No format has been more endearing to an audiophile than MP3. Over the years MP3 has been so popular that the term has eventually established itself as a noun and today we use it as a synonym of "song".
As all good things come to an end, the MP3-era has also reached its end after being extensively admired for decades. Consumers chose nothing but MP3 when it came to download, share or stream music, until now.
German-based creators of MP3 at the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits (Fraunhofer IIS) that introduced the format back in the 1980s have finally announced, that the institution will terminate the licensing program for some MP3-related patents which effectively halts industry support, reported Channel NewsAsia.
Although, users will be still able to listen to MP3 files, but chances are upcoming inventors will no longer include the format in their blueprints and would probably opt for the advanced alternatives.
After being introduced in the 80s, MP3 literally revolutionized the music industry, as it could compress and reduce the size of an audio file to just 10% of its original size and that almost single-handedly crushed the CD business and unleashed a whole new arena of MP3 players.
But today, the popularity of MP3 format has decreased noticeably due to other more advanced options such as AAC.
"Although there are more efficient audio codecs with advanced features available today, MP3 is still very popular amongst consumers," Fraunhofer IIS said on its website.
"However, most state-of-the-art media services such as streaming or TV and radio broadcasting use modern ISO-MPEG codecs such as the AAC family or in the future MPEG-H. Those can deliver more features and a higher audio quality at much lower bitrates compared to MP3," the website further said.
