| Capability
| Rating
|
| Browser compatibility and percent of browsers with Plug-in
| Excellent.
|
| Interactive sound design capabilities
| Limited/None. Technology is a compression format, not a multimedia authoring environment.
|
| Software cost for encoding and streaming
| Free to inexpensive.
Small licensing fee may apply for professional applications. No dedicated server required for posting downloadable files.
|
| Level of documentation and support
| Limited.
|
| Audio encoding and content generation
| Easy.
|
| Audio authoring and delivery
| Difficult to Easy.
Installation of SHOUTcast server for MP3 streaming requires Unix developing expertise. Posting MP3 files on a standard web server for downloading is easy.
|
| Audio fidelity and compression
| Outstanding.
Depends on the rate.
|
| Low-bandwidth performance
| Excellent.
MP3 shines in low-bandwidth environments. To the discerning listener, the MP3 encoding algorithm produces the most ear-pleasing and natural form of audio degradation after compression for 28.8 bandwidth environments.
|
| Server performance and quality of software tools for large-scale streaming
| Good -- SHOUTcast Server.
But primarily a downloadable format. Streaming options such as SHOUTcast are becoming more widespread. Currently very few tools available for large-scale broadcasting. |