WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: TechStuff Listens in on Sound Files 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:14.080 stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tex Stuff. 0:00:14.080 --> 0:00:16.959 I'm your host Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:19.439 how Stuff Works, and I love all things tech and 0:00:19.480 --> 0:00:24.160 it's time for a tech Stuff Classic episode. Today's classic 0:00:24.320 --> 0:00:28.400 episode has the title tech Stuff Listens in on sound Files. 0:00:28.680 --> 0:00:31.680 Chris Pallette and I did this episode to kind of 0:00:31.720 --> 0:00:33.920 look at all the different types of sound files that 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:37.040 were really kind of prevalent at that time and discuss 0:00:37.080 --> 0:00:40.760 what makes them different, lossy versus lossless, all that kind 0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:42.960 of stuff kind of give a little insight as to 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:48.080 the variations and differentiations between these. So I hope you 0:00:48.080 --> 0:00:51.520 guys enjoyed this episode originally aired on October eight, two 0:00:51.520 --> 0:00:56.319 thousand twelve. And take it away, Chris and Jonathan. We're 0:00:56.320 --> 0:00:59.600 gonna talk today about sound files and why there are 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:02.720 so many any different why are there so many sound files, 0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:06.240 never mind sound file formats? Uh and also um just 0:01:06.319 --> 0:01:11.199 kind of get into the particulars of various popular sound files. 0:01:11.240 --> 0:01:14.040 Maybe we'll talk about some of the more rare ones 0:01:14.080 --> 0:01:17.000 that you can encounter two um and and if this 0:01:17.120 --> 0:01:19.800 any of this sounds familiar, then you're probably a long 0:01:19.920 --> 0:01:23.800 time listener of tech stuff. We did an episode many 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:28.800 many many moons ago on the MP three format. I 0:01:28.959 --> 0:01:31.959 was just a kid then, yeah, boy, when we had 0:01:32.000 --> 0:01:35.880 stars in our eyes and and and uh and lunch 0:01:35.920 --> 0:01:38.760 and our belly. Uh. That's back when we used to 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:42.399 record in the afternoon. Anyway, so we do this in 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:46.080 the mornings. Now. We want to talk about different types 0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:49.120 of sound files. And before we get into specifics, UH, 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:52.920 talk a little bit about categorizing sound files. There's really 0:01:53.200 --> 0:01:54.800 a couple of different ways you can look at it. 0:01:55.480 --> 0:02:01.840 One is digitized sound files versus synthesized sound files. Now, 0:02:01.880 --> 0:02:06.000 digitizes where you're taking you're you're creating sound files out 0:02:06.040 --> 0:02:09.280 of bits, out of zeros and ones that are little 0:02:09.560 --> 0:02:14.400 tiny pieces of information that essentially tell a speaker how 0:02:14.919 --> 0:02:18.920 to move in and out to create whatever the sound is. 0:02:19.639 --> 0:02:21.799 And there are a lot of different factors that go 0:02:21.880 --> 0:02:26.959 into determining how well the speaker can recreate any particular sound. 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:31.080 Basically involves how much information you're able to put within 0:02:31.240 --> 0:02:36.320 that particular kind of file. Uh and uh. For one 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:40.440 of the more most popular sound files of this type 0:02:40.480 --> 0:02:44.280 is the wave type of sound file. And so as 0:02:44.280 --> 0:02:49.680 a digital sound file or digitized version of a sound file. UM, 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:52.000 and so there are a lot of different things that 0:02:52.800 --> 0:02:56.080 make up the quality of that sound. Synthesized is a 0:02:56.120 --> 0:02:59.080 little bit different. Synthesized is a type of sound file 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:03.240 where the file contains information in it that says something 0:03:03.280 --> 0:03:06.560 along the lines of play this note as if it 0:03:06.600 --> 0:03:11.280 were played by this instrument. So play a c as 0:03:11.320 --> 0:03:16.360 if it were on a tenor saxophone, right, and then 0:03:16.600 --> 0:03:20.160 the software itself and the hardware is able to take 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:25.040 that instruction set and uh send out the appropriate information. 