Original publication in "Student Computer"
Author: Su Xindong
In the computer, there are many different sound files. Since now players can support a lot of sound formats, everyone can also say something characteristic.
Today, let's take a look at the most common file formats on the web. In principle, different sound formats require different players, but most of the current players can support multiple formats. For example, Windows's own media player, famous free software WINAMP, etc.
MID and RMI
These two file extensions indicate that the file is a MIDI file. MIDI is an international standard of digital musical instrument interface, which defines the communication interface of electronic music and computer, which specifies the specification of the music score using digital coding. The computer is synthesized according to the command of the MIDI device stored in the MIDI file, ie, the frequency, volume, channel number, etc. of each note, and the indication information of each note. The advantages of the MID file are short, one six minutes, there are 16 instruments of the documents are only more than 80 KB; the disadvantage is that the playback effect is soft and hardware. Using the media player can play, but if you want to have a better playback effect, the computer must support the wavefringing function. At present, most people use software wavefronts, the most famous is Yamaha Sxg, Japan Yamaha. Play with this soft wave table can achieve almost the same effect as the real musical instrument.
WAV
This is the standard format of Windows itself to store digital sounds. Due to Microsoft's influence, it is currently a versatile digital sound file format, and almost all audio processing software supports WAV format. Since WAV format is usually uncompressed with audio data, the volume is large (1 minute CD sound quality requires 10m bytes), which is not suitable for propagation on the network. WAV format can be played directly with a media player.
MP3 (MP1, MP2)
The MP3 extension is of course the MP3 compression format file. The full name of MP3 is actually MPEG Audio Layer-3 instead of MPEG 3. Since MP3 has a high compression (1 min by: 1M bytes), the sound quality is characterized, MP3 is the most popular music file. There are a lot of sites on the Internet to download MP3, and you can also exchange music exchange software (such as napster). However, due to the strong resistance of the music industry (copyright issues), these services face pressure on closing or changed to the charging service. Playing MP3 is the most famous software is WINAMP.
VQF
VQF is an audio compressed format developed by Japan Yamaha to buy NTT technology, and the spearhead refers to MP3. The main selling point is the compression ratio than MP3, and the sound quality is better than MP3 (Yamaha himself and its supporters said, I didn't seem to be more than the case.). However, since VQF is the proprietary format of Yamaha, it is quite limited, so the influence is not as good as MP3. VQF requires YAMAHA's VQF player to play. Other players, such as Winamp, need to install a support plugin to play.
RA, RAM
These two extensions represent file formats developed by REAL companies that are mainly applicable to real-time digital audio flow technology on the network. Since its viewing goals are real-time online spread, it is far less than MP3 in high fidelity, but there is no one in terms of low-fidelity network propagation. To play RA, you need to use Real Player.
ASF, ASX, WMA, WAX, etc.
ASF and WMA are all new generations of online stream digital audio compression technology developed by Microsoft. This compression technology is characterized by simultaneously taking into account fidelity and network transmission requirements, so having a certain advancement. It is also due to Microsoft's influence, this audio format is now gaining more and more support, such as WinAmp can also play. You can also use Windows media players.
XM, S3M, STM, MOD, MTM, etc.
These file formats are in real mutual, but they all belong to a large class: Module, referred to as MOD. This music format has been popular online until the rise of MP3 has fallen, but there is also a certain influence. This format is characterized by a manner that is similar to the MID file, the control information, and the specific musical instrument sound data is combined, so the volume is not large, 5 minutes of music between 300k bytes to 1 megabyte. . The most important thing is that playing the Mod file only requires a 386 machine (already an antique), so it is the most popular under the machine conditions at that time. The play effect is not more than MP3. WINAMP supports playback of the above format. Of course, there are other audio file formats on the network, but for various reasons, the popularity and application ranges of those formats are limited. I hope that after reading this article, you can have a preliminary understanding of some common audio file formats on the Internet.
