Sound storage
With a sound file, we can measure a few things:
- The sample rate - how many samples we take per second.
- The bit depth - how many bits we use to store each sample’s amplitude
- The number of channels - whether it’s mono (1 channel) or stereo (2 channels), etc.
- The duration of the sound - how long the sound file is (in seconds).
If we multiply all of those together, we can calculate how much storage the sound file takes up (in bits):
\text{storage used (bits)}=\text{sample rate}\times\text{bit depth}\times\text{number of channels}\times\text{duration (seconds)}
For example, if we have a stereo sound file (2 channels) with a sample rate of 44,100 samples per second, a bit depth of 16 bits, and a duration of 3 minutes (180 seconds), then the storage used would be:
To find that in megabytes, we can do
flashcards
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| sample rate | how many samples we take per second |
| bit depth | how many bits we use to store each sample’s amplitude |
| number of channels | whether it’s mono (1 channel) or stereo (2 channels), etc. |
| duration of the sound | how long the sound file is (in seconds) |
| How do you calculate the storage used (in bits) for a sound file? | |
| If we have a stereo sound file (2 channels) with a sample rate of 44,100 samples per second, a bit depth of 16 bits, and a duration of 3 minutes (180 seconds), what is the storage used in bits? | |
| How do you convert 254,016,000 bits to megabytes? |