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:28.079 So it's a little bit different. It's not looking at 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:31.800 zeros and ones and saying, all right, move the speaker 0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:36.560 out this much this quickly in order to um create 0:03:36.600 --> 0:03:39.240 this sound. It's more like, all right, here, here's what 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:41.200 here's the sound we have to make. Now, let's do 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:43.520 what needs to be done to make it. So it's 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:47.160 it's kind of two different perspectives. And a very very 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:52.040 popular version of the synthesized type of sound file would 0:03:52.080 --> 0:03:56.800 be the mini files. And mini files are not just 0:03:56.960 --> 0:03:59.520 for PCs that those were really I mean, the mini 0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:05.240 files were made so that synthesizers could communicate with each other. UM, 0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:07.880 So sorry, no, no, no no, I was just going to say, so, 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:12.080 if you're thinking of a digitized digitized UH sound file, 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:16.240 you might play an actual guitar and record it into 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:19.919 a digital file and play it back versus UH plugging 0:04:20.160 --> 0:04:24.159 um a USB keyboard into your computer, UH, you know, 0:04:24.200 --> 0:04:26.520 and using software and saying, oh, I want this to 0:04:26.600 --> 0:04:30.240 sound like a grand piano and hitting a c and it, 0:04:30.960 --> 0:04:33.640 you know, makes the approximation of that sound, rather than 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:37.760 taking an actual instrument and digitizing it. Right. And in general, 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:40.960 a digitized file is going to be larger than the 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:44.480 synthesized files. Synthesized files, like I said, are just giving 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:47.479 general instructions to recreate a sound. Digitized has to hold 0:04:47.520 --> 0:04:51.120 all that information in it. Now, UM, you could have 0:04:51.200 --> 0:04:54.760 a pretty small digitized version of a sound file, but 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:57.560 the means that you don't have as much information there, 0:04:57.560 --> 0:04:59.760 which means the sound you're going to get is not 0:04:59.839 --> 0:05:04.120 the necessarily going to be that UM nice. The fidelity 0:05:04.200 --> 0:05:08.560 will not be high be lo fi actually UM. Although 0:05:08.560 --> 0:05:12.040 it is not the same. It reminds me of the 0:05:12.080 --> 0:05:18.560 differences between UH vector and raster graphics files, you know, 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:20.880 with the with a photo being made up of individual 0:05:20.920 --> 0:05:24.919 pixels and UM you know, vector file line drawings being 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:29.320 uh more manipulative. You know, you can do more with 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:31.839 it and it has less information in it because it 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:34.520 can be manipulated like that. Yeah, it reminds me a 0:05:34.520 --> 0:05:38.800 lot of just the just the very basic analog versus digital, right, 0:05:38.839 --> 0:05:42.960 because with analog you've got this continuous signal that can 0:05:43.080 --> 0:05:47.479 change and pitch and in volume, but it's it's you know, 0:05:47.520 --> 0:05:50.760 if you look at a an analog like a sound 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:54.719 wave from an analog source, it's this curvy wave that 0:05:55.080 --> 0:05:59.160 you know that that's unbroken, right, whereas a digital one 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:01.760 is i that are on or off and you know, 0:06:01.880 --> 0:06:05.280 it's a little more complicated than that, but it looks 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:08.080 like if you look at it looks different from an 