WEBVTT - TechStuff Listens In On Sound Files 0:00:00.520 --> 0:00:03.199 Brought to you by the two thousand twelve Toyota Camry. 0:00:03.480 --> 0:00:06.760 Hey there, tech stuff listeners, this is Jonathan Strickland, and 0:00:07.000 --> 0:00:09.080 I wanted to talk to you a little bit about 0:00:09.119 --> 0:00:11.600 something cool going on at how stuff works right now. 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:14.200 I know all of you guys are really creative and 0:00:14.240 --> 0:00:16.720 you love technology. Well, now you can show us what 0:00:16.800 --> 0:00:19.680 you're made of because Toyota is sponsoring a new photo 0:00:19.760 --> 0:00:22.439 upload widget over at how stuff works dot com. You 0:00:22.480 --> 0:00:27.440 can share your gadget ideas, modifications, hacks, some great tech ideas. 0:00:27.680 --> 0:00:29.800 Show us what you're made of. Let us know how 0:00:29.840 --> 0:00:33.400 creative you are. You can go to www dot how 0:00:33.479 --> 0:00:37.640 stuff works dot com, slash upgrade your tech and upload 0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:39.600 those photos. Now we want to see what you got. 0:00:42.040 --> 0:00:45.120 Get in touch with technology with tech stuff from house 0:00:45.120 --> 0:00:53.280 stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone, and welcome to 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:55.320 tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette and I am 0:00:55.320 --> 0:00:57.920 an editor at how stuff works dot com. Standing across 0:00:57.920 --> 0:01:01.040 from me. Actually it's sort of cat corner as usual. 0:01:01.080 --> 0:01:08.080 As senior writer Jonathan the pre show puns they burn guys. 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:10.320 You you should be thankful that you missed out on 0:01:10.360 --> 0:01:15.679 that one. What a gem that was it. I'm reeling 0:01:15.880 --> 0:01:18.840 is what I am. You know, I love puns, but 0:01:18.920 --> 0:01:21.399 Chris takes his love of puns to a level that 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:25.160 I thought was unattainable by humans, and yet somehow he 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:27.640 has managed it. You all take that as a compliment. 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:31.280 That's neither here nor there for this particular podcast, other 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:35.280 than the fact that you guys know we love puns. Waca, waca. 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:38.880 And we're gonna talk today about sound files and why 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:41.759 there are so many different why are there so many 0:01:41.920 --> 0:01:45.960 sound files, never mind sound file formats, and also, um, 0:01:46.000 --> 0:01:50.240 just kind of get into the particulars of various popular 0:01:50.400 --> 0:01:53.240 sound files. Maybe we'll talk about some of the more 0:01:53.360 --> 0:01:56.480 rare ones that you can encounter too. Um and and 0:01:56.520 --> 0:01:59.200 if this any of this sounds familiar, then you're probably 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:01.760 a long time listener of tech stuff. We did an 0:02:01.760 --> 0:02:07.520 episode many many, many moons ago on the MP three format. 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:11.560 I was just a kid then, yeah, boy, when we 0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:15.320 had stars in our eyes and and and uh and 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:18.520 lunch and our belly. Uh. That's back when we used 0:02:18.520 --> 0:02:22.040 to record in the afternoon. Anyway, so we do this 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:25.280 in the mornings now. We want to talk about different 0:02:25.600 --> 0:02:28.960 types of sound files. And before we get into specifics, uh, 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:32.760 talk a little bit about categorizing sound files. There's really 0:02:33.040 --> 0:02:34.640 a couple of different ways you can look at it. 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:41.680 One is digitized sound files versus synthesized sound files. Now, 0:02:41.720 --> 0:02:45.840 digitizes where you're taking you're you're creating sound files out 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:49.080 of bits, out of zeros and ones that are little 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:54.200 tiny pieces of information that essentially tell a speaker how 0:02:54.760 --> 0:02:58.720 to move in and out to create whatever the sound is. 