Audio File Format Faq's

  – The word ‘codec’ is a truncated form comprising the words encode and decode. – That is, there is a two-part process when creating a compressed format, the first being to encode the file into the format, and the second, having the file decoded so that you may listen to it.

  – The word ‘bit’ is a term that describes one element of a digital value; there are 8 bits to a byte, and two bytes to a 16-bit ‘word’. A 24-bit word therefore comprises three bytes (24 = 8 * 3). – An 8-bit format can assume 256 different values. That is, the signal

  – Just like it sounds, it is the frequency at which the analog signal is sampled by the digital encoder. – Compact disc media use a sample rate of 44.1 kHz (44,100 samples per second). Note that sample rate determines the maximum frequency of the recording. A good rule of thumb is that if