Comparison of audio codecs
Encyclopedia
The following tables compare general and technical information for a variety of audio formats and audio compression formats. For listening tests comparing the perceived audio quality of audio formats and codecs, see the article Codec listening test
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Codec listening test
A codec listening test is a scientific study designed to compare two or more lossy audio codecs, usually with respect to perceived fidelity or compression efficiency....
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General information
| Audio compression format | Creator | First public release date | Latest stable version | Encoder Encoder An encoder is a device, circuit, transducer, software program, algorithm or person that converts information from one format or code to another, for the purposes of standardization, speed, secrecy, security, or saving space by shrinking size.-Media:... Cost |
Player Cost | Proprietary Proprietary software Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary... implementations (codecs) |
Open-source implementations (codecs) | Application (besides consumer audio) | Music reproduction (consumer audio) | telephony Telephony In telecommunications, telephony encompasses the general use of equipment to provide communication over distances, specifically by connecting telephones to each other.... app |
Lossless audio compression | Patented | DRM Digital rights management Digital rights management is a class of access control technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals with the intent to limit the use of digital content and devices after sale. DRM is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that... |
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| AAC Advanced Audio Coding Advanced Audio Coding is a standardized, lossy compression and encoding scheme for digital audio. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves better sound quality than MP3 at similar bit rates.... |
ISO International Organization for Standardization The International Organization for Standardization , widely known as ISO, is an international standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations. Founded on February 23, 1947, the organization promulgates worldwide proprietary, industrial and commercial... /IEC International Electrotechnical Commission The International Electrotechnical Commission is a non-profit, non-governmental international standards organization that prepares and publishes International Standards for all electrical, electronic and related technologies – collectively known as "electrotechnology"... MPEG Audio Committee |
1997 | ISO/IEC 14496-3 | FAAC FAAC FAAC or Freeware Advanced Audio Coder is a software project which includes the AAC encoder FAAC and decoder FAAD2. It supports MPEG-2 AAC as well as MPEG-4 AAC. It supports several MPEG-4 Audio object types , file formats , multichannel and gapless encoding/decoding and MP4 metadata tags... (encoding only), iTunes ITunes iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.... , Nero Digital Audio Nero Digital Nero Digital is a brand name applied to a suite of MPEG-4-compatible video and audio compression codecs developed by Nero AG of Germany and Ateme of France... |
Digital TV service, internet streaming | Yes | FairPlay FairPlay FairPlay is a digital rights management technology created by Apple Inc., based on technology created by the company Veridisc. FairPlay is built into the QuickTime multimedia software and used by the iPhone, iPod, iPad, Apple TV, iTunes, and iTunes Store and the App Store. Formerly, all songs in... (.m4p Only, Discontinued) |
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| AC-3 Dolby Digital Dolby Digital is the name for audio compression technologies developed by Dolby Laboratories. It was originally called Dolby Stereo Digital until 1994. Except for Dolby TrueHD, the audio compression is lossy. The first use of Dolby Digital was to provide digital sound in cinemas from 35mm film prints... |
Dolby Laboratories Dolby Laboratories Dolby Laboratories, Inc. , often shortened to Dolby Labs, is an American company specializing in audio noise reduction and audio encoding/compression.-History:... |
1992 | DVD players, Digital television Digital television Digital television is the transmission of audio and video by digital signals, in contrast to the analog signals used by analog TV... |
Theatrical movie presentation, Digital TV service & home-video (personal recorders, DVD, etc.) | Yes | ||||||||
| ALAC Apple Lossless Apple Lossless Apple Lossless Apple Lossless (also known as ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec), or ALE (Apple Lossless Encoder) is an audio codec developed by Apple Inc. for lossless data compression of digital music. After initially being proprietary for many years, in late 2011 Apple open sourced... |
Apple Computer Apple Computer Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad... |
2004-04-28 | QuickTime QuickTime QuickTime is an extensible proprietary multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images, and interactivity. The classic version of QuickTime is available for Windows XP and later, as well as Mac OS X Leopard and... 7.6 |
QuickTime QuickTime QuickTime is an extensible proprietary multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images, and interactivity. The classic version of QuickTime is available for Windows XP and later, as well as Mac OS X Leopard and... , iTunes ITunes iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.... , Real Player |
- | Music archival | Possible, but never Implemented | ||||||
| ALS Audio Lossless Coding MPEG-4 Audio Lossless Coding, also known as MPEG-4 ALS, is an extension to the MPEG-4 Part 3 audio standard to allow lossless audio compression. The extension was finalized in December 2005 and published as ISO/IEC 14496-3:2005/Amd 2:2006 in 2006... |
ISO International Organization for Standardization The International Organization for Standardization , widely known as ISO, is an international standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations. Founded on February 23, 1947, the organization promulgates worldwide proprietary, industrial and commercial... /IEC International Electrotechnical Commission The International Electrotechnical Commission is a non-profit, non-governmental international standards organization that prepares and publishes International Standards for all electrical, electronic and related technologies – collectively known as "electrotechnology"... MPEG Audio Committee |
2005 | ISO/IEC 14496-3 | mp4als | - | - | Yes | ||||||
| AMR | 3GPP 3GPP The 3rd Generation Partnership Project is a collaboration between groups of telecommunications associations, known as the Organizational Partners... |
1999-06-22 | ETSI TS 126 071 V9.0.0 (2009) | QuickTime QuickTime QuickTime is an extensible proprietary multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images, and interactivity. The classic version of QuickTime is available for Windows XP and later, as well as Mac OS X Leopard and... , Real Player |
voice recording | Yes | |||||||
| AMR-WB AMR-WB Adaptive Multi-Rate Wideband is a patented speech coding standard developed based on Adaptive Multi-Rate encoding, using similar methodology as Algebraic Code Excited Linear Prediction... (G.722.2) |
3GPP 3GPP The 3rd Generation Partnership Project is a collaboration between groups of telecommunications associations, known as the Organizational Partners... |
2001-04-10 | ETSI TS 126 190 V8.0.0 (2009-01) | QuickTime QuickTime QuickTime is an extensible proprietary multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images, and interactivity. The classic version of QuickTime is available for Windows XP and later, as well as Mac OS X Leopard and... , Real Player |
voice recording | Yes | |||||||
| AMR-WB+ AMR-WB+ Extended Adaptive Multi-Rate – Wideband is an audio codec that extends AMR-WB. It adds support for stereo signals and higher sampling rates. Another main improvement is the use of transform coding additionally to ACELP. This greatly improves the generic audio coding... |
3GPP 3GPP The 3rd Generation Partnership Project is a collaboration between groups of telecommunications associations, known as the Organizational Partners... |
2004-06-14 | ETSI TS 126 290 V8.0.0 (2009-01) | ? | ? | voice recording | Yes | ||||||
| apt-X Apt-X The digital audio data reduction technology now known as apt-X is a family of proprietary audio codec compression algorithms developed by APT Licensing. From March 14, 2009, APT Licensing changed the company's trading identity to APTX. The original algorithm was developed in the 1980s by Dr... |
APTX | 1989 | 2007 | broadcast audio codecs: Systembase, APT, AVT, Harris Corporation Harris Corporation Harris Corporation is a Florida-based international communications equipment company that produces wireless equipment, electronic systems, and both terrestrial and spaceborne antennas for use in the government, defense, and commercial sectors. It is also the largest private-sector employer in... , MAYAH, Prodys, Qbit; wireless headphones: iSkin ISkin iSkin is a company based in Toronto, Ontario mostly known for its iPod cases, which it first released in 2002. iSkin has since produced a variety of other accessories such as headphones, Macintosh keyboard guards, and Sony PSP cases.... , JayBird Gear, DTS discs for movies |
low latency Studio/transmitter link Studio/transmitter link A studio-transmitter link sends a radio station's or television station's audio and video from the broadcast studio to a radio transmitter or television transmitter in another location.... , Bluetooth Bluetooth Bluetooth is a proprietary open wireless technology standard for exchanging data over short distances from fixed and mobile devices, creating personal area networks with high levels of security... A2DP stereo, digital Wireless microphone Wireless microphone A wireless microphone, as the name implies, is a microphone without a physical cable connecting it directly to the sound recording or amplifying equipment with which it is associated... |
Yes | |||||||
| ATRAC | Sony Sony , commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues.... Corp. |
