- Extension
- .gsm
- .ra
- Format
- Binary
- Binary
- Category
- Audio
- Audio
- Developer
- European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI)
- RealNetworks
- Description
- A lossy file format used to compress speech in Global Standard for Mobile (GSM) telecommunications. It is very effective for reducing audio file size. However, encoding and decoding audio signals severally is discouraged as the final product will have a lot of noise. Popular with some voice mail software but it is CPU intensive.
- RealPlayer created RA for audio streaming. It makes use of various audio codecs from those that deliver high-fidelity sounds to those that record low bitrate audio data. Radio stations mainly used it for online streaming, but current formats have overthrown it.
- MIME Type
- audio/x-gsm
- audio/vnd.rn-realaudio
