How It Works
The MP3 format has completely rewritten the rules of music distribution. It has had a huge impact on how people collect and listen to music. And with the growing popularity of MP3 players and all the free mp3 around, it is moving beyond the computer.
The MP3 Format - MP3 Midi
The MP3 format is a compression system for MP3 music. This format helps to reduce the number of bytes in a song, without hurting the quality of the song's sound. The goal of the MP3 format when compressing a CD-quality song into MP3 music is to reduce it by a factor of 10 to 14.Without the MP3 music losing the CD sound quality. A 32 megabyte (MB) song on a CD compresses down to about 3 MB on MP3 music format. This lets you do mp3 downloads of songs in minutes at rather than hours, and you can store 10 to 20 MP3 music songs on an MP3 player using a relatively small amount of memory.
Taking Your MP3 Music Downloads with You - Mp3 to Cda
Many people who start collecting MP3 music they get from free mp3 downloads, find that they want to listen to them in all kinds of places. Small, portable MP3 music players answer this demand. These players are like portable cassette or players, except that they are smaller and they use solid state memory instead of a physical medium like a tape or a CD. All of the players currently on the market include a software application that lets you transfer your MP3 files into the player. Most of them also include utilities for copying music from CDs or Web sites, and the ability to create custom playlists.
You can find free mp3 downloads with MP3 search engines like Vroosh.com.
The MP3 music player is a wonderful example of a new use of existing technologies. None of the components in a typical MP3 player is radical, or even new, technology. By simply combining these components in a new way, and writing some code to control it all, manufacturers have created an entirely new line of consumer products that allow mp3 downloads!
The job of the MP3 player is pretty straightforward. When you play a MP3 music, the player must:
- Pull the music from memory byte by byte
- Decompress the MP3 encoding
- Run the decompressed bytes through a digital-to-analog converter
- Amplify the analog signal so you can hear it.
The main difference between a portable CD player and an MP3 player is that the CD contains the bytes instead of memory, and on a CD the bytes are already decompressed so no decompression is needed.
How MP3 Players Work - Parts of a Player
Let's take a look at the components that make up a typical MP3 player:
- Data Port
- Memory
- Microprocessor
- Digital Signal Processor (DSP)
- Display
- Playback Controls
- Audio Port
- Amplifier
- Power Supply
- MP3 Music
The player plugs into your computer's USB port or parallel port to transfer mp3 download data. USB-based players transfer data many times faster than those that use the parallel port. The MP3 files are saved in the player's memory. USB-based players would be best choice if you are doing a lot of free mp3 downloads. Even compressed mp3 music takes up a lot of space.
Types of Memory:
- Internal Flash memory
- CompactFlash cards
- SmartMedia cards
- Memory Stick
- Internal microdrive
- Iomega Clik! removable media
With the exception of the last two, these are all types of solid state memory. The advantage to solid state memory is that there are no moving parts; and no moving parts means better reliability and no skips in the music.
The microprocessor is the brains of the player. It monitors user input through the playback controls, displays information about the current song on the LCD panel and sends directions to the DSP chip that tells it exactly how to process the audio.
The DSP pulls the song data from memory, applies any special effects, or EQ, and streams it to the amplifier. The DSP runs a decompression algorithm that undoes the compression of the MP3 music file and then a Digital-to-analog converter turns the bytes back into waves.
The amplifier boosts the strength of the signal and sends it to the audio port, where a pair of headphones or ear buds are connected.
All of the portable MP3 players are battery-powered. Most use one or two AA batteries and last for approximately 10 to 12 hours on a single charge. Many of the players also have AC adapters so they can be plugged into a normal electrical outlet, and some even offer DC adapters for use in a car.
The latest innovation is MP3 players that contain tiny hard disk drives. These drives can store 10 to 100 times more than flash memory devices can! This especially important if you are going to be seaching the internet for free mp3 downloads for your mp3 players.