1991 | ATRAC3plus | MiniDisc MiniDisc The disc is permanently housed in a cartridge with a sliding door, similar to the casing of a 3.5" floppy disk. This shutter is opened automatically by a mechanism upon insertion. The audio discs can either be recordable or premastered. Recordable MiniDiscs use a magneto-optical system to record... , Walkman Walkman Walkman is a Sony brand tradename originally used for portable audio cassette, and now used to market Sony's portable audio and video players as well as a line of Sony Ericsson mobile phones... , VAIO VAIO VAIO is a sub-brand used for many of Sony's computer products. Originally an acronym of Video Audio Integrated Operation, this was amended to Visual Audio Intelligent Organizer in 2008 to celebrate the brand's 10th anniversary... , Clie CLIÉ The Sony CLIÉ was a series of personal digital assistants running the Palm Operating System developed and marketed by Sony from 2000 to 2005. The devices introduced many new features to the PDA market, such as a jog-wheel interface, high-resolution displays, and Sony technologies like Memory Stick... , PlayStation3, PlayStation Portable PlayStation Portable The is a handheld game console manufactured and marketed by Sony Corporation Development of the console was announced during E3 2003, and it was unveiled on , 2004, at a Sony press conference before E3 2004... , SDDS, SonicStage, SoundForge, RealPlayer RealPlayer RealPlayer is a cross-platform media player by RealNetworks that plays a number of multimedia formats including MP3, MPEG-4, QuickTime, Windows Media, and multiple versions of proprietary RealAudio and RealVideo formats.-History:... , ConnectPlayer |
voice recording, Theatrical movie presentation | - | Yes | Yes | |||||
| CELT CELT Constrained Energy Lapped Transform is an open, royalty-free audio compression format and a free software codec with especially low algorithmic delay for use in low-latency audio communication. It is a lossy codec, meaning quality is permanently degraded to reduce file size.The algorithms are... |
Xiph.Org Foundation Xiph.Org Foundation Xiph.Org Foundation is a non-profit organizationthat produces free multimedia formats and software tools. It focuses on the Ogg family of formats, the most successful of which has been Vorbis, an open and freely licensed audio format and codec designed to compete with the patented MP3 and AAC... , Jean-Marc Valin |
2007-12-08 | 0.11.1 | Speech, VoIP, Low latency, Studio/transmitter link Studio/transmitter link A studio-transmitter link sends a radio station's or television station's audio and video from the broadcast studio to a radio transmitter or television transmitter in another location.... , wireless audio |
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| FLAC | Xiph.Org Foundation Xiph.Org Foundation Xiph.Org Foundation is a non-profit organizationthat produces free multimedia formats and software tools. It focuses on the Ogg family of formats, the most successful of which has been Vorbis, an open and freely licensed audio format and codec designed to compete with the patented MP3 and AAC... , Josh Coalson |
2001-07-20 | 1.2.1 | - | - | ||||||||
| G.711 G.711 G.711 is an ITU-T standard for audio companding. It is primarily used in telephony. The standard was released for usage in 1972. Its formal name is Pulse code modulation of voice frequencies. It is required standard in many technologies, for example in H.320 and H.323 specifications. It can also... |
ITU-T ITU-T The ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector is one of the three sectors of the International Telecommunication Union ; it coordinates standards for telecommunications.... |
1972 (ITU-T ITU-T The ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector is one of the three sectors of the International Telecommunication Union ; it coordinates standards for telecommunications.... standard from 1988) |
G.711 Appendix II (02/00) | various proprietary VoIP software | voice recording | ||||||||
| G.722 G.722 G.722 is a ITU-T standard 7 kHz wideband speech codec operating at 48, 56 and 64 kbit/s. It was approved by ITU-T in November 1988. Technology of the codec is based on sub-band ADPCM .... |
ITU-T | 1988-11 | various proprietary VoIP software | voice recording | |||||||||
| G.722.1 G.722.1 G.722.1 is a licensed royalty-free ITU-T standard audio codec providing high quality, moderate bit rate wideband G.722.1 is a licensed royalty-free ITU-T standard audio codec providing high quality, moderate bit rate (24 and 32 kbit/s) wideband G.722.1 is a licensed royalty-free ITU-T standard... |
ITU-T | 1999-09 | G.722.1 (05/05) | various proprietary VoIP software | voice recording | Yes | |||||||
| G.722.2 (AMR-WB) |
ITU-T (adopted directly from 3GPP) | 2002-01 | G.722.2 (07/03) | QuickTime QuickTime QuickTime is an extensible proprietary multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images, and interactivity. The classic version of QuickTime is available for Windows XP and later, as well as Mac OS X Leopard and... , Real Player |
voice recording, audio | Yes | |||||||
| G.723.1 G.723.1 G.723.1 is an audio codec for voice that compresses voice audio in 30 ms frames. An algorithmic look-ahead of 7.5 ms duration means that total algorithmic delay is 37.5 ms... |
ITU-T | 1996-03 | G.723.1 (05/06) | various proprietary VoIP software | voice recording | Yes | |||||||
| G.726 G.726 G.726 is an ITU-T ADPCM speech codec standard covering the transmission of voice at rates of 16, 24, 32, and 40 kbit/s. It was introduced to supersede both G.721, which covered ADPCM at 32 kbit/s, and G.723, which described ADPCM for 24 and 40 kbit/s. G.726 also introduced a new... |
ITU-T | 1990-12 | various proprietary VoIP software | voice recording | |||||||||
| G.728 G.728 G.728 is an ITU-T standard for speech coding operating at 16 kbit/s. It is officially described as Coding of speech at 16 kbit/s using low-delay code excited linear prediction.... |
ITU-T | 1992-09 | various proprietary VoIP software | voice recording | Yes | ||||||||
| G.729 G.729 G.729 is an audio data compression algorithm for voice that compresses digital voice in packets of 10 milliseconds duration. It is officially described as Coding of speech at 8 kbit/s using conjugate-structure algebraic code-excited linear prediction .Because of its low bandwidth requirements,... |
ITU-T | 1996-03 | G.729 (01/07) | various proprietary VoIP software | voice recording | Yes | |||||||
| GSM-FR | ETSI Special Mobile Group | 1990-1994 (ETS 300 580-2) | ETSI EN 300 961 V8.1.1 (2000–11) | voice recording | ? | ||||||||
| iLBC ILBC Internet Low Bitrate Codec is an open source royalty-free narrowband speech codec, developed by Global IP Solutions formerly Global IP Sound . It was formerly licensed as a freeware with limited commercial use, but since 2011 it is available under an open source license as a part of the open... |
Global IP Solutions | 2002 | Cisco IP Communicator Cisco IP Communicator Cisco IP Communicator is a VoIP softphone software application. It can register with a Cisco Unified Communications Manager or Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express using either SIP or Cisco's proprietary Skinny Client Control Protocol.... , old versions of Skype Skype Skype is a software application that allows users to make voice and video calls and chat over the Internet. Calls to other users within the Skype service are free, while calls to both traditional landline telephones and mobile phones can be made for a fee using a debit-based user account system... |
voice recording | ? | ||||||||
| iSAC | Global IP Solutions | ? | Yahoo! Messenger | voice recording | ? | ||||||||
| Monkey's Audio Monkey's Audio Monkey's Audio is a file format for audio data compression. Being a lossless format, Monkey's Audio does not discard data during the process of encoding, unlike lossy compression methods such as AAC, MP3, Vorbis and Musepack.... |
Matthew T. Ashland | 4.06 | Monkey's Audio Monkey's Audio Monkey's Audio is a file format for audio data compression. Being a lossless format, Monkey's Audio does not discard data during the process of encoding, unlike lossy compression methods such as AAC, MP3, Vorbis and Musepack.... |
- | - | No | |||||||
| MP3 | ISO International Organization for Standardization The International Organization for Standardization , widely known as ISO, is an international standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations. Founded on February 23, 1947, the organization promulgates worldwide proprietary, industrial and commercial... /IEC International Electrotechnical Commission The International Electrotechnical Commission is a non-profit, non-governmental international standards organization that prepares and publishes International Standards for all electrical, electronic and related technologies – collectively known as "electrotechnology"... MPEG Audio Committee |
1993 | ISO/IEC 11172-3, ISO/IEC 13818-3 | (See notes) | (See notes) | FhG FHG FHG may refer to:*Free hosted gallery, a type of free web content, usually pornography*Fourth-harmonic generation*Fort Henry Guard, a military re-enactment organization*Fragmenta historicorum Graecorum*Fraunhofer Gesellschaft... , l3enc L3enc Fraunhofer l3enc was the first public software able to encode PCM files to the MP3 format. The first public version was released in July 1994. This commandline tool was shareware and limited to 112 kbit/s. It was available for MS DOS, Linux, Solaris, SunOS, NeXTstep and IRIX... , MP3enc, (old implementations: Xing Xing Technology Xing Technology was a live audio broadcast software company founded in Arroyo Grande, California in 1989 by former networking executive Howard Gordon.-History:Gordon founded Xing on the basis of a simple JPEG decoding library that he had developed... TOMPG, SCMPX) |
- | Yes (but see notes) |
Yes (optional, rarely used) | ||||
| MP2 MPEG-1 Audio Layer II MPEG-1 Audio Layer II or MPEG-2 Audio Layer II is a lossy audio compression format defined by ISO/IEC 11172-3 alongside MPEG-1 Audio Layer I and MPEG-1 Audio Layer III... (MPEG-1, 2 Audio Layer II) |
ISO International Organization for Standardization The International Organization for Standardization , widely known as ISO, is an international standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations. Founded on February 23, 1947, the organization promulgates worldwide proprietary, industrial and commercial... /IEC International Electrotechnical Commission The International Electrotechnical Commission is a non-profit, non-governmental international standards organization that prepares and publishes International Standards for all electrical, electronic and related technologies – collectively known as "electrotechnology"... MPEG Audio Committee |
1993 | ISO/IEC 11172-3, ISO/IEC 13818-3 | various DVD DVD A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions.... software, video software, audio software |
- | Yes | ? | ||||||
| Musepack Musepack Musepack or MPC is an open source lossy audio codec, specifically optimized for transparent compression of stereo audio at bitrates of 160–180 kbit/s... |
Frank Klemm/MDT | 1997 | 1.30 (2009-04-02) | - | |||||||||
| Nellymoser Asao Nellymoser Asao Codec Asao is a proprietary single-channel codec and compression format optimized for low-bitrate transmission of audio, developed by Nellymoser Inc.... |
Nellymoser Inc. Nellymoser Nellymoser, Inc. is a privately held company that specializes in mobile computing. Its main products include the Nellymoser Platform and Media On-Demand, Music Companion & Infotainment On-Demand Mobile Advantage Packs.- Corporate history:... |
2002 | ? | Adobe Flash Adobe Flash Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements, games and flash animations for broadcast... , Flash Player |
voice recording | Yes | ? | ||||||