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:01.600 And there are a lot of different factors that go 0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:06.760 into determining how well the speaker can recreate any particular sound. 0:03:07.840 --> 0:03:10.919 Basically involves how much information you're able to put within 0:03:11.040 --> 0:03:16.120 that particular kind of file uh and uh. For one 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:20.240 of the more most popular sound files of this type 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:24.079 is the wave type of sound file. And so as 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:28.720 a digital sound file or digitized version of a sound file, 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:31.680 um and so, there are a lot of different things 0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:35.760 that make up the quality of that sound. Synthesized is 0:03:35.800 --> 0:03:38.600 a little bit different. Synthesized is a type of sound 0:03:38.640 --> 0:03:42.680 file where the file contains information in it that says 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:46.320 something along the lines of play this note as if 0:03:46.320 --> 0:03:50.000 it were played by this instrument. So play a c 0:03:50.920 --> 0:03:55.920 as if it were on a tenor saxophone, right, and 0:03:55.960 --> 0:03:59.640 then the software itself, and the hardware is able to 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:04.840 take that instruction set and uh send out the appropriate information. 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:07.880 So it's a little bit different. It's not looking at 0:04:08.320 --> 0:04:11.600 zeros and ones and saying, all right, move the speaker 0:04:11.640 --> 0:04:16.360 out this much this quickly in order to um create 0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:19.039 this sound. It's more like, all right, here here's what 0:04:19.160 --> 0:04:21.000 here's the sound we have to make. Now let's do 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:23.360 what needs to be done to make it. So it's 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:27.000 it's kind of two different perspectives. And a very very 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:31.880 popular version of the synthesized type of sound file would 0:04:31.880 --> 0:04:36.200 be the mini yes files and mini files are uh 0:04:36.240 --> 0:04:38.800 not just for PCs that those were really I mean 0:04:38.960 --> 0:04:43.000 the mini files really made so that synthesizers could communicate 0:04:43.040 --> 0:04:47.000 with each other. Um so no, no, I was just 0:04:47.000 --> 0:04:49.120 going to say, so, if you're thinking of a digitized, 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:54.200 digitized uh sound file, you might play an actual guitar 0:04:54.480 --> 0:04:58.040 and record it into a digital file and play it back, 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:03.680 versus uh plugging um a USB keyboard into your computer, uh, 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:06.080 you know, and using software and saying, oh, I want 0:05:06.120 --> 0:05:09.240 this to sound like a grand piano and hitting a 0:05:09.320 --> 0:05:13.039 c and it you know, makes the approximation of that sound, 0:05:13.120 --> 0:05:16.880 rather than taking an actual instrument and digitizing it right, 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:19.480 and in general, a digitized file is going to be 0:05:19.800 --> 0:05:23.719 larger than the synthesized files. Synthesized files, like I said, 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:26.760 are just giving general instructions to recreate a sound. Digitized 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:30.160 has to hold all that information in it. Now, um, 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:33.760 you could have a pretty small digitized version of a 0:05:33.760 --> 0:05:36.279 sound file, but the means that you don't have as 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:38.800 much information there, which means the sound you're going to 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:43.080 get is not necessarily going to be that um nice. 0:05:43.240 --> 0:05:47.840 The fidelity will not be high low fi actually um 0:05:48.040 --> 0:05:51.680 although it is not the same. It reminds me of 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:58.400 the differences between h vector and raster graphics files. You know, 0:05:58.440 --> 