RFC 3003 (rfc3003) - Page 1 of 5

The audio/mpeg Media Type

Alternative Format: Original Text Document
Next >
Network Working Group                                         M. Nilsson
Request for Comments: 3003                                 November 2000
Category: Standards Track


                       The audio/mpeg Media Type

Status of this Memo

   This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
   Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
   improvements.  Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
   Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
   and status of this protocol.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2000).  All Rights Reserved.

Abstract

   The audio layers of the MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 standards are in frequent
   use on the internet, but there is no uniform Multipurpose Internet
   Mail Extension (MIME) type for these files.  The intention of this
   document is to define the media type audio/mpeg to refer to this kind
   of contents.

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
   document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC 2119].

1.  MPEG audio

   The audio compression defined as layer I, layer II and layer III in
   the MPEG-1 [MPEG-1] and MPEG-2 [MPEG-2] standards is a popular method
   of compressing audio with a low quality loss.  The compressed audio
   is split into several small data frames, each containing a frame
   header and compressed audio data.

   The mime type audio/mpeg defines a elementary byte stream containing
   MPEG frames according to [MPEG-1] and [MPEG-2], possibly interspersed
   with non MPEG data.  Non MPEG data is data without MPEG
   synchronization or in other ways not possible to decompress without
   error.

   Typically MPEG audio meta data is concatenated with the MPEG stream,
   e.g., the meta data format ID3 puts a 128 byte data block in the end
   of the stream while ID3v2 [ID3V2] prepends a data block of variable



Nilsson                     Standards Track
Next >