digital audio

1 definition found

digital audio - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (26 May 2007) :

  digital audio
  
     <multimedia, file format> A sequence of discrete samples taken
     from a continuous sound (audio) waveform.  Tens of thousands
     of samples are taken each second.  Each sample represents the
     intensity of the sound pressure wave at that instant.  Apart
     from the sampling frequency, the other parameter is the
     digital encoding of each sample including the number of bits
     used.  The encoding may be linear, logarithmic or mu-law.
  
     Digital audio is typically created by taking 16-bit samples
     over a spectrum of 44.1 thousand cycles per second (kHz), this
     means that CD quality sound requires 1.4 million bits of data
     per second.  Digital telephone systems use lower sample rates.
  
     Filename extension: .au (Unix), .snd (MS-DOS, MS Windows
     ).
  
     See also Audio IFF, MP3, wav.
  
     Usenet newsgroups: alt.binaries.sounds.*.
  
     A FAQ on audio file formats is available.  Part 1 (ftp://ftp.cwi.nl/pub/audio/AudioFormats.part1)
     , Part 2 (ftp://ftp.cwi.nl/pub/audio/AudioFormats.part2)
     .
  
     (1999-07-30)