About the Aac file format
- Name
- Advanced Audio Coding File
- Extension
- .aac
- Format
- Binary
- Category
- Audio
- Developer
- Bell Labs, Fraunhofer Institute, Dolby Labs, Sony and Nokia
- Description
- Compressed audio file similar to an .MP3 file, but offers several performance improvements; examples include a higher coding efficiency for both stationary and transient signals, a simpler filterbank, and better handling of frequencies above 16 kHz; maintains quality nearly indistinguishable from the original audio source.
- MIME Type
- audio/x-aac
- Sample
- sample.aac
- Wikipedia
- .aac on Wikipedia
Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) is a coding standard used for lossy data compression. Its primary purpose is to archive high sound quality compared to the MP3 format at the same bitrate. Bell Labs, Fraunhofer Society, Sony Corporation, and Dolby Laboratories are among the companies that were behind the development of AAC. Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) declared it as the standard international format in April 1997.
The AAC was mainly developed to succeed the MP3 format. These files have a high transparency rate. The wideband used in AAC algorithm coding works to ascertain that low data is used in retaining high-quality audios.
The file format does away with any signal information that is considered unnecessary, as well as any redundancies found in the audios. The use of AAC is not restricted to possession of any licenses. As a result, the file format gained a lot of popularity compared to the initially used MP3 format. It is mostly used in streaming content like internet radio.
iTunes and iPod products of Apple announced their support for AAC in April 2003. Apple has since then offered music videos and movies that encode their audios using the AAC. Numerous phone manufacturers like Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, and Samsung also support AAC playback.