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:13.279 analog sound wave. So, um, those two different approaches define 0:06:13.839 --> 0:06:18.000 the characteristics of that sound file. Now, the other big 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:20.160 way of dividing up the sound files, and the one 0:06:20.240 --> 0:06:23.520 that I think is uh is one of those that 0:06:23.560 --> 0:06:28.400 most people have heard about, um and it's mainly applies 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:31.880 to the digitized form means synthesize as well, but digitized 0:06:31.960 --> 0:06:34.080 is really where a lot of the sound file discussion 0:06:34.440 --> 0:06:42.920 revolves around uncompressed, lossless and lossy file formats. So let's 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:46.600 talk a bit about what those means. So uncompressed is 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:50.440 probably the easiest because it just means it's a sound 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:53.320 file that doesn't you haven't compressed it at all. You 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:57.200 haven't lost any information whatever information was in that sound file, 0:06:58.040 --> 0:07:00.760 uh at the very beginning, or or the sound recorded 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:05.440 into some sort of device, is is replicated as close 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:10.920 as possible, depending upon them the abilities of that file format. Yeah, 0:07:10.960 --> 0:07:14.640 if you if you take a musical instrument, um, you know, 0:07:14.800 --> 0:07:17.920 like a like a an actual musical instrument, and uh, 0:07:18.440 --> 0:07:21.800 let's say a guitar string. You pluck the string and 0:07:21.840 --> 0:07:26.520 it's going to play reverberated a certain frequency. Um. But 0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:28.680 there there is more to it than that. I mean, 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:32.960 is it uh slows it starts to to change somewhat. Um. 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:35.760 Some guitars hold pitch better than others, and you can 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:39.680 kind of hear it fluctuate somewhat. Um. But as you 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:42.520 play a song or you know, with a band or 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:47.400 an orchestra for example, UM, you're going to hear a 0:07:47.520 --> 0:07:50.600 richness of sound if you're right there. Um. And that's 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:55.560 because there are it covers a wide range of frequencies. Um. 0:07:55.600 --> 0:07:59.040 In some cases frequencies that we can't actually hear. But 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:02.520 sometimes those high frequencies we can't here interact with what 0:08:02.840 --> 0:08:06.280 one another and create harmonics that we can here. And 0:08:06.360 --> 0:08:12.120 sometimes it's it's something that you can feel, um, and 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:15.280 that that adds to the depth of the music. Like well, 0:08:15.280 --> 0:08:17.440 I mean we've we've sort of talked about bone conduction 0:08:17.520 --> 0:08:23.120 before too. Um So what what the compression does essentially 0:08:23.240 --> 0:08:26.280 is determined whether or not you know, it should include 0:08:26.480 --> 0:08:29.360 all the different frequencies and the amount of compression that 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:33.800 someone would use to create a file. Basically, uh says well, 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:36.360 I'm going to cut out this much of the info 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:39.280 in this file, um, and you can dial that up 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:42.319 or down as as you decide to compress that file. Right, 0:08:42.400 --> 0:08:46.559 So a lossless file would be compressed, but would not 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:51.840 you don't lose any of the actual information there. So, um, 0:08:51.880 --> 0:08:56.240 it's it's the compression level. Your mileage may vary. You 0:08:56.280 --> 0:08:59.839 might it might not be a significantly smaller file than 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:03.240 uncompressed file, but it does mean that you have found 0:09:03.280 --> 0:09:08.040 ways to try and uh minimize that file size. For one, 0:09:08.559 --> 