About the Mp2 file format
- Name
- MPEG Layer II Compressed Audio File
- Extension
- .mp2
- Format
- Binary
- Category
- Audio
- Developer
- Moving Picture Experts Group
- Description
- Audio format that uses MPEG-1 Layer II compression to reduce the file size; mainly replaced by the ubiquitous .MP3 format, but is still used for digital radio and digital television broadcasts.
- MIME Type
- audio/mpeg
- Sample
- sample.mp2
- Wikipedia
- .mp2 on Wikipedia
MPEG Layer II (MP2) Compressed Audio File is an audio file format used when streaming MPEG audios. MP2 is a lossy format that is a predecessor of the MP3. The MP3 file format needs a lower bit rate to attain the same quality of the MP2 files. It is widely used thanks to its high error resilience and sound better at high bit rates (256 Kbps and above).
MP2 was developed by (MPEG) Moving Picture Expert Group in a move to standardize coding of both audio and video files for use on Digital Radios and TV Broadcasting. It aims at reducing the size of the file while retaining the quality of the sound. MP2 is a great competitor to the Dolby Digital (the industry standard for DVD- video).
The file sizes are reduced by compressing them using MPEG Audio layer 2. Over the years, the MP3 format has gained more popularity than MP2. Many portable audio players are compatible with MP2. However, more players are now designed to play MP3 files making it easier to convert MP2 to MP3 for easy compatibility.
Apple iTunes, Microsoft Windows Player, Apple QuickTime Player, VLC media player, MPlayer, and KMPlayer programs can open the MP2 files.