Mp3 CD Players - Definitions

Moving with the times sometimes becomes difficult, especially when there are new terms that sound Greek to you. The biggest craze today are mp3 CD players and with them come some terms you may not be familiar with. Let this be your guide to the new world of mp3 CD players.

Terms
MP3 - MPEG - 1 Audio Layer 3 is a type of digital audio format that uses lossy data compression and is the standard encoding for all digital or mp3 CD players. To put it in terms that are more common it is a way of storing music data on a disc that takes up a lot less space than conventional methods with little or no loss of sound quality. Digital Music - Originally used in the 70s for commercial music recordings it is nearly standard now. Basically, it has taken music and converted it to a file system, which allows lower cost distribution. Downloadable music for Mp3 CD players depends on digital audio. Download - This is the process by which you can purchase music from the internet and use it on your computer or transfer it to mp3 CD players. By definition, it is moving data from one source to another. Memory - This term is self-explanatory; it is the amount of space available on mp3 CD players to store files. Similar to memory in your home computer memory for players comes in many sizes and types. Gigabyte - This is a unit of storage most common for all digital products. In the early days of computing, there were bytes, then kilobytes, megabytes and now gigabytes. A gigabyte is equivalent to one billion bytes or in other words a lot of memory! Playlist - This is a list of songs or albums that you have set up on your computer or mp3 CD player. WAV - An uncompressed windows audio file that takes quite a bit of space to store. These are generally converted to mp3 files to play on your mp3 CD players. WMA - Windows media format music file. According to reports sounds just as good as mp3 formats with half the storage needs. Conclusion As you can see there is quite a glossary of terms associated with mp3 CD players, and this is but a sampling of the most commonly used terms. There are many more that lean to the technical side of the mp3 CD players format. The above terms will put you on the right path to understanding this new technology.