0:09:12.600 here's an example in an uncompressed file, Let's say that 0:09:12.640 --> 0:09:16.760 you have a minute of silence between sounds. All Right, 0:09:16.800 --> 0:09:20.640 an uncompressed file is going to encode that minute of 0:09:20.679 --> 0:09:23.160 silence the same way it would as if there were 0:09:23.320 --> 0:09:27.000 sound present, So that file size is going to reflect 0:09:27.080 --> 0:09:31.360 the the total amount of time of the recording, not 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:36.160 just the time when something is actually happening. A lossless 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:41.040 one may encode that same file, but use a an 0:09:41.040 --> 0:09:46.360 algorithm that that doesn't encode that minute of silence, so 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:52.679 that that makes the overall file size smaller. Okay, Um, Yeah, 0:09:52.720 --> 0:09:55.880 that that's you think about. That That could results in 0:09:56.000 --> 0:09:59.320 a in a huge savings of information because you know, 0:09:59.360 --> 0:10:02.679 if you're you're trying to capture the depth of sound 0:10:03.520 --> 0:10:07.200 that is present with an entire orchestra and there's literally 0:10:07.320 --> 0:10:12.040 nothing there, then you've recorded a lot of nothing and 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:14.800 that that takes up space. So then then you have 0:10:14.880 --> 0:10:19.880 the lossy formats. And this is what you were kind 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:23.600 of alluding to with the whole the frequencies that are 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:27.080 outside the range of human hearing. Um, I wanted to 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:30.640 explain what it was there that you would lose. Yeah, ideally, 0:10:31.200 --> 0:10:34.120 with a lossy format, the only things you lose are 0:10:34.160 --> 0:10:36.920 things that we could not perceive. So, in other words, 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:40.800 any frequency that's below or above the range of human hearing, 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:44.200 which is about twenty killer hurts. Anything outside of that 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:47.600 range of frequencies UH is outside the range of normal 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:53.000 human hearing that hurts and UH. And so the the 0:10:53.040 --> 0:10:55.240 ideas that if there are any frequencies that are either 0:10:55.360 --> 0:10:59.040 above or below that range, those would get cut out, 0:10:59.080 --> 0:11:02.360 they would not be encoded in the file, and that 0:11:02.400 --> 0:11:05.760 would decrease the size. There are other ways that lossy 0:11:05.920 --> 0:11:09.840 formats tend to compress files, and there are things that 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:12.600 you can choose to do when you're creating a lossy 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:17.400 file format that will affect the quality of the recording 0:11:18.160 --> 0:11:21.400 to some extent. And there are a lot of different factors, 0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:23.280 and I'll talk about them in just a second, but 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:27.880 lassy definitely has more of a stigma against it because 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:30.920 the idea is that you know, there are ties where 0:11:30.920 --> 0:11:34.240 real listen to music and you think, wow, that that 0:11:34.320 --> 0:11:38.520 really does sound like it's a lot different from that 0:11:38.520 --> 0:11:41.280 that that live performance I saw. Like you you might 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:44.040 go to a live performance and then get a digital 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:47.080 copy of that live performance. Some bands do that, you know, 0:11:47.120 --> 0:11:50.440 where they record their their shows and then the fans 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:53.360 can end up buying a digital copy of something that 0:11:53.400 --> 0:11:57.120 they saw, and depending on the encoding, it may not 0:11:58.000 --> 0:12:01.480 really reflect what you experienced. For instance, there might not 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:04.920 be a four pound guys standing next to you stepping 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:09.000 on your toe every five minutes, um, right, so they 0:12:09.080 --> 0:12:13.600 