| Name | WMA | MP3 |
| Full name | WMA - Windows Media Audio | MP3 - MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III |
| File extension | .wma | .mp3 |
| MIME type | audio/x-ms-wma | audio/mpeg, audio/MPA, audio/mpa-robust |
| Developed by | Microsoft | Fraunhofer Institute |
| Type of format | Audio file format | Digital audio |
| Description | Windows Media Audio (WMA) is an audio data compression technology developed by Microsoft. The name can be used to refer to its audio file format or its audio codecs. It is a proprietary technology that forms part of the Windows Media framework. Each WMA file features a single audio track in one of the four sub-formats: WMA, WMA Pro, WMA Lossless, or WMA Voice. | MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is an audio coding format for digital audio which uses a form of lossy data compression. It is a common audio format for consumer audio streaming or storage, as well as a de facto standard of digital audio compression for the transfer and playback of music on most digital audio players. |
| Technical details | A WMA file is in most circumstances contained in the Advanced Systems Format (ASF), a proprietary Microsoft container format for digital audio or digital video. The ASF container format specifies how metadata about the file is to be encoded, similar to the ID3 tags used by MP3 files. Metadata may include song name, track number, artist name, and also audio normalization values. | The use of lossy compression is designed to greatly reduce the amount of data required to represent the audio recording and still sound like a faithful reproduction of the original uncompressed audio. An MP3 file that is created using the setting of 128 kbit/s will result in a file that is about 1/11 the size of the CD file created from the original audio source. |
| File conversion | WMA conversion | MP3 conversion |
| Associated programs | ALLPlayer, VLC media player, Media Player Classic, MPlayer, RealPlayer, Winamp. | VLC media player, MPlayer, Winamp, foobar2000. |
| Wiki | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Media_Audio | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3 |
Wma Converter Mac
WMA WMA is a proprietary audio container format of Microsoft. There are 4 codec used in WMA – WMA, WMA Professional, WMA Lossless and WMA Voice. It uses one of the four WMA codec to encode audio. WMA contains the audio file in Advanced Systems Format (ASF) format. The ASF file decides how the metadata will be encoded. What is Free WMA to MP3 Converter: Free WMA to MP3 Converter can convert Windows Media files to MP3 files which can be played in MP3 Players. All Windows Media formats (.wma,.wmv,.asf) are supported. The program is a freeware and does not contain any form of malware, including but not limited to: spyware, viruses, trojans and backdoors.