MPEG Layer-3
For BUS656P - Patterns of Electronic Commerce
Xuejun Zhang
Kazutaka Shimura
Koya Ohta
Outline
MPEG Layer-3
For BUS656P - Patterns of Electronic Commerce
Xuejun Zhang
Kazutaka Shimura
Koya Ohta
Outline
MP3 is another name for a layer-3 mpeg. It is a sound compression system that can create near cd-quality sound files while maintaining a small file size that is easier to handle.
MP3 is a compression form (like .zip) for audio/music
files. The name MP3 stands for Mpeg 1 Audio Layer 3. MP3 is simply the
best way to compress audio for downloading from the Internet. MP3 is now
the industry standard and there are more software
programs and hardware
devices for MP3 than any other CD quality audio format in the world.
If you ever choose to take your MP3 files from your computer and use them in your car or just walk around with a portable MP3 player, see the products below.
Compression Technology Format
On the hardware end, a 16-bit sound card (most PCs already have one installed) and speakers or a set of headphones. A good speaker set with a subwoofer is your best bet. As for software, an MP3 player is required. Dozens of MP3 players are available for download, but only a few stand out from the crowd.
If you want to make your own MP3s, you need ripper and encoder.
Ripper
CD rippers are programs that extract—or rip music tracks from a CD and save them onto your hard drive. There’s a whole slew of CD rippers to chose from.
Once you have ripped the tracks to your hard drive, you will need to convert them to the MP3 format, that is, unless you want 30MB WAV files clogging your hard drive. To turn these WAVs into MP3s, you need an MP3 encoder. Many CD rippers have MP3 encoders built in or you can download a separate encoder utility.
MP3 Files
MP3 files are literally all over the Web. Finding a particular song or an album by a specific artist in the mad jumble of MP3s, however, is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. You can try a garden-variety search engine such as Yahoo; just type in the name of the song or artist you are looking for and add MP3 as a search term. Frustratingly, though, you are likely to scoop up plenty of Web pages that happen to have the words on them, without any MP3 files to speak of.
Search Engine
MP3 Libraries
Another option is to check out an MP3 file directory.
Portable MP3 Player
Diamond Multimedia
Creative labs
Present Technological Limitations
MPEG Layer-3 is a perceptual audio coding scheme, exploiting the properties of the human ear, and trying to maintain the original sound quality as far as possible.
In contrast, a dedicated speech codec exploits the properties of the human vocal tract, trying to maintain the intelligibility of the voice signals as far as possible. Advanced speech coding schemes achieve a useful voice reproduction at bitrates as low as 5.3 kbps, with a codec delay below 40ms.* At such very low bitrates, they behave superior to MPEG Layer-3 for pure voice signals, and they offer the low delay that is necessary for full-duplex voice communications.
In the framework of MPEG-4, scalable audio coding schemes are devised that combine speech coding and perceptual audio coding.
*Codec delay <Standard>
Layer-1: 19ms
Layer-2: 35ms
Layer-3: 59ms
Practical values are significantly above that. As they depend on the implementation, precise
figures are hard to give. So the numbers in brackets are just rough thumb values – real codecs
may show even higher values. There are certain applications that may suffer many other
applications, delay is of minor interest.
Piracy
Legal: To make MP3 versions of your own CD collection for your own personal use.
Illegal: To distribute MP3s to other people via a CD that you make yourself or via the Internet.
à The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), a group that represents major US record companies, has filed lawsuits against Web site operators who have posted pirated
MP3s on the Net; many of those facing legal action voluntarily shuttered their sites.
Potential Market Growth
Since long before MP3 came onto the scene, PC users have been recording, downloading, and playing high-quality sound files using a format called WAV. The trouble with WAV files, however, is their enormous size. A two-minute song recorded in CD-quality sound would eat up about 20MB of your hard drive in the WAV format; that means a ten-song CD would take up more than 200MB of space. Not only do WAV files fill your hard drive in a heartbeat, they also take very long time to download (e.g., two-plus hours to download a lousy two-minute song).
The file-size problem for music downloads has changed due to MPEG, which produces high-quality audio (and full-motion video) files in far smaller packages than those produced by WAV. MPEG files out superfluous information from the original audio source, resulting in smaller audio files with no perceptible loss in quality. WAV, on the other hand, spends just as much data on superfluous noise as it does on the far more critical dynamic sounds, resulting in huge files.
Due to its high-quality sound, high compression, MP3 rapidly becomes popular. You do not need to wait for a long time to download songs!
You can also promote your songs all over the world through Web site at cheaper cost compared with promotion through sales of CDs.
Record labels will be able to reduce
costs like packaging and distribution through music promotion through Web
site. They will also sell old music, which are not available at present.
