In our ever-modernizing age, things are constantly changing and being updated. What the standard was yesterday may not necessarily still be the standard today. All of these quick changes creates a market with tons and tons of options when it comes to every aspect of our lives.Music is no exception. For years, MP3′s were the standard for music files. Then that all changed as more extensions were developed and released. Suddenly MP3′s weren’t the only things available. One of the extensions that came around was MP4.
MP3 and MP4 sure sound similar, one might just assume MP4 is the next step for MP3, but that is not the case. In fact, they are rather different, with distinct histories and uses. we can note a few major differences. First, MP3 is an audio compression format used to compress and store audio on a computer. MP4 is a media container format used to store media of many possible types on a computer.
Therefore, an MP3 file is limited with regard to the method of compression and can only store audio. MP4 on the other hand, can store video as well as audio. It can even store subtitles for a video file. Also, since MP4 is a container, it can store audio and video that have been compressed in different fashions. In fact, an MP4 file could be audio that has been compressed as an MP3.
These differences make it so that a program that plays an MP3 cannot necessarily play an MP4 and vice versa. The same goes for portable music players, though there are plenty of software options and portable players out there that can play both, for example Winamp.
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