At 08:59 AM 1/2/2006 +0000, Frank Dernie wrote:
Hi Jerry, the bitrate is the rate at which data is sent, the data in digital bits, the rate quoted per second, so it may be 192 kb/sec - 192 thousand bits per second for example. All digital transfer has a bitrate. For data transfer the bitrate only affects how long the transfer takes. For audio, which will be decoded in real time obviously, the bitrate controls the amount of information decode-able. All digital music and video is compressed using one of the several standard codecs (can anybody tell me exactly what this stands for)
To quote one source: "Codec is short for COmpression and DECcompression"
which is a mathematical compression/expansion algorithm. Different codec have benefits pushed by their proponents but they are all lossy. All the codecs have a bitrate above which sound quality is not much improved but below which it quickly deteriorates. The DAB standard, which is the digital radio standard broadcast, prematurely perhaps, in the UK for several years now is MP2 which is fairly old now and for best results requires higher bitrates than are often used. Frank
Don Williams La Jolla, CA