might be giants show owen too. Anyway, So the idea 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:17.360 there being that that depending on how they're encoding it, 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:21.360 you might not have as rich a listening experience as 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:25.600 you otherwise would with an uncompressed or lossless format. Um. Now, 0:12:25.640 --> 0:12:27.960 the way that the audio is compressed and stored is 0:12:28.160 --> 0:12:32.079 called a codec. Now, codec and file type are two 0:12:32.160 --> 0:12:35.560 different things. You should not confuse the two. It's easy 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:40.600 to to get confused. But Kodak is uh, they are related, 0:12:40.600 --> 0:12:44.000 but not the same. Right. There's some some code X 0:12:44.040 --> 0:12:46.959 and file sizes that tend to go together all the time, 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:51.240 but they are not one and the same. And some 0:12:51.280 --> 0:12:54.400 of the things that can affect how that sound file 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:59.480 will sound include things like the sample rate. Sample rate 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:06.000 is when you're converting analog audio into digital information. Uh, 0:13:06.240 --> 0:13:09.400 you use an analog to digital converter or a d C, 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:14.400 and this is what takes that signal, that continuous signal 0:13:14.679 --> 0:13:16.720 and converts it into a bunch of zeros and ones, 0:13:17.760 --> 0:13:21.760 and uh it kind of chops the signal up into 0:13:21.960 --> 0:13:27.599 segments and does this conversion. So the higher the frequency 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:31.440 is of your sample rate, in general, the closer to 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:36.520 the original sound it's going to be uh C D audio. 0:13:36.840 --> 0:13:39.960 What if you guys, you may not remember these there 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:44.400 were these things called compact discs. I have to I 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:48.600 remember when compact discs were a new thing. I remember 0:13:48.640 --> 0:13:51.040 thinking this will never take off. And let me listen 0:13:51.040 --> 0:13:55.960 to back cast um or vinyl album or wax cylinder 0:13:56.400 --> 0:13:58.880 or this bard that I hired to follow around and 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:04.160 sing sagas to higher recorder. Yeah, hey, it's Jonathan from 0:14:04.200 --> 0:14:08.000 the future talking to Jonathan from the past. Cool your jets, buddy, 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:18.120 we gotta take a quick break and thank our sponsor. Anyway, 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:22.400 uh so the CD audio is something like forty four 0:14:22.440 --> 0:14:24.680 point one killer hurts as I recall something like that. 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:28.960 That that's the frequency for their sample rate UM And 0:14:29.080 --> 0:14:33.360 in general, you want to sample rate that's about UM well, 0:14:33.400 --> 0:14:35.360 that that's high enough so that you're going to get 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:38.680 a good experience when you get playback. And depending on 0:14:38.840 --> 0:14:42.320 your application, you may not need a very high sample rate. So, 0:14:42.440 --> 0:14:47.120 for example, for telephone uh fidelity, when you're speaking on 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:49.560 the phone to someone else, that sample rate is much 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:51.440 you know, and we're talking about digital phones. They're doing 0:14:51.480 --> 0:14:54.000 the same thing. They're converting an analog signal into a 0:14:54.000 --> 0:14:57.200 digital information and transmitting it and then decoding it and 0:14:57.280 --> 0:15:00.720 putting it back into analog. Uh, They're sample rate is 0:15:00.840 --> 0:15:04.280 much lower because in general, we've become used to the 0:15:04.320 --> 0:15:08.320 idea that a telephone quality conversation does not need to 0:15:08.360 --> 0:15:10.600 have high fidelity. And if you've ever spoken on the 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:13.200 telephone with me, you know the quality of my conversations 0:15:13.280 --> 0:15:17.240 is quite low. Well, um, that doesn't really have that 0:15:17.320 --> 