1 00:00:04,120 --> 00:00:07,160 Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 2 00:00:07,200 --> 00:00:14,080 Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tex Stuff. 3 00:00:14,080 --> 00:00:16,959 Speaker 1: I'm your host Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with 4 00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:19,439 Speaker 1: how Stuff Works, and I love all things tech and 5 00:00:19,480 --> 00:00:24,160 Speaker 1: it's time for a tech Stuff Classic episode. Today's classic 6 00:00:24,320 --> 00:00:28,400 Speaker 1: episode has the title tech Stuff Listens in on sound Files. 7 00:00:28,680 --> 00:00:31,680 Speaker 1: Chris Pallette and I did this episode to kind of 8 00:00:31,720 --> 00:00:33,920 Speaker 1: look at all the different types of sound files that 9 00:00:33,960 --> 00:00:37,040 Speaker 1: were really kind of prevalent at that time and discuss 10 00:00:37,080 --> 00:00:40,760 Speaker 1: what makes them different, lossy versus lossless, all that kind 11 00:00:40,760 --> 00:00:42,960 Speaker 1: of stuff kind of give a little insight as to 12 00:00:43,400 --> 00:00:48,080 Speaker 1: the variations and differentiations between these. So I hope you 13 00:00:48,080 --> 00:00:51,520 Speaker 1: guys enjoyed this episode originally aired on October eight, two 14 00:00:51,520 --> 00:00:56,319 Speaker 1: thousand twelve. And take it away, Chris and Jonathan. We're 15 00:00:56,320 --> 00:00:59,600 Speaker 1: gonna talk today about sound files and why there are 16 00:00:59,680 --> 00:01:02,720 Speaker 1: so many any different why are there so many sound files, 17 00:01:02,840 --> 00:01:06,240 Speaker 1: never mind sound file formats? Uh and also um just 18 00:01:06,319 --> 00:01:11,199 Speaker 1: kind of get into the particulars of various popular sound files. 19 00:01:11,240 --> 00:01:14,040 Speaker 1: Maybe we'll talk about some of the more rare ones 20 00:01:14,080 --> 00:01:17,000 Speaker 1: that you can encounter two um and and if this 21 00:01:17,120 --> 00:01:19,800 Speaker 1: any of this sounds familiar, then you're probably a long 22 00:01:19,920 --> 00:01:23,800 Speaker 1: time listener of tech stuff. We did an episode many 23 00:01:23,800 --> 00:01:28,800 Speaker 1: many many moons ago on the MP three format. I 24 00:01:28,959 --> 00:01:31,959 Speaker 1: was just a kid then, yeah, boy, when we had 25 00:01:32,000 --> 00:01:35,880 Speaker 1: stars in our eyes and and and uh and lunch 26 00:01:35,920 --> 00:01:38,760 Speaker 1: and our belly. Uh. That's back when we used to 27 00:01:38,800 --> 00:01:42,399 Speaker 1: record in the afternoon. Anyway, so we do this in 28 00:01:42,440 --> 00:01:46,080 Speaker 1: the mornings. Now. We want to talk about different types 29 00:01:46,080 --> 00:01:49,120 Speaker 1: of sound files. And before we get into specifics, UH, 30 00:01:49,640 --> 00:01:52,920 Speaker 1: talk a little bit about categorizing sound files. There's really 31 00:01:53,200 --> 00:01:54,800 Speaker 1: a couple of different ways you can look at it. 32 00:01:55,480 --> 00:02:01,840 Speaker 1: One is digitized sound files versus synthesized sound files. Now, 33 00:02:01,880 --> 00:02:06,000 Speaker 1: digitizes where you're taking you're you're creating sound files out 34 00:02:06,040 --> 00:02:09,280 Speaker 1: of bits, out of zeros and ones that are little 35 00:02:09,560 --> 00:02:14,400 Speaker 1: tiny pieces of information that essentially tell a speaker how 36 00:02:14,919 --> 00:02:18,920 Speaker 1: to move in and out to create whatever the sound is. 37 00:02:19,639 --> 00:02:21,799 Speaker 1: And there are a lot of different factors that go 38 00:02:21,880 --> 00:02:26,959 Speaker 1: into determining how well the speaker can recreate any particular sound. 39 00:02:28,040 --> 00:02:31,080 Speaker 1: Basically involves how much information you're able to put within 40 00:02:31,240 --> 00:02:36,320 Speaker 1: that particular kind of file. Uh and uh. For one 41 00:02:36,320 --> 00:02:40,440 Speaker 1: of the more most popular sound files of this type 42 00:02:40,480 --> 00:02:44,280 Speaker 1: is the wave type of sound file. And so as 43 00:02:44,280 --> 00:02:49,680 Speaker 1: a digital sound file or digitized version of a sound file. UM, 44 00:02:49,760 --> 00:02:52,000 Speaker 1: and so there are a lot of different things that 45 00:02:52,800 --> 00:02:56,080 Speaker 1: make up the quality of that sound. Synthesized is a 46 00:02:56,120 --> 00:02:59,080 Speaker 1: little bit different. Synthesized is a type of sound file 47 00:02:59,200 --> 00:03:03,240 Speaker 1: where the file contains information in it that says something 48 00:03:03,280 --> 00:03:06,560 Speaker 1: along the lines of play this note as if it 49 00:03:06,600 --> 00:03:11,280 Speaker 1: were played by this instrument. So play a c as 50 00:03:11,320 --> 00:03:16,360 Speaker 1: if it were on a tenor saxophone, right, and then 51 00:03:16,600 --> 00:03:20,160 Speaker 1: the software itself and the hardware is able to take 52 00:03:20,200 --> 00:03:25,040 Speaker 1: that instruction set and uh send out the appropriate information. 53 00:03:25,080 --> 00:03:28,079 Speaker 1: So it's a little bit different. It's not looking at 54 00:03:28,480 --> 00:03:31,800 Speaker 1: zeros and ones and saying, all right, move the speaker 55 00:03:31,840 --> 00:03:36,560 Speaker 1: out this much this quickly in order to um create 56 00:03:36,600 --> 00:03:39,240 Speaker 1: this sound. It's more like, all right, here, here's what 57 00:03:39,360 --> 00:03:41,200 Speaker 1: here's the sound we have to make. Now, let's do 58 00:03:41,280 --> 00:03:43,520 Speaker 1: what needs to be done to make it. So it's 59 00:03:43,600 --> 00:03:47,160 Speaker 1: it's kind of two different perspectives. And a very very 60 00:03:47,240 --> 00:03:52,040 Speaker 1: popular version of the synthesized type of sound file would 61 00:03:52,080 --> 00:03:56,800 Speaker 1: be the mini files. And mini files are not just 62 00:03:56,960 --> 00:03:59,520 Speaker 1: for PCs that those were really I mean, the mini 63 00:03:59,520 --> 00:04:05,240 Speaker 1: files were made so that synthesizers could communicate with each other. UM, 64 00:04:05,680 --> 00:04:07,880 Speaker 1: So sorry, no, no, no no, I was just going to say, so, 65 00:04:08,080 --> 00:04:12,080 Speaker 1: if you're thinking of a digitized digitized UH sound file, 66 00:04:12,200 --> 00:04:16,240 Speaker 1: you might play an actual guitar and record it into 67 00:04:16,320 --> 00:04:19,919 Speaker 1: a digital file and play it back versus UH plugging 68 00:04:20,160 --> 00:04:24,159 Speaker 1: um a USB keyboard into your computer, UH, you know, 69 00:04:24,200 --> 00:04:26,520 Speaker 1: and using software and saying, oh, I want this to 70 00:04:26,600 --> 00:04:30,240 Speaker 1: sound like a grand piano and hitting a c and it, 71 00:04:30,960 --> 00:04:33,640 Speaker 1: you know, makes the approximation of that sound, rather than 72 00:04:33,680 --> 00:04:37,760 Speaker 1: taking an actual instrument and digitizing it. Right. And in general, 73 00:04:37,800 --> 00:04:40,960 Speaker 1: a digitized file is going to be larger than the 74 00:04:41,040 --> 00:04:44,480 Speaker 1: synthesized files. Synthesized files, like I said, are just giving 75 00:04:44,480 --> 00:04:47,479 Speaker 1: general instructions to recreate a sound. Digitized has to hold 76 00:04:47,520 --> 00:04:51,120 Speaker 1: all that information in it. Now, UM, you could have 77 00:04:51,200 --> 00:04:54,760 Speaker 1: a pretty small digitized version of a sound file, but 78 00:04:55,200 --> 00:04:57,560 Speaker 1: the means that you don't have as much information there, 79 00:04:57,560 --> 00:04:59,760 Speaker 1: which means the sound you're going to get is not 80 00:04:59,839 --> 00:05:04,120 Speaker 1: the necessarily going to be that UM nice. The fidelity 81 00:05:04,200 --> 00:05:08,560 Speaker 1: will not be high be lo fi actually UM. Although 82 00:05:08,560 --> 00:05:12,040 Speaker 1: it is not the same. It reminds me of the 83 00:05:12,080 --> 00:05:18,560 Speaker 1: differences between UH vector and raster graphics files, you know, 84 00:05:18,640 --> 00:05:20,880 Speaker 1: with the with a photo being made up of individual 85 00:05:20,920 --> 00:05:24,919 Speaker 1: pixels and UM you know, vector file line drawings being 86 00:05:25,880 --> 00:05:29,320 Speaker 1: uh more manipulative. You know, you can do more with 87 00:05:29,360 --> 00:05:31,839 Speaker 1: it and it has less information in it because it 88 00:05:31,880 --> 00:05:34,520 Speaker 1: can be manipulated like that. Yeah, it reminds me a 89 00:05:34,520 --> 00:05:38,800 Speaker 1: lot of just the just the very basic analog versus digital, right, 90 00:05:38,839 --> 00:05:42,960 Speaker 1: because with analog you've got this continuous signal that can 91 00:05:43,080 --> 00:05:47,479 Speaker 1: change and pitch and in volume, but it's it's you know, 92 00:05:47,520 --> 00:05:50,760 Speaker 1: if you look at a an analog like a sound 93 00:05:50,760 --> 00:05:54,719 Speaker 1: wave from an analog source, it's this curvy wave that 94 00:05:55,080 --> 00:05:59,160 Speaker 1: you know that that's unbroken, right, whereas a digital one 95 00:05:59,520 --> 00:06:01,760 Speaker 1: is i that are on or off and you know, 96 00:06:01,880 --> 00:06:05,280 Speaker 1: it's a little more complicated than that, but it looks 97 00:06:05,279 --> 00:06:08,080 Speaker 1: like if you look at it looks different from an 98 00:06:08,120 --> 00:06:13,279 Speaker 1: analog sound wave. So, um, those two different approaches define 99 00:06:13,839 --> 00:06:18,000 Speaker 1: the characteristics of that sound file. Now, the other big 100 00:06:18,040 --> 00:06:20,160 Speaker 1: way of dividing up the sound files, and the one 101 00:06:20,240 --> 00:06:23,520 Speaker 1: that I think is uh is one of those that 102 00:06:23,560 --> 00:06:28,400 Speaker 1: most people have heard about, um and it's mainly applies 103 00:06:28,440 --> 00:06:31,880 Speaker 1: to the digitized form means synthesize as well, but digitized 104 00:06:31,960 --> 00:06:34,080 Speaker 1: is really where a lot of the sound file discussion 105 00:06:34,440 --> 00:06:42,920 Speaker 1: revolves around uncompressed, lossless and lossy file formats. So let's 106 00:06:42,920 --> 00:06:46,600 Speaker 1: talk a bit about what those means. So uncompressed is 107 00:06:46,640 --> 00:06:50,440 Speaker 1: probably the easiest because it just means it's a sound 108 00:06:50,480 --> 00:06:53,320 Speaker 1: file that doesn't you haven't compressed it at all. You 109 00:06:53,360 --> 00:06:57,200 Speaker 1: haven't lost any information whatever information was in that sound file, 110 00:06:58,040 --> 00:07:00,760 Speaker 1: uh at the very beginning, or or the sound recorded 111 00:07:00,800 --> 00:07:05,440 Speaker 1: into some sort of device, is is replicated as close 112 00:07:05,480 --> 00:07:10,920 Speaker 1: as possible, depending upon them the abilities of that file format. Yeah, 113 00:07:10,960 --> 00:07:14,640 Speaker 1: if you if you take a musical instrument, um, you know, 114 00:07:14,800 --> 00:07:17,920 Speaker 1: like a like a an actual musical instrument, and uh, 115 00:07:18,440 --> 00:07:21,800 Speaker 1: let's say a guitar string. You pluck the string and 116 00:07:21,840 --> 00:07:26,520 Speaker 1: it's going to play reverberated a certain frequency. Um. But 117 00:07:26,720 --> 00:07:28,680 Speaker 1: there there is more to it than that. I mean, 118 00:07:28,760 --> 00:07:32,960 Speaker 1: is it uh slows it starts to to change somewhat. Um. 119 00:07:33,040 --> 00:07:35,760 Speaker 1: Some guitars hold pitch better than others, and you can 120 00:07:35,840 --> 00:07:39,680 Speaker 1: kind of hear it fluctuate somewhat. Um. But as you 121 00:07:39,760 --> 00:07:42,520 Speaker 1: play a song or you know, with a band or 122 00:07:42,560 --> 00:07:47,400 Speaker 1: an orchestra for example, UM, you're going to hear a 123 00:07:47,520 --> 00:07:50,600 Speaker 1: richness of sound if you're right there. Um. And that's 124 00:07:50,640 --> 00:07:55,560 Speaker 1: because there are it covers a wide range of frequencies. Um. 125 00:07:55,600 --> 00:07:59,040 Speaker 1: In some cases frequencies that we can't actually hear. But 126 00:07:59,360 --> 00:08:02,520 Speaker 1: sometimes those high frequencies we can't here interact with what 127 00:08:02,840 --> 00:08:06,280 Speaker 1: one another and create harmonics that we can here. And 128 00:08:06,360 --> 00:08:12,120 Speaker 1: sometimes it's it's something that you can feel, um, and 129 00:08:12,200 --> 00:08:15,280 Speaker 1: that that adds to the depth of the music. Like well, 130 00:08:15,280 --> 00:08:17,440 Speaker 1: I mean we've we've sort of talked about bone conduction 131 00:08:17,520 --> 00:08:23,120 Speaker 1: before too. Um So what what the compression does essentially 132 00:08:23,240 --> 00:08:26,280 Speaker 1: is determined whether or not you know, it should include 133 00:08:26,480 --> 00:08:29,360 Speaker 1: all the different frequencies and the amount of compression that 134 00:08:29,520 --> 00:08:33,800 Speaker 1: someone would use to create a file. Basically, uh says well, 135 00:08:33,840 --> 00:08:36,360 Speaker 1: I'm going to cut out this much of the info 136 00:08:36,400 --> 00:08:39,280 Speaker 1: in this file, um, and you can dial that up 137 00:08:39,360 --> 00:08:42,319 Speaker 1: or down as as you decide to compress that file. Right, 138 00:08:42,400 --> 00:08:46,559 Speaker 1: So a lossless file would be compressed, but would not 139 00:08:47,360 --> 00:08:51,840 Speaker 1: you don't lose any of the actual information there. So, um, 140 00:08:51,880 --> 00:08:56,240 Speaker 1: it's it's the compression level. Your mileage may vary. You 141 00:08:56,280 --> 00:08:59,839 Speaker 1: might it might not be a significantly smaller file than 142 00:09:00,160 --> 00:09:03,240 Speaker 1: uncompressed file, but it does mean that you have found 143 00:09:03,280 --> 00:09:08,040 Speaker 1: ways to try and uh minimize that file size. For one, 144 00:09:08,559 --> 00:09:12,600 Speaker 1: here's an example in an uncompressed file, Let's say that 145 00:09:12,640 --> 00:09:16,760 Speaker 1: you have a minute of silence between sounds. All Right, 146 00:09:16,800 --> 00:09:20,640 Speaker 1: an uncompressed file is going to encode that minute of 147 00:09:20,679 --> 00:09:23,160 Speaker 1: silence the same way it would as if there were 148 00:09:23,320 --> 00:09:27,000 Speaker 1: sound present, So that file size is going to reflect 149 00:09:27,080 --> 00:09:31,360 Speaker 1: the the total amount of time of the recording, not 150 00:09:31,520 --> 00:09:36,160 Speaker 1: just the time when something is actually happening. A lossless 151 00:09:36,200 --> 00:09:41,040 Speaker 1: one may encode that same file, but use a an 152 00:09:41,040 --> 00:09:46,360 Speaker 1: algorithm that that doesn't encode that minute of silence, so 153 00:09:46,480 --> 00:09:52,679 Speaker 1: that that makes the overall file size smaller. Okay, Um, Yeah, 154 00:09:52,720 --> 00:09:55,880 Speaker 1: that that's you think about. That That could results in 155 00:09:56,000 --> 00:09:59,320 Speaker 1: a in a huge savings of information because you know, 156 00:09:59,360 --> 00:10:02,679 Speaker 1: if you're you're trying to capture the depth of sound 157 00:10:03,520 --> 00:10:07,200 Speaker 1: that is present with an entire orchestra and there's literally 158 00:10:07,320 --> 00:10:12,040 Speaker 1: nothing there, then you've recorded a lot of nothing and 159 00:10:12,360 --> 00:10:14,800 Speaker 1: that that takes up space. So then then you have 160 00:10:14,880 --> 00:10:19,880 Speaker 1: the lossy formats. And this is what you were kind 161 00:10:19,880 --> 00:10:23,600 Speaker 1: of alluding to with the whole the frequencies that are 162 00:10:23,600 --> 00:10:27,080 Speaker 1: outside the range of human hearing. Um, I wanted to 163 00:10:27,120 --> 00:10:30,640 Speaker 1: explain what it was there that you would lose. Yeah, ideally, 164 00:10:31,200 --> 00:10:34,120 Speaker 1: with a lossy format, the only things you lose are 165 00:10:34,160 --> 00:10:36,920 Speaker 1: things that we could not perceive. So, in other words, 166 00:10:37,280 --> 00:10:40,800 Speaker 1: any frequency that's below or above the range of human hearing, 167 00:10:40,800 --> 00:10:44,200 Speaker 1: which is about twenty killer hurts. Anything outside of that 168 00:10:44,440 --> 00:10:47,600 Speaker 1: range of frequencies UH is outside the range of normal 169 00:10:47,840 --> 00:10:53,000 Speaker 1: human hearing that hurts and UH. And so the the 170 00:10:53,040 --> 00:10:55,240 Speaker 1: ideas that if there are any frequencies that are either 171 00:10:55,360 --> 00:10:59,040 Speaker 1: above or below that range, those would get cut out, 172 00:10:59,080 --> 00:11:02,360 Speaker 1: they would not be encoded in the file, and that 173 00:11:02,400 --> 00:11:05,760 Speaker 1: would decrease the size. There are other ways that lossy 174 00:11:05,920 --> 00:11:09,840 Speaker 1: formats tend to compress files, and there are things that 175 00:11:09,920 --> 00:11:12,600 Speaker 1: you can choose to do when you're creating a lossy 176 00:11:12,720 --> 00:11:17,400 Speaker 1: file format that will affect the quality of the recording 177 00:11:18,160 --> 00:11:21,400 Speaker 1: to some extent. And there are a lot of different factors, 178 00:11:21,400 --> 00:11:23,280 Speaker 1: and I'll talk about them in just a second, but 179 00:11:24,080 --> 00:11:27,880 Speaker 1: lassy definitely has more of a stigma against it because 180 00:11:28,480 --> 00:11:30,920 Speaker 1: the idea is that you know, there are ties where 181 00:11:30,920 --> 00:11:34,240 Speaker 1: real listen to music and you think, wow, that that 182 00:11:34,320 --> 00:11:38,520 Speaker 1: really does sound like it's a lot different from that 183 00:11:38,520 --> 00:11:41,280 Speaker 1: that that live performance I saw. Like you you might 184 00:11:41,320 --> 00:11:44,040 Speaker 1: go to a live performance and then get a digital 185 00:11:44,080 --> 00:11:47,080 Speaker 1: copy of that live performance. Some bands do that, you know, 186 00:11:47,120 --> 00:11:50,440 Speaker 1: where they record their their shows and then the fans 187 00:11:50,480 --> 00:11:53,360 Speaker 1: can end up buying a digital copy of something that 188 00:11:53,400 --> 00:11:57,120 Speaker 1: they saw, and depending on the encoding, it may not 189 00:11:58,000 --> 00:12:01,480 Speaker 1: really reflect what you experienced. For instance, there might not 190 00:12:01,600 --> 00:12:04,920 Speaker 1: be a four pound guys standing next to you stepping 191 00:12:04,920 --> 00:12:09,000 Speaker 1: on your toe every five minutes, um, right, so they 192 00:12:09,080 --> 00:12:13,600 Speaker 1: might be giants show owen too. Anyway, So the idea 193 00:12:13,679 --> 00:12:17,360 Speaker 1: there being that that depending on how they're encoding it, 194 00:12:17,480 --> 00:12:21,360 Speaker 1: you might not have as rich a listening experience as 195 00:12:21,400 --> 00:12:25,600 Speaker 1: you otherwise would with an uncompressed or lossless format. Um. Now, 196 00:12:25,640 --> 00:12:27,960 Speaker 1: the way that the audio is compressed and stored is 197 00:12:28,160 --> 00:12:32,079 Speaker 1: called a codec. Now, codec and file type are two 198 00:12:32,160 --> 00:12:35,560 Speaker 1: different things. You should not confuse the two. It's easy 199 00:12:35,600 --> 00:12:40,600 Speaker 1: to to get confused. But Kodak is uh, they are related, 200 00:12:40,600 --> 00:12:44,000 Speaker 1: but not the same. Right. There's some some code X 201 00:12:44,040 --> 00:12:46,959 Speaker 1: and file sizes that tend to go together all the time, 202 00:12:47,640 --> 00:12:51,240 Speaker 1: but they are not one and the same. And some 203 00:12:51,280 --> 00:12:54,400 Speaker 1: of the things that can affect how that sound file 204 00:12:54,559 --> 00:12:59,480 Speaker 1: will sound include things like the sample rate. Sample rate 205 00:12:59,559 --> 00:13:06,000 Speaker 1: is when you're converting analog audio into digital information. Uh, 206 00:13:06,240 --> 00:13:09,400 Speaker 1: you use an analog to digital converter or a d C, 207 00:13:10,600 --> 00:13:14,400 Speaker 1: and this is what takes that signal, that continuous signal 208 00:13:14,679 --> 00:13:16,720 Speaker 1: and converts it into a bunch of zeros and ones, 209 00:13:17,760 --> 00:13:21,760 Speaker 1: and uh it kind of chops the signal up into 210 00:13:21,960 --> 00:13:27,599 Speaker 1: segments and does this conversion. So the higher the frequency 211 00:13:27,640 --> 00:13:31,440 Speaker 1: is of your sample rate, in general, the closer to 212 00:13:31,760 --> 00:13:36,520 Speaker 1: the original sound it's going to be uh C D audio. 213 00:13:36,840 --> 00:13:39,960 Speaker 1: What if you guys, you may not remember these there 214 00:13:40,000 --> 00:13:44,400 Speaker 1: were these things called compact discs. I have to I 215 00:13:44,440 --> 00:13:48,600 Speaker 1: remember when compact discs were a new thing. I remember 216 00:13:48,640 --> 00:13:51,040 Speaker 1: thinking this will never take off. And let me listen 217 00:13:51,040 --> 00:13:55,960 Speaker 1: to back cast um or vinyl album or wax cylinder 218 00:13:56,400 --> 00:13:58,880 Speaker 1: or this bard that I hired to follow around and 219 00:13:58,920 --> 00:14:04,160 Speaker 1: sing sagas to higher recorder. Yeah, hey, it's Jonathan from 220 00:14:04,200 --> 00:14:08,000 Speaker 1: the future talking to Jonathan from the past. Cool your jets, buddy, 221 00:14:08,040 --> 00:14:18,120 Speaker 1: we gotta take a quick break and thank our sponsor. Anyway, 222 00:14:18,320 --> 00:14:22,400 Speaker 1: uh so the CD audio is something like forty four 223 00:14:22,440 --> 00:14:24,680 Speaker 1: point one killer hurts as I recall something like that. 224 00:14:24,680 --> 00:14:28,960 Speaker 1: That that's the frequency for their sample rate UM And 225 00:14:29,080 --> 00:14:33,360 Speaker 1: in general, you want to sample rate that's about UM well, 226 00:14:33,400 --> 00:14:35,360 Speaker 1: that that's high enough so that you're going to get 227 00:14:35,400 --> 00:14:38,680 Speaker 1: a good experience when you get playback. And depending on 228 00:14:38,840 --> 00:14:42,320 Speaker 1: your application, you may not need a very high sample rate. So, 229 00:14:42,440 --> 00:14:47,120 Speaker 1: for example, for telephone uh fidelity, when you're speaking on 230 00:14:47,160 --> 00:14:49,560 Speaker 1: the phone to someone else, that sample rate is much 231 00:14:49,680 --> 00:14:51,440 Speaker 1: you know, and we're talking about digital phones. They're doing 232 00:14:51,480 --> 00:14:54,000 Speaker 1: the same thing. They're converting an analog signal into a 233 00:14:54,000 --> 00:14:57,200 Speaker 1: digital information and transmitting it and then decoding it and 234 00:14:57,280 --> 00:15:00,720 Speaker 1: putting it back into analog. Uh, They're sample rate is 235 00:15:00,840 --> 00:15:04,280 Speaker 1: much lower because in general, we've become used to the 236 00:15:04,320 --> 00:15:08,320 Speaker 1: idea that a telephone quality conversation does not need to 237 00:15:08,360 --> 00:15:10,600 Speaker 1: have high fidelity. And if you've ever spoken on the 238 00:15:10,600 --> 00:15:13,200 Speaker 1: telephone with me, you know the quality of my conversations 239 00:15:13,280 --> 00:15:17,240 Speaker 1: is quite low. Well, um, that doesn't really have that 240 00:15:17,320 --> 00:15:20,040 Speaker 1: much to do with this sound quality. Oh, you're right, 241 00:15:20,120 --> 00:15:22,520 Speaker 1: you're right. I got off on a little tangent there. Well, no, 242 00:15:22,840 --> 00:15:26,080 Speaker 1: if you if you take a I'm speaking in general 243 00:15:26,160 --> 00:15:30,880 Speaker 1: terms here, but if you take a podcast file, maybe 244 00:15:30,880 --> 00:15:34,800 Speaker 1: a half hour podcast file, um, from an audio store, 245 00:15:35,120 --> 00:15:40,320 Speaker 1: and you buy a five minute song from that same 246 00:15:40,360 --> 00:15:43,680 Speaker 1: audio store, the song is probably going to be a 247 00:15:43,800 --> 00:15:48,080 Speaker 1: larger file because there is a greater range of sound, 248 00:15:48,800 --> 00:15:51,000 Speaker 1: um that they are trying to preserve to create that 249 00:15:51,040 --> 00:15:54,320 Speaker 1: audio file then to to or that music file. Then 250 00:15:54,400 --> 00:15:57,360 Speaker 1: for the voice because um, you know, the voice files 251 00:15:57,400 --> 00:16:01,040 Speaker 1: don't really need to convey the same rain of frequencies 252 00:16:01,360 --> 00:16:04,360 Speaker 1: right to just stand still, sound good and beyond the 253 00:16:04,400 --> 00:16:07,680 Speaker 1: sample right. There are other factors that also informed the 254 00:16:07,760 --> 00:16:11,120 Speaker 1: quality of a particular sound file, a digitized sound file. 255 00:16:11,640 --> 00:16:14,920 Speaker 1: The resolution. It's just you know, sound files can have resolution, 256 00:16:15,040 --> 00:16:20,200 Speaker 1: just like an image file. It's um. Essentially, it comes 257 00:16:20,200 --> 00:16:23,320 Speaker 1: into the how how the a d C measures the 258 00:16:23,360 --> 00:16:28,440 Speaker 1: incoming um signal voltage and converts that into digital code. 259 00:16:29,360 --> 00:16:33,520 Speaker 1: So the accuracy of that is dependent upon how many 260 00:16:33,640 --> 00:16:35,720 Speaker 1: bits are used in the process. So, in other words, 261 00:16:36,480 --> 00:16:40,320 Speaker 1: the more data you include about the sound, the more 262 00:16:40,360 --> 00:16:44,000 Speaker 1: accurately you can recreate the sound when you play it back. 263 00:16:44,680 --> 00:16:47,760 Speaker 1: So in other words, if and this makes sense, it's 264 00:16:47,840 --> 00:16:50,400 Speaker 1: it's just like any other kind of experience where you're 265 00:16:50,440 --> 00:16:53,240 Speaker 1: trying to recreate something that you've seen. The more data 266 00:16:53,280 --> 00:16:57,119 Speaker 1: you have, the better chances you have of recreating it accurately. 267 00:16:57,600 --> 00:17:00,200 Speaker 1: So if I'm in a room and you were to 268 00:17:00,280 --> 00:17:03,440 Speaker 1: give me a stone tablet and a chisel and a 269 00:17:03,520 --> 00:17:06,240 Speaker 1: hammer and tell me to take notes, those notes would 270 00:17:06,280 --> 00:17:08,560 Speaker 1: be very very limited. If you gave me a pen 271 00:17:08,840 --> 00:17:10,840 Speaker 1: and paper, there would be a little bit better. If 272 00:17:10,840 --> 00:17:15,800 Speaker 1: you gave me a a computer with a working keyboard, 273 00:17:15,880 --> 00:17:19,000 Speaker 1: unlike mine. Um, I would be even better. If you 274 00:17:19,000 --> 00:17:20,800 Speaker 1: gave me a keyboard like mine, it would probably be 275 00:17:20,840 --> 00:17:26,480 Speaker 1: back to stone tablet. Anyway, that's another part that determines 276 00:17:27,480 --> 00:17:30,399 Speaker 1: another factor that determined sound quality, and then data rates. 