0:06:00.720 with the with a photo being made up of individual 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:04.760 pixels and um, you know vector file line drawings being 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:09.360 uh more manipulative. You know, you can do more with it, 0:06:09.480 --> 0:06:11.840 and it has less information in it because it can 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:14.520 be manipulated like that. Yeah, it reminds me a lot 0:06:14.560 --> 0:06:18.640 of just the just the very basic analog versus digital, right, 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:22.800 because with analog you've got this continuous signal that can 0:06:22.920 --> 0:06:27.320 change and pitch and in volume. But it's it's you know, 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:30.559 if you look at a an analog like a sound 0:06:30.600 --> 0:06:34.560 wave from an analog source, it's this curvy wave that 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:39.000 you know that that's unbroken, right, whereas a digital one 0:06:39.360 --> 0:06:42.560 is either on or off, and you know, it's a 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:45.240 little more complicated than that, but it looks like I 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:49.240 feel like it, it looks different from an analog sound wave. 0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:55.640 So um, those two different approaches define the characteristics of 0:06:55.640 --> 0:06:58.800 that sound file. Now, the other big way of dividing 0:06:58.880 --> 0:07:00.839 up the sound files, and the one that I think 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:03.960 is UH is one of those that most people have 0:07:04.040 --> 0:07:09.120 heard about, UM, and it's mainly applies to the digitized 0:07:09.160 --> 0:07:12.080 form I means synthesize as well, but digitized is really 0:07:12.080 --> 0:07:19.240 where a lot of the sound file discussion revolves around uncompressed, lossless, 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:23.800 and lossy file formats. So let's talk a bit about 0:07:23.920 --> 0:07:27.800 what those means. So uncompressed it is probably the easiest, sure, 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:31.320 because it just means it's a sound file that doesn't 0:07:31.840 --> 0:07:34.560 you haven't compressed it at all, You haven't lost any information. 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:38.320 Whatever information was in that sound file UH at the 0:07:38.400 --> 0:07:41.440 very beginning, or or the sound being recorded into some 0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:45.840 sort of device, is is replicated as close as possible, 0:07:45.880 --> 0:07:50.720 depending upon the the abilities of that file format. Yeah, 0:07:50.760 --> 0:07:54.440 if you if you take a musical instrument. Um, you know, 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:58.480 like a like an actual musical instrument. And uh, let's 0:07:58.520 --> 0:08:01.840 say a guitar string. You luck the string and it's 0:08:01.840 --> 0:08:06.800 going to play reverberated a certain frequency. UM. But there 0:08:06.920 --> 0:08:08.640 there is more to it than that, I mean, is 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:12.760 it uh slows it starts to to change somewhat. Um. 0:08:12.880 --> 0:08:15.600 Some guitars hold pitch better than others, and you can 0:08:15.640 --> 0:08:19.480 kind of hear it fluctuate somewhat. Um. But as you 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:22.360 play a song or you know, with a band or 0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:27.200 an orchestra for example, UM, you're going to hear a 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:30.400 richness of sound if you're right there. Um. And that's 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:35.360 because there are It covers a wide range of frequencies um. 