Hear It First Trivia Quiz

Answer: Moving Picture Experts Group

The International Organization for Standardization (IOS) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) formed a working group in 1988 called the Moving Picture Experts Group. From this group, standards were adopted that led to MPEG files for video and audio reproductions on electronic media. First to be introduced was MPEG-1 in 1993, which was followed by MPEG-2 in 1995. MPEG-3 was never released on its own but combined with MPEG-2 because its standards were covered by MPEG-2 and unnecessary as a standalone. MPEG-4 was released in 1998.

Answer: 1906

The IEC was formed in June of 1906 and grew out of meetings that began in 1900 at the Paris International Electrical Congress. With the advent of electricity and the industrial revolution, standards were needed to allow for further development of all electrically based technologies. The organization is the leading international organization for setting standards and has 81 countries that are members along with another 82 who are affiliates.

On April 18 1906, an earthquake estimated with a magnitude 7.8 on the Richter scale struck San Francisco devastating the city.

Answer: When the perception of one sound is affected by the presence of another sound

Auditory masking was first reported by Alfred Marshall Mayer in 1894 when he noted that one tone could be made inaudible to the human ear by another tone of lower frequency. Ernst Terhardt created an algorithm that describes the phenomenon with high accuracy. Based on these ideas it was possible to develop software and standards that allowed for less data to be necessary to remain faithful to the original source without keeping all of the sounds found in the original source.

MP3 is the Audio Layer III of MPEG-1 and MPEG-2.

Answer: SoundJam MP

SoundJam MP was developed by Jeff Robbin, Bill Kincaid and Dave Heller in the late 1990s as MP3 player software for the Apple operating system. Robbin and Kincaid had originally worked for Apple as software engineers before going out on their own and developing SoundJam MP. Once Apple purchased it they came on board again as the head developers for the software.

The Michael Jordan movie was 1996's "Space Jam" which featured live action and animation allowing Jordan to play basketball with Bugs Bunny and company.

Answer: Wave

The WAVES, Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, were the U.S. Naval Reserve (Women's Reserve) during WWII. A wave is also something you would see at the beach.

Microsoft and IBM developed .wav files for storing audio bitstreams on PCs. It was initially released in 1991 and is compatible with Windows, Macintosh, and Linux operating systems. It is part of the Resource Interchange File Format (RIFF) bitstream format. Wave files are not compressed like MP3s and this makes transferring them problematic. It is the main format used in Windows for storing raw uncompressed audio files.

Answer: True

When creating the data to be disseminated, the author wants something dynamic that can do many different things hence the complexity of the encoder. Since far fewer encoders are needed than decoders this complexity and the expense associated with it is worth the flexibility provided. Decoders only need to read and interpret what the author encoded and therefore are simplistic and cost-effective. Since more are required to disseminate the product to a wider audience, this works out perfectly. Thus the system includes a 'smart' encoder and a 'dumb' decoder.

Answer: Red

Philips and Sony initially published the Red Book in 1980 and the standards contained therein were adopted by the IEC first in 1987 then corrected in 1999. The audio specifications establish that an audio CD should be 80 minutes long (79.8 minutes), that a track must be at least 4 seconds in length and that a total of no more than 99 tracks can be on one CD. CD audio is the most common source for creating MP3 files.

"The Little Red Book" as it is known in the West is actually titled "Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung" and was a staple of the early communist movement in China. It was first published in 1964.

Answer: Napster

Napster created a site where users could exchange their audio files for free in clear violation of copyright laws. Most of these files were MP3 files but any data compression technology would have served the same purpose. One of the most vocal opponents of Napster was Lars Ulrich of the band Metallica.

Although the site argued for the freedom of people to use file sharing technology, it lost in court and was shut down.

Answer: Coder - decoder

A codec is a computer program that is capable of both encoding and decoding data. A portmanteau is the formation of a new word from the parts of two other words. In this case (co)der - (dec)oder or (co)mpressor - (dec)ompressor. There are many different codec programs available, MP3 just happens to be the most popular. Lossy data compression is a method by which some of the data is 'lost' in order to compress the information.

In audio files it is based on the concept of auditory masking as to which data can be lost.

Answer: False

MPEG-4 is actually still developing as a standard as technology changes, it changes also. It is divided into parts and these parts can be amended. The purpose is to have a standard for developers that can grow. In 2009, Part 25 was launched for 3D Graphics compression and Part 27 was launched for 3D Graphics conformance. In 2012, Part 28 was under development.