To reduce the bandwidth used to stream programmes to listeners, Broadcasters encode the audio streams before making them available on the Internet. The stream format that the Broadcasters chooses depends on a number of commercial decisions. Quality of encoding, cost of encoding software, ease of use etc. To be able to decode the encoded Broadcasts Internmet radio products include "audio decoders" to reform the audio stream. The most popular encoder is Microsofts WMA, follwed by MP3 and RealAudio. There are other less popular encoders, for Internet radio, such as AAC (MP4). The RealAudio format is currently important as it is used for some of the BBC stations.
(c) 2007 Netsets Limited
.