Frauenhofer-Gesellschaft, a German institute of research released the codec for Mpeg Layer 3, or Mp3 as it is widely known, in 1996. This codec for the first time allowed near CD quality audio to be compressed from around 10 Mb per minute to approximately 1Mb per minute (depending on the bit rate). Originally the codec was free to use in any program, however Frauenhofer-Gesellschaft decided to make the codec internal and only allow it to be used in licensed programs.
A hacking group calling themselves ‘’Radium’’ objected to this and decided to make the codec external again. Whilst doing so they discovered that they could improve the program making it run 12% faster. This new and improved codec quickly spread throughout the Internet and spawned the birth of Napster and many other file sharing technologies. (McCandless, 2001) Mp3 compression works by taking an audio file and removing non-essential information in order to save space. At higher bit rates such as 192 kbit/s or 256 kbit/s the difference is barely noticeable from CD quality sound. According to Mp3-tech.org, "MPEG audio compressor are based on a perceptual coding scheme. During a perceptual coding, the codec does not try absolutely to maintain a signal identical to original after encoding and decoding phases, but its goal is rather to insure that the output signal seems identical for a human ear".(Mp3-tech.org, 2004)
Mp3 is now embraced by many hardware manufacturors. Dedicated Mp3 players are very popular because of their small size and the fact that disks don't have to be carried around. Most DVD players support Mp3 and many stereos, especially in car are supporting Mp3 playback. Even mobile phones are now suuporting Mp3.
Daniel Fisher 00:53, 9 Sep 2004 (EST)