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:38.840 In some cases frequencies that we can't actually hear. But 0:08:39.160 --> 0:08:42.320 sometimes those high frequencies we can't hear interact with what 0:08:42.640 --> 0:08:46.120 one another and create harmonics that we can here. And 0:08:46.200 --> 0:08:51.959 sometimes it's it's something that you can feel, um, and 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:55.079 that that adds to the depth of the music. Like well, 0:08:55.120 --> 0:08:57.280 I mean we've we've sort of talked about bone conduction 0:08:57.360 --> 0:09:02.960 before too. UM. So what what the compression does essentially 0:09:03.080 --> 0:09:06.079 is determined whether or not you know, it should include 0:09:06.280 --> 0:09:09.200 all the different frequencies and the amount of compression that 0:09:09.320 --> 0:09:13.640 someone would use to create a file basically says well, 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:16.160 I'm going to cut out this much of the info 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:19.080 in this file. Um, and you can dial that up 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:22.160 or down as as you decide to compress that file. Right, 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:26.400 So a lossless file would be compressed, but would not 0:09:27.160 --> 0:09:31.679 You don't lose any of the actual information there. So um, 0:09:31.720 --> 0:09:36.280 it's the compression level. Your mileage may vary. You might 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:39.880 it might not be a significantly smaller file than an 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:43.040 uncompressed file, but it does mean that you have found 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:47.840 ways to try and uh minimize that file size. For one, 0:09:48.360 --> 0:09:52.400 here's an example. In an uncompressed file, Let's say that 0:09:52.440 --> 0:09:56.600 you have a minute of silence between sounds. All right, 0:09:56.640 --> 0:10:00.480 An uncompressed file is going to encode that minute of 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:03.000 silence the same way it would as if there were 0:10:03.160 --> 0:10:06.840 sound present, So that file size is going to reflect 0:10:06.880 --> 0:10:11.200 the the total amount of time of the recording, not 0:10:11.360 --> 0:10:16.000 just the time when something is actually happening. A lossless 0:10:16.040 --> 0:10:20.840 one may encode that same file, but use a an 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:26.200 algorithm that that doesn't encode that minute of silence, so 0:10:26.280 --> 0:10:32.480 that that makes the overall file size smaller. M okay, Um, yeah, 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:35.720 that that's you think about that that could result in 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:39.120 a in a huge savings of information because you know, 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:42.480 if you're you're trying to capture the depth of sound 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:47.040 that is present with an entire orchestra and there's literally 0:10:47.160 --> 0:10:51.880 nothing there, then you've recorded a lot of nothing and 0:10:52.160 --> 0:10:54.600 that that takes up space. So then then you have 0:10:54.679 --> 0:10:59.640 the lossy formats. And this is what you were kind 0:10:59.679 --> 0:11:03.439 of an into with the whole the frequencies that are 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:06.839 outside the range of human hearing. Um, I wanted to 0:11:06.920 --> 0:11:10.439 explain what it was there that you would lose. Yeah, ideally, 0:11:11.040 --> 0:11:13.920 with a lossy format, the only things you lose are 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:16.720 things that we could not perceive. So, in other words, 0:11:17.080 --> 0:11:20.560 any frequency that's below or above the range of human hearing, 0:11:20.600 --> 0:11:23.400 which is about twenty hurts to twenty killer hurts. Anything 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:26.679 outside of that range of frequencies, UH is outside the 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:31.720 range of normal human hearing that hurts and UH. And 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:33.960 so the the idea is that if there are any 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:37.440 frequencies that are either above or below that range, those 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:41.000 would get cut out, they would not be encoded in 0:11:41.040 --> 0:11:44.440 the file, and that would decrease the size. There are 0:11:44.480 --> 0:11:48.520 other ways that lossy formats tend to compress files, and 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:51.000 there are things that you can choose to do when 0:11:51.040 --> 0:11:55.240 you're creating a lossy file format that will affect the 0:11:55.360 --> 0:12:00.160 quality of the recording to some extent. Yeah, and there 0:12:00.160 --> 0:12:02.000 are a lot of different factors, and I'll talk about 0:12:02.040 --> 0:12:05.840 them in just a second, but Lawsy definitely has