MP3 FORMAT

One of the successes of the web has been the MP3 format that has become the dominant choice for publishing and playing audio files. While there are still plenty of alternative audio file formats around having one that is universal has huge benefits for publishing audio onto the web.

One of the benefits is that it offers a high degree of compression while the resulting sound quality is generally acceptable to most peoples ears. The resulting smaller file size allows quicker downloading and greater storage capacity. However quality is dependent upon the choice of encoder and the degree of compression. Also because the compression losses a certain amount of data some audio files are more difficult to compress than others.

Even if the ultimate destination for a recording is to a compressed MP3 file there are good reasons to record to as high quality as possible. Firstly it is just plain good practice to raise your level as high as possible and sloppy practices can become habits. It is also allows you to train your ear while editing and ultimately a good master copy could potentially have more uses and longevity.

PODCASTING

The term podcast derives from “broadcast” and “Ipod” and originally refers to the transmission of media files over the Internet to portable players such as Apple’s Ipod. Originally podcasts were audio files and there is a tendency to still think of them as being solely an audio format. There is another tendency to assume that a podcast is distributed using feed reading such as RSS or Atom. For clarity and simplicity I have used the term podcast to refer to the creation of audio files in MP3 format for distribution via the Internet either downloaded from a web page or a syndicated feed. For files contain video I use the terms webcasting or web video even when the material is syndicated for display on portable players or mobile phones.