The mp3 has always been the main strength of music format since the year 1993 when the technology was first introduced. But the recent advent of the more compressed and wondering version of audio format – mp4 – upon the scene, has modified everything within its grasp with more aestheticism in the perception of digital sound. However, the general flock usually wonders as to how actually the mp4 tends to differ from the mp3 units. While some assume that the mp4s are more compressed, which makes it smaller as compared to the same audio files in mp3 format, some other thinks that the two are entirely different technologies.

There are many common features between the mp3 and mp4 players, while many points of distinctions do also exist. While comparing the two technologies the most significant point that strikes the mind first is that the mp4 format has come up with all the properties to make up the shortfalls of the mp3. As a matter of fact the quality of perception of the two files of same bit rates is much better with the mp4 format as compared to the mp3s.

Mp3 Structures And Players

Since the 1993, most of the downloadable symphonies and songs come in the mp3 format that allows the music lovers to stores their favorites in relatively smaller amount of space in the hard drive. To be very candid the mp3 format has been cursed with a series of limitations and drawbacks, which restrict the efficiency of its coding process. The limitations are as follows:

• Mp3 fails to switch the joint stereo mode for any specified scale factor bands. The joint stereo option, in case of mp3 technology, has to be used for all the bands that in turn tend to limit the use of joint stereo.

• The inoptimal window sizes result in the inoptimal time/frequency resolution in the mp3.

• The last i.e. the 21st scalefactor band for both the long and the short blocks has no own scalefactors

• The missing properties are, however, the Long Term Prediction (LTP), Temporal Noise Shaping (TNS), Spectral Band Replication (SBR) and Perceptual Noise Substitution (PNS).

Mp4 structures and players

Mp4 is basically a “container” and hence it has the potential to carry the video files along with the audio ones. Hence is the basic point to difference between the mp3 and mp4 is that the mp4 contains both the audio and video at the same time, whereas the mp3 format supports only the audio files. Within a very short spell of time the mp4 formats is expected to come with the mixed streams of both audio and video at the same time. The mp4 players basically allow you to realize something better and bigger than you can imagine. It is entirely a new concept known as Structured Audio and is a mode of describing the sound in an ultra-modern way. The mp4 technology is more potent description of sound that is going to be the future standard for the computer music, gaming audio, and varieties of multimedia applications altogether.