Mp3 How-to

What are Mp3s

MP3 is an audio compression codec that allows users to compress songs, speeches, and monkey sounds (Yes, they're out there...) dramatically without noticeable loss of quality. MP3 stands for Motion Picture Experts Group Audio Layer 3 (MPEG Audio Layer 3), and because its ability to compress songs, it became de facto standard for music distribution over the web.


MPEGs

MPEG, pronounced M-peg, is the nickname given to a family of international standards used for coding audio-visual information in digital compressed format. MPEG developed not only the MP3s, but played important roles in many other audio-visual technologies including mpeg movies and DVD.


How Does Mp3 Work?

Magic. :) Actually, it's quite simple (in concept, that is). What MP3 codec does, is that it gets rid of parts of audio that you and I cannot hear. Our human ears are quite limited in that after hearing something loud, you can't hear quiet sound for short period of time. MP3 codec calculates and deletes that part. This is how MP3 achieves its great compression ratio without the apparent quality loss.


Are Mp3s Legal?

MP3 is just a file format. MP3s by themselves are perfectly legal. Also, if you rip MP3s from a CD that you own, and use it for your personal enjoyment, it is legal. However, it becomes illegal when you start trading MP3s or give MP3s away to your friends without permission from the copyright holder.


How Do I Play Mp3?

There are a number of MP3 players out there, from software that runs on your computer to hand-held portable MP3 players. WinAmp, is the most popular mp3 player at the moment and has the most amount of skins and plugins. Another popular mp3 player is Sonique.

The addresses for downloading mp3 players are below


Mp3 Skips A Lot?

MP3 requires a lot of computer resources. If your computer is not fast enough, or if you are doing something cpu-intensive, MP3 will skip. You might be able to go into Preferences of MP3 players and set it to lower quality to listen to the music without skipping. Otherwise you could consider upgrading your computer with a better processor or memory. Memory is quite cheap at the moment, and our partner web site "UK Shop Index" lists plenty of UK computer shops that sell computer memory at very low prices.


What are File Sharing Programs?

Napster and Gnutella are two types file sharing programs that allows you to trade files with other Napster (or Gnutella) users. Once you find the file you want, you download directly from that other person's computer. You can find other other file server programs above, these include Aimster, Audiogalaxy, Bearshare, Limeware and morpheus. All these programs are similer in design and features to either napster or gnutella.


 
© Copyright 2001 Topmusiclinks. All Rights Reserved.web metrics