File Format

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   |     </b><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="MP3 Answers"><U><B>home</b></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="what.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="What is MP3"><U><B><IMG SRC="0500e0e0.gif" border=0 width="14" height="14" ALT="up" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></b></U></A><B> </b><A HREF="what.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="What is MP3"><U><B>What is MP3</b></U></A><B>    </b><A HREF="whatstreaming.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Streaming Format"><U><B><IMG SRC="0c70e0e0.gif" border=0 width="14" height="14" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></b></U></A><B> </b><A HREF="whatstreaming.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Streaming Format"><U><B>Streaming Format</b></U></A><B>  </b><A HREF="whattechnical.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Technical"><U><B><IMG SRC="0c80e0e0.gif" border=0 width="14" height="14" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></b></U></A><A HREF="whattechnical.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Technical"><U><B>Technical</b></U></A><B>    </b><A HREF="id3tags.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="ID3 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</b><B>File Format</b></div> <div> Once MP3 was more widely used, and the quality of the audio was recognized, it became apparent that it would be an ideal way to store various pieces of music or any other sort of audio in file form.  Whereas streaming audio doesn't really have a beginning, nor an end, a file must have definitive boundaries.</div> <bR> <div> MP3 audio is made up of <A HREF="glossary_frame.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Glossary"><U>frames</U></A> of digital audio information.  Each frame represents a slice of audio for a particular period of time.  The MP3 file format is simply the MP3 frames stored contiguously in a file.</div> <bR> <div> Because it was never really meant to be a file format, and the stream specifications for MP3 don't specify a place to store information about the audio, additions have been made to the file format of MP3.  Note that these additions are not really part of the MP3 specification, they are widely recognized extensions of the specification.</div> <bR> <div> ID3 was developed to create a standard place in an MP3 file to keep information such as Artist, Title, Comments, etc.  Originally ID3 specified that this information would be stored in the last 128 byte positions (1 byte is equivalent to a single letter of the alphabet) of the file.  30 positions would be reserved for the Artist information.  30 positions would be reserved for the Title information, and so on until the 128 bytes where used up.  Each of these <B>fields </b>are called a <B>tag</b>.  This worked fine in most cases.  But as we all know there are some Artist names greater than 30 letters, some Titles greater than 30 letters, plus many people wanted to store more information in the file - like how many times the file was played, who owns the copyright, you may also have more than one Artist who sang a particular song.</div> <bR> <div> ID3 version 2 was developed to overcome the ID3 version 1 limitations.  It is pretty much a totally flexible format, almost anything can be stored in the MP3 file such as an image of an album cover, multiple comment lines, multiple artists, plus user-defined information that could be used for any purpose.  ID3V2 is stored at the beginning of the MP3 file and is marked with the letters "ID3" followed by a header of information stating how much space the information takes up so the audio player knows where to look for digital audio.  Even if an MP3 player is not capable of reading ID3V2 information it will be skipped over since the MP3 specification has strict rules regarding what valid audio looks like in digital form.  The ID3 information is thrown away as "bad audio."</div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>