Sustainability of Digital Formats
 Planning for Library of Congress Collections

Format Description Categories >> Browse Alphabetical List>> Back

Identification and description

Full name	Matroska File Format with MP3 Audio Encoding
Description	Matroska file containing an essence encoded as MP3 audio.
Production phase	Generally a final-state (end-user delivery) format.
Relationship to other formats
Has subtype	Matroska, Matroska Multimedia Container
Contains	MP3_ENC, MP3 (MPEG Layer III Audio Encoding)
May contain	Video essences and other elements, not described at this time.

Local use

LC experience or existing holdings	None
LC preference

Sustainability factors

Disclosure	Both Mastroska and MP3 are open standards. Matroska is an offshoot of the Multimedia Container Format project. MP3 was developed by the Motion Pictures Expert Group (MPEG), Coding of audio, picture, multimedia and hypermedia information.
Documentation	The Matroska specification is published online at http://www.matroska.org/technical/specs/index.html. For MP3: (1) MPEG-1: ISO/IEC 11172-3. Information technology -- Coding of moving pictures and associated audio for digital storage media at up to about 1,5 Mbit/s -- Part 3: Audio. (2) MPEG-2: ISO/IEC 13818-3. Information technology -- Generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information -- Part 3: Audio. These MPEG specifications describe the syntax and semantics for three classes of compression methods known as Layers I, II, and III. MP3 is Layer III. See list of ISO documents in Format specifications below; see also MPEG-1 and MPEG-2.
Adoption	Modest adoption of this combination of Matroska and LPCM. One example can be found on the website of the Canadian Archivematica project.
Licensing and patents	See Matroska and MP3
Transparency	See Matroska and MP3
Self-documentation	See Matroska and MP3
External dependencies	See Matroska and MP3
Technical protection considerations	See Matroska and MP3

Quality and functionality factors

File type signifiers

Tag	Value	Note

Notes

General
History

Format specifications

• Matroska Specification (http://matroska.org/technical/specs/index.html ).
• ISO/IEC 11172-3:1993. Information technology -- Coding of moving pictures and associated audio for digital storage media at up to about 1,5 Mbit/s -- Part 3: Audio. Describes syntax and semantics for three classes of compression methods known as Layers I, II, and III.
• ISO/IEC 11172-3:1993/Cor 1:1996
• ISO/IEC 13818-3 (Second edition, 1998). Information technology -- Coding of moving pictures and associated audio information -- Part 3: Audio. Describes syntax and semantics for three classes of compression methods known as Layers I, II, and III.

Useful references