Glossary

AAC stands for either MPEG2 Advanced Audio Coding or MPEG4 Advanced Audio Coding.
The MPEG2 audio-encoding standard of the format is not backward-compatible with MPEG1 audio. MPEG2 AAC can produce better audio quality than MP3 using less physical space for the files. MPEG4 AAC can produce better quality and smaller files than MPEG2 AAC. AAC is the audio file format used by Apple in their popular iTunes Music Store. Files may appear on your system with the ".M4A" filename extension. View Xilisoft Audio Converter , it converts between MP3, WAV, WMA, AAC, FALC, OGG, APE, MP4, M4A, MP2, VQF .

AIFF stands for Audio Interchange File Format.
Apple Computer developed this audio file format to store high-quality audio and musical instrument information.

The audio file format used by Apple in their popular iTunes Music Store often appears on your system with the ".M4A" filename extension. M4A can produce better audio quality than MP3 using less physical space for the files. View The best M4A to MP3 Converter .

MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface.
A MIDI file doesn't contain actual audio data, but rather contains commands that let MIDI-capable synthesizers re-create a specific musical passage. The MIDI protocol has been used for years as a way for electronic musical instruments (like digital keyboards and sequencers) to communicate with each other.
Computer sound cards typically feature the ability to interpret MIDI files into music. Since they don't actually contain the music itself, but rather the commands used to re-create music, MIDI files are a lot smaller than audio files like MP3s, WMAs, or WAVs. MIDI files are small and manageable enough that it's not uncommon to find them embedded in web pages, adding a sonic element to the surfing experience. MIDI files usually appear with the ".MID" filename extension.

MP3 stands for MPEG1 (or MPEG2) Audio Layer III. Too often people refer MP3 as MPEG3, which is incorrect, because such format doesn't even exist.
MP3 is a popular compression format used for audio files on computers and portable devices. It is a method to store good quality audio into small files by using psychoacoustics in order to get rid of the data from the audio that most of the humans can't hear.
MP3's bitrates vary from 8kbps to 320kbps. A typical MP3 file encoded at 128kbps is near CD quality. MP3 audio is increasingly being used in video production coupled with various MPEG4 video codecs like divx. View CD to MP3 Ripper , DVD to MP3 Ripper , and MP3 WAV Converter .

An MP3 ID3 Tag is information stored at the end of an MP3 file. The tag can contain information about the Title/Songname, Artist, Album, Year, Comment, and Genre in version 1 and also Track in version 1.1. A proposed Version 2 is out which would be extendable to include more information and pictures. View Xilisoft Audio Converter , converting M4A to MP3, MP4 to MP3, MP3 to WAV etc, and supporting ID3 tag .

Ogg is the umbrella for a group of several related multimedia and signal processing projects that are open source and royalty free. Development of these projects is controlled by Xiph.org. View Xilisoft OGG MP3 Converter .
First and best-known project of these is called Ogg Vorbis, a royalty-free audio compression technology.

VQF is one of the "alternative" audio compression formats back in 1990s that was aimed to take over MP3 by providing better audio quality than MP3 with lower bitrate. Failed miserabely due various reasons, most notably because of restrictive licensing. Nowadays the only serious alternatives to MP3 are probably Ogg Vorbis and Microsoft's WMA.

WMA stands for Windows Media Audio.
WMA, an audio format owned by Microsoft, is a part of Microsoft's Windows Media technology, which includes Microsoft's Digital Rights Management tools, Windows Media Video encoding technology and Windows Media Audio encoding technology.
Windows Media Audio is one of today's most popular Net audio formats. Though not as popular as MP3, WMA tends to outperform MP3 in the area of sound quality, particularly with files encoded at lower bitrates like 64 or 96 Kbps. This performance advantage makes it handy for applications like portable digital audio players, where total play time is limited by a finite amount of internal memory. View Xilisoft WMA MP3 Converter .