Without data compression digital audio signals typically consist of 16 bit samples recorded at a sampling rate more than twice the actual audio bandwidth (44.1 kHz for Compact Disks). So you end up with more than 1.400 Mbit to represent just one second of stereo music in CD quality. By using MPEG audio coding, you may shrink down the original sound data from a CD by a factor of 12, without losing sound quality. Factor of 24 can be used with a slight degradation in quality (still the quality is significantly better than what you get by just reducing the sampling rate and the resolution of your samples).
A competing format called VQF, creates files that are approximately 30 percent smaller than the MP3 format, and its proponents claim the sound is noticeably better, especially in the treble range. VQF files are compressed at a 1 to 18 ratio, while MP3 is at 1 to 12. So converting the same 50MB Wav file would create a 4.55MB MP3 file, or a 2.78MB VQF file. Furthermore, fans say VQF guarantees a high quality file every time, whereas MP3 encoders have a greater variance in quality. But MP3 is so established that VQF will find it very difficult to penetrate the market even though it is obviously a better format.
The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) is the biggest opponent of MP3 technology. They say that the MP3s available on the Internet and on CDs do not have the authorization of the artists nor the record companies. This piracy, according to them defies all copyrights and causes millions of dollars in losses. But consumers who prefer this format will keep on using it no matter what, so it would be better for the RIAA to work to legalize this format and gain benefit from it by controlling piracy. A step in this regard was recently taken by the Portable Device Working Group of the Secure Digital Music Initiative, which settled on a new specification for portable digital music players. SDMI is a working group made up of stakeholders from the music, software, and hardware industries. The group is developing a secure alternative to digital music distribution and storage formats such as MP3, which the music industry feels is a boon to pirates.
