MP3: Early format for audio portable
MP3 represent audio portable’s format which we can say the most first and is acceptable in market widely. MP3 is an abbreviation of MPEG-1 Layer III ( is not MPEG-3). This audio format have come to standard since 1992 as part of MPEG-1 standard.
Initially, MP3 was developed by Fraunhofer Gesellschaft ( Fhg), representing a famous company from Germany. MP3 is the most popular audio format and widely used for file sharing, and also for usage in stand-alone portable player. Very often people change term “portable audio player” with ” MP3 Player”, though it is possible that “MP3 Player” also support another format, like WMA or OGG.
WMA: Microsoft challange MP3
Windows Media Audio or WMA represent portable audio format developed by Microsoft. Initially, WMA is of course was made to compete with MP3 format. But in its road, WMA format have to compete with Advanced Audio Coding ( AAC) pioneered by Apple.
WMA format can be played using Windows Media Player in PC or some other player with additional plug-in to play WMA format. Support for WMA format from portable audio player also have more and more. Nowadays, most stand alone “MP3″ player have supported WMA format ( and of course besides MP3 format).
OGG Vorbis: Format for open source lovers
OGG Vorbis represent audio compression format which we can included in category of open source and free of charge from Xiph.org Foundation. Xiph.org have been a non profit organization which have specialization in developing open source tools and multimedia format.
Founder of Xiph.org was Chris Montgomery and also the one who create OGG format. One of the subset of OGG format is Vorbis which compete with MP3 and WMA formats until now. Sometimes people call OGG Vorbis as OGG. But in fact, that was wrong because Vorbis is only a subset of OGG and there are a lot of another subset from OGG, like Theora, Speex, Tremor, etc. Every subset was specific design for certain audio needs.
OGG Vorbis format beginning to develop on September 1998 when FhG announced their plan for asking license fee for MP3 format usage. The stabil version of OGG Vorbis was became available around July 2002 and still developing until now.