| Opus Opus (codec) Opus is a low-delay wideband codec intended for applications such as VoIP that will eventually be royalty-free. Opus incorporates technology from the speech-oriented SILK codec and the low-latency CELT codec... |
IETF Internet Engineering Task Force The Internet Engineering Task Force develops and promotes Internet standards, cooperating closely with the W3C and ISO/IEC standards bodies and dealing in particular with standards of the TCP/IP and Internet protocol suite... |
? | ? | ? | VoIP | ? | |||||||
| Shorten Shorten Shorten is a file format used for compressing audio data. It is a form of data compression of files and is used to losslessly compress CD-quality audio files . Shorten is no longer developed and more recent lossless audio codecs such as FLAC, Monkey's Audio , TTA, and WavPack have become more... |
Tony Robinson | 1999-06-02 | 1. | Shorten | - | - | |||||||
| SILK Silk Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The best-known type of silk is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity... |
Skype Limited | 2009-01-07 | Skype Skype Skype is a software application that allows users to make voice and video calls and chat over the Internet. Calls to other users within the Skype service are free, while calls to both traditional landline telephones and mobile phones can be made for a fee using a debit-based user account system... |
voice recording | Yes | ||||||||
| Siren Siren Codec Siren is a family of patented, transform-based, wideband audio codecs developed and licensed by PictureTel Corporation . There are three Siren codecs: Siren 7, Siren 14 and Siren 22.... 7 |
PictureTel Corp. (now Polycom Polycom Polycom is a multinational corporation with approximately 3,200 employees worldwide and an annual revenue of approximately $1.2 billion in 2010. The company manufactures and sells telepresence and voice communications solutions.-Company History 1990:... Inc.) |
1999 | Microsoft Office Communicator | FreeSWITCH Freeswitch FreeSWITCH is a free and open source communications software for the creation of voice and messaging products. It is licensed under the Mozilla Public License , a free software license... (libg722_1, aMSN AMSN aMSN is a free Windows Live Messenger clone. aMSN attempts to emulate the look and feel of Windows Live Messenger, and supports many of its features... (libsiren - part of libmsn) |
voice recording | Yes | |||||||
| Speex Speex Speex is a patent-free audio compression format designed for speech and also a free software speech codec that may be used on VoIP applications and podcasts. It is based on the CELP speech coding algorithm. Speex claims to be free of any patent restrictions and is licensed under the revised BSD... |
Xiph.Org Foundation Xiph.Org Foundation Xiph.Org Foundation is a non-profit organizationthat produces free multimedia formats and software tools. It focuses on the Ogg family of formats, the most successful of which has been Vorbis, an open and freely licensed audio format and codec designed to compete with the patented MP3 and AAC... , Jean-Marc Valin |
2003-03-24 | 1.1.12 | Flash Player 10 | voice recording | ||||||||
| SVOPC SVOPC SVOPC is a compression method for audio which is used by applications such as Skype. It is a lossy speech compression codec designed specifically towards communication channels suffering from packet loss... |
Skype Limited | 2007 | Skype Skype Skype is a software application that allows users to make voice and video calls and chat over the Internet. Calls to other users within the Skype service are free, while calls to both traditional landline telephones and mobile phones can be made for a fee using a debit-based user account system... |
voice recording | Yes | ||||||||
| TwinVQ TwinVQ TwinVQ is an audio compression technique developed by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation Human Interface Laboratories in 1994... |
Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Nippon Telegraph and Telephone , commonly known as NTT, is a Japanese telecommunications company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. Ranked the 31st in Fortune Global 500, NTT is the largest telecommunications company in Asia, and the second-largest in the world in terms of revenue.... |
1996 (?) | Winamp Winamp Winamp is a media player for Windows-based PCs and Android devices, written by Nullsoft, now a subsidiary of AOL. It is proprietary freeware/shareware, multi-format, extensible with plug-ins and skins, and is noted for its graphical sound visualization, playlist, and media library features.Winamp... with VQF Plugin, NTT TwinVQ player/encoder, Yamaha SoundVQ player, Nero Media Player |
speech | Yes | ||||||||
| Vorbis Vorbis Vorbis is a free software / open source project headed by the Xiph.Org Foundation . The project produces an audio format specification and software implementation for lossy audio compression... (Ogg Ogg Ogg is a free, open container format maintained by the Xiph.Org Foundation. The creators of the Ogg format state that it is unrestricted by software patents and is designed to provide for efficient streaming and manipulation of high quality digital multimedia.The Ogg container format can multiplex... ) |
Xiph.Org Foundation Xiph.Org Foundation Xiph.Org Foundation is a non-profit organizationthat produces free multimedia formats and software tools. It focuses on the Ogg family of formats, the most successful of which has been Vorbis, an open and freely licensed audio format and codec designed to compete with the patented MP3 and AAC... |
2000-05-11 | 1.3.2 | - | |||||||||
| WavPack WavPack WavPack is a free, open source lossless audio compression format developed by David Bryant.-Features:WavPack compression can compress 8-, 16-, 24-, and 32-bit fixed-point, and 32-bit floating point audio files in the .WAV file format. It also supports surround sound streams and high frequency... |
Conifer Software | 1998 | 4.60.1 | - | - | ||||||||
| Windows Media Audio Windows Media Audio Windows Media Audio is an audio data compression technology developed by Microsoft. The name can be used to refer to its audio file format or its audio codecs. It is a proprietary technology that forms part of the Windows Media framework. WMA consists of four distinct codecs... |
Microsoft Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions... |
1999 | 11.0 | Windows Media Encoder Windows Media Encoder Windows Media Encoder is a freely downloadable trial version media encoder developed by Microsoft which enables content developers to convert or capture both live and prerecorded audio, video, and computer screen images to Windows Media formats for live and on-demand delivery. It is the successor... |
Windows Media Player Windows Media Player Windows Media Player is a media player and media library application developed by Microsoft that is used for playing audio, video and viewing images on personal computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as on Pocket PC and Windows Mobile-based devices... , Windows Media Encoder Windows Media Encoder Windows Media Encoder is a freely downloadable trial version media encoder developed by Microsoft which enables content developers to convert or capture both live and prerecorded audio, video, and computer screen images to Windows Media formats for live and on-demand delivery. It is the successor... |
internet streaming | Yes | ||||||
| Audio compression format | Creator | First public release date | Latest stable version | Encoder Encoder An encoder is a device, circuit, transducer, software program, algorithm or person that converts information from one format or code to another, for the purposes of standardization, speed, secrecy, security, or saving space by shrinking size.-Media:... Cost |
Player Cost | Proprietary Proprietary software Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary... implementations (codecs) |
Open-source implementations (codecs) | Application | App: Music | App: telephony Telephony In telecommunications, telephony encompasses the general use of equipment to provide communication over distances, specifically by connecting telephones to each other.... |
Lossless audio compression | Patented | DRM Digital rights management Digital rights management is a class of access control technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals with the intent to limit the use of digital content and devices after sale. DRM is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that... |
Operating System Support
| Codec Audio codec All codecs are devices or computer programs capable of coding or decoding a digital data stream or signal.The term audio codec has two meanings depending on the context:... |
Windows Microsoft Windows Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal... |
Mac OS X Mac OS X Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems... |
Linux Linux Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds... |
BSD | Unix Unix Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna... |
Palm OS Palm OS Palm OS is a mobile operating system initially developed by Palm, Inc., for personal digital assistants in 1996. Palm OS is designed for ease of use with a touchscreen-based graphical user interface. It is provided with a suite of basic applications for personal information management... |
Symbian OS | Rockbox Rockbox Rockbox is a replacement for the standard firmware in various forms of digital audio players . It offers an alternative to the player's operating system, in many cases without removing the original firmware, which provides a plug-in architecture for adding various enhancements and functions... |
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| AAC Advanced Audio Coding Advanced Audio Coding is a standardized, lossy compression and encoding scheme for digital audio. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves better sound quality than MP3 at similar bit rates.... |
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| ALAC Apple Lossless Apple Lossless Apple Lossless Apple Lossless (also known as ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec), or ALE (Apple Lossless Encoder) is an audio codec developed by Apple Inc. for lossless data compression of digital music. After initially being proprietary for many years, in late 2011 Apple open sourced... |
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| apt-X Apt-X The digital audio data reduction technology now known as apt-X is a family of proprietary audio codec compression algorithms developed by APT Licensing. From March 14, 2009, APT Licensing changed the company's trading identity to APTX. The original algorithm was developed in the 1980s by Dr... |
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| CELT CELT Constrained Energy Lapped Transform is an open, royalty-free audio compression format and a free software codec with especially low algorithmic delay for use in low-latency audio communication. It is a lossy codec, meaning quality is permanently degraded to reduce file size.The algorithms are... |