more 0:12:05.920 --> 0:12:09.400 of a stigma against it because the idea is that, 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:11.280 you know, there are ties where you will listen to 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:16.040 music and you think, wow, that that really does sound 0:12:16.120 --> 0:12:19.240 like it's a lot different from that that that live 0:12:19.320 --> 0:12:21.600 performance I saw. Like you you might go to a 0:12:21.600 --> 0:12:24.520 live performance and then get a digital copy of that 0:12:24.600 --> 0:12:27.360 live performance. Some bands do that, you know, where they'll 0:12:27.360 --> 0:12:30.640 record their their shows and then the fans can end 0:12:30.720 --> 0:12:33.600 up buying a digital copy of something that they saw, 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:38.600 and depending on the encoding, it may not really reflect 0:12:38.640 --> 0:12:42.520 what you experienced. For instance, there might not be a 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:44.960 four pound guys standing next to you stepping on your 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:49.000 toe every five minutes, um right as so they might 0:12:49.040 --> 0:12:53.760 be giants show owen too anyway, So the idea there 0:12:53.800 --> 0:12:57.360 being that that depending on how they're encoding it, you 0:12:57.480 --> 0:13:01.320 might not have as rich a listening experience as you 0:13:01.360 --> 0:13:05.439 otherwise would with an uncompressed or lossless format UM. Now, 0:13:05.480 --> 0:13:07.800 the way that the audio is compressed and stored is 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:11.960 called a codec. Now, codec and file type are two 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:15.360 different things. You should not confuse the two. It's easy 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:20.400 to to get confused. But Kodak is Uh. They are related, 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:23.920 but not the same. Right. There's some some codex and 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:26.800 file sizes that tend to go together all the time, 0:13:27.440 --> 0:13:31.040 but they are not one and the same. And some 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:34.199 of the things that can affect how that sound file 0:13:34.400 --> 0:13:39.319 will sound include things like the sample rate. Sample rate 0:13:39.400 --> 0:13:45.920 is when you're converting analog audio into digital information. Uh, 0:13:46.040 --> 0:13:49.240 you use an analog to digital converter or a d C, 0:13:50.440 --> 0:13:54.200 and this is what takes that signal, that continuous signal 0:13:54.520 --> 0:13:56.559 and converts it into a bunch of zeros and ones 0:13:57.559 --> 0:14:01.600 and uh, it kind of chops the signal up into 0:14:01.800 --> 0:14:07.400 segments and does this conversion. So the higher the frequency 0:14:07.440 --> 0:14:11.240 is of your sample rate, in general, the closer to 0:14:11.559 --> 0:14:16.319 the original sound it's going to be. Uh CD audio. 0:14:16.920 --> 0:14:19.920 If you guys, you may not remember these, There were 0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:24.640 these things called compact discs. I have to I remember 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:28.760 when compact discs were a new thing. I remember thinking 0:14:28.880 --> 0:14:30.960 this will never take off, and let me listen to 0:14:30.960 --> 0:14:36.320 back cassette um or vinyl album or wax cylinder or 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:39.000 this bard that I hired to follow around and sing 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:45.840 sagas to wire recorder. Yeah anyway, Uh so the CD 0:14:45.960 --> 0:14:49.080 audio is something like forty four point one killer hurts 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:51.920 as I recall something like that. That that's the frequency 0:14:52.080 --> 0:14:55.520 for their sample rate. Um. And in general, you want 0:14:55.520 --> 0:14:59.600 to sample rate that's about um. Well, that that's high 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:02.520 enough that you're going to get a good experience when 0:15:02.520 --> 0:15:05.440 you get playback. And depending on your application, you may 0:15:05.480 --> 0:15:08.720 not need a very high sample rate. So, for example, 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:13.120 for telephone uh fidelity, when you're speaking on the phone 0:15:13.120 --> 0:15:15.440 to someone else, that simple rate is much you know, 0:15:15.440 --> 0:15:17.520 and we're talking about digital phones. They're doing the same thing. 