Digital Audio Formats iTunes, the iPod, and the iPhone Can’t Play

For most of the music you store on your computer and enjoy via iTunes or an iPod or iPhone, you’ll want to use AAC, MP3, or whichever combination of the two you find most convenient. Both iTunes and the iPod and iPhone can also use WAV files and AIFF files.

For you as a digital audio enthusiast, other formats that may be of interest include the following:

• WMA is an audio format developed by Microsoft. It’s the preferred format of Windows Media Player, the Microsoft audio and video player included with all desktop versions of Windows. WMA supports DRM, but its DRM is incompatible with iTunes and the iPod and iPhone.

• mp3PRO was designed to be a successor to MP3, delivering higher audio quality at the same bitrates, but it has now been discontinued.

• Ogg Vorbis is an open-source format that’s patent free but not yet widely used. To play Ogg Vorbis files on an iPod or iPhone, you’ll need to convert them to AAC or MP3. (You can also convert them to Apple Lossless Encoding, WAV, or AIFF, but doing so makes little sense, because Ogg Vorbis is a lossy format.)

You can convert Ogg Vorbis files to WAV by using the freeware program Audacity (discussed later in this chapter) and then use iTunes to convert the WAV files to AAC or MP3, or convert them directly to AAC or MP3 by using Total Audio Converter (www.coolutils.com).

• FLAC, Free Lossless Audio Codec, is an open-source audio codec that creates lossless compressed files comparable in quality to Apple Lossless Encoding. To play FLAC files on an iPod or iPhone, you’ll need to convert them to AAC or MP3. For Windows, the best tool is Total Audio Converter (www.coolutils.com). To add FLAC playback and conversion to iTunes on the Mac, try Fluke (http://cubicfruit.com/fluke).

AAC delivers high-quality audio, small file size and enough flexibility for most purposes. But if you want to use the files you rip from a CD on a portable player that doesn’t support AAC, or you need to play them using a software player that doesn’t support AAC, choose MP3 instead. Similarly, if you want to share your music files with other people in any way other than sharing your library via iTunes, MP3 is the way to go—but remember that you need the copyright holder’s explicit authorization to copy and distribute music.

BIO:

Sussan Deyhim is an Educational professional from Health Tips. Are you really looking for this Health Magazine assistance? Move ahead to take the benefit of Health News and pass your exam easily .