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| FLAC FLAC FLAC is a codec which allows digital audio to be losslessly compressed such that file size is reduced without any information being lost... |
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| Monkey's Audio Monkey's Audio Monkey's Audio is a file format for audio data compression. Being a lossless format, Monkey's Audio does not discard data during the process of encoding, unlike lossy compression methods such as AAC, MP3, Vorbis and Musepack.... |
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| MP3 | ||||||||
| Musepack Musepack Musepack or MPC is an open source lossy audio codec, specifically optimized for transparent compression of stereo audio at bitrates of 160–180 kbit/s... |
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| Opus Opus (codec) Opus is a low-delay wideband codec intended for applications such as VoIP that will eventually be royalty-free. Opus incorporates technology from the speech-oriented SILK codec and the low-latency CELT codec... |
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| RealAudio RealAudio RealAudio is a proprietary audio format developed by RealNetworks and first released in April 1995. It uses a variety of audio codecs, ranging from low-bitrate formats that can be used over dialup modems, to high-fidelity formats for music. It can also be used as a streaming audio format, that is... |
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| Speex Speex Speex is a patent-free audio compression format designed for speech and also a free software speech codec that may be used on VoIP applications and podcasts. It is based on the CELP speech coding algorithm. Speex claims to be free of any patent restrictions and is licensed under the revised BSD... |
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| Vorbis Vorbis Vorbis is a free software / open source project headed by the Xiph.Org Foundation . The project produces an audio format specification and software implementation for lossy audio compression... |
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| WavPack WavPack WavPack is a free, open source lossless audio compression format developed by David Bryant.-Features:WavPack compression can compress 8-, 16-, 24-, and 32-bit fixed-point, and 32-bit floating point audio files in the .WAV file format. It also supports surround sound streams and high frequency... |
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| WMA Windows Media Audio Windows Media Audio is an audio data compression technology developed by Microsoft. The name can be used to refer to its audio file format or its audio codecs. It is a proprietary technology that forms part of the Windows Media framework. WMA consists of four distinct codecs... |
Multimedia Frameworks Support
| Audio compression format | ACM | DirectShow DirectShow DirectShow , codename Quartz, is a multimedia framework and API produced by Microsoft for software developers to perform various operations with media files or streams. It is the replacement for Microsoft's earlier Video for Windows technology... |
QuickTime QuickTime QuickTime is an extensible proprietary multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images, and interactivity. The classic version of QuickTime is available for Windows XP and later, as well as Mac OS X Leopard and... |
GStreamer GStreamer GStreamer is a pipeline-based multimedia framework written in the C programming language with the type system based on GObject.GStreamer allows a programmer to create a variety of media-handling components, including simple audio playback, audio and video playback, recording, streaming and editing... |
FFmpeg FFmpeg FFmpeg is a free software project that produces libraries and programs for handling multimedia data. The most notable parts of FFmpeg are libavcodec, an audio/video codec library used by several other projects, libavformat, an audio/video container mux and demux library, and the ffmpeg command line... |
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| 8SVX 8SVX 8SVX is a subformat of the Interchange File Format. The subformat is for 8-bit sampled sounds, supports both mono and stereo streams as well as loops; commonly used as a basic audio sample format on Amiga computers for many years... |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(Perian Perian Perian is an open source QuickTime component that enables Apple Inc.’s QuickTime to play several popular video formats not supported natively by QuickTime on Mac OS X... ) |
(GStreamer FFmpeg plug-in) | |
| AAC Advanced Audio Coding Advanced Audio Coding is a standardized, lossy compression and encoding scheme for digital audio. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves better sound quality than MP3 at similar bit rates.... |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... , Monogram) |
(GStreamer FFmpeg plug-in) | ||
| HE-AAC HE-AAC High-Efficiency Advanced Audio Coding is a lossy data compression scheme for digital audio defined as a MPEG-4 Audio profile in ISO/IEC 14496-3. It is an extension of Low Complexity AAC optimized for low-bitrate applications such as streaming audio... |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... , Monogram) |
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| AC3 | (ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(Perian Perian Perian is an open source QuickTime component that enables Apple Inc.’s QuickTime to play several popular video formats not supported natively by QuickTime on Mac OS X... ) |
(GStreamer FFmpeg plug-in) | |
| E-AC-3 | (ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(Perian Perian Perian is an open source QuickTime component that enables Apple Inc.’s QuickTime to play several popular video formats not supported natively by QuickTime on Mac OS X... ) |
(GStreamer FFmpeg plug-in) | |
| AMR | (GStreamer Ugly Plug-ins) | ||||
| Apple Lossless Apple Lossless Apple Lossless Apple Lossless Apple Lossless (also known as ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec), or ALE (Apple Lossless Encoder) is an audio codec developed by Apple Inc. for lossless data compression of digital music. After initially being proprietary for many years, in late 2011 Apple open sourced... |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(Perian Perian Perian is an open source QuickTime component that enables Apple Inc.’s QuickTime to play several popular video formats not supported natively by QuickTime on Mac OS X... ) |
(GStreamer FFmpeg plug-in) | |
| Cook Codec Cook Codec The cook codec is a lossy audio compression codec developed by RealNetworks. It is also known as Cooker, Gecko, RealAudio G2, and RealAudio 8 low bitrate .... |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(Perian Perian Perian is an open source QuickTime component that enables Apple Inc.’s QuickTime to play several popular video formats not supported natively by QuickTime on Mac OS X... ) |
(GStreamer FFmpeg plug-in) | |
| ATRAC3 | (ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(Perian Perian Perian is an open source QuickTime component that enables Apple Inc.’s QuickTime to play several popular video formats not supported natively by QuickTime on Mac OS X... ) |
(GStreamer FFmpeg plug-in) | |
| ATRAC3plus | |||||
| DCA aka DTS | (ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(Perian Perian Perian is an open source QuickTime component that enables Apple Inc.’s QuickTime to play several popular video formats not supported natively by QuickTime on Mac OS X... ) |
(GStreamer FFmpeg plug-in) | |
| DTS-HD DTS-HD Master Audio DTS-HD Master Audio is a lossless audio codec created by Digital Theater System. It was previously known as DTS++. It is an extension of DTS which, when played back on devices which do not support the Master Audio or High Resolution extension, degrades to a "core" track which is lossy. DTS-HD... |
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| FLAC FLAC FLAC is a codec which allows digital audio to be losslessly compressed such that file size is reduced without any information being lost... |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(Perian Perian Perian is an open source QuickTime component that enables Apple Inc.’s QuickTime to play several popular video formats not supported natively by QuickTime on Mac OS X... ) |
(GStreamer Base Plug-ins, GStreamer FFmpeg plug-in) | |
| Monkey's Audio Monkey's Audio Monkey's Audio is a file format for audio data compression. Being a lossless format, Monkey's Audio does not discard data during the process of encoding, unlike lossy compression methods such as AAC, MP3, Vorbis and Musepack.... |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(Perian Perian Perian is an open source QuickTime component that enables Apple Inc.’s QuickTime to play several popular video formats not supported natively by QuickTime on Mac OS X... ) |
(GStreamer FFmpeg plug-in) | |
| WavPack WavPack WavPack is a free, open source lossless audio compression format developed by David Bryant.-Features:WavPack compression can compress 8-, 16-, 24-, and 32-bit fixed-point, and 32-bit floating point audio files in the .WAV file format. It also supports surround sound streams and high frequency... |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(Perian Perian Perian is an open source QuickTime component that enables Apple Inc.’s QuickTime to play several popular video formats not supported natively by QuickTime on Mac OS X... ) |
(GStreamer FFmpeg plug-in) | |
| Shorten Shorten Shorten is a file format used for compressing audio data. It is a form of data compression of files and is used to losslessly compress CD-quality audio files . Shorten is no longer developed and more recent lossless audio codecs such as FLAC, Monkey's Audio , TTA, and WavPack have become more... |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(Perian Perian Perian is an open source QuickTime component that enables Apple Inc.’s QuickTime to play several popular video formats not supported natively by QuickTime on Mac OS X... ) |
(GStreamer FFmpeg plug-in) | |
| Sonic Audio | (ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(Perian Perian Perian is an open source QuickTime component that enables Apple Inc.’s QuickTime to play several popular video formats not supported natively by QuickTime on Mac OS X... ) |
(GStreamer FFmpeg plug-in) | |
| MP3 MP3 MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression... |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(GStreamer Ugly, GStreamer FFmpeg plug-in) | |||
| RealAudio RealAudio RealAudio is a proprietary audio format developed by RealNetworks and first released in April 1995. It uses a variety of audio codecs, ranging from low-bitrate formats that can be used over dialup modems, to high-fidelity formats for music. It can also be used as a streaming audio format, that is... |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(Perian Perian Perian is an open source QuickTime component that enables Apple Inc.’s QuickTime to play several popular video formats not supported natively by QuickTime on Mac OS X... ) |
