Title: Sound file formats
Course: Appdate yourself 4t ESO (in English) - Curs 2016/17 > Section: Topic 13 Audio editing

Material

According to the file's extension, you have to be able to recognise the sound format that you are working with because each extension corresponds to a file and each file is either compatible or incompatible depending on what your use will be. Within the large spectrum of sound formats, there are 9 basic ones we will discuss, each with its own characteristics for use.

Type | Application | Size
CDA | Specific format of CD audios.  If you view the contents of a CD's audio notice that all the files are in the format CDA. | Large
WAV | Wave format.  Windows standard | From large to very large, depending on the file's characteristics.
MID | Music files encoded according to  MIDI system. It records data interpretation and not the music itself. | Very small
MUS | Specific format for Music Time. | Very small
AIF | Standard format to Mac platforms (you can also listen on Windows). It's the parallel to WAV. In fact, you can manually change the extension AIF to WAV. | Very large
MP3 | The most popular and used encoding format of quality music online. Works in WAV format but compresses those parts that may be inaudible. Reduces file sizes. It has become so popular that most CD players and DVD players are compatible with this format. There are portable MP3 players. | Small
OGG | Very evolved format according to some successor like MP3, open, cross-platform, etc. which has very high quality with very small file size. Some MP3 players can reproduce OGG files. | Small
RA, RM | Audio format used by Internet and encoded by Real Encoder. It is the format in which video / audio files in the XTEC server operates. | Very small
WMA | Compressed audio format of Windows. Its specific player is Windows Media Player. The benefits it has in terms of quality / weight are similar to files RA/ RM. Some portable MP3 players can reproduce WMA files. | Very small

Sometimes it is necessary to perform conversions between different formats. Currently there are several converters, many of them online, without downloading any software. An example in this link.