Glossary of Terms
| Term | Meaning | Page |
AAC | An abbreviation for “Advanced Audio Coding”. This is | 23 |
| a compression standard that applies only to the audio |
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| component in image compression methods used for digital |
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| broadcasting, etc. |
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Bit rate | A number indicating the amount of information processed | 23 |
| per second. The higher the bit rate, the better the sound |
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| quality. |
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Refers to music CDs. Almost all discs normally referred to as | 22 | |
| “CDs” are actually |
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A generic name for music CDs that contain text information | 29 | |
| such as the disc name, artist names and track names. |
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MP3 | An audio compression method developed by Germany’s | 23 |
| Fraunhofer IIS that achieves high rates of data compression |
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| by discarding data that is not readily audible by humans. MP3 |
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| can compress data down to rates of approximately 1/11 (128 |
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| kbps) while retaining sound quality equivalent to a music CD. |
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Sampling | A number that indicates the number of times per second that | 23 |
frequency | analog signals are sampled for conversion to digital signals. |
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| The sampling frequency for music CDs is 44.1 kHz. Normally, |
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| the higher the sampling frequency, the better the sound |
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| quality. |
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WMA | An abbreviation for the “Windows Media™ Audio” audio | 23 |
| compression and encoding system developed by Microsoft |
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| Corporation of the U.S. |
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