 kb / s AAC files. Files in the iTunes Store are of this quality, except for “iTunes Plus” songs converted to AAC at 256 kb / s.
Pandora: 64kb / s AAC (free users), 192kb / s AAC (premium users).
YouTube: HD videos (720 or 1080p) have an audio quality equal to 384kb / s, SD videos (360, 480p) have an audio quality equal to 128kb / s.

Choose the sound format well into 2020

Although many dematerialized music rhymes with MP3, it is recommended to take a tour of the owner in existing dematerialized formats to choose the audio format well when digitizing their CD / Vinyl.

What is an audio format?

An audio format is to simplify a kind of container where dematerialized music is stored: it is important to choose it carefully when ripping a CD, because its properties will directly affect the quality of the file created.

Therefore, selecting audio format is a crucial step and it is advisable to guarantee three things with priority: the quality, functionality, and the fact that they are standard and legible on a maximum of devices, whether on a PC or MAC computer, but also on your smartphone / car radio …

It is also important to understand that in general, and although there are exceptions, the choice of audio format consists of placing the cursor in the middle between the quality on the one hand and the space occupied by the media on the other. storage.

Choose audio format: which challengers?

select aac-ogg-wma mp3 audio format
The 4 semi-amazing audio formats with destructive compression.

MP3:
Give glory where honor is due. MP3 is just as popular as it is underrated: it will have done a lot for dematerialized music by itself and has enabled millions of people around the world to discover a new way to listen to their music.

MP3 is a format of strong and destructive compression, in other words, a large part of the musical signal will be suppressed (priority, frequencies inaudible to the human ear … but not only!), And therefore offers a quality that only becomes good for from 256/320 kbps.

Is this a good opportunity today? Not being the best from a quality standpoint, choosing mp3 audio format today allows you to be sure that you can listen to it on all devices released for 10 years. MP3 is dematerialized music, what jeans should wear: versatility and the highest “acceptance rate” in the world.

Note that it is also advisable to choose mp3 audio format if you have limited storage space on a smartphone, for example because it is (in the company of AAC / WMA / OGG) the type of format that requires least space.

AAC:
This format is similar to “Apple MP3”. It has the same qualities and shortcomings as the previous one with some details: slightly better at the same speed, on the other hand it is far less standard: except for the fact that manufacturers have made explicit agreements (and pay because they require a license) , we find in Practice much fewer AAC compliant devices.

So it should be avoided unless you only have Apple products around you (even the car radio? I doubt it) and even in this case they are all perfectly mp3 compatible.

WMA
If AAC is Apple’s MP3, WMA Microsoft is MP3. Even less widespread because it doesn’t benefit from iTunes / Music Store / iPOD steamroller (who still remembers Zune’s iPod killer? Miscrosoft)

Again, forget the same qualities and shortcomings as MP3, but even less standard, therefore urgent. I even advise you to convert your existing WMA files to MP3 at a similar or slightly higher bit rate to ensure durability. Therefore, choosing WMA audio format today is not a good idea.

OGG:
We also find it under the name “vorbis”, we also have an mp3 clone here, except it is compatible with the free world (understand free) a bit in the same format as Linux.

Ogg is a completely free format unlike the previous ones, but despite this it is very confidential and is generally used only by those who take a pro-free dogmatic stance. While this position is quite respectable, selecting OGG audio format in 2014/2015 does not seem like a good idea because it is not widely distributed and above all it is like MP3, a destructive format.

WAV:
WAV is the first format on the list that does not deteriorate the quality extracted from the CD, and therefore offers an identical bit rate of 1411 kbps and therefore provides optimal quality.

However, the format shows its age and is limited in several ways: no space optimization (one second of silence = one second of noise) and no metadata or album cover management.

Therefore, choosing Wav audio format is similar to generating very heavy files and simply impossible to organize properly in a music database.

What are the most common video formats?

The choice of audio and video codecs and containers affects video quality and file size. Here we show you how to find the format that best suits your needs.

Decades and decades of developments in the audiovisual field have led to a result that can be seen as strange in a way. While in other sectors the continuous development has led to a very pronounced standardization (think of the DOC or PDF format), the situation in multimedia is at least worse.

One example is the world of audio formats, which is animated by strong “competition” and a variety of available options. Indeed, it is no less than that of video formats. In this case, we actually have to deal with a separation between codecs and containers (we’ll see what they are and what role they play) that will make things even more complicated. So when converting a movie, you need to be careful to choose the right codec and video format to avoid creating files that are too large or simply unreadable. In short, the mistake is just around the corner.

Differences between containers and codecs

Before analyzing the situation and determining the most commonly used video formats, some basic concepts need to be clarified: First: What is the difference between the codec and the container? In the audio world, if the codec used to digitize the audio track matches the “final” file format, the codecs used in the video differ from the file format that the video file will adopt at the end of the digitization process. The reason will be explained soon and is in the multimedia nature of a video.

A film actually contains video and audio data: the conversion or playback software must be able to analyze both multimedia transmissions and therefore requires different algorithms that work with one or the other type of data transmission. This is exactly what codecs do: Since the name, code and decoding of data (audio and video) consist of films, you can convert them to another video format or play them back with a media player. Even with regard to containers, it is enough to use the literal meaning of the word: These are files that contain both the video and audio sequences and “provide” codecs for reading and playback.

What are the most common codecs?

As already mentioned, a codec is responsible for compressing and decompressing the video files and determines how they are played on the screen of the PC or smart TV. Each operating system provides the user with dozens and dozens of different codecs, each useful for encoding and decoding a particular type of file, even if new ones can be installed by downloading special software or packages from the Internet. Among the most commonly used codecs we find FFmpeg, Divx, Xvid, H.264 and its development H.265, VP9 and VP 10 (also known as the name of the Google codec).

What are the most commonly used containers?

Containers, on the other hand, have the task of “bundling” the audio and video stream processed by the codecs and can therefore be used for the media player software. Containers are determined, among other things, by the “final” video file format. The most common are: Avi, Wmv, Mov, Flav and Mp4.

-Avi. The AVI video format (short for Audio Video Interleave), developed by Microsoft and introduced in 1992 as part of its video for Windows technology, is one of the oldest used today. It is so widespread and used that many consider it to be the de facto industry standard. Its simple infrastructure (elementary, one would almost say) makes it easy to use on different operating systems (Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android and the most popular browsers) and enables the “storage” of streams that are processed by different codecs
Flv. This is the video format that resulted from compression by Adobe Flash software and was developed almost exclusively for playing movies on the Internet. If it could be seen as the de facto standard for video file formats on the web until a few years ago, this is no longer the case today: The spread of HTML 5 and the discovery of some bugs in the software caused it to change a bit On the one hand, however, the FLV video file format remains a favorite for those who generally create video for the network: with its compression algorithms, you can indeed get good quality small videos