(GStreamer FFmpeg plug-in, GStreamer DLL loader plugin + Binary Codec Packages) | |
| Speex Speex Speex is a patent-free audio compression format designed for speech and also a free software speech codec that may be used on VoIP applications and podcasts. It is based on the CELP speech coding algorithm. Speex claims to be free of any patent restrictions and is licensed under the revised BSD... |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(Perian Perian Perian is an open source QuickTime component that enables Apple Inc.’s QuickTime to play several popular video formats not supported natively by QuickTime on Mac OS X... ) |
(GStramer Good Plug-ins, GStreamer FFmpeg plug-in) | |
| Vorbis Vorbis Vorbis is a free software / open source project headed by the Xiph.Org Foundation . The project produces an audio format specification and software implementation for lossy audio compression... (Ogg Ogg Ogg is a free, open container format maintained by the Xiph.Org Foundation. The creators of the Ogg format state that it is unrestricted by software patents and is designed to provide for efficient streaming and manipulation of high quality digital multimedia.The Ogg container format can multiplex... ) |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(Perian Perian Perian is an open source QuickTime component that enables Apple Inc.’s QuickTime to play several popular video formats not supported natively by QuickTime on Mac OS X... ) |
(GStreamer Base Plug-ins, GStreamer FFmpeg plug-in) | |
| La | |||||
| LPAC Lossless Predictive Audio Compression Lossless predictive audio compression is an improved lossless audio compression algorithm developed by Tilman Liebchen, Marcus Purat and Peter Noll at , Technical University Berlin , to compress PCM audio in a lossless manner, unlike conventional audio compression algorithms which are... |
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| Windows Media Audio Windows Media Audio Windows Media Audio is an audio data compression technology developed by Microsoft. The name can be used to refer to its audio file format or its audio codecs. It is a proprietary technology that forms part of the Windows Media framework. WMA consists of four distinct codecs... v1 |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(Perian Perian Perian is an open source QuickTime component that enables Apple Inc.’s QuickTime to play several popular video formats not supported natively by QuickTime on Mac OS X... ) |
(GStreamer FFmpeg plug-in) | ||
| Windows Media Audio Windows Media Audio Windows Media Audio is an audio data compression technology developed by Microsoft. The name can be used to refer to its audio file format or its audio codecs. It is a proprietary technology that forms part of the Windows Media framework. WMA consists of four distinct codecs... v2 |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(Perian Perian Perian is an open source QuickTime component that enables Apple Inc.’s QuickTime to play several popular video formats not supported natively by QuickTime on Mac OS X... ) |
(GStreamer FFmpeg plug-in) | ||
| Windows Media Audio Windows Media Audio Windows Media Audio is an audio data compression technology developed by Microsoft. The name can be used to refer to its audio file format or its audio codecs. It is a proprietary technology that forms part of the Windows Media framework. WMA consists of four distinct codecs... Pro |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(Perian Perian Perian is an open source QuickTime component that enables Apple Inc.’s QuickTime to play several popular video formats not supported natively by QuickTime on Mac OS X... ) |
(GStreamer FFmpeg plug-in) | ||
| Windows Media Audio Windows Media Audio Windows Media Audio is an audio data compression technology developed by Microsoft. The name can be used to refer to its audio file format or its audio codecs. It is a proprietary technology that forms part of the Windows Media framework. WMA consists of four distinct codecs... Lossless |
(flip4mac Flip4Mac Flip4Mac is a trademarked brand name for Telestream, Inc.'s proprietary digital media tools for the Macintosh. It is particularly known for being the only QuickTime component for Mac OS X that supports Windows Media Video, although there is non-QuickTime OS X software that supports WMV... ) |
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| Windows Media Audio Windows Media Audio Windows Media Audio is an audio data compression technology developed by Microsoft. The name can be used to refer to its audio file format or its audio codecs. It is a proprietary technology that forms part of the Windows Media framework. WMA consists of four distinct codecs... Voice |
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| Musepack Musepack Musepack or MPC is an open source lossy audio codec, specifically optimized for transparent compression of stereo audio at bitrates of 160–180 kbit/s... |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... , Monogram) |
(Perian Perian Perian is an open source QuickTime component that enables Apple Inc.’s QuickTime to play several popular video formats not supported natively by QuickTime on Mac OS X... ) |
(GStreamer FFmpeg plug-in) | |
| Meridian Lossless Packing Meridian Lossless Packing Meridian Lossless Packing, also known as Packed PCM , is a proprietary lossless compression technique for compressing PCM audio data developed by Meridian Audio, Ltd. MLP is the standard lossless compression method for DVD-Audio content and typically provides about 1.5:1 compression on most music... |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(Perian Perian Perian is an open source QuickTime component that enables Apple Inc.’s QuickTime to play several popular video formats not supported natively by QuickTime on Mac OS X... ) |
(GStreamer FFmpeg plug-in) | |
| Nellymoser Asao Codec in Flash | (ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(Perian Perian Perian is an open source QuickTime component that enables Apple Inc.’s QuickTime to play several popular video formats not supported natively by QuickTime on Mac OS X... ) |
(GStreamer FFmpeg plug-in) | |
| OptimFROG OptimFROG OptimFROG is a proprietary lossless audio data compression codec developed by Florin Ghido. OptimFROG is optimized for very high compression ratios, even for the price of slower encoding and decoding.-OptimFROG DualStream:... |
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| Truespeech Truespeech Truespeech is a proprietary audio codec produced by the DSP Group. It is designed for encoding voice data at low bitrates, and to be embedded into DSP chips.... |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(Perian Perian Perian is an open source QuickTime component that enables Apple Inc.’s QuickTime to play several popular video formats not supported natively by QuickTime on Mac OS X... ) |
(GStreamer FFmpeg plug-in) | |
| TTA TTA (codec) True Audio is a free software, real-time lossless audio codec, based on adaptive prognostic filters.Also, .tta is the generic extension to filenames of audio files created by True Audio codec.- Codec overview :... |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(Perian Perian Perian is an open source QuickTime component that enables Apple Inc.’s QuickTime to play several popular video formats not supported natively by QuickTime on Mac OS X... ) |
(GStreamer FFmpeg plug-in) | |
| QCELP QCELP Qualcomm code-excited linear prediction , also known as Qualcomm PureVoice, is a speech codec developed in 1994 by Qualcomm to increase the speech quality of the IS-96A codec earlier used in CDMA networks. It was later replaced with EVRC since it provides better speech quality with fewer bits... |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(ffdshow Ffdshow ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well... ) |
(GStreamer FFmpeg plug-in) | ||
| Audio compression format | ACM | DirectShow DirectShow DirectShow , codename Quartz, is a multimedia framework and API produced by Microsoft for software developers to perform various operations with media files or streams. It is the replacement for Microsoft's earlier Video for Windows technology... |
QuickTime QuickTime QuickTime is an extensible proprietary multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images, and interactivity. The classic version of QuickTime is available for Windows XP and later, as well as Mac OS X Leopard and... |
GStreamer GStreamer GStreamer is a pipeline-based multimedia framework written in the C programming language with the type system based on GObject.GStreamer allows a programmer to create a variety of media-handling components, including simple audio playback, audio and video playback, recording, streaming and editing... |
FFmpeg FFmpeg FFmpeg is a free software project that produces libraries and programs for handling multimedia data. The most notable parts of FFmpeg are libavcodec, an audio/video codec library used by several other projects, libavformat, an audio/video container mux and demux library, and the ffmpeg command line... |
Technical details
| Audio compression format | Algorithm Algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm is an effective method expressed as a finite list of well-defined instructions for calculating a function. Algorithms are used for calculation, data processing, and automated reasoning... |
Sample Rate | Bit rate Bit rate In telecommunications and computing, bit rate is the number of bits that are conveyed or processed per unit of time.... |
Latency Latency (audio) Latency refers to a short period of delay between when an audio signal enters and when it emerges from a system... |
CBR | VBR | Stereo Stereophonic sound The term Stereophonic, commonly called stereo, sound refers to any method of sound reproduction in which an attempt is made to create an illusion of directionality and audible perspective... |
Multichannel Surround sound Surround sound encompasses a range of techniques such as for enriching the sound reproduction quality of an audio source with audio channels reproduced via additional, discrete speakers. Surround sound is characterized by a listener location or sweet spot where the audio effects work best, and... |
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| AAC Advanced Audio Coding Advanced Audio Coding is a standardized, lossy compression and encoding scheme for digital audio. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves better sound quality than MP3 at similar bit rates.... |
MDCT Modified discrete cosine transform The modified discrete cosine transform is a Fourier-related transform based on the type-IV discrete cosine transform , with the additional property of being lapped: it is designed to be performed on consecutive blocks of a larger dataset,... , Hybrid Subband Sub-band coding Sub-band coding is any form of transform coding that breaks a signal into a number of different frequency bands and encodes each one independently. This decomposition is often the first step in data compression for audio and video signals.... (AAC-HE) |