0:15:20.040 much to do with this sound quality. Oh, you're right, 0:15:20.120 --> 0:15:22.520 you're right. I got off on a little tangent there. Well, no, 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:26.080 if you if you take a I'm speaking in general 0:15:26.160 --> 0:15:30.880 terms here, but if you take a podcast file, maybe 0:15:30.880 --> 0:15:34.800 a half hour podcast file, um, from an audio store, 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:40.320 and you buy a five minute song from that same 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:43.680 audio store, the song is probably going to be a 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:48.080 larger file because there is a greater range of sound, 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:51.000 um that they are trying to preserve to create that 0:15:51.040 --> 0:15:54.320 audio file then to to or that music file. Then 0:15:54.400 --> 0:15:57.360 for the voice because um, you know, the voice files 0:15:57.400 --> 0:16:01.040 don't really need to convey the same rain of frequencies 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:04.360 right to just stand still, sound good and beyond the 0:16:04.400 --> 0:16:07.680 sample right. There are other factors that also informed the 0:16:07.760 --> 0:16:11.120 quality of a particular sound file, a digitized sound file. 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:14.920 The resolution. It's just you know, sound files can have resolution, 0:16:15.040 --> 0:16:20.200 just like an image file. It's um. Essentially, it comes 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:23.320 into the how how the a d C measures the 0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:28.440 incoming um signal voltage and converts that into digital code. 0:16:29.360 --> 0:16:33.520 So the accuracy of that is dependent upon how many 0:16:33.640 --> 0:16:35.720 bits are used in the process. So, in other words, 0:16:36.480 --> 0:16:40.320 the more data you include about the sound, the more 0:16:40.360 --> 0:16:44.000 accurately you can recreate the sound when you play it back. 0:16:44.680 --> 0:16:47.760 So in other words, if and this makes sense, it's 0:16:47.840 --> 0:16:50.400 it's just like any other kind of experience where you're 0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:53.240 trying to recreate something that you've seen. The more data 0:16:53.280 --> 0:16:57.119 you have, the better chances you have of recreating it accurately. 0:16:57.600 --> 0:17:00.200 So if I'm in a room and you were to 0:17:00.280 --> 0:17:03.440 give me a stone tablet and a chisel and a 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:06.240 hammer and tell me to take notes, those notes would 0:17:06.280 --> 0:17:08.560 be very very limited. If you gave me a pen 0:17:08.840 --> 0:17:10.840 and paper, there would be a little bit better. If 0:17:10.840 --> 0:17:15.800 you gave me a a computer with a working keyboard, 0:17:15.880 --> 0:17:19.000 unlike mine. Um, I would be even better. If you 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:20.800 gave me a keyboard like mine, it would probably be 0:17:20.840 --> 0:17:26.480 back to stone tablet. Anyway, that's another part that determines 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:30.399 another factor that determined sound quality, and then data rates. 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:34.000 And this is really anyone who's converted any sound file 0:17:34.040 --> 0:17:36.840 into MP three format or a format similar to the 0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:40.359 MP three format knows about data rates. You usually you 0:17:40.440 --> 0:17:45.479 have a choice of what what uh data rates speed 0:17:45.680 --> 0:17:49.560 you can pick to uh convert a sound file into 0:17:49.600 --> 0:17:52.959 an MP three and generally high air is better. It 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:56.120 means that you're going to have a higher fidelity experience. 0:17:56.119 --> 0:17:58.159 It also means the file size it's going to be larger. 