m4a v mp3

mr_accountant

What is the difference between mp3 and m4a? I download mp3s (legally of course) to write on cds for the car. But i have seen some mp4s; can these be written onto disc? What is the quality like?

superscaper

mp4 is usually used for video as mp3 can only encode sound. Any format can be written to disc it just depends on what's reading it and whether it can decode a particular format.

gaming_guy

mp3 is music, mp4 is video with audio and can be audio only as well

m4a is what itunes uses (i think) otherwise thy use the aac format

wolfman

Yeah "m4a" is the container format, AAC is the encoder.

It's basically the next generation of audio compression. Mp3 was developed a long time ago, as far back as the early 90's from what I can remember.

AAC (m4a) and Vorbis (ogg) are two more recent encoders. AAC is developed by a suite of companies, namely Dolby, Sony, Nokia and Fraunhofer. Ogg Vorbis is an open source equivalent developed by the community, and often preferred by audiophiles (such as myself) (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=43254).

I do prefer both AAC and Ogg Vorbis to Mp3. It's difficult to describe the difference, especially if you've encoded the Mp3 using Lame (best mp3 encoder about). Both are certainly more transparent (like the original cd) than Mp3, and a lot more defined (more noticable with classical music). The difference isn't always hugely noticable, it depends upon the music you are listening to, and what you're listeing to it on.

I'd say a 160kbps AAC/Ogg is about a 192kbps Mp3.

I personally encode in Ogg Vorbis Q7 (around 200-200kbps).

amcluesent

.mp3 files are usually audio files created using the MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 encoder

.m4a and .mp4 are files that contain audio encoded using AAC and audio/video encoded using AAC/MPEG-4 encoders respectively.

All these files can be written to CD-ROM, but only a limited number of systems can play back .m4a and .mp4 (and if they had Apple DRM, then only iPods/iTunes can play back).

The quality of the AAC encoded audio is generally thought to be better than MP3, especially at low bitrates.

mr_accountant

Thanks all

Ive tried copying the m4a (128 bit) onto cdr and it’s worked a treat on allthecd players i have tried. And it certainly sounds superior to an equivalent mp3, around 192 bitrate, as someone has mentioned.