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An MPEG audio file is built up from smaller parts called frames. Generally, frames are independent items. Each frame has its own header and audio informations. As there is no file header, you can cut any part of MPEG file and play it correctly (this should be done on frame boundaries but most applications will handle incorrect headers). However, for Layer III, this is not 100% correct. Due to internal data organization in MPEG Layer III files, frames are often dependent of each other and they cannot be cut off just like that.

    When you want to read info about an MPEG file, it is usually enough to find the first frame, read its header and assume that the other frames are the same. But this may not be always the case. Variable bitrate MPEG files may use so called bitrate switching, which means that bitrate changes according to the content of each frame. This way lower bitrates may be used in frames where it will not reduce sound quality. This allows making better compression while keeping high quality of sound.

    The frame header is constituted by the very first four bytes (32bits) in a frame. The first eleven bits (or first twelve bits, see below about frame sync) of a frame header are always set and they are called "frame sync". Therefore, you can search through the file for the first occurence of frame sync (meaning that you have to find a byte with a value of 255, and followed by a byte with its three (or four) most significant bits set). Then you read the whole header and check if the values are correct. You will see in the following table the exact meaning of each bit in the header. Each value that is specified as reserved, invalid, bad, or not allowed should indicate an invalid header.

    Frames may have a CRC check. The CRC is 16 bits long and, if it exists, it follows the frame header. After the CRC comes the audio data. You may calculate the CRC of the frame, and compare it with the one you read from the file. This is actually a very good method to check the MPEG frame validity.

    Here is a presentation of the header content. Characters from A to M are used to indicate different fields. In the table below, you can see details about the content of each field.

Sign	Length (bits)	Position (bits)	Description
A	11	(31-21)	Frame sync (all bits set)
B	2	(20,19)	MPEG Audio version ID 00 - MPEG Version 2.5 (unofficial) 01 - reserved 10 - MPEG Version 2 (ISO/IEC 13818-3) 11 - MPEG Version 1 (ISO/IEC 11172-3) Note: MPEG Version 2.5 is not official standard. It is an extension of the standard used for very low bitrate files. If your decoder does not support this extension, it is recommended for you to use 12 bits for synchronization instead of 11 bits.
C	2	(18,17)	Layer description 00 - reserved 01 - Layer III 10 - Layer II 11 - Layer I
D	1	(16)	Protection bit 0 - Protected by CRC (16bit crc follows header) 1 - Not protected
E	4	(15,12)	Bitrate index bits V1,L1 V1,L2 V1,L3 V2,L1 V2, L2 & L3 0000 free free free free free 0001 32 32 32 32 8 0010 64 48 40 48 16 0011 96 56 48 56 24 0100 128 64 56 64 32 0101 160 80 64 80 40 0110 192 96 80 96 48 0111 224 112 96 112 56 1000 256 128 112 128 64 1001 288 160 128 144 80 1010 320 192 160 160 96 1011 352 224 192 176 112 1100 384 256 224 192 128 1101 416 320 256 224 144 1110 448 384 320 256 160 1111 bad bad bad bad bad NOTES: All values are in kbps V1 - MPEG Version 1 V2 - MPEG Version 2 and Version 2.5 L1 - Layer I L2 - Layer II L3 - Layer III "free" means free format. If the correct fixed bitrate (such files cannot use variable bitrate) is different than those presented in upper table it must be determined by the application. This may be implemented only for internal purposes since third party applications have no means to findout correct bitrate. Howewer, this is not impossible to do but demands lots of efforts. "bad" means that this is not an allowed value MPEG files may have variable bitrate (VBR). Each frame may be created with different bitrate. It may be used in all layers. Layer III decoders must support this method. Layer I & II decoders may support it. For Layer II there are some combinations of bitrate and mode which are not allowed. Here is a list of allowed combinations. bitrate single channel stereo intensity stereo dual channel free yes yes yes yes 32 yes no no no 48 yes no no no 56 yes no no no 64 yes yes yes yes 80 yes no no no 96 yes yes yes yes 112 yes yes yes yes 128 yes yes yes yes 160 yes yes yes yes 192 yes yes yes yes 224 no yes yes yes 256 no yes yes yes 320 no yes yes yes 384 no yes yes yes
F	2	(11,10)	Sampling rate frequency index (values are in Hz) bits MPEG1 MPEG2 MPEG2.5 00 44100 22050 11025 01 48000 24000 12000 10 32000 16000 8000 11 reserv. reserv. reserv.
G	1	(9)	Padding bit 0 - frame is not padded 1 - frame is padded with one extra slot Padding is used to fit the bit rates exactly. For an example: 128k 44.1kHz layer II uses a lot of 418 bytes and some of 417 bytes long frames to get the exact 128k bitrate. For Layer I slot is 32 bits long, for Layer II and Layer III slot is 8 bits long.
H	1	(8)	Private bit. It may be freely used for specific needs of an application.
I	2	(7,6)	Channel Mode 00 - Stereo 01 - Joint stereo (Stereo) 10 - Dual channel (2 mono channels) 11 - Single channel (Mono) Note: Dual channel files are made of two independant mono channel. Each one uses exactly half the bitrate of the file. Most decoders output them as stereo, but it might not always be the case.     One example of use would be some speech in two different languages carried in the same bitstream, and and appropriate decoder would decode only the choosen language </>