277 00:17:30,880 --> 00:17:34,000 Speaker 1: And this is really anyone who's converted any sound file 278 00:17:34,040 --> 00:17:36,840 Speaker 1: into MP three format or a format similar to the 279 00:17:36,920 --> 00:17:40,359 Speaker 1: MP three format knows about data rates. You usually you 280 00:17:40,440 --> 00:17:45,479 Speaker 1: have a choice of what what uh data rates speed 281 00:17:45,680 --> 00:17:49,560 Speaker 1: you can pick to uh convert a sound file into 282 00:17:49,600 --> 00:17:52,959 Speaker 1: an MP three and generally high air is better. It 283 00:17:53,000 --> 00:17:56,120 Speaker 1: means that you're going to have a higher fidelity experience. 284 00:17:56,119 --> 00:17:58,159 Speaker 1: It also means the file size it's going to be larger. 285 00:17:58,840 --> 00:18:02,320 Speaker 1: And uh uh I'd say, you know a lot of 286 00:18:02,359 --> 00:18:07,119 Speaker 1: the sound files you would find, at least until fairly recently, 287 00:18:07,160 --> 00:18:09,040 Speaker 1: we're around the nice six kill a bit per second 288 00:18:09,080 --> 00:18:11,920 Speaker 1: or kill a bit per second range. We're starting to 289 00:18:11,960 --> 00:18:15,520 Speaker 1: see that get bombed up now, which is nice. Um, 290 00:18:15,560 --> 00:18:18,800 Speaker 1: those are a lot of the cloud services have higher 291 00:18:19,160 --> 00:18:25,320 Speaker 1: bit data rates for their encoding. Um and in general 292 00:18:25,440 --> 00:18:29,600 Speaker 1: that should translate to a higher fidelity experience. Yeah, I 293 00:18:29,640 --> 00:18:34,080 Speaker 1: mean you get right down to it. Well, frankly, everybody 294 00:18:34,119 --> 00:18:40,840 Speaker 1: hears sound differently and that's that sounds strange probably um, 295 00:18:40,880 --> 00:18:44,159 Speaker 1: probably because you're hearing it differently than I am. No, UM, 296 00:18:44,200 --> 00:18:47,439 Speaker 1: because you know, it sort of depends on the range 297 00:18:47,440 --> 00:18:50,040 Speaker 1: of hearing. Now I say that that kids can hear 298 00:18:50,080 --> 00:18:54,800 Speaker 1: a different range of sound than adults. UM, and that uh, 299 00:18:54,840 --> 00:18:56,840 Speaker 1: you know, they have studies that have been done that 300 00:18:56,840 --> 00:18:59,080 Speaker 1: that show that women hear different ranges of sound than 301 00:18:59,119 --> 00:19:01,840 Speaker 1: men do. And you know they're there are always people 302 00:19:01,920 --> 00:19:05,960 Speaker 1: who UM listen to a vinyl record, for example, and 303 00:19:06,000 --> 00:19:08,560 Speaker 1: they'll they'll say, Wow, that sounds so much better than 304 00:19:08,600 --> 00:19:10,520 Speaker 1: a c D And then other people prefer the sound 305 00:19:10,520 --> 00:19:14,119 Speaker 1: of c D s, which typically are are compressed uh 306 00:19:14,359 --> 00:19:18,680 Speaker 1: pretty pretty significantly at least too to get it to uh, 307 00:19:19,000 --> 00:19:21,240 Speaker 1: you know the audio file that that you hear on 308 00:19:21,280 --> 00:19:25,880 Speaker 1: the on the disk. UM. So you know, everybody is different. 309 00:19:26,000 --> 00:19:30,040 Speaker 1: Let's let's use that as a caveat. But UM, it's 310 00:19:30,040 --> 00:19:33,440 Speaker 1: important to note that in general, the file size the 311 00:19:33,440 --> 00:19:37,720 Speaker 1: the information you want more information encoded on there because 312 00:19:37,760 --> 00:19:40,440 Speaker 1: it's going to provide a richer sound. But it does 313 00:19:40,760 --> 00:19:44,240 Speaker 1: depend on the kodec used to to create the file. UM. 314 00:19:44,320 --> 00:19:46,000 Speaker 1: And that is that is one of those things that 315 00:19:46,119 --> 00:19:48,600 Speaker 1: to paraphrase the song, it ain't what you do, it's 316 00:19:48,640 --> 00:19:51,840 Speaker 1: the way that you do it. Um, And I think 317 00:19:51,840 --> 00:19:55,000 Speaker 1: that's probably where we're getting ready to go. But uh, yeah, 318 00:19:55,040 --> 00:20:01,040 Speaker 1: I mean you you when MP three's became the popular standard, uh, 319 00:20:01,160 --> 00:20:05,800 Speaker 1: the popular bit rate for those was you know, k 320 00:20:07,080 --> 00:20:10,720 Speaker 1: um and um. You know that a lot of people 321 00:20:11,160 --> 00:20:15,080 Speaker 1: who can hear the difference in in sound files would say, 322 00:20:15,080 --> 00:20:17,760 Speaker 1: you know, that's crummy. It sounds terrible, but it was 323 00:20:17,800 --> 00:20:20,239 Speaker 1: acceptable for a lot of people, acceptable enough that they 324 00:20:20,280 --> 00:20:23,160 Speaker 1: would say, you know what, I'm willing to fork over 325 00:20:23,240 --> 00:20:25,439 Speaker 1: money for an MP three player or I'm willing to 326 00:20:25,480 --> 00:20:27,720 Speaker 1: listen to my music at this bit rate. And now 327 00:20:28,200 --> 00:20:31,919 Speaker 1: that we've become more sophisticated in our tastes and have 328 00:20:32,040 --> 00:20:35,560 Speaker 1: more bandwidth available to us, both in MP three player 329 00:20:35,760 --> 00:20:40,840 Speaker 1: audio players, let's say that and uh in our internet connections, Um, 330 00:20:41,800 --> 00:20:45,160 Speaker 1: we're having more choices available to us. We also had 331 00:20:45,240 --> 00:20:49,639 Speaker 1: an era where the speakers that were available to us, 332 00:20:49,760 --> 00:20:52,320 Speaker 1: unless we were really spending a lot of money on 333 00:20:52,359 --> 00:20:55,919 Speaker 1: our our computer systems or what you know, our music 334 00:20:55,960 --> 00:21:00,879 Speaker 1: player systems, we're not really capable of playing at a 335 00:21:01,000 --> 00:21:04,080 Speaker 1: high enough fidelity for it to make a huge difference. 336 00:21:04,119 --> 00:21:06,880 Speaker 1: So you could even have two versions of the same 337 00:21:06,920 --> 00:21:11,120 Speaker 1: file one recorded at a much faster data rate and 338 00:21:11,760 --> 00:21:14,720 Speaker 1: have a hard time telling the difference, simply because the 339 00:21:14,800 --> 00:21:18,560 Speaker 1: hardware you were using to play back the music wasn't 340 00:21:18,560 --> 00:21:21,919 Speaker 1: capable of capturing those subtle differences or even not so 341 00:21:22,000 --> 00:21:24,840 Speaker 1: subtle differences. Because let's let's face it, some of the 342 00:21:24,920 --> 00:21:29,399 Speaker 1: speakers that came out years ago, we're pretty well they 343 00:21:29,400 --> 00:21:31,280 Speaker 1: were definitely sub standard compared to some of the ones 344 00:21:31,320 --> 00:21:34,720 Speaker 1: you can get today. Not saying that today's speakers are, 345 00:21:35,400 --> 00:21:39,199 Speaker 1: you know, the height of human achievement. We definitely have 346 00:21:39,280 --> 00:21:43,120 Speaker 1: a huge range on the market. And uh, and it's 347 00:21:43,160 --> 00:21:44,880 Speaker 1: not always a case if you get what you pay 348 00:21:44,920 --> 00:21:48,800 Speaker 1: for either. That's a totally different podcast though. Uh. It 349 00:21:48,920 --> 00:21:53,840 Speaker 1: just means that that it wasn't as important back then. 350 00:21:53,920 --> 00:21:56,240 Speaker 1: And also we should talk about why there are so 351 00:21:56,280 --> 00:22:00,760 Speaker 1: many different types, So we know, the ones people tend 352 00:22:00,800 --> 00:22:04,840 Speaker 1: to hear about a lot are wave files, uh MP 353 00:22:04,960 --> 00:22:10,760 Speaker 1: three's UM A C files for some folks. Uh, there's 354 00:22:10,840 --> 00:22:15,040 Speaker 1: the A lack files A L A C sometimes flak 355 00:22:15,480 --> 00:22:18,040 Speaker 1: for a few people out there anyway, UM, and then 356 00:22:18,040 --> 00:22:19,879 Speaker 1: there are a lot of other ones, but those are 357 00:22:19,920 --> 00:22:21,359 Speaker 1: those are some of the ones that are the most 358 00:22:21,359 --> 00:22:24,479 Speaker 1: popular but there are. If you were to look at 359 00:22:24,480 --> 00:22:29,840 Speaker 1: a list of every type of audio file that has 360 00:22:30,240 --> 00:22:33,280 Speaker 1: had any sort of traction out there, it would be 361 00:22:33,480 --> 00:22:40,120 Speaker 1: incredibly long. I mean, the different types of them are. Um, 362 00:22:40,160 --> 00:22:42,640 Speaker 1: there's easily easily over a hundred. Now some of those 363 00:22:42,680 --> 00:22:47,480 Speaker 1: are project files, not audio file formats, and the project 364 00:22:47,520 --> 00:22:51,199 Speaker 1: files really just have information about an audio file as 365 00:22:51,200 --> 00:22:54,159 Speaker 1: opposed to having any actual audio information in it itself. 