An audio revolution and a multi-million dollar legal mess have been caused by a little thing called an MP3. Hundreds of thousands of students download these files, yet how many really know anything about them?
An MP3 is a compressed audio file that takes up less space on a computer or disc than a standard CD file.
"Audio files, which were typically large (such as WAV files from CDs), could be compressed to a fraction of their original size without a significantly noticeable loss in quality to the human ear," according to the Internet technology Web site, ZD Net. For this reason, MP3 CDs have a capacity of hundreds of songs on a single disc, while a conventional CD has a capacity of 15 to 30 songs.
While the sound quality is almost the same as a CD, well-trained ears can hear a subtle difference. "Any time you compress something, you'll lose something. But MP3s are very cleverly put together. It's near CD quality, but I can hear the difference because it's my job," said Mark Sarisky, a professor in the audio technology department of the College of Arts and Sciences. "A program goes through a song and says, 'this is a sound humans can't hear ... throw that out,'" said Sarisky.
Research for the MP3 began in Germany with Fraunhofer Institute during the mid-1980s. In 1989, the institute was granted the patent for MP3 compression in Germany, which was eventually recognized internationally. During the mid-1990s Fraunhofer also patented an MP3 player, which made MP3s useful to average consumers, according to the MP3-CD Burner Web site.
"The big reason MP3s have become the de-facto audio standard is that the original patent-holders made it freely available for anyone to develop MP3 software," according to Gabriel Nijmeh, a writer for MP3-CD Burner. The result of that freedom was that several companies. like Winamp, developed MP3 players. But what really made the MP3 a music revolution was a combination of factors.
"Timing was everything," according to the ZD net website. Just as home PC processing power was exploding and the Internet was taking off in 1997, researcher Tomislav Uzelac introduced the first desktop MP3 player, known as AMP. AMP became the precursor to Winamp and later MacAmp, the first two widely available MP3 player applications for consumers."
Sarisky offered another opinion on the popularity of MP3s. "MP3s are kind of the cassettes of the CD age ... it allows anyone to become their own DJ," he said.
As for the future of MP3s, Sarisky said while he heard that MP4s and 5s were currently being researched, the only advances he could see would be in computer coding, to make the file even smaller or make it sound even more like the original file.
