WMA: What is it? Explained in a simple and understandable way

If you find the file extension WMA on your computer, these are audio files. We show you what exactly WMA is and how the file format works.

Audio Format: What is WMA?

• WMA is an audio codec. WMA was developed by Microsoft and is a competitor product for the MP3 file format. For the normal user there is no big difference between MP3 and WMA.
• With file formats such as WMA and MP3, a song is compressed as losslessly as possible. If a song is recorded in the studio, it can be 50 MB in size. Due to the compression in WMA format, the file is only 5 MB in size, but the quality remains good.
• Since it is the audio codec from Microsoft, not all players accept the WMA format. Windows Media Player or VLC Media Player will help you on your computer. Mobile devices like Apple's iPod do not support the format.
• MP3 files, on the other hand, can be played on any device. In the course of time, the independent audio format MP3 has prevailed against Microsoft's WMA.

In the next practical tip we will show you the difference between MP3 and MP4.