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Business News Digital
MP3 makers develop HD version
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 31 March 2009
One of the companies behind the increasingly dominant MP3 file format, Thompson, has released more information about its new high quality version of the codec. One of the criticisms of what has now become the standard format for digital music files, is that the actual sound quality of tracks stored that way is not brilliant, even when the MP3 is created with a higher bit-rate. Some musos are already opting for other higher quality file formats – FLAC is particularly popular.
The MP3HD would be a so called ‘lossless’ format, like FLAC, which means music stored that way would be of much higher quality. The advantage of MP3HD over other lossless file formats, Thomson say, is that it will be backwards compatible. Because it is, at is core, an MP3, older digital music players not able to play lossless files would still be able to play an MP3HD, albeit with standard MP3 sound quality.
Of course the better the sound quality the bigger the file size, and insiders say the MP3HD will not, like the standard MP3, make especially efficient use of hard disk space – and, in fact, file sizes will be noticeably bigger than those of other lossless file formats, possibly because the file is trying to be both an MP3 and an MP3HD at the same time.
As uber-gig hard drives become affordable that isn’t, in theory, a problem in terms of storage, though some say MP3 player and mobile phone technology will have to develop some way to make the storage of large quantities of lossless music files on a portable device realistic. MP3HD, therefore, is possibly a file format for the future for all but the most sound quality conscious of music fans.
