This is the audio codec created by Microsoft in Windows Media Player, it is commonly used to encode music downloads from stores such as Napster and Rhapsody. WMA audio quality can range from 32kps all the way up to 192kbps (the rule of thumb is that the higher the kbps the more MB's being used on your hard drive!), WMA is generally the smallest audio codec size on the market, which is why many people use it.

Windows Media Audio PRO

This is a more recent more lossy format of the WMA file extension, this means that Windows Media Player will create a much better sounding file whilst keeping a small file size and not losing a lot of audio quality. The only main problem with WMA Pro is that very few devices support is, so it has not widely been accepted as industry standard for audio

Windows Media Audio (Variable Bit rate)

This version of the Windows Media Audio codec is slightly different in the fact is varies the size of its bit rate depending on the sound being produced the codec will produce a higher bit rate or a lower bit rate, which allows for bigger or smaller file sizes. This can be a indifferent experience sometimes and is generally not used very often by audiophiles

Windows Media Player Audio Lossless

This codec provides the highest quality audio at the most hard consuming space. This audio codec is most used by audiophiles with really nice speaker system or studio producers. Most people will choose not to use this codec because it takes up the most space on the hard drive and you won't notice the difference.

WMV-Windows Media Video

This is the video codec created by Microsoft, used by many online news and media content providers this codec can adapt well to streaming on the go because of the unique compression used in it. Windows Media Video is built upon codecs such as MPEG-1 and ASF, it has several different codecs which combine to create the WMV extension.

MP3

A industry standard audio codec for many different reasons, it has been involved in the height of P2P sharing and it has been involved in releasing people from DRM (Digital Rights Management). Whichever you look at it the MP3 audio codec has been a huge success, every single MP3 player on the market uses it as a supported format, the sound isn't as clear as WMA lossless but it still packs the file size down to be very small with the typical MP3 file being about 5-6 mb

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