Gourt Home::Gourt :: Comparison of audio codecs
The following tables compare general and technical information for a variety of audio codecs.
General information
Basic general information about the codecs: creator/company, license/price etc.
| Codec | Creator | First public release date | Latest stable version | Cost (USD) | Common implementations | Lossy/Lossless | Patented |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AAC | ISO/IEC MPEG Audio Committee | 1997 | ISO/IEC 14496-3 | Developer: varies; User: Free | OSI: FAAC; | Proprietary: iTunesLossy | |
| ALAC | Apple Computer | 2004-04-28 | QuickTime 7.0.3 | User: Free | Proprietary: QuickTime, iTunes | Lossless | |
| FLAC | Xiph.Org Foundation | 2001-07-20 | 1.1.2 | Free | OSI: reference | Lossless | |
| Monkey's Audio | Matthew T. Ashland | 200?-??-?? | 4.01b2 | Free | Proprietary | Lossless | |
| MP3 | ISO/IEC MPEG Audio Committee | 1993 | ISO/IEC 11172-3 | prices | OSI: LAME; Proprietary: Nero | Lossy | |
| Speex | Xiph.Org Foundation | 2003-03-24 | 1.1.12 | Free | OSI: reference | Lossy(optimised for voice) | |
| Vorbis | Xiph.Org Foundation | 2002-07-20 | 1.1.2 | Free | OSI: reference, aoTuV | Lossy | |
| WavPack | Conifer Software | 1998 | 4.31 | Free | OSI: reference | Lossless | |
| Windows Media Audio | Microsoft Corp. | 1999 | 9.1 | Free for owners of the Windows operating system * | Both |
First public release date is first of either specification publishing or source releasing, or in the case of closed-specification, closed-source codecs, is the date of first binary releasing. Many developing codecs have pre-releases consisting of pre-1.0 versions and perhaps 1.0 release candidates (RCs), although 1.0 may not necessarily be the release version.
Latest stable version is that of specification or reference tools.
If there happens to be OSI licensed software available for a particular codec, this does not necessarily permit one to use said codec free of charge. Likewise, if there is only proprietary licensed software available for a particular codec, one might be able to use the codec free of charge.
Operating System Support
Operating Systems that the codecs are available for.
| Codec | Windows | Mac OS X | Linux | BSD | Unix |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AAC | |||||
| ALAC1 | |||||
| FLAC | |||||
| Monkey's Audio | |||||
| MP3 | |||||
| RealAudio2 | |||||
| Speex | |||||
| Vorbis | |||||
| WavPack | |||||
| WMA2 | 3 |
1 An open-source decoder for ALAC has been reverse engineered.
2 The ffmpeg project has reverse engineered some codecs of the RealAudio and Windows Media Audio (DivX Audio v1 and DivX Audio v2) formats. This enables their use on any POSIX compatible system.
3 Microsoft has outsourced their WMA support on Mac OS X to Telestream, Inc. who created and maintain Windows Media Components for QuickTime.
Technical details
| Codec | Algorithm | Sample Rate | Bit rate1 | Bits per sample | CBR | VBR | Stereo | Mono |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AAC | Lossy, Hybrid | 8 Hz to 192 kHz 2 | 8 to 529 kbit/s (stereo) | Any | : Dual, Mid/Side, Intensity, Parametric | |||
| ALAC | Lossless | variable | ||||||
| FLAC | Lossless | 1 Hz to 1048.57 kHz | variable | 4, 8, 16, 24(, 32) | ||||
| Monkey's Audio | Lossless | 8, 11.025, 12, 16, 22.05, 24, 32, 44.1, 48 kHz | variable | |||||
| MP3 | Lossy | 8, 11.025, 12, 16, 22.05, 24, 32, 44.1, 48 kHz | 8, 16, 24, 32, 40, 48, 56, 64, 80, 96, 112, 128, 160, 192, 224, 256, 320 kbit/s | Any (typically uses fp internally) | : Dual, Mid/Side, Intensity | |||
| RealAudio | Lossless, Lossy | Varies (see article) | Varies (see article) | Varies (see article) | ||||
| Speex | Speech | 8, 16, 32(, 48) kHz | NB: 2.15 to 24.6 kbit/s WB: 4 to 44.2 kbit/s | : Intensity | ||||
| Vorbis | Lossy | 1 Hz to 200 kHz | variable | 8, 16, 24, 32 | : Dual, Lossless, Phase, Point (Intensity) | |||
| WavPack | Lossless, Lossy, Hybrid | 1 Hz to 16777.216 kHz | variable in lossless mode; 196 kbit/s and up in lossy mode (for CD audio) | varies in lossless mode; 2.2 minimum in lossy mode | ||||
| Windows Media Audio | Lossless, Lossy | 8, 11.025, 16, 22.05, 32, 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96 kHz | 4 to 768kbit/s, variable in lossless encoding | 16, 24 |
1 lossless compression is always VBR. *
2 MPEG 2 AAC was limited to a 96khz sampling rate, however, with MPEG 4 AAC, a later version part of the MPEG 4 specification, the maximum sampling rate has been increased to 192khz.
See also
External links
"Comparison of audio codecs"