User guide

Page 13 of 24
• msv - a Sony proprietary format for Memory Stick compressed voice files. You might need a
Sony plugin to load this.
• ogg - a free, open source container format supporting a variety of codecs, the most popular
of which is the audio codec Vorbis. Vorbis files are often compared to MP3 files in terms of
quality.
• ram - a text file that contains a link to the Internet address where the Real Audio file is
stored. The .ram file contains no audio data itself.
• raw - a raw file can contain audio in any codec but is usually used with PCM audio data -
rarely used except for technical tests.
• ra - a Real Audio format designed for streaming audio over the Internet. The .ra format
allows files to be stored in a self-contained fashion on a computer, with all of the audio data
contained inside the file itself. - often referred to as RealAudio G2. RealAudio G2, etc.
• SDMI (Secure Digital Music Initiative) - A way of protecting the copyright of electronically
distributed music.
• vox - the vox format most commonly uses the Dialogic ADPCM (Adaptive Differential Pulse
Code Modulation) codec - similar to wave files except that the vox files contain no
information about the file itself so the codec sample rate and number of channels must first
be specified in order to play a vox file. Vox a very old file type and is pretty poor.
• WMA stands for Windows Media Audio. Like MP3, it's a way to compress files, but it's far
more effective. A song downloaded and stored in the WMA format takes only half the space
that the same song would if you used the MP3 format, and it sounds just as good. Unlike
MP3 files, WMA files can be protected and come with licensing, meaning when you get a
WMA file, it is generally from a legal, legitimate source and is protected with certain rights.
wma - the popular Windows Media Audio format owned by Microsoft. Designed with Digital
Rights Management (DRM) abilities for copy protection. Wal-Mart's Music Downloads uses
the latest version (DRM9) of the WMA format, which is protected. Not all MP3 players are
compatible with this version.
• WAV - The file format used by many PCs for sound files - standard audio file format used
mainly in Windows PCs. Commonly used for storing uncompressed (PCM), CD-quality
sound files, which means that they can be large in size, around 10MB per minute of music. It
is less well known that wave files can also be encoded with a variety of codecs to reduce the
file size (for example the GSM or mp3 codecs).
8. Terminology
• ADPCM (Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation): If you buy a portable digital audio
player and it has a voice recording feature, the recordings you make will be encoded in the
ADPCM format. ADPCM encoding creates much smaller files than MP3 does because it's
best suited to spoken audio that doesn't have complex sound.
• Bit Rate: The number of bits occurring per unit of time. Bit rate is usually expressed in bits
per second. Bitrates - In MP3 Bitrate mode you can provide a bitrate that should be used,
either in CBR (Constant Bitrate) or in VBR (Variable Bitrate) mode. If you want VBR mode,
check the "Use Variable Bitrate mode". Note that CBR mode is recommended.
• CDDB: Now called Gracenote, this Web site provides an online database of information
about audio CDs. Virtually every digital audio player has the ability to access information
from Gracenote over the Internet. This information includes artist, album title, song title, track
length, and other information when you play, record, or rip CDs.