Understanding MP3

MPEG audio coding became popular under the name MP3. It is now the most important means of delivering high quality audio over the internet and will play the lead role in digital movie sound as well as in digital audio broadcast.The technology is complex and comprises a vast range of topics, from psychoacustics to digital signal processing, and from mathematics to sofware engineering.

This book explains the ideas, the concepts, and the implementation of MP3. Reading it requires no special prerequisites, but still, the book is detailed enough to include a fully executable highly efficient MP3 decoding engine. The book strives to explain the transformation of a bitstream into music in a way that is understandable.