0:15:17.520 --> 0:15:20.720 They're converting an analog signal into a digital information and 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:23.520 transmitting it and then decoding it and putting it back 0:15:23.520 --> 0:15:27.560 into analog. Uh, their simple rate is much lower. Because 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:30.880 in general, we've become used to the idea that a 0:15:30.880 --> 0:15:34.840 telephone quality conversation does not need to have high fidelity. 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:36.880 And if you've ever spoken on the telephone with me, 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:41.680 you know the quality of my conversations is quite low. Well, um, 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:43.600 that doesn't really have that much to do with this 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:46.680 sound quality. Oh, you're right, You're right, I got off 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:48.960 on a little tangent there. Well, no, if you if 0:15:49.000 --> 0:15:52.320 you take a I'm speaking in general terms here, but 0:15:52.360 --> 0:15:57.040 if you take a podcast file, maybe a half hour 0:15:57.120 --> 0:16:01.600 podcast file, um from an audio store, and you buy 0:16:01.680 --> 0:16:06.800 a five minute song from that same audio store, that 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:10.240 the song is probably going to be a larger file 0:16:10.800 --> 0:16:14.800 because there is a greater range of sound um that 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:17.400 they are trying to preserve to create that audio file 0:16:17.440 --> 0:16:20.240 than to to or that music file. Then for the 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:23.520 voice because um, you know, the voice files don't really 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:27.680 need to convey the same range of frequencies to just 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:30.720 and still sound good and beyond the sample rate. There 0:16:30.720 --> 0:16:34.200 are other factors that also informed the quality of a 0:16:34.200 --> 0:16:38.720 particular sound file and digitized sound file. The resolution, it's 0:16:38.800 --> 0:16:40.960 just you know, sound files can have resolution, just like 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:46.720 an image file. It's um. Essentially, it comes into the 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:50.840 how how the a d C measures the incoming um 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:55.200 signal voltage and converts it into digital code. So the 0:16:55.280 --> 0:16:59.800 accuracy of that is dependent upon how many bits are 0:16:59.840 --> 0:17:02.600 you in the process. So in other words, the more 0:17:02.680 --> 0:17:07.120 data you include about the sound, the more accurately you 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:10.560 can recreate the sound when you play it back. So 0:17:10.680 --> 0:17:13.680 in other words, if and this makes sense, it's it's 0:17:13.720 --> 0:17:16.359 just like any other kind of experience where you're trying 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:19.359 to recreate something that you've seen. The more data you have, 0:17:19.520 --> 0:17:23.400 the better chances you have of recreating it accurately. So 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:26.120 if I'm in a room and you were to give 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:29.480 me a stone tablet and a chisel and a hammer 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:32.040 and tell me to take notes, those notes would be 0:17:32.160 --> 0:17:35.080 very very limited. If you gave me a pen and paper, 0:17:35.160 --> 0:17:36.760 there would be a little bit better. If you gave 0:17:36.800 --> 0:17:42.880 me a a computer with a working keyboard unlike mine, um, 0:17:43.119 --> 0:17:44.960 I would be even better. If you gave me a 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:48.440 keyboard like mine, it would probably be back to stone tablet. Anyway, 0:17:49.720 --> 0:17:55.000 that's another part that determines another factor that determined sound quality, 0:17:55.040 --> 0:17:58.800 and then data rates. This is really anyone who's converted 0:17:58.880 --> 0:18:02.280 any sound file into P three format or format similar 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:05.160 to the m P three format knows about data rates. 