366 00:22:55,000 --> 00:22:57,600 Speaker 1: But you know, you might say, well, why are there 367 00:22:57,720 --> 00:23:00,400 Speaker 1: so many? And there are several different reasons for that. 368 00:23:01,080 --> 00:23:05,040 Speaker 1: One is that as time has gone on, we've created 369 00:23:05,080 --> 00:23:10,000 Speaker 1: more sophisticated computers and sound chips that are able to 370 00:23:10,040 --> 00:23:13,520 Speaker 1: do more than earlier ones. So they were suddenly able 371 00:23:13,600 --> 00:23:17,640 Speaker 1: to support a greater number of features. But the older 372 00:23:17,680 --> 00:23:21,800 Speaker 1: file formats didn't necessarily have that built in, and so 373 00:23:21,960 --> 00:23:26,600 Speaker 1: new file formats emerged that we're able to take advantage 374 00:23:26,640 --> 00:23:30,879 Speaker 1: of the technical uh abilities of the new stuff that 375 00:23:30,920 --> 00:23:34,880 Speaker 1: we were building. In some cases, there were file formats 376 00:23:34,920 --> 00:23:38,920 Speaker 1: that were designed to work specifically with particular types of hardware. 377 00:23:39,760 --> 00:23:43,080 Speaker 1: So if you were back if you had a computer 378 00:23:43,119 --> 00:23:45,400 Speaker 1: back in the old days of the of the sound 379 00:23:45,760 --> 00:23:49,760 Speaker 1: card boom, you know when they had like ruland and 380 00:23:49,800 --> 00:23:52,600 Speaker 1: sound Blaster and all of those coming out. You might 381 00:23:52,640 --> 00:23:56,159 Speaker 1: be familiar that there were certain files file types that 382 00:23:56,160 --> 00:24:01,000 Speaker 1: could play on some cards but not on others, and 383 00:24:01,359 --> 00:24:03,880 Speaker 1: this could get really frustrating as a user. I remember 384 00:24:03,960 --> 00:24:06,600 Speaker 1: going out and looking at computer games and looking at 385 00:24:06,640 --> 00:24:08,720 Speaker 1: a computer game and saying, Wow, I'm not gonna have 386 00:24:08,760 --> 00:24:12,359 Speaker 1: a very good experience with this because, uh, the sound 387 00:24:13,000 --> 00:24:15,840 Speaker 1: file type that they went with was for a different 388 00:24:15,880 --> 00:24:18,119 Speaker 1: sound card than the one I had, So I'm going 389 00:24:18,160 --> 00:24:22,040 Speaker 1: to have more basic, you know, array of sounds that 390 00:24:23,040 --> 00:24:25,520 Speaker 1: is sort of the baseline for this game. I'm not 391 00:24:25,520 --> 00:24:27,880 Speaker 1: gonna have any of the advanced stuff because they decided 392 00:24:27,920 --> 00:24:31,199 Speaker 1: to back this other sound card. So there was a 393 00:24:31,240 --> 00:24:33,199 Speaker 1: division in the market, right, I mean, there wasn't a 394 00:24:33,200 --> 00:24:36,199 Speaker 1: lot of standards that there was no standardized format, so 395 00:24:36,280 --> 00:24:39,760 Speaker 1: you had a lot of proprietary formats, and we still 396 00:24:39,840 --> 00:24:42,560 Speaker 1: have those as well. There's still some proprietary formats, some 397 00:24:42,640 --> 00:24:45,960 Speaker 1: of which are actually used fairly widely. I think most 398 00:24:46,000 --> 00:24:49,320 Speaker 1: people try to get away from those because it's um 399 00:24:49,400 --> 00:24:52,000 Speaker 1: it limits you, it limits what you can play that 400 00:24:52,040 --> 00:24:57,159 Speaker 1: file back on. UM it also means that a lot 401 00:24:57,160 --> 00:25:00,040 Speaker 1: of these proprietary file formats were designed so that you 402 00:25:00,080 --> 00:25:03,440 Speaker 1: could have digital rights management built into the file format, 403 00:25:04,280 --> 00:25:07,679 Speaker 1: so DRM, that's uh, you know, that's something else that 404 00:25:07,680 --> 00:25:12,119 Speaker 1: that determined the different types of files. Another is the 405 00:25:12,240 --> 00:25:16,919 Speaker 1: change in how we listen to these files, all right, 406 00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:20,280 Speaker 1: so um listening to it on a computer or on 407 00:25:20,320 --> 00:25:22,600 Speaker 1: a on a sound device. You can have a certain 408 00:25:22,680 --> 00:25:25,320 Speaker 1: type of file format. Back in the earlier days of 409 00:25:25,359 --> 00:25:27,480 Speaker 1: the Internet, when you wanted to listen to music that 410 00:25:27,640 --> 00:25:30,680 Speaker 1: was going to be coming over uh an internet connection, 411 00:25:31,040 --> 00:25:34,080 Speaker 1: you couldn't use those file formats. They just the files 412 00:25:34,080 --> 00:25:36,879 Speaker 1: were too big. So that meant that you had to 413 00:25:36,920 --> 00:25:40,639 Speaker 1: design a different standard to be able to stream music 414 00:25:41,640 --> 00:25:45,200 Speaker 1: usually had a lower fidelity and uh so that the 415 00:25:45,240 --> 00:25:48,280 Speaker 1: file size was manageable, and that you could have a 416 00:25:48,359 --> 00:25:52,280 Speaker 1: specific type of software to play back those files. So 417 00:25:52,359 --> 00:25:55,040 Speaker 1: things like real audio. Do you remember the old real 418 00:25:55,080 --> 00:26:00,840 Speaker 1: audio days? Right? Unfortunately? Yeah, dark times before the Empire. 419 00:26:01,320 --> 00:26:04,000 Speaker 1: John Than from the future again. You know, these lights 420 00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:06,280 Speaker 1: don't pay for themselves. We're gonna take a quick break 421 00:26:06,280 --> 00:26:17,040 Speaker 1: from this classic episode to thank our sponsor. So yeah, 422 00:26:17,119 --> 00:26:19,439 Speaker 1: there are there's a lot of different reasons. So some 423 00:26:19,560 --> 00:26:23,040 Speaker 1: of the reasons are technological, some are based upon the 424 00:26:23,080 --> 00:26:27,400 Speaker 1: limitations of that technology. Somewhere kind of you know, let's 425 00:26:27,400 --> 00:26:29,360 Speaker 1: face it, some of them are a little greedy, these 426 00:26:29,400 --> 00:26:31,880 Speaker 1: are you know. Some some file types were designed by 427 00:26:31,960 --> 00:26:36,440 Speaker 1: companies saying, if we design the hardware and we designed 428 00:26:36,480 --> 00:26:39,800 Speaker 1: the file type, we lock people into this because they 429 00:26:39,800 --> 00:26:41,960 Speaker 1: won't be able to go and buy some other piece 430 00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:44,320 Speaker 1: of hardware because they're hardware is not gonna be able 431 00:26:44,359 --> 00:26:47,199 Speaker 1: to play our file. Yeah. And then there were some 432 00:26:47,280 --> 00:26:52,399 Speaker 1: that were sort of political, as in, uh, I'm thinking 433 00:26:52,440 --> 00:26:58,520 Speaker 1: specifically of VORBIS, which was was created as an open standard. 434 00:26:59,200 --> 00:27:03,560 Speaker 1: Are you down with a gig? You know me? UM, 435 00:27:03,600 --> 00:27:07,680 Speaker 1: mostly because of the MP three file format taking off, 436 00:27:08,160 --> 00:27:12,120 Speaker 1: but UM the codec used to create it, the primarily 437 00:27:12,240 --> 00:27:16,040 Speaker 1: the Fraunhofer UH Institute that came up with the the 438 00:27:16,160 --> 00:27:19,480 Speaker 1: MP three file standard. UM the codec you had to 439 00:27:19,520 --> 00:27:22,480 Speaker 1: license that UM, so if you wanted to create software 440 00:27:22,520 --> 00:27:25,119 Speaker 1: that would make MP three files, you were supposed to 441 00:27:25,560 --> 00:27:28,560 Speaker 1: license the official codec to do that. And then the 442 00:27:28,600 --> 00:27:31,680 Speaker 1: people who started UH, we're saying, you know what, if 443 00:27:31,720 --> 00:27:34,720 Speaker 1: you want to use our standard to create our audio files, 444 00:27:34,760 --> 00:27:39,359 Speaker 1: then you can do with it what you like, open source, unlicensed. 445 00:27:39,880 --> 00:27:44,560 Speaker 1: So the that was an attractive alternative for for people 446 00:27:44,560 --> 00:27:47,200 Speaker 1: who didn't want to have to, you know, go through 447 00:27:47,240 --> 00:27:50,440 Speaker 1: the red tape of an official licensed piece of software. 448 00:27:51,240 --> 00:27:53,800 Speaker 1: Not that that ended up being much of a problem 449 00:27:53,840 --> 00:27:56,640 Speaker 1: in the long run, but you still and then there's 450 00:27:56,640 --> 00:27:59,760 Speaker 1: still a license fee that has to be paid. But 451 00:27:59,760 --> 00:28:03,720 Speaker 1: but yeah, it was so I had so much weight 452 00:28:03,720 --> 00:28:07,320 Speaker 1: behind it that that people just went with it. Yeah, 453 00:28:07,480 --> 00:28:10,320 Speaker 1: So that was you know, that's a good example. But 454 00:28:10,359 --> 00:28:12,640 Speaker 1: then let's let's go ahead. We'll touch on MP three. 