I am new to OS X and I was importing some songs to my library. Can someone tell me what the difference is between MP3, AAC, and AIFF?
Sure.
Do they create different sized files?
Yes.
Can they all be burned to a music CD?
Yes.
MP3 is mpeg layer 3 audio. It is compressed audio, the average song is about 1MB/minute. This varies depending on the bit rate you encode at. It is an Open Source format available to anyone.
AAC is another codec which was developed by Dolby I believe. At the same bit rate it creates a smaller file than MP3 but is widely regarded as maintaining better quality playback at that same bit rate. The result is that if you were going to encode a song at 128 bit rate then your AAC file would be smaller than a 128 bit MP3. This is also an Open Source format available to anyone.
AIFF is a format for uncompressed audio sometimes called raw audio. Files are very large, VERY large. However you get 100% of the quality of the source because it is not compressed.
If you tell iTunes to burn a play list of any of these it works the same way, no change in what you need to do. All of these formats can also be played on an iPod although AAC uses the least battery power to play and AIFF the most because more data has to be processed.
Hope that helps,
David
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