8 kHz to 192 kHz | 8 to 529 kbit/s (stereo) | 20−405ms | : Dual, Mid/Side, Intensity, Parametric | : Up to 48 channels | ||
| AC3 | MDCT Modified discrete cosine transform The modified discrete cosine transform is a Fourier-related transform based on the type-IV discrete cosine transform , with the additional property of being lapped: it is designed to be performed on consecutive blocks of a larger dataset,... |
32, 44.1, 48 kHz | 32 to 640 kbit/s | 40.6ms | : Up to 6 channels | |||
| AMR | ACELP ACELP Algebraic code-excited linear prediction is a patented speech coding algorithm by VoiceAge Corporation in which a limited set of pulses is distributed as excitation to linear prediction filter.... |
8 kHz | 4.75, 5.15, 5.90, 6.70, 7.40, 7.95, 10.20, 12.20 kbit/s | 25ms | ||||
| AMR-WB AMR-WB Adaptive Multi-Rate Wideband is a patented speech coding standard developed based on Adaptive Multi-Rate encoding, using similar methodology as Algebraic Code Excited Linear Prediction... (G.722.2) |
ACELP ACELP Algebraic code-excited linear prediction is a patented speech coding algorithm by VoiceAge Corporation in which a limited set of pulses is distributed as excitation to linear prediction filter.... |
16 kHz | 6.60-23.85 kbit/s (6.60, 8.85, 12.65, 14.25, 15.85, 18.25, 19.85, 23.05 or 23.85 kbit/s) |
25ms | : only in MPEG-4 Part 12 container | |||
| AMR-WB+ AMR-WB+ Extended Adaptive Multi-Rate – Wideband is an audio codec that extends AMR-WB. It adds support for stereo signals and higher sampling rates. Another main improvement is the use of transform coding additionally to ACELP. This greatly improves the generic audio coding... |
ACELP ACELP Algebraic code-excited linear prediction is a patented speech coding algorithm by VoiceAge Corporation in which a limited set of pulses is distributed as excitation to linear prediction filter.... |
8, 11.025, 16, 22.05, 32, 44.1, 48 kHz | 6 kbit/s to 36 kbit/s (mono) 7 kbit/s to 48 kbit/s (stereo) | 60–90 ms | ||||
| apt-X APT - As an acronym :*Arbitrage Pricing Theory*Asia-Pacific Telecommunity*Advanced Persistent Threat*Advanced Passenger Train- Places :* Apt, Vaucluse, a commune of the Vaucluse département of France... |
Subband Sub-band coding Sub-band coding is any form of transform coding that breaks a signal into a number of different frequency bands and encodes each one independently. This decomposition is often the first step in data compression for audio and video signals.... |
24 kHz to 48 kHz (stereo) | 192 kbit/s to 384 kbit/s (stereo) | 2ms | (4:1) | : Up to 8 channels | ||
| ATRAC1 | MDCT Modified discrete cosine transform The modified discrete cosine transform is a Fourier-related transform based on the type-IV discrete cosine transform , with the additional property of being lapped: it is designed to be performed on consecutive blocks of a larger dataset,... -Hybrid Subband Sub-band coding Sub-band coding is any form of transform coding that breaks a signal into a number of different frequency bands and encodes each one independently. This decomposition is often the first step in data compression for audio and video signals.... |
Various | 292 kbit/s | >100ms | : Dual Only | |||
| ATRAC3 | MDCT Modified discrete cosine transform The modified discrete cosine transform is a Fourier-related transform based on the type-IV discrete cosine transform , with the additional property of being lapped: it is designed to be performed on consecutive blocks of a larger dataset,... -Hybrid Subband Sub-band coding Sub-band coding is any form of transform coding that breaks a signal into a number of different frequency bands and encodes each one independently. This decomposition is often the first step in data compression for audio and video signals.... |
Various | 132/66 kbit/s | >100ms | : Dual (LP2), Mid/Side (LP4) | |||
| ATRAC3plus | MDCT Modified discrete cosine transform The modified discrete cosine transform is a Fourier-related transform based on the type-IV discrete cosine transform , with the additional property of being lapped: it is designed to be performed on consecutive blocks of a larger dataset,... -Hybrid Subband Sub-band coding Sub-band coding is any form of transform coding that breaks a signal into a number of different frequency bands and encodes each one independently. This decomposition is often the first step in data compression for audio and video signals.... |
Various | 48-352 kbit/s | >100ms | ? | ? | ||
| CELT CELT Constrained Energy Lapped Transform is an open, royalty-free audio compression format and a free software codec with especially low algorithmic delay for use in low-latency audio communication. It is a lossy codec, meaning quality is permanently degraded to reduce file size.The algorithms are... |
MDCT Modified discrete cosine transform The modified discrete cosine transform is a Fourier-related transform based on the type-IV discrete cosine transform , with the additional property of being lapped: it is designed to be performed on consecutive blocks of a larger dataset,... |
32 to 96 kHz | 2 kbit/s to >1 Mbit/s | 2ms - 14.5ms (8.9ms typical) | ||||
| GSM-HR Half Rate Half Rate is a speech coding system for GSM, developed in the early 1990s.Since the codec, operating at 5.6 kbit/s, requires half the bandwidth of the Full Rate codec, network capacity for voice traffic is doubled, at the expense of audio quality. It is recommended to use this codec when the... |
VSELP Vector Sum Excited Linear Prediction Vector sum excited linear prediction is a speech coding method used in several cellular standards. The VSELP algorithm is an analysis-by-synthesis coding technique and belongs to the class of speech coding algorithms known as CELP .Variations of this codec have been used in several 2G cellular... |
8 kHz | 5.6 kbit/s | 25ms | ||||
| GSM-FR | RPE-LTP Long Term Prediction In GSM, a RPE-LTP scheme is employed in order to reduce the amount of data sent between the mobile station and base transceiver station.... |
8 kHz | 13 kbit/s | 20-30ms | ||||
| GSM-EFR | ACELP ACELP Algebraic code-excited linear prediction is a patented speech coding algorithm by VoiceAge Corporation in which a limited set of pulses is distributed as excitation to linear prediction filter.... |
8 kHz | 12.2 kbit/s | 20-30ms | ||||
| HVXC | Speech Speech encoding Speech coding is the application of data compression of digital audio signals containing speech. Speech coding uses speech-specific parameter estimation using audio signal processing techniques to model the speech signal, combined with generic data compression algorithms to represent the resulting... |
8 kHz | 2 or 4 kbit/s | 36ms | ||||
| iLBC ILBC Internet Low Bitrate Codec is an open source royalty-free narrowband speech codec, developed by Global IP Solutions formerly Global IP Sound . It was formerly licensed as a freeware with limited commercial use, but since 2011 it is available under an open source license as a part of the open... |
Block Independent LPC Linear predictive coding Linear predictive coding is a tool used mostly in audio signal processing and speech processing for representing the spectral envelope of a digital signal of speech in compressed form, using the information of a linear predictive model... |
8 kHz | 13.33, 15.20 kbit/s | 30, 20ms | ||||
| iSAC | Transform coding | 16 kHz or 32 kHz | 10 to 52 kbit/s | 33 to 63ms | ||||
| MP3 (MPEG-1, 2, 2.5 Audio Layer III) | MDCT Modified discrete cosine transform The modified discrete cosine transform is a Fourier-related transform based on the type-IV discrete cosine transform , with the additional property of being lapped: it is designed to be performed on consecutive blocks of a larger dataset,... , Hybrid Subband Sub-band coding Sub-band coding is any form of transform coding that breaks a signal into a number of different frequency bands and encodes each one independently. This decomposition is often the first step in data compression for audio and video signals.... |
8, 11.025, 12, 16, 22.05, 24, 32, 44.1, 48 kHz | 8, 16, 24, 32, 40, 48, 56, 64, 80, 96, 112, 128, 144, 160, 192, 224, 256, 320 kbit/s | >100ms | : Dual, Mid/Side, Intensity Intensity stereo Intensity stereo or Intensity stereophony is the technique used by a stereo sound image that is produced only by level differences in between the left and right loudspeakers, rather than arrival time differences. Also known as a set up of two microphones from across from each other so you could... |
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| MPEG-1 Audio Layer II MPEG-1 Audio Layer II MPEG-1 Audio Layer II or MPEG-2 Audio Layer II is a lossy audio compression format defined by ISO/IEC 11172-3 alongside MPEG-1 Audio Layer I and MPEG-1 Audio Layer III... (MP2) |
Subband Sub-band coding Sub-band coding is any form of transform coding that breaks a signal into a number of different frequency bands and encodes each one independently. This decomposition is often the first step in data compression for audio and video signals.... |
32, 44.1, 48 kHz | 32, 48, 56, 64, 80, 96, 112, 128, 160, 192, 224, 256, 320, 384 kbit/s | : but decoders are not required to support it | ||||
| MPEG-2 Audio Layer II (MP2) | Subband Sub-band coding Sub-band coding is any form of transform coding that breaks a signal into a number of different frequency bands and encodes each one independently. This decomposition is often the first step in data compression for audio and video signals.... |
16, 22.05, 24 kHz | 8, 16, 24, 32, 40, 48, 56, 64, 80, 96, 112, 128, 144, 160 kbit/s | : but decoders are not required to support it | : up to 5 full range audio channels and an LFE-channel with MPEG Multichannel MPEG Multichannel MPEG Multichannel is an extension to the MPEG-1 Layer II audio compression specification, as defined in the MPEG-2 Audio standard , which allows it provide up to 5.1-channels of audio... |
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| Musepack Musepack Musepack or MPC is an open source lossy audio codec, specifically optimized for transparent compression of stereo audio at bitrates of 160–180 kbit/s... |
Subband Sub-band coding Sub-band coding is any form of transform coding that breaks a signal into a number of different frequency bands and encodes each one independently. This decomposition is often the first step in data compression for audio and video signals.... |
32, 37.8, 44.1, 48 kHz | 3 to 1300 kbit/s | : up to 8 channels | ||||
| Opus Opus (codec) Opus is a low-delay wideband codec intended for applications such as VoIP that will eventually be royalty-free. Opus incorporates technology from the speech-oriented SILK codec and the low-latency CELT codec... |
Hybrid (CELP+MDCT) | 8 to 48 kHz | 6 to 510 kbit/s | 5 to 65.2 ms | ||||
| RealAudio RealAudio RealAudio is a proprietary audio format developed by RealNetworks and first released in April 1995. It uses a variety of audio codecs, ranging from low-bitrate formats that can be used over dialup modems, to high-fidelity formats for music. It can also be used as a streaming audio format, that is... |
