how does mp3 work?

Question

my mom wants to get my dad a mp3 player that has a sd slot and can hold pictures for christmas. how does mp3 work? do you download the songs off the internet? and which is better mp3 or ipod? i want facts plz not ur rants that is what myspace blogs are for. websites could help too.

Answer 1

Mp3 (.mp3) or mpeg layer 3 [note 1] is an audio file encoded in a (twelve-times-)smaller format than the traditional high-quality wave (.wav) format used on cds. It was developed by a team of German engineers and became a standard format in 1991.
Mp3 is a file just like any other type of file (.txt or text word processing files are probably the most common) that people can transfer via the internet. There is a copyright on the mp3 format, and someone collects a small royalty (fee) every time such a file is encoded or supported. Ogg files [note 2] are an open-source, royalty-free alternative to mp3s, albeit less common as of yet.

There are many ways to transfer any kind of files such as
1) P2P (peer to peer) file sharing, for which you would download a client such at BitTorrent [note 2.5]. This is only for non-copyrighted material, however, and people sharing copyrighted material may be prosecuted by big corporations on behalf of the copyright holders (musicians or whomever). [note 3]
2) Sites like napster.com, iTunes, emusic.com allow people to download copyrighted music by paying a monthly fee which is debited from a credit card each month. These sites also usually make you download a client (program interface) ie, a download client that does e-commerce. Yahoo also has such a client, called the Yahoo Music Engine. iTunes is the client for Apple's iPod. [note 4]

The songs are downloaded from a file server (a file server is a computer that hosts files to share over the internet with people who request them) at the company's headquarters and branches. P2P downloads, ie torrents, are "seeded" or downloaded from other computers which the program interface client has set up to act as file servers (with the implied permission of the person who installed the client--be it iTunes or whatever).

Mp3 is a file format. Ipod is the name of Apple's mp3 player. It is a portable device, like a walkman to listen to mp3 files. Competing mp3-player manufacturers include Samsung, RCA, Sony, iRiver, and Creative to name a few [note 5]. You can search any of these names with the words mp3 player and you will come up with something about their product. Some of these players also support ogg format.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

Now thats a the STUPIDES query i've ever heard!!! Why do u name Mom, Mom!!! Why do u name pupies good pupies!!! Now I have a query for u: Why dont u name papers, ponders!!!!! Now thats a query!!!!!