What Audio codecs are the new industry standard

The MP3 format is one of the most widely known audio codecs. With the MP3 gone, what codecs are the new industry standard?

MP3 stands for MPEG Audio Layer III, It was introduced for audio coding in the early 1990s. The MP3 protocol drove this growth Data compression so consumers could fit more audio files on their portable players and phones, but Apple came up with AAC format and Microsoft developed the lossy protocol (WMA). However, with memory becoming ever-cheaper, bandwidth ever wider and streaming available without having to store data permanently, data compression started to lose its relevance.

Now We are looking at wireless audio and specifically at the different Bluetooth audio codecs and why they play an important role in the future of audio. The need for better and high-definition audio is contended by musicians and audio engineers even though the MP3 quality sound is acceptable. There is much to learn from audio codecs that push the boundaries since musicians and producers in the music industry are pushing to release high-resolution audio files for portable consumption.

There are a few new codec that the future of audio codecs holds.

AMR — Adaptive Multi-Rate is one of the most commonly used audio formats in the world. It is considered a hybrid of speech codes and is capable of transmitting both waveform signals and speech parameters.

ALAC — Apple Lossless Codec is Apple Lossless Codec that was eleased in 2004 and supports eight channels of audio up to a 32-bit depth and maximum sample rate of 384kHz.

AAC — Advanced Audio Coding was developed after MP3 and takes advantage of what was learned from that initial popular format. AAC generally provides better sound quality than MP3 at similar bit-rates.

DSD — Direct Stream Digital is a high-resolution format that produces a high-resolution signal in a different way to that employed by the PCM system. DSD is a very high resolution audio format, higher than CD quality

WAV — Waveform Audio File Format becomes a standard PC audio file format for everything from system and game sounds to CD-quality audio. The format uses containers to store audio data, track numbers, sample rate, and bit rate.

Audio and MP3 Converters  

For compatibility reasons, sometimes it’s necessary to convert a music file into other audio formats. Since YouTube happens to be one of the top websites for listening to music, Music fans regularly visit YouTube for most famous music videos, so you we may find yourselve wanting to download it as an MP3 so that we can listen to it offline and on other devices. It would be a lot easier to have the audio from the video on a mobile device in a MP3 file so you can listen to it anywhere you want

The future of  Audio formats

The primary audio coding formats associated with HEVC/H.265 are MPEG-H and AC-4. MPEG-H has been in development since 2014, it is an audio coding standard developed by the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) and Fraunhofer IIS.

MPEG-H Audio codec is based on the evolution of the AAC family, it supports broadcast and commercial applications, through to consumer level audio streaming and surround sound products and it is certainly a powerful standard for 3D audio.

Dolby AC-4 is likewise a considerably advanced codec that evolved from AC-3 but AC-4 is up to four times as efficient as AC-3. Dolby AC-4 provides the highest audio quality at a much lower bandwidth than other formats. Dolby AC-4 delivers on the promise of immersive and personalized next-gen audio content at the highest audio quality. Dolby AC-4 is already being implemented by a wide variety of system designers and consumer electronics manufacturers.

Conclusion

Audio codecs are becoming more efficient at compressing audio into smaller size streams so future broadcast codecs will be able to provide more audio channels amd higher quality. Audio formats will continue to develop to addresses the current and future needs of next-generation video and audio entertainment services.