MP3 format and audio books—a good fit

What does MP3 format mean?

A CD stores music, or the human voice, as digital information. If it is an MP3 CD then the digital data has been compressed so that more ‘bits’ of data can fit onto the one CD. Music can be compressed 10–14 times without a detectable decrease in quality of sound. The human voice can be compressed even more.

The term MP3 is a shortened form of MPEG audio Layer-3, which is a subsystem of the original compression system developed for video data. A group associated with its development was the Moving Picture Experts Group (hence the MPEG acronym).

How is the MP3 format being used for audio books

Internet download

Until now the audio book industry has taken its lead from the music one with downloadable versions of audio books over the Internet onto your computer. You can then load the book onto a portable MP3 player or burn a CD which can be played on a compatible CD player. There are problems with getting audio books this way. One company that sells MP3 audio files for downloading is Audible.com. However, they are using a different format to the common one, which leads to various incompatibilities with some MP3 players. These files are also copy protected, which raises further issues of backup.

MP3 CDs

While the popularity of MP3 download is growing it is clear that the full benefits of the technology won’t be realised until more publishers publish audio books directly as MP3 CDs. This will allow the more technophobic, or those who simply can’t be bothered, to directly buy unabridged MP3 audio books. The exciting thing is that an audio book that previously occupied up to 20 normal CDs is now on one MP3 CD.

I anticipate that during the next few years most unabridged audio books will come out this way. Gradually cassettes will be phased out and over time perhaps normal CDs will also disappear. But for now, many titles will be on cassette, CD and MP3 CD.

Apart from the clear advantages of having just one disk instead of a dozen or more CDs or cassettes to handle the MP3 books are considerably cheaper than the other formats. This will give a huge boost to the industry, especially in places in Australia where imported unabridged audio books are often extremely expensive.

The only thing to watch out for is that your CD player is MP3 compatible. The good news is that most of the newer portable CD players are happy with MP3 disks, but you should always check first before buying one. On top of this, all of the MP3 CD titles tested here have worked on our computers (Windows and Apple) running either Windows Media Player or iTunes. You can also download many popular mp3 players for you computer, that will play MP3 CDs, such as Winamp.

For the time being most people will continue to buy their audio books as cassettes or CDs. There are still many more cars with cassette players than with CD players, although this will change quickly. There are even fewer cars equipped with MP3/CD sound systems but most new models from now on will probably have them. For example, Hyundai have been putting them in their new models for some time and Toyota recently announced that it would include MP3/CD systems across their model range from now on.

Audio Books Direct and the MP3 format

For now, Audio Books Direct will be selling MP3 CDs in the common format which can be played on any MP3-compatible player.

If you have any questions or comments about Audio Books and MP3s, please contact us.