What Are AAC Files?
Apple Computer has incorporated MPEG-4 AAC into QuickTime 6 and higher, and iTunes 4, as well as its award-winning iPod portable music player. Because of its exceptional performance and quality, Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) is at the core of the MPEG-4, 3GPP, and 3GPP2 specifications and is the new audio codec of choice for Internet, wireless, and digital broadcast arenas. AAC provides audio encoding that compresses much more efficiently than older formats such as MP3, yet delivers quality rivaling that of uncompressed CD audio.
AAC was developed by the MPEG group that includes Dolby, Fraunhofer (FhG), AT&T, Sony, and Nokia-companies that have also been involved in the development of audio codecs such as MP3 and AC3 (also known as Dolby Digital). The AAC codec in QuickTime 6 and higher builds upon new, state-of-the art signal processing technology from Dolby Laboratories and brings true variable bit rate (VBR) audio encoding to QuickTime.
• Encoded using iTunes with the Quicktime AAC Encoder
• Encoded at 256 Kbps
• Files are saved with a ".m4a" file extension
• Ideal for Macintosh, iTunes and iPod Users