Difference between mp3 and m4a/m4p?

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Level 1

15 points

Difference between mp3 and m4a/m4p?

What is the difference between mp3 and m4a?
Did Itunes just change to m4a?
Is the only difference between m4a and m4p the fact that m4p is a protected file?
Songs are in m4a format in Itunes folder on harddrive, but in AAC format when I look at them in Itunes. Why?

Dell Dimension 3000, Windows XP

Posted on Jan 5, 2006 4:26 PM

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Answer 1

toonz

Level 7

22,360 points

Jan 5, 2006 4:37 PM in response to Barbara Elia

MP3 and AAC are different methods / algorithms of encoding audio. We can argue all night about which one is "better". Most experts agree that AAC 128K will give you approximately the same quality as MP3 198K, which means smaller files, most files for the same amount of disk space. Most applications that play audio, play MP3s, so they are more portable.

.mp3 is the file extension for MP3 files
.m4a is the file extension for AAC files.
iTunes and Quicktime use the .m4p file extension to distinguish protected or purchased AAC files from unprotected AAC files.

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Answer 2

Jan 5, 2006 5:16 PM in response to toonz

There's no real argument--iTunes' AAC encoder is better than its MP3 encoder, but the iTunes MP3 encoder is significantly worse than other MP3 encoders such as the open-source LAME encoder. If encoding a diverse pool of music, there is no statistical difference in perceived sound quality between iTunes' AAC encoder and the LAME MP3 encoder at 128 kbps.

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