MDCT Modified discrete cosine transform The modified discrete cosine transform is a Fourier-related transform based on the type-IV discrete cosine transform , with the additional property of being lapped: it is designed to be performed on consecutive blocks of a larger dataset,... , |
Varies (see article RealAudio RealAudio is a proprietary audio format developed by RealNetworks and first released in April 1995. It uses a variety of audio codecs, ranging from low-bitrate formats that can be used over dialup modems, to high-fidelity formats for music. It can also be used as a streaming audio format, that is... ) |
Varies (see article RealAudio RealAudio is a proprietary audio format developed by RealNetworks and first released in April 1995. It uses a variety of audio codecs, ranging from low-bitrate formats that can be used over dialup modems, to high-fidelity formats for music. It can also be used as a streaming audio format, that is... ) |
Varies | : Up to 6 channels | |||
| SILK Silk Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The best-known type of silk is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity... |
LTP Long Term Prediction In GSM, a RPE-LTP scheme is employed in order to reduce the amount of data sent between the mobile station and base transceiver station.... |
8, 12, 16, 24 kHz | 6 to 40 kbit/s | 25ms | ||||
| Siren Siren Codec Siren is a family of patented, transform-based, wideband audio codecs developed and licensed by PictureTel Corporation . There are three Siren codecs: Siren 7, Siren 14 and Siren 22.... 7 |
derived from PT716plus, MLT | 16 kHz | 16, 24, 32 kbit/s | 40ms | ||||
| Siren Siren Codec Siren is a family of patented, transform-based, wideband audio codecs developed and licensed by PictureTel Corporation . There are three Siren codecs: Siren 7, Siren 14 and Siren 22.... 14 |
MLT | 32 kHz | 24, 32, 48 kbit/s (mono), 48, 64, 96 kbit/s (stereo) | 40ms | ||||
| Siren Siren Codec Siren is a family of patented, transform-based, wideband audio codecs developed and licensed by PictureTel Corporation . There are three Siren codecs: Siren 7, Siren 14 and Siren 22.... 22 |
MLT | 48 kHz | 32, 48, 64 kbit/s (mono), 64, 96, 128 kbit/s (stereo) | 40ms | ||||
| Speex Speex Speex is a patent-free audio compression format designed for speech and also a free software speech codec that may be used on VoIP applications and podcasts. It is based on the CELP speech coding algorithm. Speex claims to be free of any patent restrictions and is licensed under the revised BSD... |
CELP | 8, 16, 32 kHz | 2.15 to 24.6 kbit/s (NB Narrowband In radio, narrowband describes a channel in which the bandwidth of the message does not significantly exceed the channel's coherence bandwidth. It is a common misconception that narrowband refers to a channel which occupies only a "small" amount of space on the radio spectrum.The opposite of... ); 4 to 44.2 kbit/s (WB Wideband In communications, wideband is a relative term used to describe a wide range of frequencies in a spectrum. A system is typically described as wideband if the message bandwidth significantly exceeds the channel's coherence bandwidth.... ) |
30ms (NB) 34ms (WB) | : Intensity Intensity stereo Intensity stereo or Intensity stereophony is the technique used by a stereo sound image that is produced only by level differences in between the left and right loudspeakers, rather than arrival time differences. Also known as a set up of two microphones from across from each other so you could... |
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| VMR-WB VMR-WB Variable-Rate Multimode Wideband is a source-controlled variable-rate multimode codec designed for robust encoding/decoding of wideband/narrowband speech. The operation of VMR-WB is controlled by speech signal characteristics and by traffic condition of the network... |
ACELP ACELP Algebraic code-excited linear prediction is a patented speech coding algorithm by VoiceAge Corporation in which a limited set of pulses is distributed as excitation to linear prediction filter.... |
16 kHz | 8.55, 4.0, 0.8, 13.3, 6.2, 2.7, 1.0 | 33.75ms | ||||
| Vorbis Vorbis Vorbis is a free software / open source project headed by the Xiph.Org Foundation . The project produces an audio format specification and software implementation for lossy audio compression... (Ogg Ogg Ogg is a free, open container format maintained by the Xiph.Org Foundation. The creators of the Ogg format state that it is unrestricted by software patents and is designed to provide for efficient streaming and manipulation of high quality digital multimedia.The Ogg container format can multiplex... ) |
MDCT Modified discrete cosine transform The modified discrete cosine transform is a Fourier-related transform based on the type-IV discrete cosine transform , with the additional property of being lapped: it is designed to be performed on consecutive blocks of a larger dataset,... |
1 Hz to 200 kHz | variable | >100ms | /ABR | : Dual, Lossless, Phase, Point (Intensity Intensity stereo Intensity stereo or Intensity stereophony is the technique used by a stereo sound image that is produced only by level differences in between the left and right loudspeakers, rather than arrival time differences. Also known as a set up of two microphones from across from each other so you could... ) |
: Up to 255 channels | |
| WavPack Lossy WavPack WavPack is a free, open source lossless audio compression format developed by David Bryant.-Features:WavPack compression can compress 8-, 16-, 24-, and 32-bit fixed-point, and 32-bit floating point audio files in the .WAV file format. It also supports surround sound streams and high frequency... |
Prediction, Quantization | 1 Hz to 16.777216 MHz | 196 kbit/s and up in lossy mode (for CD audio) | : Up to 256 channels | ||||
| Windows Media Audio Standard | MDCT Modified discrete cosine transform The modified discrete cosine transform is a Fourier-related transform based on the type-IV discrete cosine transform , with the additional property of being lapped: it is designed to be performed on consecutive blocks of a larger dataset,... |
8, 11.025, 16, 22.05, 32, 44.1, 48 kHz | 8 to 768kbit/s | >100ms | ||||
| Windows Media Audio Pro | MDCT Modified discrete cosine transform The modified discrete cosine transform is a Fourier-related transform based on the type-IV discrete cosine transform , with the additional property of being lapped: it is designed to be performed on consecutive blocks of a larger dataset,... |
8, 11.025, 16, 22.05, 32, 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96 kHz | 4 to 768kbit/s | >100ms | : At least 8 channels, expandable |
| Audio compression format | Algorithm Algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm is an effective method expressed as a finite list of well-defined instructions for calculating a function. Algorithms are used for calculation, data processing, and automated reasoning... |
Sample Rate | Bits per sample | Latency Latency (audio) Latency refers to a short period of delay between when an audio signal enters and when it emerges from a system... |
Stereo Stereophonic sound The term Stereophonic, commonly called stereo, sound refers to any method of sound reproduction in which an attempt is made to create an illusion of directionality and audible perspective... |
Multichannel |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ALAC Apple Lossless Apple Lossless Apple Lossless Apple Lossless (also known as ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec), or ALE (Apple Lossless Encoder) is an audio codec developed by Apple Inc. for lossless data compression of digital music. After initially being proprietary for many years, in late 2011 Apple open sourced... |
Lossless | 1 Hz to 384000 Hz | 16, 20, 24, 32 | : Up to 8 channels | ||
| FLAC FLAC FLAC is a codec which allows digital audio to be losslessly compressed such that file size is reduced without any information being lost... |
Lossless | 1 Hz to 655350 Hz | 8, 16, 20, 24, (32) | 4.3ms - 92ms (46.4ms typical) | : Up to 8 channels | |
| Monkey's Audio Monkey's Audio Monkey's Audio is a file format for audio data compression. Being a lossless format, Monkey's Audio does not discard data during the process of encoding, unlike lossy compression methods such as AAC, MP3, Vorbis and Musepack.... |
Lossless | 8, 11.025, 12, 16, 22.05, 24, 32, 44.1, 48 kHz | ||||
| RealAudio Lossless RealAudio RealAudio is a proprietary audio format developed by RealNetworks and first released in April 1995. It uses a variety of audio codecs, ranging from low-bitrate formats that can be used over dialup modems, to high-fidelity formats for music. It can also be used as a streaming audio format, that is... |
Lossless | Varies (see article RealAudio RealAudio is a proprietary audio format developed by RealNetworks and first released in April 1995. It uses a variety of audio codecs, ranging from low-bitrate formats that can be used over dialup modems, to high-fidelity formats for music. It can also be used as a streaming audio format, that is... ) |
Varies (see article RealAudio RealAudio is a proprietary audio format developed by RealNetworks and first released in April 1995. It uses a variety of audio codecs, ranging from low-bitrate formats that can be used over dialup modems, to high-fidelity formats for music. It can also be used as a streaming audio format, that is... ) |
Varies | : Up to 6 channels | |
| True Audio TTA (codec) True Audio is a free software, real-time lossless audio codec, based on adaptive prognostic filters.Also, .tta is the generic extension to filenames of audio files created by True Audio codec.- Codec overview :... |
Lossless | 0–4 GHz | 1 to > 64 | : Up to 65535 channels | ||
| WavPack Lossless WavPack WavPack is a free, open source lossless audio compression format developed by David Bryant.-Features:WavPack compression can compress 8-, 16-, 24-, and 32-bit fixed-point, and 32-bit floating point audio files in the .WAV file format. It also supports surround sound streams and high frequency... |
Lossless, Hybrid | 1 Hz to 16.777216 MHz | varies in lossless mode; supports 32-bit float input; 2.2 minimum in lossy mode | : Up to 256 channels | ||
| Windows Media Audio Lossless Windows Media Audio 9 Lossless Windows Media Audio 9 Lossless is a lossless audio codec by Microsoft, released in early 2003.It compresses an audio CD to a range of 206 to 411MB, at bit rates of 470 to 940 kbit/s. The result is a bit-for-bit duplicate of the original audio file; in other words, the audio quality on the CD will... |
Lossless | 8, 11.025, 16, 22.05, 32, 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96 kHz | 16, 24 | >100ms | :Up to 6 channels |
| Audio compression format | Algorithm Algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm is an effective method expressed as a finite list of well-defined instructions for calculating a function. Algorithms are used for calculation, data processing, and automated reasoning... |
