If you have an mp3 song streaming player that is capable of streaming from the Web, you can often use it to play mp3 songs without first saving them to your computer hard drive. This feature allows you to listen to music from the same server on which it’s served without consuming any of your bandwidth — although this does require that you have enough free space on your hard disk to store the files.
Streaming is a common way for MP3 players to access online music. A file is accessed by your computer via the Internet, and your MP3 player then decodes it in real time for playback. There are several ways for webmasters to dish up MP3s for “streaming” and most users don’t have to worry too much about the precise technique in use.
The MP3 format is well-suited to streaming because it compresses the data used to represent a song by a factor of 10 or so and still maintains something close to CD quality. This reduces the size of the file and lets you fit thousands of songs into a tiny pocket-sized player. Although true audiophiles scoff at the quality sacrifice, millions of people consider it “good enough.”
How to Stream MP3 Songs Online for Free
In addition to compression, MP3 also makes use of psychoacoustic sub-band coding to reduce the amount of processing needed to represent an acoustic waveform in digital form. This is a key reason why the quality of MP3s cannot fully match that of an uncompressed audio file, even when using the same encoder software and playing at the same bit rate.
Almost every modern device that can play a CD can also play an MP3 file, whether stored on a hard drive or burned to a disc. Many computers have built-in audio players that can handle MP3s, and most popular computer software such as iTunes and Winamp can also play them. In addition, almost all modern car entertainment systems can play MP3s.
In the early days of the Internet, connection speeds were quite slow, so it was important that music files could be accessed quickly by the end user. Hence, the popularity of compressed formats such as MP3. Each bit of information takes a lot of time to transfer over the Internet, so anything that could reduce this burden was a big help. The biggest advantage of an MP3 file is that it can be played back in real time without requiring any downloading before handing off to the player for playback. This is why it’s a good idea to have a good mp3 player with plenty of storage capacity. This is especially important if you want to be able to download and listen to a large number of files. However, if you do want to download the MP3s, most players allow you to adjust the MP3 bit rate to 320 kilobits per second or higher for improved sound quality. This is called a variable bit rate or VBR encoding.
