The IMA 4:1 audio compression format is now based on a standard proposed by the Interactive Multimedia Association, and is used to compress 16-bit sound with a ratio of 4:1. It is particularly good at compressing CD-quality music and is fully integrated into QuickTime.
The mLaw 2:1 format (pronounced "mu-law") is an international standard for compressing voice-quality audio (typically 16-bit, 8 kHz speech) with a ratio of 2:1. It is often used in telephony applications, and also on the Internet as the encoding format for ".au" sound files.
The 16-bit "little-endian" codec provides support for the byte-ordering used on Intel-standard personal computers. This codec lets QuickTime directly play 16-bit sound files encoded in the popular ".wav" file format.
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