Sample Rate | Bit rate Bit rate In telecommunications and computing, bit rate is the number of bits that are conveyed or processed per unit of time.... |
Bits per sample | Latency Latency (audio) Latency refers to a short period of delay between when an audio signal enters and when it emerges from a system... |
CBR | VBR | Stereo Stereophonic sound The term Stereophonic, commonly called stereo, sound refers to any method of sound reproduction in which an attempt is made to create an illusion of directionality and audible perspective... |
Multichannel |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| G.711 G.711 G.711 is an ITU-T standard for audio companding. It is primarily used in telephony. The standard was released for usage in 1972. Its formal name is Pulse code modulation of voice frequencies. It is required standard in many technologies, for example in H.320 and H.323 specifications. It can also... |
companding Companding In telecommunication, signal processing, and thermodynamics, companding is a method of mitigating the detrimental effects of a channel with limited dynamic range... A-law or μ-law, PCM Pulse-code modulation Pulse-code modulation is a method used to digitally represent sampled analog signals. It is the standard form for digital audio in computers and various Blu-ray, Compact Disc and DVD formats, as well as other uses such as digital telephone systems... , Lossy |
8 kHz | 64 kbit/s | 8 bit | 125µs (typical) | ||||
| G.711.1 G.711 G.711 is an ITU-T standard for audio companding. It is primarily used in telephony. The standard was released for usage in 1972. Its formal name is Pulse code modulation of voice frequencies. It is required standard in many technologies, for example in H.320 and H.323 specifications. It can also... |
MDCT Modified discrete cosine transform The modified discrete cosine transform is a Fourier-related transform based on the type-IV discrete cosine transform , with the additional property of being lapped: it is designed to be performed on consecutive blocks of a larger dataset,... , A-law, u-law, Lossy |
8 or 16 kHz | 64, 80, 96 kbit/s | 16 bit | 11.875 ms | ||||
| G.718 G.718 G.718 is an ITU-T recommendation embedded scalable speech and audio codec providing high quality narrowband speech over the lower bit rates and high quality wideband speech over the complete range of bit rates... |
CELP, MDCT Modified discrete cosine transform The modified discrete cosine transform is a Fourier-related transform based on the type-IV discrete cosine transform , with the additional property of being lapped: it is designed to be performed on consecutive blocks of a larger dataset,... , Lossy |
8 or 16 kHz | 8, 12, 12.65, 16, 24, 32 kbit/s | 16 bit | 42.875 ms - 43.875 ms | ||||
| G.719 G.719 G.719 is an ITU-T standard audio codec providing high quality, moderate bit rate wideband audio coding at low computational load... |
Lossy, (incorporates elements of Siren Codec Siren Codec Siren is a family of patented, transform-based, wideband audio codecs developed and licensed by PictureTel Corporation . There are three Siren codecs: Siren 7, Siren 14 and Siren 22.... and Ericsson technology) |
48 kHz | 32-128 kbit/s (Rates between 32 and 88 kbit/s shall be a multiple of 4 kbit/s; 88-128 kbit/s - a multiple of 8 kbit/s.) |
16 bit | 40 ms | : only in MPEG-4 Part 12 container | : only in MPEG-4 Part 12 container | ||
| G.721 | ADPCM, Lossy | 8 kHz | 32 kbit/s | 13 bit | |||||
| G.722 G.722 G.722 is a ITU-T standard 7 kHz wideband speech codec operating at 48, 56 and 64 kbit/s. It was approved by ITU-T in November 1988. Technology of the codec is based on sub-band ADPCM .... |
sub-band Sub-band coding Sub-band coding is any form of transform coding that breaks a signal into a number of different frequency bands and encodes each one independently. This decomposition is often the first step in data compression for audio and video signals.... ADPCM, Lossy |
16 kHz | 64 kbit/s (comprises 48, 56 or 64 kbit/s audio and 16, 8 or 0 kbit/s auxiliary data) |
14 bit | 4 ms | ||||
| G.722.1 G.722.1 G.722.1 is a licensed royalty-free ITU-T standard audio codec providing high quality, moderate bit rate wideband G.722.1 is a licensed royalty-free ITU-T standard audio codec providing high quality, moderate bit rate (24 and 32 kbit/s) wideband G.722.1 is a licensed royalty-free ITU-T standard... |
Modulated Lapped Transform, (based on Siren Codec Siren Codec Siren is a family of patented, transform-based, wideband audio codecs developed and licensed by PictureTel Corporation . There are three Siren codecs: Siren 7, Siren 14 and Siren 22.... ), Lossy |
16 kHz | 24, 32 kbit/s | 16 bit | 40 ms | ||||
| G.722.1 G.722.1 G.722.1 is a licensed royalty-free ITU-T standard audio codec providing high quality, moderate bit rate wideband G.722.1 is a licensed royalty-free ITU-T standard audio codec providing high quality, moderate bit rate (24 and 32 kbit/s) wideband G.722.1 is a licensed royalty-free ITU-T standard... C |
Modulated Lapped Transform, (based on Siren Codec Siren Codec Siren is a family of patented, transform-based, wideband audio codecs developed and licensed by PictureTel Corporation . There are three Siren codecs: Siren 7, Siren 14 and Siren 22.... ), Lossy |
32 kHz | 24, 32, 48 kbit/s | 16 bit | 40 ms | ||||
| G.722.2 (AMR-WB) | multi-rate wideband ACELP ACELP Algebraic code-excited linear prediction is a patented speech coding algorithm by VoiceAge Corporation in which a limited set of pulses is distributed as excitation to linear prediction filter.... , Lossy |
16 kHz | 6.60-23.85 kbit/s (6.60, 8.85, 12.65, 14.25, 15.85, 18.25, 19.85, 23.05 or 23.85 kbit/s) |
14 bit | 25 ms | : only in MPEG-4 Part 12 container | |||
| G.723 G.723 G.723 is a ITU-T standard speech codec using extensions of G.721 providing voice quality covering 300 Hz to 3400 Hz using Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation to 24 and 40 kbit/s for digital circuit multiplication equipment applications... |
ADPCM, Lossy | 8 kHz | 24 or 40 kbit/s | 13 bit | |||||
| G.723.1 G.723.1 G.723.1 is an audio codec for voice that compresses voice audio in 30 ms frames. An algorithmic look-ahead of 7.5 ms duration means that total algorithmic delay is 37.5 ms... |
MP-MLQ, ACELP ACELP Algebraic code-excited linear prediction is a patented speech coding algorithm by VoiceAge Corporation in which a limited set of pulses is distributed as excitation to linear prediction filter.... , Lossy |
8 kHz | 5.3, 6.3 kbit/s | 13 bit | 37.5 ms | ||||
| G.726 G.726 G.726 is an ITU-T ADPCM speech codec standard covering the transmission of voice at rates of 16, 24, 32, and 40 kbit/s. It was introduced to supersede both G.721, which covered ADPCM at 32 kbit/s, and G.723, which described ADPCM for 24 and 40 kbit/s. G.726 also introduced a new... |
ADPCM, Lossy | 8 kHz | 16, 24, 32, 40 kbit/s | 13 bit | |||||
| G.727 | ADPCM, Lossy | 8 kHz | 16, 24, 32, 40 kbit/s | 13 bit | |||||
| G.728 G.728 G.728 is an ITU-T standard for speech coding operating at 16 kbit/s. It is officially described as Coding of speech at 16 kbit/s using low-delay code excited linear prediction.... |
low-delay CELP, Lossy | 8 kHz | 16 kbit/s | 13 bit | 0.625 ms | ||||
| G.729 G.729 G.729 is an audio data compression algorithm for voice that compresses digital voice in packets of 10 milliseconds duration. It is officially described as Coding of speech at 8 kbit/s using conjugate-structure algebraic code-excited linear prediction .Because of its low bandwidth requirements,... |
CS-ACELP, Lossy | 8 kHz | 8 kbit/s | 13 bit | 15 ms | ||||
| G.729 G.729 G.729 is an audio data compression algorithm for voice that compresses digital voice in packets of 10 milliseconds duration. It is officially described as Coding of speech at 8 kbit/s using conjugate-structure algebraic code-excited linear prediction .Because of its low bandwidth requirements,... D |
CS-ACELP, Lossy | 8 kHz | 6.4 kbit/s | 13 bit | |||||
| G.729 G.729 G.729 is an audio data compression algorithm for voice that compresses digital voice in packets of 10 milliseconds duration. It is officially described as Coding of speech at 8 kbit/s using conjugate-structure algebraic code-excited linear prediction .Because of its low bandwidth requirements,... E |
CS-ACELP, Lossy | 8 kHz | 11.8 kbit/s | 13 bit | 15 ms | ||||
| G.729.1 G.729.1 G.729.1 is an 8-32 kbit/s embedded speech and audio codec providing bitstream interoperability with G.729, G.729 Annex A and G.729 Annex B. Its official name is G.729-based embedded variable bit rate codec: An 8-32 kbit/s scalable wideband coder bitstream interoperable with G.729.This codec has... |
CELP, TDBWE, TDAC, Lossy | 8 or 16 kHz | 8-32 kbit/s (12 layers; 2 kbit/s steps, (10 kbit/s omitted)) |
16 bit | 48.9375 ms |
See also
- Codec listening testCodec listening testA codec listening test is a scientific study designed to compare two or more lossy audio codecs, usually with respect to perceived fidelity or compression efficiency....
- Comparison of media playersComparison of audio player softwareThe following comparison of audio players compares general and technical information for a number of software media player programs.For the purpose of this comparison, "audio players" are defined as any media player which can only play audio files...
- List of video players (software)
- List of codecs
- Open source codecs and containersOpen source codecs and containersThis is a listing of open-source implementations of media formats—usually called codecs. Many of the codecs listed implement media formats that are restricted by patents and are henceforth not open formats. For example, x264 is a widely used open source implementation of the heavily patent...
- Open source codecs and containers
- Comparison of video codecsComparison of video codecsA video codec is software or a device that provides encoding and decoding which may or may not include the use of video compression and/or decompression for digital video....
- Comparison of container formatsComparison of container formatsThis table compares features of container formats. To see which multimedia players support which container format, look at comparison of media players.-Information:-Audio formats supported:-Video formats supported:-Caption formats supported:...
External links
- Comparative test April, 2004
- EBU subjective listening tests on low-bitrate audio codecs
- Hydrogenaudio comparison of lossless formats
- Tsabary, Eldad. “A Survey of Audio Coders for Electronic-Art Music.” eContact! 9.4 — Perte auditive et sujets connexes / Hearing (Loss) and Related Issues (May 2007). Montréal: CECCanadian Electroacoustic CommunityFounded in 1986, La Communauté électroacoustique canadienne / The Canadian Electroacoustic Community is Canada’s national electroacoustic / computer music / sonic arts organization and as such is dedicated to promoting this progressive art form in its broadest definition: from “pure” acousmatic...
. - Rodman, Jeffrey "VoIP to 20 kHz: Codec Choices for High Definition Voice Telephony" (July, 2008)