0:17:58.840 --> 0:18:02.320 And uh uh I'd say, you know a lot of 0:18:02.359 --> 0:18:07.119 the sound files you would find, at least until fairly recently, 0:18:07.160 --> 0:18:09.040 we're around the nice six kill a bit per second 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:11.920 or kill a bit per second range. We're starting to 0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:15.520 see that get bombed up now, which is nice. Um, 0:18:15.560 --> 0:18:18.800 those are a lot of the cloud services have higher 0:18:19.160 --> 0:18:25.320 bit data rates for their encoding. Um and in general 0:18:25.440 --> 0:18:29.600 that should translate to a higher fidelity experience. Yeah, I 0:18:29.640 --> 0:18:34.080 mean you get right down to it. Well, frankly, everybody 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:40.840 hears sound differently and that's that sounds strange probably um, 0:18:40.880 --> 0:18:44.159 probably because you're hearing it differently than I am. No, UM, 0:18:44.200 --> 0:18:47.439 because you know, it sort of depends on the range 0:18:47.440 --> 0:18:50.040 of hearing. Now I say that that kids can hear 0:18:50.080 --> 0:18:54.800 a different range of sound than adults. UM, and that uh, 0:18:54.840 --> 0:18:56.840 you know, they have studies that have been done that 0:18:56.840 --> 0:18:59.080 that show that women hear different ranges of sound than 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:01.840 men do. And you know they're there are always people 0:19:01.920 --> 0:19:05.960 who UM listen to a vinyl record, for example, and 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:08.560 they'll they'll say, Wow, that sounds so much better than 0:19:08.600 --> 0:19:10.520 a c D And then other people prefer the sound 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:14.119 of c D s, which typically are are compressed uh 0:19:14.359 --> 0:19:18.680 pretty pretty significantly at least too to get it to uh, 0:19:19.000 --> 0:19:21.240 you know the audio file that that you hear on 0:19:21.280 --> 0:19:25.880 the on the disk. UM. So you know, everybody is different. 0:19:26.000 --> 0:19:30.040 Let's let's use that as a caveat. But UM, it's 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:33.440 important to note that in general, the file size the 0:19:33.440 --> 0:19:37.720 the information you want more information encoded on there because 0:19:37.760 --> 0:19:40.440 it's going to provide a richer sound. But it does 0:19:40.760 --> 0:19:44.240 depend on the kodec used to to create the file. UM. 0:19:44.320 --> 0:19:46.000 And that is that is one of those things that 0:19:46.119 --> 0:19:48.600 to paraphrase the song, it ain't what you do, it's 0:19:48.640 --> 0:19:51.840 the way that you do it. Um, And I think 0:19:51.840 --> 0:19:55.000 that's probably where we're getting ready to go. But uh, yeah, 0:19:55.040 --> 0:20:01.040 I mean you you when MP three's became the popular standard, uh, 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:05.800 the popular bit rate for those was you know, k 0:20:07.080 --> 0:20:10.720 um and um. You know that a lot of people 0:20:11.160 --> 0:20:15.080 who can hear the difference in in sound files would say, 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:17.760 you know, that's crummy. It sounds terrible, but it was 0:20:17.800 --> 0:20:20.239 acceptable for a lot of people, acceptable enough that they 0:20:20.280 --> 0:20:23.160 would say, you know what, I'm willing to fork over 0:20:23.240 --> 0:20:25.439 money for an MP three player or I'm willing to 0:20:25.480 --> 0:20:27.720 listen to my music at this bit rate. And now 0:20:28.200 --> 0:20:31.919 that we've become more sophisticated in our tastes and have 0:20:32.040 --> 0:20:35.560 more bandwidth available to us, both in MP three player 0:20:35.760 --> 0:20:40.840 audio players, let's say that and uh in our internet connections, Um, 0:20:41.800 --> 0:20:45.160 we're having more choices available to us. We also had 0:20:45.240 --> 0:20:49.639 an era where the speakers that were available to us, 0:20:49.760 --> 0:20:52.320 unless we were really spending a lot of money on 0:20:52.359 --> 0:20:55.919 our our computer systems or what you know, our music 0:20:55.960 --> 0:21:00.879 player systems, we're not really capable of playing at a 0:21:01.000 --> 0:21:04.080 high enough fidelity for it to make a huge difference. 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:06.880 So you could even have two versions of the same 0:21:06.920 --> 0:21:11.120 file one recorded at a much faster data rate and 0:21:11.760 --> 0:21:14.720 have a hard time telling the difference, simply because the 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:18.560 hardware you were using to play back the music wasn't 0:21:18.560 --> 0:21:21.919 capable of capturing those subtle differences or even not so 0:21:22.000 --> 0:21:24.840 subtle differences. Because let's let's face it, some of the 0:21:24.920 --> 0:21:29.399 speakers that came out years ago, we're pretty well they 0:21:29.400 --> 0:21:31.280 were definitely sub standard compared