455 00:28:12,640 --> 00:28:14,760 Speaker 1: Even though we have done a full episode about m 456 00:28:14,800 --> 00:28:17,240 Speaker 1: P three's before, it would just take a lot of 457 00:28:17,280 --> 00:28:20,280 Speaker 1: digging for you guys can get that episode. Let's not 458 00:28:20,320 --> 00:28:22,040 Speaker 1: to mention it anyway. I mean, it is sort of 459 00:28:22,040 --> 00:28:24,280 Speaker 1: the eight pound gorilla in the room. Yeah. And so 460 00:28:24,560 --> 00:28:28,560 Speaker 1: IMPEG stands for Moving Picture Experts Group, which is exactly 461 00:28:28,640 --> 00:28:31,320 Speaker 1: what you would expect out of a sound file. Uh. 462 00:28:31,359 --> 00:28:34,840 Speaker 1: It's which was working under the direction of the International 463 00:28:34,920 --> 00:28:41,959 Speaker 1: Organization for Standardization and the International Electro Technical Commission. Yeah, 464 00:28:42,040 --> 00:28:45,040 Speaker 1: and uh, the idea was that they wanted to create 465 00:28:45,080 --> 00:28:51,560 Speaker 1: a standard to avoid this proprietary problem. Ops. Um. Yeah. Actually, 466 00:28:51,640 --> 00:28:53,960 Speaker 1: it's the funny thing is it's not like it's it's 467 00:28:53,960 --> 00:29:00,000 Speaker 1: not MPEG three, it's MPEG one layer three just complicated 468 00:29:00,400 --> 00:29:02,040 Speaker 1: and then there and there are a lot of different 469 00:29:02,280 --> 00:29:07,200 Speaker 1: UM file extensions that fall under the impact audio for UH, 470 00:29:07,360 --> 00:29:09,800 Speaker 1: it's not you know, MP three is one of the 471 00:29:09,840 --> 00:29:13,440 Speaker 1: more common ones, but it's not the only one. UM. 472 00:29:13,440 --> 00:29:16,959 Speaker 1: It's a lossy format, so you do end up losing 473 00:29:17,080 --> 00:29:20,520 Speaker 1: data when you convert to MP three as part of 474 00:29:20,560 --> 00:29:23,280 Speaker 1: the compression, and the codec you use to create your 475 00:29:23,360 --> 00:29:26,520 Speaker 1: MP three sort of helps determine what it is that 476 00:29:26,600 --> 00:29:29,880 Speaker 1: it loses because it has a different algorithm behind it. 477 00:29:30,160 --> 00:29:32,840 Speaker 1: Right and uh, and again you change depending on the 478 00:29:32,920 --> 00:29:35,800 Speaker 1: data rate. You can make the file larger, smaller, and 479 00:29:35,880 --> 00:29:42,440 Speaker 1: thus have more or less information about the sound file. UM. 480 00:29:42,520 --> 00:29:44,840 Speaker 1: Another thing we should something else I should have pointed 481 00:29:44,840 --> 00:29:47,040 Speaker 1: out With the different types of sound files, some of 482 00:29:47,080 --> 00:29:51,640 Speaker 1: them support metadata and some do not, and metadata turned 483 00:29:51,640 --> 00:29:54,600 Speaker 1: out to be really important. Uh. Metadata, of course, is 484 00:29:54,640 --> 00:29:58,240 Speaker 1: information about other information, So metadata for a sound file 485 00:29:58,320 --> 00:30:02,320 Speaker 1: might include things like the artist's name, the album name, 486 00:30:02,560 --> 00:30:06,680 Speaker 1: other information. It could also include things like who uploaded it, 487 00:30:07,040 --> 00:30:09,800 Speaker 1: who who encoded it. It all depends on the code 488 00:30:09,800 --> 00:30:13,600 Speaker 1: dec It all depends on the file type. So some 489 00:30:13,640 --> 00:30:16,720 Speaker 1: of these file types are essentially digital fingerprints. Like if 490 00:30:16,720 --> 00:30:18,680 Speaker 1: you were to download one of these files and then 491 00:30:18,720 --> 00:30:21,040 Speaker 1: you were actually open up the code and look at it, 492 00:30:21,080 --> 00:30:23,960 Speaker 1: you could potentially, depending on the file type, determine who 493 00:30:23,960 --> 00:30:27,560 Speaker 1: it was that originally UM encoded it and uploaded it, 494 00:30:27,680 --> 00:30:29,760 Speaker 1: or at least who encoded it. You might not know 495 00:30:29,840 --> 00:30:34,040 Speaker 1: who who uploaded it UM. So that's kind of an 496 00:30:34,080 --> 00:30:36,480 Speaker 1: interesting thing. Uh. And not all the files, of course, 497 00:30:36,480 --> 00:30:39,880 Speaker 1: support metadata, but a lot of really popular ones do 498 00:30:40,000 --> 00:30:45,080 Speaker 1: because it's a useful way to get information in uh 499 00:30:45,400 --> 00:30:49,680 Speaker 1: in a music UM management software, right, So that way, 500 00:30:49,880 --> 00:30:52,760 Speaker 1: because you think about music management software like iTunes, that's 501 00:30:52,760 --> 00:30:54,480 Speaker 1: one of the most popular ones. So it's easy to 502 00:30:54,480 --> 00:30:58,440 Speaker 1: talk about iTunes has all the information about the artists, 503 00:30:58,480 --> 00:31:01,880 Speaker 1: the album, the song tied, all that kind of stuff, 504 00:31:01,880 --> 00:31:07,080 Speaker 1: and that lets you sort your albums through various ways. UM. 505 00:31:07,120 --> 00:31:10,200 Speaker 1: Without the metadata, you wouldn't have that information. You would 506 00:31:10,200 --> 00:31:14,239 Speaker 1: have the name of the file and what kind what 507 00:31:14,280 --> 00:31:15,920 Speaker 1: type of file it was, and that that would be 508 00:31:15,960 --> 00:31:19,880 Speaker 1: about it. So that's something else that I wanted to 509 00:31:19,960 --> 00:31:22,840 Speaker 1: point out. So, so along with MP three, you know, 510 00:31:22,880 --> 00:31:27,800 Speaker 1: you've got the wave files, which are uh, again pretty 511 00:31:27,840 --> 00:31:31,280 Speaker 1: pretty popular. That's a format that was created by Microsoft 512 00:31:31,280 --> 00:31:35,280 Speaker 1: and IBM and UM. It kind of takes and it 513 00:31:35,440 --> 00:31:39,640 Speaker 1: creates an arbitrary sampling rate uh and a number of 514 00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:44,400 Speaker 1: channels in the sample size. UM. It's uh one of 515 00:31:44,440 --> 00:31:47,720 Speaker 1: the first audio file types that were developed for the 516 00:31:47,760 --> 00:31:52,560 Speaker 1: PC UM and it's defined as being lossless. So this 517 00:31:52,640 --> 00:31:55,920 Speaker 1: is the wave files are lossless files. They tend to 518 00:31:55,920 --> 00:31:59,920 Speaker 1: be much larger than MP three files. Uh, not necessarily 519 00:32:00,040 --> 00:32:02,680 Speaker 1: as large as an uncompressed version of that file, but 520 00:32:02,760 --> 00:32:07,200 Speaker 1: still pretty big. And UM. Yeah, so those are the 521 00:32:07,280 --> 00:32:09,880 Speaker 1: those are two of the main ones. But then and 522 00:32:09,960 --> 00:32:13,640 Speaker 1: you can have either digitized or synthesized wave files. And 523 00:32:13,680 --> 00:32:17,840 Speaker 1: then there's uh the the A C files UM, which 524 00:32:17,840 --> 00:32:25,560 Speaker 1: is again another lossy compression format. UM. That's the depending 525 00:32:25,560 --> 00:32:27,880 Speaker 1: on who you ask, I've heard people say that they 526 00:32:27,960 --> 00:32:30,920 Speaker 1: prefer a C over MP three's and that they think 527 00:32:30,960 --> 00:32:37,200 Speaker 1: a C compression leads to less loss of fidelity. Yeah, yeah, 528 00:32:37,240 --> 00:32:41,360 Speaker 1: they were. Apple adopted it for for the iTunes store 529 00:32:41,480 --> 00:32:44,440 Speaker 1: a long time ago as the music format, and you know, 530 00:32:44,480 --> 00:32:48,240 Speaker 1: they the company really pushed it as being a superior 531 00:32:48,280 --> 00:32:51,840 Speaker 1: format to the MP three. UM. You know, again it 532 00:32:51,840 --> 00:32:55,360 Speaker 1: depends on whom you ask, UM, but you know they 533 00:32:55,400 --> 00:32:59,920 Speaker 1: and then they started with a k uh digited digit 534 00:33:00,080 --> 00:33:03,600 Speaker 1: tization rate. Hey, I said it UM, and you know, 535 00:33:03,960 --> 00:33:08,400 Speaker 1: they they semi recently, it's not recent recent, but it's 536 00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:13,360 Speaker 1: UM over the past while here they've they've upgraded that 537 00:33:13,960 --> 00:33:17,360 Speaker 1: UM too, so you know that that has been a thing. 538 00:33:17,520 --> 00:33:20,120 Speaker 1: But UM, yeah, some people feel that that A C 539 00:33:20,360 --> 00:33:23,040 Speaker 1: is a better UM. You know, an a C at 540 00:33:23,760 --> 00:33:29,560 Speaker 1: K sounds better than an MP three at K encoding UM. 541 00:33:29,600 --> 00:33:33,800 Speaker 1: Another Apple file format. There was an earlier one developed 542 00:33:33,800 --> 00:33:37,360 Speaker 1: by Apple as the Audio Interchange File Format or ai 543 00:33:37,560 --> 00:33:40,840 Speaker 1: f F. Yeah, basically a long time ago, I would say, 544 00:33:40,840 --> 00:33:43,400 Speaker 1: in the mid nineties, if you ran across a wave file, 545 00:33:43,480 --> 00:33:45,920 Speaker 1: you'd say, oh, that's a Microsoft file, and if you 546 00:33:46,000 --> 00:33:47,959 Speaker 1: ran across an ai f F, you'd say, oh, well, 547 00:33:47,960 --> 00:33:51,600 Speaker 1: that's a Macintosh file. It's not so clear cut these days, 548 00:33:51,720 --> 00:33:53,960 Speaker 1: but they, you know, it was sort of the this 549 00:33:54,000 --> 00:33:56,920 Speaker 1: is what we use on our operating system, and that's 550 00:33:56,920 --> 00:33:59,240 Speaker 1: what they use on their operating system kind of thing, right. 