mp3 is the most widely supported compressed audio codec in the world. Storing your music in mp3 format will give you the greatest amount of choices for playing back your files.

Fraunhofer IIS, (the inventor of mp3), continues to make improvements to the mp3 codec. In December of 2004, Thomson and Fraunhofer announced the addition of multi-channel support for the mp3 codec (mp3surround).

In March 2009, the new lossless audio codec mp3HD was released.

Early 1970s: Prof. Dieter Seitzer of Erlangen-Nuremberg University in Germany begins wrestling with the problem of compressing music over phone lines. Initially refused research money to pursue the goal, he establishes a group of technicians and scientists interested in audio coding research to tackle the problem.