to some of the ones 0:21:31.320 --> 0:21:34.720 you can get today. Not saying that today's speakers are, 0:21:35.400 --> 0:21:39.199 you know, the height of human achievement. We definitely have 0:21:39.280 --> 0:21:43.120 a huge range on the market. And uh, and it's 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:44.880 not always a case if you get what you pay 0:21:44.920 --> 0:21:48.800 for either. That's a totally different podcast though. Uh. It 0:21:48.920 --> 0:21:53.840 just means that that it wasn't as important back then. 0:21:53.920 --> 0:21:56.240 And also we should talk about why there are so 0:21:56.280 --> 0:22:00.760 many different types, So we know, the ones people tend 0:22:00.800 --> 0:22:04.840 to hear about a lot are wave files, uh MP 0:22:04.960 --> 0:22:10.760 three's UM A C files for some folks. Uh, there's 0:22:10.840 --> 0:22:15.040 the A lack files A L A C sometimes flak 0:22:15.480 --> 0:22:18.040 for a few people out there anyway, UM, and then 0:22:18.040 --> 0:22:19.879 there are a lot of other ones, but those are 0:22:19.920 --> 0:22:21.359 those are some of the ones that are the most 0:22:21.359 --> 0:22:24.479 popular but there are. If you were to look at 0:22:24.480 --> 0:22:29.840 a list of every type of audio file that has 0:22:30.240 --> 0:22:33.280 had any sort of traction out there, it would be 0:22:33.480 --> 0:22:40.120 incredibly long. I mean, the different types of them are. Um, 0:22:40.160 --> 0:22:42.640 there's easily easily over a hundred. Now some of those 0:22:42.680 --> 0:22:47.480 are project files, not audio file formats, and the project 0:22:47.520 --> 0:22:51.199 files really just have information about an audio file as 0:22:51.200 --> 0:22:54.159 opposed to having any actual audio information in it itself. 0:22:55.000 --> 0:22:57.600 But you know, you might say, well, why are there 0:22:57.720 --> 0:23:00.400 so many? And there are several different reasons for that. 0:23:01.080 --> 0:23:05.040 One is that as time has gone on, we've created 0:23:05.080 --> 0:23:10.000 more sophisticated computers and sound chips that are able to 0:23:10.040 --> 0:23:13.520 do more than earlier ones. So they were suddenly able 0:23:13.600 --> 0:23:17.640 to support a greater number of features. But the older 0:23:17.680 --> 0:23:21.800 file formats didn't necessarily have that built in, and so 0:23:21.960 --> 0:23:26.600 new file formats emerged that we're able to take advantage 0:23:26.640 --> 0:23:30.879 of the technical uh abilities of the new stuff that 0:23:30.920 --> 0:23:34.880 we were building. In some cases, there were file formats 0:23:34.920 --> 0:23:38.920 that were designed to work specifically with particular types of hardware. 0:23:39.760 --> 0:23:43.080 So if you were back if you had a computer 0:23:43.119 --> 0:23:45.400 back in the old days of the of the sound 0:23:45.760 --> 0:23:49.760 card boom, you know when they had like ruland and 0:23:49.800 --> 0:23:52.600 sound Blaster and all of those coming out. You might 0:23:52.640 --> 0:23:56.159 be familiar that there were certain files file types that 0:23:56.160 --> 0:24:01.000 could play on some cards but not on others, and 0:24:01.359 --> 0:24:03.880 this could get really frustrating as a user. I remember 0:24:03.960 --> 0:24:06.600 going out and looking at computer games and looking at 0:24:06.640 --> 0:24:08.720 a computer game and saying, Wow, I'm not gonna have 0:24:08.760 --> 0:24:12.359 a very good experience with this because, uh, the sound 0:24:13.000 --> 0:24:15.840 file type that they went with was for a different 0:24:15.880 --> 0:24:18.119 sound card than the one I had, So I'm going 0:24:18.160 --> 0:24:22.040 to have more basic, you know, array of sounds that 0:24:23.040 --> 0:24:25.520 is sort of the baseline for this game. I'm not 0:24:25.520 --> 0:24:27.880 gonna have any of the advanced stuff because they decided 0:24:27.920 --> 0:24:31.199 to back this other sound card. So there was a 0:24:31.240 --> 0:24:33.199 division in the market, right, I mean, there wasn't a 0:24:33.200 --> 0:24:36.199 lot of standards that there was no standardized format, so 0:24:36.280 --> 0:24:39.760 you had a lot of proprietary formats, and we still 0:24:39.840 --> 0:24:42.560 have those as well. There's still some proprietary formats, some 0:24:42.640 --> 0:24:45.960 of which are actually used fairly widely. I think most 0:24:46.000 --> 0:24:49.320 people try to get away from those because it's um 0:24:49.400 --> 0:24:52.000 it limits you, it limits what you can play that 0:24:52.040 --> 0:24:57.159 file back on. UM it also means that a lot 0:24:57.160 --> 0:25:00.040