while preserving sound quality. It does this by optimising
the compression according to the range of sound that people
can actually hear. MP3 is currently (July 1999) the most
powerful algorithm in a series of audio encoding standards
for Standardization (ISO).
MP3 is very different from Layer 2, using an additional
MDCTlayer to increase frequency resolution. Its scale factor
groups are more optimised for the human ear, and it uses
e.g. Winamp for
PC, MacAmp for
Macintosh, and mpeg123 for
MP3 files are usually downloaded completely before playing but
streaming MP3 is also possible. A program called a "ripper"
can be used to copy a selection from a music
CD onto your
hard disk and another program called an encoder can convert
it to an MP3 file.
(2001-12-04)