MP3 will cause radical change in music distribution.
6. Brief History of the Evolution of the Technology
The Moving Picture Coding Experts Group (MPEG) was established in January 1998 with the mandate to develop standards for coded representation of moving pictures, audio and their combination. MPEG operates in the framework of the Joint ISO (International Organization for Standardization) / IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) Technical Committee, JTC 1 on Information Technology.
It established MPEG-1 (moving speed 1.5 Mbps), MPEG-2 (moving speed 3 to 15 Mbps) and MPEG-3 (moving speed 40 Mbps). MPEG-3 was integrated with MPEG-2.
MP3 was standardized by one of MPEG experts groups, MPEG-Audio in November 1992. MP3 stands for MPEG-1 Audio Layer III. MP3 is Codec, a program to transfer moving pictures or sounds into digital data or vice versa. By late 1997, audio compression technology progressed to the point that near CD-quality music could be compressed to a level that can be streamed to users with 28.8 Kbps modems with a minimum of wait time before playback. Two new formats – MP3 and Liquid Audio – have emerged and an existing one – RealAudio – has improved significantly. MP3 becomes Audio layer III both of MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 standards, and the file extension also becomes available. The above features help the piracy of popular songs or entire albums.
Against the owners of three illegal web sites for copyright
infringements, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) won
the case in 1997. The compensation amount was over 1 million dollars.
7. The application of MP3 and its future business development
What has been a big issue on MP3 is the piracy problems. If we are the major record label, this issue might be to be concerned. However, if you see MP3 as the audio compression technology, MP3 has huge potential. As the audio package technology, MP3 allows us to be free from these limitations such as free from place, free from time.
Free from place
MP3 can deliver to anywhere via the internet. You can work on recording CD with any musicians wherever they are. If you want to add some oriental tastes on your song, you can ask the Indian musician to play the Indian sitar and send it with MP3 file. The recording company can use MP3 for the cost reduction. It can ask the low wages country musician to play some songs and the musicians send their parts in MP3 via the Internet. The record company can make up the whole CD. With MP3, the distance will not be the barrier or border to obtain the audio data.
Free from time
MP3 is the time-shift technology. You can listen to the speech of the winner of the Novel Awards in 1999 even in two hundred years later. You can obtain the morning news in the commute train. MP3 technology can transfer the date through over the time.
The integration with other technology
MP3 would broaden the limitation of the internet digital technology, if other technology integrate, such as the one which convert the audio data to the text data. For example, you can use MP3 portable recorder to collect the data by interviewing the new product in the group meeting or questionnaires on the street. Then, you can analyze the digital data converted from the audio data to text data.
Here are some business ideas rather than music related business, achieved with MP3.
Audio library
The audio data, from the speech, the record of congress and investigations to the music, can be recorded with MP3 file and preserve them in the internet space. You do not need the huge space to stock it like the huge library. Therefore, it will reduce the cost for stock.
Time shift telephony service (voice mail)
Your voice can be delivered anywhere with MP3 package. You can create the server which keeps the customers’ MP3 files. For personal users, MP3 would be the voice mail service. The business users will use this server for the stock place of the record of an in-cooperate conference or daily meetings.
Reading-out-books library
The free library on the internet already exist. With MP3, the read-out-books library could be generated. This library would be benefit for the disabled people or elderly people.
Knowledge mangement use
A Japanese manufacture work on the knowledge management system and it records the conversation with customers who call its customer center. Employees can pick up the file and listen it. With this system, a company can share the imformation regarding the customer. Thi system would contribute to the company innovation.
Future concerns about MP3
The success of the business applications of MP3 depends
on the development of the reliable security technology, which identifies
the individuals. MP3 as the audio technology, would bring huge potential,
if MP3 integrated with other text or video technology.
WHAT MP3S COULD MEAN TO ... THE CONSUMER
-- Groovy new tunes
-- Free music
-- Slightly inferior sound quality
(for now)
-- Yet another format to fool with
-- Yet more files to fool with
WHAT MP3 COULD MEAN TO ... THE RECORD EXECUTIVE
-- More money
-- More arguments about money
-- More worries
-- More bootlegging
-- More marketing strategies
WHAT MP3 COULD MEAN TO ... THE ARTIST
-- Worldwide audiences
-- Independence from record companies
-- No paychecks for most
-- Excuse to set up a home page
- - Instant feedback from fan
WHAT KIND OF CHALLENGES ....?
- - Piracy problems
The established artists and
record companies would not be in favor for MP3 until the piracy technology
will be developed. However, MP3 would activate the music industry. Also,
MP3 has huge potential for other business use.