AAC — Advanced Audio Coding (Also MPEG-2 AAC)

An audio compression scheme that is a continuation of the MP3 CODEC but uses better filtering methods, noise shaping, and quantization resolution to produce higher-quality audio files at smaller bit rates. AAC is designed for use in digital broadcasting systems as well as for multichannel and surround audio (such as 5.1). Plus, based on its capability to support up to 96kHz sampling rates and 48 channels (including LFE), AAC could be the basis for audio in multimedia for the foreseeable future. Some streaming audio formats that have adopted the AAC scheme already are Liquid Audio (.lqt), AT&T’s already fading .a2b format, and the soon-to-be-realized MP4 format.