RFC 2586 (rfc2586) - Page 1 of 5

The Audio/L16 MIME content type

Network Working Group                                     J. Salsman
Request for Comments: 2586                             H. Alvestrand
Category: Informational                                      UNINETT
                                                            May 1999


                    The Audio/L16 MIME content type

Status of this Memo

   This memo provides information for the Internet community.  It does
   not specify an Internet standard of any kind.  Distribution of this
   memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999).  All Rights Reserved.

1.  Introduction

   This document defines the audio/L16 MIME type, a reasonable quality
   audio format for use in Internet applications.

   Possible application areas include E-mail, Web served content, file
   upload in Web forms, and more.

2.  The need for the Audio/L16 MIME type

   The set of IETF standard MIME types for audio is small; it consists
   of only the audio/basic and audio/32kadpcm types, which have a
   sampling rate of 8000 samples/second.

   Rates below 11025 may obscure consonant information, even for
   single-voice speech.  Common compressions, such as LPC, are known to
   be microphone-dependant and lossy.  Thus far all IETF MIME Audio
   types either default to 8000 samples per second or use LPC.

   In order for advanced speech recognition and related educational
   applications to make use of internet transports (such as RFC 1867
   file uploading) which use MIME typing, higher standards are required.

   This type repairs that lack by registering a very simple MIME type
   that allows higher rate, linear-encoded audio with multiple channels.

   This is an IESG approved MIME type, and its definition is therefore
   published as an RFC.





Salsman                      Informational