Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2016 April 26

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April 26

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mp3/mp4 uses for audio/videos

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Could we use mp3 for compressing video as well? Why is mp4's use for video more common that it's use for audio? According to mp4, it could compress audio too.--Scicurious (talk) 21:26, 26 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

MP3 is actually part of MPEG-1 which is used for videos. It was used for Video CDs. MP3 is free of patents now. But MPEG-4 may still have some, so it costs more to implement. Audio only can be use with MPEG-4 compress and you may see a ".m4a" suffix on a file that is for audio. Apparently iTunes Plus tracks from iTunes Store could be in this form, also with .m4p extension when encrypted. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:20, 26 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
They're two different things. MP3 is an audio codec. The "MP3" name is derived from the full name of the standard: "MPEG-2 Audio Layer III". MP4 is a name given to the container file format specified as part of the MPEG-4 standard (specifically, "MPEG-4 Part 14"). I certainly can see where the confusion comes from. The MPEG could have come up with more descriptive names for their stuff. Oh, and if you're wondering what happened to MPEG-3, it was aborted after the group decided it wasn't necessary. So MPEG-4 is the next released MPEG standard after MPEG-2. --71.110.8.102 (talk) 22:26, 26 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]