"MP3 Opinions_1" genre: Spoken Word
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	This is the first in a series of weekly commentaries and opinions on the state of the digital music world.
	Credits: @ MP3 Opinions.com
	Story Behind the Song MP3 and other digital music formats have become the biggest story on the internet. These commentaries are designed to stimulate discussion and promote the understanding of the player and issues affecting this emerging industry. Lyrics MP3 as a file format has been around for a few years now, and there are some common misconceptions about it. First off, it is not "CD quality", although it comes close. The main reason for the sound degradation is simply mathematics. You can't take a file and shrink it 12 times and get the same audio result. The portions that are compressed out of the file are reportedly beyond human hearing anyway, so only your dog Spot can tell the difference. As the search for a file format to take MP3s place continues, a more secure format that is, we want to know why you love your MP3s so much. Sony is touting ATRAC3 as the answer, while Microsoft says that its new Windows Media Format (WMF) is it. Of course there are other formats out there too, such as Real Audio, Liquid Audio, and other proprietary formats. Sound Quality aside, we think that the Big Four Record companies will go with whatever format the users want ...eventually. We think that they will all start with a protected format such as WMF or ATRAC3, but probably switch to the more popular MP3 format.

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