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:09.960 You usually you have a choice of what what UH 0:18:10.200 --> 0:18:14.240 data rates speed you can pick to UH convert a 0:18:14.320 --> 0:18:18.400 sound file into an MP three, and generally higher is better. 0:18:18.480 --> 0:18:21.720 It means that you're going to have a higher fidelity experience. 0:18:21.760 --> 0:18:23.800 It also means the file size that's going to be larger. 0:18:24.480 --> 0:18:27.959 And uh uh, I'd say, you know, a lot of 0:18:28.000 --> 0:18:32.720 the sound files you would find, at least until fairly recently, 0:18:32.800 --> 0:18:34.640 we're around the nice six kill a bit per second 0:18:34.720 --> 0:18:37.520 or kill a bit per second range. We're starting to 0:18:37.560 --> 0:18:41.160 see that get bumped up now, which is nice. Um. 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:44.359 Those are a lot of the cloud services have higher 0:18:44.800 --> 0:18:50.960 bit data rates for their encoding. Um, and in general 0:18:51.040 --> 0:18:55.240 that should translate to a higher fidelity experience. Yeah, I 0:18:55.280 --> 0:18:59.680 mean you get right down to it. Well, frankly, everybody 0:18:59.720 --> 0:19:06.479 here is sound differently, and that's that sounds strange probably um, 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:09.800 probably because you're hearing it differently than I am. Now, um, 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:13.040 because you know, it sort of depends on the range 0:19:13.080 --> 0:19:15.680 of hearing. Now, I say that that kids can hear 0:19:15.720 --> 0:19:19.760 a different range of sound than adults, um, and that 0:19:20.119 --> 0:19:22.280 uh you know, they have studies that have been done 0:19:22.280 --> 0:19:24.600 that that show that women hear different ranges of sound 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:27.240 than men do. And you know they're there are always 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:31.440 people who, um, listen to a Vinyl record for example, 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:34.080 and they'll they'll say, Wow, that sounds so much better 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:36.160 than a CD. And then other people prefer the sound 0:19:36.160 --> 0:19:39.760 of C d s, which typically are are compressed uh 0:19:40.000 --> 0:19:44.320 pretty pretty significantly at least too to get it to uh, 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:46.760 you know, the the audio file that that you hear 0:19:46.800 --> 0:19:50.960 on the on the disc. Um. So you know, everybody 0:19:51.040 --> 0:19:55.320 is different. Let's let's use that as a caveat. But um, 0:19:55.480 --> 0:19:58.399 it's important to note that in general, the file size 0:19:58.520 --> 0:20:03.080 the the information. You want more information encoded on there 0:20:03.119 --> 0:20:05.800 because it's going to provide a richer sound, But it 0:20:05.880 --> 0:20:09.880 does depend on the Kodec used to to create the file. Um. 0:20:09.960 --> 0:20:11.640 And that is that is one of those things that 0:20:11.760 --> 0:20:14.240 to paraphrase the song, it ain't what you do, it's 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:17.480 the way that you do it. Um. And I think 0:20:17.480 --> 0:20:20.600 that's probably where we're getting ready to go. But uh yeah, 0:20:20.640 --> 0:20:26.760 I mean you you when MP three's became the popular standard, uh, 0:20:26.800 --> 0:20:31.480 the popular bit rate for those was you know, k 0:20:32.720 --> 0:20:36.320 um and um. You know that a lot of people 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:40.720 who can hear the difference in in sound files would say, 0:20:40.720 --> 0:20:43.399 you know, that's crummy. It sounds terrible, but it was 0:20:43.440 --> 0:20:45.879 acceptable for a lot of people, acceptable enough that they 0:20:45.880 --> 0:20:48.800 would say, you know what, I'm willing to fork over 0:20:48.880 --> 0:20:51.040 money for an MP three player, or I'm willing to 0:20:51.119 --> 0:20:53.359 listen to my music at this bit rate. And now 0:20:53.840 --> 0:20:57.560 that we've become more sophisticated in our tastes and have 0:20:57.680 --> 0:21:01.200 more bandwidth available to us both an MP three player 0:21:01.400 --> 0:21:06.440 audio players, let's say that, and UH in our internet connections, UM, 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:10.800 we're having more choices available to us. We also had 0:21:10.880 --> 0:21:15.280 an era where the speakers that were available to us, 0:21:15.400 --> 0:21:18.000 unless we were really spending a lot of money on 0:21:18.000 --> 0:21:21.560 our our computer systems or what you know, our music 0:21:21.600 --> 0:21:26.520 player systems, we're not really capable of playing at a 0:21:26.600 --> 0:21:29.720 high enough fidelity for it to make a huge difference. 