551 00:33:59,280 --> 00:34:02,080 Speaker 1: And then there was the Apple Lossless Audio Codec or 552 00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:05,720 Speaker 1: a L A C A LACK uh. And that was 553 00:34:05,800 --> 00:34:11,000 Speaker 1: one that in Apple kind of surprised folks by by 554 00:34:11,080 --> 00:34:16,080 Speaker 1: converting it into open source and royalty free, uh, which 555 00:34:16,440 --> 00:34:19,720 Speaker 1: for people who were big followers of Apple was something 556 00:34:19,719 --> 00:34:25,920 Speaker 1: of a SHOCK they and and ALAC file or Apple 557 00:34:25,960 --> 00:34:29,839 Speaker 1: Lossless Audio Codec file is stored in an MP four 558 00:34:29,960 --> 00:34:34,560 Speaker 1: container with the file extension of M four A. So 559 00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:37,879 Speaker 1: uh if you see an M for a file, then 560 00:34:37,960 --> 00:34:42,080 Speaker 1: that's that's a potential uh pointer that that's what you're 561 00:34:42,120 --> 00:34:46,240 Speaker 1: looking at in a LACK file. UM. But there's so 562 00:34:46,320 --> 00:34:49,480 Speaker 1: many more. Uh. There's like I said, there was FLAK, 563 00:34:49,560 --> 00:34:53,359 Speaker 1: which is the free lossless audio codec, very similar to 564 00:34:53,800 --> 00:34:57,120 Speaker 1: a LACK except that it's UM. It was started off 565 00:34:57,160 --> 00:35:00,880 Speaker 1: as open source and free. UM. Yeah, lot of people 566 00:35:00,920 --> 00:35:06,200 Speaker 1: who are are real audio files and and still download 567 00:35:06,280 --> 00:35:08,279 Speaker 1: music because a lot of them won't because of the 568 00:35:08,719 --> 00:35:13,240 Speaker 1: lossy nature of a lot of the audio files online. UM, 569 00:35:13,280 --> 00:35:16,520 Speaker 1: a lot of people prefer the FLAK files. And I've 570 00:35:16,520 --> 00:35:20,600 Speaker 1: seen artists who sell their music files from their websites 571 00:35:21,080 --> 00:35:25,000 Speaker 1: offer uh MP three or a C and and flack 572 00:35:25,920 --> 00:35:27,440 Speaker 1: as an option. So you know, if you want to 573 00:35:27,440 --> 00:35:29,200 Speaker 1: pay a couple of extra dollars, you can get the 574 00:35:29,239 --> 00:35:33,920 Speaker 1: fancy hi fi audio files. Well, there's the sun Audio 575 00:35:34,320 --> 00:35:38,240 Speaker 1: format which is dot AU UH that was specifically created 576 00:35:38,280 --> 00:35:41,040 Speaker 1: for Unix Systems. That's another reason why there's so many 577 00:35:41,040 --> 00:35:43,799 Speaker 1: different file types out there is because there's some that 578 00:35:43,840 --> 00:35:47,400 Speaker 1: were designed with specific operating systems in mind. UH. There's 579 00:35:47,440 --> 00:35:53,600 Speaker 1: Windows Media Audio w M A UM, again developed as 580 00:35:53,680 --> 00:35:57,440 Speaker 1: a competing my guess standard is the wrong word, but 581 00:35:57,480 --> 00:36:02,920 Speaker 1: a competing file format two MP three and UH designed 582 00:36:02,920 --> 00:36:07,200 Speaker 1: to play in within the Windows Media Player, and UM 583 00:36:07,400 --> 00:36:11,920 Speaker 1: UH supposedly had a much more efficient compression algorithm than 584 00:36:12,080 --> 00:36:17,440 Speaker 1: MP three, also designed with DRM protection in mind, and 585 00:36:17,480 --> 00:36:20,840 Speaker 1: that was one of the other reasons why Microsoft was 586 00:36:20,880 --> 00:36:23,440 Speaker 1: really interested in developing its own file format sound file 587 00:36:23,520 --> 00:36:28,920 Speaker 1: format beyond wave UM was to try and protect intellectual property. 588 00:36:29,560 --> 00:36:32,719 Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah. Basically, DRM is just another layer of 589 00:36:32,840 --> 00:36:36,759 Speaker 1: information encoded it's it's essentially metadata, but it's metadata that 590 00:36:36,840 --> 00:36:41,279 Speaker 1: explains UM who essentially who owns the file. So if 591 00:36:41,320 --> 00:36:46,000 Speaker 1: if Jonathan buys a song from UM you know, a 592 00:36:46,120 --> 00:36:50,400 Speaker 1: an online music store that has DRM embedded in it, it 593 00:36:50,280 --> 00:36:53,520 Speaker 1: it will say, well, this this belongs to Jonathan, UM, 594 00:36:53,560 --> 00:36:56,319 Speaker 1: he paid for it, and he is allowed to listen 595 00:36:56,360 --> 00:36:59,360 Speaker 1: to it on his registered machines, but only on his 596 00:36:59,520 --> 00:37:03,279 Speaker 1: registered machines, or UM you know it might say he's 597 00:37:03,320 --> 00:37:06,080 Speaker 1: allowed to listen to this file for free for three 598 00:37:06,120 --> 00:37:08,240 Speaker 1: weeks and three weeks only. And so when the audio 599 00:37:08,280 --> 00:37:11,080 Speaker 1: player tries to go back and says, oh wait, it's 600 00:37:11,160 --> 00:37:16,879 Speaker 1: past three weeks. You know, it might disappear plays or 601 00:37:17,080 --> 00:37:20,280 Speaker 1: or he's allowed to loan it to somebody. That that's um, 602 00:37:20,400 --> 00:37:24,319 Speaker 1: that's how they determine those uh, those free preview things 603 00:37:24,360 --> 00:37:26,480 Speaker 1: will say oh, yes, you can download this and listen 604 00:37:26,760 --> 00:37:29,319 Speaker 1: one time for free, and you can listen to the 605 00:37:29,440 --> 00:37:33,799 Speaker 1: entire song, and then the DRM information encoded in the track. Um, 606 00:37:34,040 --> 00:37:36,200 Speaker 1: when the player tries to read the file again, and 607 00:37:36,200 --> 00:37:38,920 Speaker 1: it will, it will check the information. It says, oh, well, 608 00:37:38,960 --> 00:37:41,680 Speaker 1: it has been played one time and therefore I will 609 00:37:41,719 --> 00:37:45,279 Speaker 1: not allow you to play it again. Sucker go away. Yep. 610 00:37:45,960 --> 00:37:48,960 Speaker 1: So I mean all of these, all of these different 611 00:37:49,000 --> 00:37:52,319 Speaker 1: files are all meant to do essentially the same thing. 612 00:37:52,400 --> 00:37:56,520 Speaker 1: It's again just depending depended upon the equipment you're using 613 00:37:57,080 --> 00:38:00,480 Speaker 1: and the software you're using, and whether or not it's 614 00:38:00,920 --> 00:38:07,200 Speaker 1: an open approach or if it's a proprietary approach. Uh. 615 00:38:07,280 --> 00:38:11,480 Speaker 1: You know, there's nothing necessarily that says one sound file 616 00:38:11,600 --> 00:38:15,759 Speaker 1: is better than another, uh, because it all depends on 617 00:38:15,880 --> 00:38:20,920 Speaker 1: what you value. Do you value a manageable file size? 618 00:38:21,400 --> 00:38:23,839 Speaker 1: If storage is a is an issue, then that might 619 00:38:23,880 --> 00:38:27,960 Speaker 1: be very important to you. Do you value as close 620 00:38:28,120 --> 00:38:33,200 Speaker 1: to the original performance as possible, like that experience. If so, 621 00:38:33,280 --> 00:38:35,840 Speaker 1: then the quality, the actual sound quality is going to 622 00:38:35,880 --> 00:38:39,800 Speaker 1: be the most important. UM do you use a specific 623 00:38:39,840 --> 00:38:44,000 Speaker 1: type of device, because that will also help determine which 624 00:38:44,120 --> 00:38:46,920 Speaker 1: file size is best or file type is best for you. 625 00:38:47,760 --> 00:38:50,759 Speaker 1: Uh So, you know, you can't. I don't think you 626 00:38:50,760 --> 00:38:54,160 Speaker 1: can just necessarily come out and say, uh, you know, 627 00:38:54,320 --> 00:38:58,160 Speaker 1: AC files are better than m P three's period always, etcetera. 628 00:38:58,640 --> 00:39:01,560 Speaker 1: It all depends on your particular sular situation and the 629 00:39:01,600 --> 00:39:04,319 Speaker 1: equipment that you have. UM. I guess one other thing 630 00:39:04,360 --> 00:39:07,880 Speaker 1: we can talk about before we sign off is the 631 00:39:07,920 --> 00:39:11,080 Speaker 1: fact that there there has been for a long time, 632 00:39:12,160 --> 00:39:18,320 Speaker 1: for years really uh a discussion within the music industry 633 00:39:18,680 --> 00:39:22,120 Speaker 1: about how the MP three file format, in particular, because 634 00:39:22,120 --> 00:39:27,400 Speaker 1: it's so popular and so dominant, has changed the way 635 00:39:27,800 --> 00:39:32,359 Speaker 1: music sounds. Because there's a discussion that it kind of 636 00:39:32,400 --> 00:39:39,279 Speaker 1: flattens the highs and the lows of of what you 637 00:39:39,320 --> 00:39:42,279 Speaker 1: can get out of a piece of music, and so 638 00:39:42,400 --> 00:39:46,560 Speaker 1: a lot of the music is starting to sound similar 639 00:39:46,680 --> 00:39:50,239 Speaker 1: to each other because you can't reach those dynamics that 640 00:39:50,320 --> 00:39:55,200 Speaker 1: you could without that you know, lossy compression format that 641 00:39:55,360 --> 00:39:58,239 Speaker 1: is part of it. There's also a human element involved 642 00:39:58,280 --> 00:40:00,759 Speaker 1: in that, and it has to do with the way 643 00:40:00,800 --> 00:40:06,960 Speaker 1: the music