CS

• how is sound stored?

  to store sound on a computer, analog sound waves must be converted into digital data (binary)
• how is analog sound stored?

  sampled using an ADC, Analog to Digital Converter, and stored as a binary value called a sample
• how do you get the highest quality sound

  many samples are taken to recreate the analog wave as closely as possible
• what is sample rate?

  the number of samples taken per second. measure in kilohertz
• what affects audio quality?

  the higher the sample rate, the better the audio quality as the data closely resembles an analog wave
• what is the drawback of higher sample rates?

  higher sample rates result in larger file sizes because more data is stored for each individual sample
• what does a lower sample have?

  lower sample rates result in low quality sound because the digital data does not resemble an analog sound wave
• what is bit depth?

  the bit depth is the number of bits available to represent each sample. common bit depth is 16 bits
• what affects bit depth?

  the higher the bit depth, the more bits are available to be used for each sample. therefore, the quality is often higher as the wave more closely resemble an analogue wave
• what will happen to the file size of bit depth is higher?

  the file size will also be larger if the bit depth is higher, as each sample stores additional bits
• what is bit rate?

  the bit rate is defined as the amount of audio data processed per second. it is measured in kilobytes per second (kbs)
• how is bit rate calculated?

  bit rate = sample rate X bit depth
• how is the audio affected by bit depth?

  bit rate = sample rate X bit depth. the higher the bit rate the higher the quality of the sound
• how to convert from bits to bytes?

  divide by 8
• what is metadata?


  metadata is the additional data about a file
• examples of metadata

  • artists
  • title/track title
  • genre
  • software