I have nothing against MP3, but why does Newgrounds only accept Mp3 unlike many other platforms which accept flac, Wav and OGG… just curious
Idk, but mp3 is the only audio file type I use to begin with..
My guess would be since mp3 was the newest file type when newgrounds was first developed, it was the most convenient option. Wav and Ogg could have been considered out of date and perhaps lower quality at the time (or not, I wasn't alive in 1995 0_0) leading for mp3 to be the most appealing option. "..But that's just a theory!" ☝🤓
At 1/11/26 10:00 PM, Clavic wrote:Idk, but mp3 is the only audio file type I use to begin with..
My guess would be since mp3 was the newest file type when newgrounds was first developed, it was the most convenient option. Wav and Ogg could have been considered out of date and perhaps lower quality at the time (or not, I wasn't alive in 1995 0_0) leading for mp3 to be the most appealing option. "..But that's just a theory!" ☝🤓
I suppose that makes sense
At 1/11/26 10:00 PM, Clavic wrote:Idk, but mp3 is the only audio file type I use to begin with..
My guess would be since mp3 was the newest file type when newgrounds was first developed, it was the most convenient option. Wav and Ogg could have been considered out of date and perhaps lower quality at the time (or not, I wasn't alive in 1995 0_0) leading for mp3 to be the most appealing option. "..But that's just a theory!" ☝🤓
I can't speak for newgrounds' actual reasons, but MP3 is a decent format that takes very little space for decent quality audio. Running a web service, reducing the size of files that go over the network (and have to be stored) is always an important goal, since those numbers directly correlate to how much you're paying for hosting it.
Secondly, mp3 was an is a widely supported format. At the time the audio portal was launched in 2003, you couldn't readily play it in a web browser, but it could be played through Flash (and of course Newgrounds had a flash-based audio player).
WAV certainly wouldn't be lower quality than mp3, since in WAV you're storing an identical copy of the sound that was recorded / rendered (at whatever sample rate and bit depth you set it up for). This is called a "lossless" format in that you can recover exactly what was recorded. With lossy formats such as OGG and MP3, the sound gets processed to discard bits that humans don't as readily hear (with settings for just how much of that to chop off in favour of small file size).
FLAC is a cool option that sits between the two; it is also lossless (in that the original recording is recovered exactly), but it takes a lot less space than WAV to do so. FLAC approximates little chunks of waveform with a description of a mathematical function and then includes rawer data to describe the difference between that and that actual signal - and this almost always is smaller (per chunk / frame of audio data) than directly storing the samples.
Probably more info than you needed but audio encoding is cool.
Today, most web browsers support mp3, wav, ogg, flac natively, so it's entirely feasible to have newgrounds support them. There may be other factors to weigh up that I'm not aware of though.
At 1/11/26 08:09 PM, Creeperforce24 wrote:I have nothing against MP3, but why does Newgrounds only accept Mp3 unlike many other platforms which accept flac, Wav and OGG… just curious
@tomfulp
MP3 is ideal for web listening, especially back in 2003 when not everyone had fast connections. Ogg is good but traditionally not supported by all browsers. WAV and FLAC would generally be expected to be compressed for web-listening. MP3 has always been the format that is low-bandwidth and supported by all browsers.
MP3 audio--especially high quality MP3s--have excellent sound on playback. Unless you're hosting a website for audiophiles who want nothing but lossless media, it's a much better use of space to opt for compressed audio. MP3s can end up being like 10% the size of a WAV and still maintain impeccable quality.
If Tom had decided to let all file types be uploaded and shown, your question would instead be "Why is this website so damn slow to load?"
Thanks for listening! :)
At 1/12/26 02:25 PM, MYYA-DYNAMIC wrote:MP3 audio--especially high quality MP3s--have excellent sound on playback. Unless you're hosting a website for audiophiles who want nothing but lossless media, it's a much better use of space to opt for compressed audio. MP3s can end up being like 10% the size of a WAV and still maintain impeccable quality.
If Tom had decided to let all file types be uploaded and shown, your question would instead be "Why is this website so damn slow to load?"
That explains bandcamp now :D
At 1/12/26 02:25 PM, MYYA-DYNAMIC wrote:MP3 audio--especially high quality MP3s--have excellent sound on playback. Unless you're hosting a website for audiophiles who want nothing but lossless media, it's a much better use of space to opt for compressed audio. MP3s can end up being like 10% the size of a WAV and still maintain impeccable quality.
If Tom had decided to let all file types be uploaded and shown, your question would instead be "Why is this website so damn slow to load?"
Oh it’s you! Ok I’m completely sure your not spam now XD
