IMA (Interactive Multimedia Association) ADPCM is a type of audio compression algorithm used to reduce the size of digital audio files. The IMA audio format refers to audio data that has been compressed using this algorithm.
IMA ADPCM compresses audio data by using an adaptive algorithm that analyzes the differences between adjacent audio samples and uses a variable number of bits to encode each sample. This allows the compression algorithm to allocate more bits to samples with greater amplitude and fewer bits to samples with lower amplitude, resulting in a smaller compressed file size.
The IMA ADPCM algorithm is commonly used in digital audio applications such as video game sound effects, telephone answering machines, and digital voice recorders. The IMA audio format typically uses a file extension of ".ima" or ".adpcm" and can be played back using compatible media players or converted to other more widely supported audio formats, such as WAV or MP3, using conversion tools.
