About the M4a file format
- Name
- MPEG-4 Audio File
- Extension
- .m4a
- Format
- Binary
- Category
- Audio
- Developer
- Apple
- Description
- An M4A file is an audio file created in the MPEG-4 format, a multimedia container format used to store compressed audio and video data. It contains audio encoded with either the Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) codec or the Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC).
- MIME Type
- audio/mp4
- Sample
- sample.m4a
- Wikipedia
- .m4a on Wikipedia
M4a is an extension file used for audio file encoding with advanced audio coding (AAC) that uses a lossy compression algorithm. The file format came around as a successor to MP3.
The quality of files in M4a is better and smaller when compared to the MP3 file extension. The enhancement on the format enabled the files to sound better when encoded at the same bit rate as the MP3.
M4a file compression is based on human perception. If the sound is beyond human perception, the sound data might get lost with no noticeable changes in quality. The audio file is made up of small blocks that allow change of signals as desired. There are larger blocks that are used to represent less complicated section music.
The M4a file format was created by Apple to enable their users to be able to tell the difference between MP4 files types. The file format is commonly used to store audio books and digital music content. Apple iPhones uses .m4a extension for their ringtones.
iTunes, Roxio Popcorn, Quicktime , Toast, and Windows Media Player (WMP) are some of the programs that open M4a files. There are, however, media payers that only play after they are renamed to MP4.