is produced. UM, because I have seen examples 644 00:40:07,120 --> 00:40:11,200 Speaker 1: of UH songs that were produced UH antal and you know, 645 00:40:11,239 --> 00:40:16,880 Speaker 1: in a complete analog environment before it became so popular 646 00:40:16,920 --> 00:40:21,840 Speaker 1: to have louder songs recorded on digital equipment in digital 647 00:40:22,440 --> 00:40:25,839 Speaker 1: and and reproduced on digital equipment. And in a lot 648 00:40:25,880 --> 00:40:31,200 Speaker 1: of cases the materials that now that that loudness is 649 00:40:32,280 --> 00:40:36,520 Speaker 1: being has become somewhat of a priority. UM. A lot 650 00:40:36,600 --> 00:40:39,719 Speaker 1: of the music is reproduced loud, and then the the 651 00:40:39,800 --> 00:40:42,960 Speaker 1: high end and low end are trimmed off to create 652 00:40:42,960 --> 00:40:47,279 Speaker 1: a digital file. So it's almost in some cases like 653 00:40:47,320 --> 00:40:50,600 Speaker 1: a solid block of sound and in the highs and 654 00:40:50,680 --> 00:40:57,120 Speaker 1: lows and there is less dynamic range. UM. And again 655 00:40:57,160 --> 00:40:59,440 Speaker 1: this is this, this is a human element element. And 656 00:40:59,640 --> 00:41:01,840 Speaker 1: you know what people are listening for. What do I 657 00:41:01,920 --> 00:41:04,919 Speaker 1: want from UH this new CD that I'm going to buy? 658 00:41:04,920 --> 00:41:06,799 Speaker 1: Do I want to crank it up in my car 659 00:41:06,840 --> 00:41:08,960 Speaker 1: and go driving down the boulevard and have people notice 660 00:41:09,000 --> 00:41:12,640 Speaker 1: who I am and associate this music with me. Um. 661 00:41:12,800 --> 00:41:17,160 Speaker 1: The answer to that as always yes, yeah, yeah, um, 662 00:41:17,160 --> 00:41:22,640 Speaker 1: Polka all the time people, Okay, funny, that's also the 663 00:41:22,680 --> 00:41:26,480 Speaker 1: disco sound. Um but um, but yeah, I mean this 664 00:41:26,560 --> 00:41:29,040 Speaker 1: is a this can be a problem, you know, because 665 00:41:29,080 --> 00:41:32,799 Speaker 1: then you don't have the same you don't get that 666 00:41:32,920 --> 00:41:35,480 Speaker 1: dynamic range, and you say, well, is this something that's 667 00:41:35,480 --> 00:41:37,799 Speaker 1: important to me or not? Again, it's it's partially a 668 00:41:37,800 --> 00:41:41,080 Speaker 1: matter of choice, but it's also partially what the market 669 00:41:41,160 --> 00:41:45,919 Speaker 1: is asking for, and people are producing and putting out 670 00:41:45,960 --> 00:41:48,360 Speaker 1: to the market as well well. And there's also the argument, 671 00:41:48,640 --> 00:41:51,239 Speaker 1: and this becomes a circular argument. Yeah, but there's also 672 00:41:51,280 --> 00:41:54,040 Speaker 1: the argument that the equipment that people are using to 673 00:41:54,200 --> 00:41:58,160 Speaker 1: listen to music is incapable of distinguishing some of the 674 00:41:58,160 --> 00:42:03,200 Speaker 1: subtleties that we might associate with earlier types of music. Therefore, 675 00:42:03,560 --> 00:42:07,279 Speaker 1: since the playback equipment cannot handle it, why would you 676 00:42:07,280 --> 00:42:10,600 Speaker 1: put it in there? Why bothered to do that when 677 00:42:10,600 --> 00:42:13,839 Speaker 1: you can take this other route, which is exactly what 678 00:42:13,920 --> 00:42:18,040 Speaker 1: the equipment can handle, and that thus you also get 679 00:42:18,040 --> 00:42:23,080 Speaker 1: to a more homogenized sound across various industries or various genres. 680 00:42:23,120 --> 00:42:25,719 Speaker 1: I guess I should say, is it also pasteurized? It 681 00:42:25,840 --> 00:42:31,279 Speaker 1: can be, It can be pasteurized. Rarely do you have 682 00:42:31,400 --> 00:42:33,360 Speaker 1: vitamin D added you know, there's a lot of vitamin 683 00:42:33,440 --> 00:42:36,360 Speaker 1: D deficiency in the music industry. So it's it's a scandal, 684 00:42:36,400 --> 00:42:39,560 Speaker 1: it's about it's poised to break wide open. Yeah, there's 685 00:42:39,560 --> 00:42:43,600 Speaker 1: also no fluoride. Yeah. Well fortunately they did lick the 686 00:42:43,640 --> 00:42:47,239 Speaker 1: scurvy problem, so that was good. Not literally that would 687 00:42:47,239 --> 00:42:52,440 Speaker 1: be gross. So anyway, earbuds are wet. Is there anything 688 00:42:52,440 --> 00:42:54,760 Speaker 1: else in particular you want to talk about? Sound files? 689 00:42:54,760 --> 00:42:58,719 Speaker 1: I mean, like I said, there are literally hundreds of 690 00:42:58,920 --> 00:43:01,759 Speaker 1: different types of sound files, some of which are really 691 00:43:01,800 --> 00:43:04,640 Speaker 1: obscure and haven't been used in more than a decade 692 00:43:04,640 --> 00:43:08,080 Speaker 1: except on legacy systems. Yeah, the we had we had 693 00:43:08,120 --> 00:43:09,960 Speaker 1: a couple of people write us in and ask us 694 00:43:10,120 --> 00:43:13,160 Speaker 1: to do this, and I'm wondering if we actually, uh, 695 00:43:13,200 --> 00:43:14,879 Speaker 1: this is not the kind of thing that we can 696 00:43:14,880 --> 00:43:18,480 Speaker 1: wrap up in a nice package and tie off because 697 00:43:18,800 --> 00:43:20,640 Speaker 1: it is such a diverse thing, and it's not. It's 698 00:43:20,640 --> 00:43:24,879 Speaker 1: probably not going to end because even once we standardize, 699 00:43:24,920 --> 00:43:28,439 Speaker 1: we get closer to standardizing on maybe two or three 700 00:43:29,239 --> 00:43:33,520 Speaker 1: audio standards, um, somebody will still be working on coming 701 00:43:33,600 --> 00:43:36,120 Speaker 1: up with a better way to reproduce sound, and thus 702 00:43:36,120 --> 00:43:38,880 Speaker 1: we'll introduce a new file format for us to consider. Right, 703 00:43:38,960 --> 00:43:41,839 Speaker 1: and and plus just with new equipment coming out, things 704 00:43:41,880 --> 00:43:44,960 Speaker 1: like video game systems, like handheld video game systems. They 705 00:43:45,000 --> 00:43:48,960 Speaker 1: have their own proprietary sound file extensions too, like the 706 00:43:49,040 --> 00:43:52,799 Speaker 1: Nintendo ones have their own proprietary sound file extensions. So 707 00:43:53,040 --> 00:43:55,080 Speaker 1: and then we still have people going back and trying 708 00:43:55,120 --> 00:43:59,800 Speaker 1: to reproduce the eight bit sound waves and chip tunes. 709 00:44:00,040 --> 00:44:02,440 Speaker 1: Uh so, yeah, it's it's one of those things that 710 00:44:02,480 --> 00:44:04,919 Speaker 1: I do not expect us to ever reach a point 711 00:44:04,920 --> 00:44:08,319 Speaker 1: where we're going to have the one standard audio file 712 00:44:08,400 --> 00:44:10,160 Speaker 1: and some of them, some of them will become kind 713 00:44:10,160 --> 00:44:12,719 Speaker 1: of de facto standards, just because the fact that so 714 00:44:12,760 --> 00:44:15,279 Speaker 1: many people are using it. But that's not the same 715 00:44:15,280 --> 00:44:17,759 Speaker 1: thing as to say we've all settled on one particular 716 00:44:17,800 --> 00:44:21,560 Speaker 1: file format. Alright, guys, that wraps up this classic episode 717 00:44:21,600 --> 00:44:24,680 Speaker 1: of tech stuff from the wonderful year of two thousand 718 00:44:24,719 --> 00:44:27,279 Speaker 1: and twelve, when Chris and I decided to talk about 719 00:44:27,280 --> 00:44:29,480 Speaker 1: all these different types of sound files. We've got a 720 00:44:29,520 --> 00:44:33,240 Speaker 1: bunch of cool classic episodes lined up for the following weeks, 721 00:44:33,680 --> 00:44:35,879 Speaker 1: some of which date all the way back to two 722 00:44:35,880 --> 00:44:39,480 Speaker 1: thousand nine, almost a decade ago. Wow. I hope you 723 00:44:39,560 --> 00:44:42,400 Speaker 1: guys are enjoying these, uh these classic episodes. I know 724 00:44:42,440 --> 00:44:45,840 Speaker 1: a lot of you started listening to the show fairly recently, 725 00:44:45,920 --> 00:44:49,200 Speaker 1: so you missed out on all these gems from back 726 00:44:49,200 --> 00:44:51,440 Speaker 1: in the day. That's the purpose of bringing them to you. 727 00:44:51,760 --> 00:44:54,080 Speaker 1: If you guys have any suggestions for future episodes of 728 00:44:54,120 --> 00:44:57,800 Speaker 1: tech Stuff or or future past episodes of tech Stuff, 729 00:44:57,960 --> 00:45:00,160 Speaker 1: get in touch with me. The email address is tex 730 00:45:00,239 --> 00:45:02,920 Speaker 1: Stuff at how stuff works dot com. We're dropping a 731 00:45:03,000 --> 00:45:05,319 Speaker 1: line on Facebook or Twitter. The handle there is tech 732 00:45:05,360 --> 00:45:08,480 Speaker 1: Stuff h s W. Don't forget to follow us on 733 00:45:08,520 --> 00:45:17,520 Speaker 1: Instagram and I'll talk to you again really soon for 734 00:45:17,600 --> 00:45:19,920 Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it 735 00:45:20,000 --> 00:45:31,040 Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com.