0:21:29.760 --> 0:21:32.840 So you could even have two versions of the same file, 0:21:32.920 --> 0:21:37.480 one recorded at a much faster data rate, and have 0:21:37.560 --> 0:21:40.960 a hard time telling the difference, simply because the hardware 0:21:41.000 --> 0:21:44.680 you were using to play back the music wasn't capable 0:21:44.760 --> 0:21:48.480 of capturing those subtle differences or even not so subtle differences. 0:21:48.800 --> 0:21:51.119 Because let's let's face it, some of the speakers that 0:21:51.200 --> 0:21:55.440 came out years ago, we're pretty well they were definitely 0:21:55.480 --> 0:21:57.159 sub standard compared to some of the ones you can 0:21:57.200 --> 0:22:01.280 get today. Not saying that today's speaker are, you know, 0:22:01.520 --> 0:22:05.320 the height of human achievement. We definitely have a huge 0:22:05.440 --> 0:22:09.320 range on the market, and UH and it's not always 0:22:09.320 --> 0:22:11.040 a case if you get what you pay for either. 0:22:11.280 --> 0:22:15.080 That's a totally different podcasts how Uh, it just means 0:22:15.119 --> 0:22:20.040 that that it wasn't as important back then. And also 0:22:20.480 --> 0:22:22.720 we should talk about why there are so many different types, 0:22:22.880 --> 0:22:27.280 so we know the ones people tend to hear about 0:22:27.320 --> 0:22:32.720 a lot are wave files, uh MP three's, UM, A 0:22:32.720 --> 0:22:36.840 A C files for some folks. Uh, there's the A 0:22:37.000 --> 0:22:41.359 lack files A L A C sometimes flak for a 0:22:41.359 --> 0:22:43.919 few people out there anyway, um, and then there are 0:22:43.920 --> 0:22:45.879 a lot of other ones, but those are those are 0:22:45.920 --> 0:22:47.960 some of the ones that are the most popular, But 0:22:48.080 --> 0:22:50.600 there are If you were to look at a list 0:22:51.400 --> 0:22:56.359 of every type of audio file that has had any 0:22:56.400 --> 0:22:59.960 sort of traction out there, it would be incredibly long. 0:23:00.920 --> 0:23:06.040 I mean, the different types of them are. Um, there's 0:23:06.040 --> 0:23:08.520 easily easily over a hundred. Now some of those are 0:23:09.240 --> 0:23:13.480 project files, not audio file formats, and the project files 0:23:13.600 --> 0:23:17.159 really just have information about an audio file as opposed 0:23:17.160 --> 0:23:20.720 to having any actual audio information in it itself. But 0:23:21.440 --> 0:23:23.960 you know, you might say, well why are there so many? 0:23:24.280 --> 0:23:27.280 And there are several different reasons for that. One is 0:23:27.320 --> 0:23:32.080 that as time has gone on, we've created more sophisticated 0:23:32.480 --> 0:23:36.200 computers and sound chips that are able to do more 0:23:36.600 --> 0:23:40.080 than earlier ones, so they were suddenly able to support 0:23:40.119 --> 0:23:44.160 a greater number of features. But the older file formats 0:23:44.240 --> 0:23:48.200 didn't necessarily have that built in, and so new file 0:23:48.240 --> 0:23:52.520 formats emerged that we're able to take advantage of the 0:23:52.520 --> 0:23:57.240 technical abilities of the new stuff that we were building. 0:23:58.119 --> 0:24:01.240 In some cases, there were file formats that were designed 0:24:01.320 --> 0:24:06.760 to work specifically with particular types of hardware. So if 0:24:06.800 --> 0:24:08.960 you were back if you had a computer back in 0:24:09.000 --> 0:24:13.400 the old days of the of the sound card boom, 0:24:13.440 --> 0:24:16.160 you know, when you had like Ruland and sound Blaster 0:24:16.240 --> 0:24:19.040 and all of those coming out, you might be familiar 0:24:19.080 --> 0:24:22.359 that there were certain files file types that could play 0:24:22.480 --> 0:24:27.360 on some cards but not on others. And this could 0:24:27.359 --> 0:24:30.000 get really frustrating as a user. I remember going out 0:24:30.000 --> 0:24:32.639 and looking at computer games and looking at a computer 0:24:32.680 --> 0:24:34.720 game and saying, Wow, I'm not gonna have a very 0:24:34.720 --> 0:24:39.639 good experience with this because, uh, the sound file type 0:24:39.680 --> 0:24:42.040 that they went with was for a different sound card 0:24:42.040 --> 0:24:44.000 than the one I had, So I'm going to have 0:24:44.040 --> 0:24:48.720 the more basic, you know, array of sounds that is 0:24:48.760 --> 0:24:51.360