Streaming a radio station - M4A

[nietzsche]

From the site: http://www.m4a.com/

"M4A
Many people have questions about M4A, since it is relatively new. M4A stands for MPEG 4 Audio, and it is a popular file extension used to represent audio files. Most people are familiar with MP3 and how it shrinks down the file size of songs and other audio files. M4A and MP4 do the same thing as MP3 does, but even better. Quality is better and file sizes are usually smaller than MP3 files. But unlike MP3, no licenses or payments are required to be able to stream or distribute content in M4A format (unlike MP3 which requires you to pay royalties on content you distribute in MP3 format). This fact alone, is more than enough reason (due to the extreme cost savings) to use M4A files instead of MP3 files. In addition, M4A files tend to sound much better than MP3 files encoded at the same bitrate."


Anyone have any info on this? Is this for real? What programs convert to M4a?

[nietzsche]

more:

Transcoding? How best to convert audio files from MP3 to M4A/MP4 format?
Don't do it using MP3s! Transcoding is the process of converting audio files from one format to another. Since many people have their audio files stored as MP3 files, this is a very common question. MP3 is a lossy compression codec (algorithm) that "tosses away" some of the original audio information when a MP3 file is created (encoded). MPEG 4 Audio is a much better encoder than MP3 is (quality-wise and resulting file size-wise). The problem is that going from one lossy audio format to another introduces even more loss in the conversion process (transcoding process). It is the advice of audio experts to never transcode from MP3 to M4A. The loss and distortion is not recommended. Instead, use your .WAV master audio files, re-rip the master audios from your audio CDs or use your audio files that are stored in a lossless audio file format such as FLAC or APE. There are many programs available that can convert from a lossless audio file (or audio CD) to a pristine sounding MPEG 4 Audio file (M4A or MP4). See the list below to locate many free and commercial M4A/MP4 encoding applications.

[asdf_admin]

tech nerd to book nerd ...

here you go; http://www.apple.com/mpeg4/ :wink: