On Saturday, March 15, 2003, at 12:10 PM, Marta Edie wrote: > Hello all, I am making my first steps on importing and burning CDs in > my > iTunes. I have a question : Having only infantile knowledge about > this, do I > understand that the MP3 format will condense the files as I am > importing > them, because my preferences indicate the MP3 format for import. ( It > seems to be the default setting, I did not do anything, I just looked).
Yes. It will take the audio files off the CD and compress them to MP3 format. > Now > when I burn a CD, it shows me in the preferences Audio CD, which I > interpret as meaning it goes out unto the CD in what I would consider a > regular unsqueezed format. Yes. It will take the MP3 files on your hard drive and convert them back to the CDDA format on a regular audio CD. Be aware that this conversion CDDA->MP3->CDDA will not give you a file on the CD with the same sound quality as the original because the MP3 conversion lowers the quality of the sound. If the MP3 was created with a high enough bit-rate, say 192 or more, the degradation probably won't be noticable. > Why I am asking : if I want to give this CD to a > friend, I assume it should be in a regular format, since I do not know > whether the player this CD will be played on has this MP3 format. ( And > incidentally ; ewhat does MP3 stand for?) A little clarificaton would > be > greatly appreciated. If you want to give it to a friend who may not listen to music on his or her computer, a regular audio CD is certainly the safest bet. MP3 stands for MPEG-1 layer 3 audio encoding. It's a way of encoding sound that throws out parts of the sound that supposedly most people don't or can't hear. The typical MP3 encoding takes a sound file off a CD (CDDA format = Compact Disk Digital Audio) which is designed to be played at 1411.2 kilobits per second and gives back a file designed to be played at 128 kilobits per second. The new file is about a tenth the size of the original and sounds almost as good. MPEG stands for Motion Picture Experts Group. They have published standards for converting audio and video to digital form. | The next meeting of the Louisville Computer Society will | be March 25. The LCS Web page is <http://www.kymac.org>.
